The Cody Sanders Story

Cody Sanders

January 13, 1979 – August 25, 2005

 

One day, actually before the world began really, God had an incredible thought. And in the fullness of time that thought became a person - and in the winter of the year of our Lord 1979, that person was born into this world as Charles “Cody” Sanders. And God saw the man He had made and behold, it was very good.

 

Long before Cody was conceived by Charles and Brenda Sanders, Cody was conceived in the mind of God. God left no detail to chance of when and where and to whom Cody would be born. He planned it all for His purpose.

 

You may be reading this because you were fortunate enough to have known Cody personally.

 

Perhaps you knew him in the early days in Hattiesburg, Mississippi while, as a young boy, he was riding his bike down the street waving at neighbors. Maybe you went to church with him at First Church of the Nazarene in Gallatin, Tennessee , and you too can recall a respectful young man that called men “sir” and ladies “ma’am.”   

 

Maybe you joined him in one of his favorite pastimes, duck hunting. Or you might have been there next to him on a muddy river bank fishing along side of this jovial character with the permanent smile. You might have been his teammate as he tossed the basketball to you for a lay up, or when he kicked the soccer ball past you into the net. Maybe Cody blocked for you as a linebacker (#35) for the Gallatin Green Wave while you ran the football into the red zone for another first down. You could have been a family member on the receiving end of one of those world famous Cody hugs.

 

It could be that you were a vendor, supplier, or customer of Sanders Paving, where Charlie and Cody labored long and hard side-by-side, making a living and making a lot of friends along the way.

 

More than likely, you were among the hundreds, perhaps even thousands that simply knew Cody as your friend. If you never did get a chance to meet Cody before he was promoted to heaven, you probably would have liked him right off.

 

Although a million memories still fill the hearts of family and friends of Cody Sanders, Cody was not put on earth to be remembered, he was put on earth to prepare for eternity.

 

It was Sir Thomas Browne who said our time on earth is “but a small parenthesis in eternity.” We were made to last forever.

 

Cody was so well liked, I should think, because his life was representative of so many of us. A mere mortal doing the best he knew how to cope with troubles and struggles and pressures and stresses seemingly on every side. But the good news in all the technical difficulties that Cody had to endure is that he learned the secret of victory. Cody embraced the cross of Jesus Christ, and the turnaround and breakthrough began. And that is a message of hope for us all.

 

In the last months of his life, Cody had joined the Lazarus Project, a one-year discipleship program that helps men get their lives on track with God’s purposes. Cody began to realize that his life was more than just about the here and now, but that life was a preparation for eternity, and this conviction noticeably changed the way he lived.

 

At the time of his death, Cody’s values, priorities, and passions had dramatically changed. Cody had always been what we would call a “people person,” but now Cody had it planted firmly in his heart to make friends with everybody he could, with the ultimately purpose of, sooner or later, telling his friends about Jesus. Cody had became a world changer. And through Christ, the message of hope that Cody’s life personifies lives on.

 

Like a snowflake, no two alike, Charles “Cody” Sanders was one unique spirit in all of God’s creation. Cody began to band together with others of like faith and joined God in the amazing work of serving and re-building the downtrodden, the hurting, the addicted, the oppressed, like so many men who come to the Lazarus Project weary from the battle.

 

One or two, even five or ten snowflakes are pretty to look at but don’t cause much of a stir. But if enough snowflakes unite, a snow storm results and can shut down a city.

 

The Cody Sanders Foundation seeks to band together concerned men and women in a unified cause to shut down the enormous challenges that would keep men and women in a cycle of suffering, poverty, and addiction.

 

David S. Robertson

The Lazarus Project

October 13, 2005