The day of Nov. 10, 2017, is the moment life came to a screeching halt for David Moody and his son, Joshua. The two decided to go for a leisurely drive through Burns Park in a convertible car, taking a windy road that was unfamiliar to them. Less than an hour later, a violent collision sent both of them to the hospital for emergency medical care and led to what David calls a “miraculous journey” of healing and relying on God and others.
Now approaching the seven year anniversary of the wreck, David published a book, The Rewiring Project: A Story of Faith, Family, and Extreme Trauma, that recounts the horrific experience and the long road to recovery.
“It’s been such an incremental journey,” Moody said about finishing the book. “It’s not like I crossed the finish line at Daytona or something.”
The 150-page work, according to Moody, deals with the themes of trauma, not giving up, leaning into faith and being willing to ask for help.
“I sort of wrote the book in a way where if you don’t already know the story from being close to us, you don’t know how it’s going to turn out from chapter to chapter,” he said. “I want people to kind of feel as they read through the book, I want them to be where we were, in the mindset we were in, and experience all of the various blessings and little miracles and things that happened along the way.”
Moody said that even though the book deals a lot with faith, which is a central part of his family dynamic, the book can be valuable to anyone recovering from a traumatic experience regardless of their beliefs. He and his family attend church at Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in North Little Rock.
“Quite honestly, I think it would be even more difficult to go through a traumatic experience like that without the belief that there was something greater going on along that journey than just all the bad stuff you’re dealing with,” he said. “Maybe that provides a little bit of hope. Maybe that causes that nonbeliever to consider at least exploring.”
Before the accident, Joshua was always “inquisitive” and had a passion for learning. This was part of the inspiration for the title of the book.
“I’ve seen him rewire and create products and projects,” Moody said. “What may have started out with just a tangled mess of wire ends up being all sorted out, everything connected where it’s supposed to be and elegant, as I used to say.”
Moody was recovering from his own injuries for the first five days before he was able to head down to Joshua’s room. By that time his son had already undergone craniotomy, removing both sides of the front of his skull to allow room for his brain which was swelling.
On about day 10 of the ordeal, Moody said he had a vision of sorts. It wasn’t a dream or hallucination, but he saw a clear picture in his mind’s eye of Joshua from before the accident standing behind his body in the hospital bed. In the vision, Moody couldn’t see Joshua’s hands but he knew that he was “moving some things in his own head to rewire it.” Beside him was Jesus with his hand on Joshua’s shoulder, encouraging him and telling him to “just stick with it, it will be OK.”
That moment gave Moody peace that everything was going to be okay, but as he wrote in the book “I didn’t know what OK meant.”
He went on to sketch the scene, which can be found in the book. Humbly saying that his art is slightly better than stick figures, he said he may eventually hire an artist to recreate the picture more professionally.
While there have been plenty of lessons learned as a result of the family disaster, perhaps none was as important as learning to trust God and the community he’s placed around them.
In the aftermath of the incident, the Moodys were helped by their church family as well as their school family, where David’s wife and Joshua’s mother, Gwen, works. Some people who came to their aid were members of other churches in the area who had gone through similar experiences.
“It was a sudden traumatic experience and all of our choices were not good,” Moody said. “And it would have been easy to have felt desperate and angry with God for letting something like this happen. But, what we did instead, we leaned into our faith and we believe that is what got us through that whole journey.”
The social workers at UAMS gave the family contact information for several families who had undergone the same kind of trials. These resources were invaluable as there seemed to be more questions than answers during the process.
“Every one of those families we talked to were faith-filled folks,” Moody said. “And every one of them said, ‘yeah, I don’t know how we would have gotten through this without the strength that our faith and our faith family gave us.’”
Now, Moody and his family are giving back in the same way, walking alongside several families who have been stricken by the life-changing effects of a traumatic event since that fateful November 2017 day. Just as they were helped, they can assist others staring down the barrel of hopelessness and fear. And the book serves as a resource for those facing this struggle and Moody hopes it will also inspire those who aren’t, as a testament to God’s steadfast love and the power of faith.
The book is available for purchase online at https://www.davidmoody.co/rewire/p/the-rewiring-project for $23.99.
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