Unseparated

Dr. Sonny Springer’s story of survival, faith and second chances

Words by Jenny Lynn Davis | Image by Al Blanton

For most of his adult life, Dr. Sonny Springer has been known as a man who heals.

Over more than four decades, animals arrived in his care injured, frightened, or near the end of their strength, and he did what he could to make them well. He built a life around that work -first as a young veterinarian finding his footing, later as a trusted presence in the Jasper community, and now, in retirement, as a steady hand in a spay-and-neuter clinic serving animals who might otherwise be forgotten.

But long before Sonny learned how to restore life, he learned how to survive.

He grew up in Clarksdale, Mississippi, as the son of a father whose alcoholism turned violent and unpredictable. As a child, Sonny watched the man who taught him to respect women also harm his mother. When he tried to protect her, he became a target himself. The contradictions were confusing and frightening, and it left a lasting imprint on Sonny.

Eventually, he, his mother, and his two sisters fled to Memphis, Tennessee, to live near relatives. But safety came at the cost of stability.

His mother worked extensively, adult supervision was thin, and Sonny was forced to grow up fast. Without a consistent father figure, he learned from what he saw around him in his new community. The lessons he took away: Toughness matters. Fighting is a form of currency. Pain is something you absorb and bury.

Luckily, playing football, baseball, and basketball gave him an outlet. The physical nature of the games gave structure to his anger and direction to his energy. Faith, at that point, did not.

That changed one Sunday morning when he was thirteen.His mother insisted he go to church, but Sonny protested, saying there was nothing there he needed. But he ultimately obliged his mother’s request. That morning, a U.S. Marine stood at the front of the sanctuary, dressed in full uniform.

“I always joke that God had to send the Marines to bring me to Him,” Sonny laughs.

To Sonny, the man represented discipline, authority, and strength. When he had the opportunity to speak with the Marine, Sonny felt listened to in a way he never had before. That day, he says, he gave his life to Christ, and everything shifted.

He leaned in fully, carrying his Bible to school, sharing the gospel, and talking openly about his faith. A pastor at the church recognized his intensity and took him under his wing, becoming the father figure Sonny had been searching for. Under that guidance, Sonny, for the first time in his life, began to imagine a future that felt steady and meaningful.

Then, just as quickly, it fell apart.

During Sonny’s senior year of high school, the pastor he trusted was exposed in a public moral failure. The betrayal felt devastating. The man who had guided him had collapsed, and with that collapse came disillusionment. If this was faith, Sonny decided, he wanted no part of it.

Around the same time, he married his high school sweetheart. While the decision came from a place of love, it also came with consequences. At the time, married students could not attend certain schools or accept athletic scholarships. Opportunities he had worked years to earn vanished almost overnight. With the Vietnam War escalating and jobs increasingly difficult to secure, Sonny enlisted in the Army.

He was nineteen when he found himself in Southeast Asia, assigned to military intelligence operations that placed him deep in dangerous territory. The work required secrecy, precision, and emotional detachment. Fear and isolation were constant, and the weight of what he witnessed and participated in became nearly unbearable.

“I’ve never been that scared in my life. Never been that lonely in my life. I felt unloved. I felt like one of these old dogs that’s been abandoned,” Sonny recalls. “I knew God could never love me again for what I did. I knew my time for God was over. There was no way He could love me.”

As the line between survival and surrender blurred, addiction followed - first as a coping mechanism, then as a chain. Loneliness pressed in, and Sonny expected to die there.

Soon, though, he received his orders to head stateside. When he finally returned home, he was alive but deeply broken. He was physically depleted and emotionally hollowed out by shame and grief. He carried memories he did not know how to name, let alone release. Stationed at Fort Hood to complete his service, Sonny reached a point where he believed there was no way forward and intended to end his life.

“I was in a motel, and there was a Gideon Bible on the desk. And I said, “God, what am I going to do? I know you can’t love me anymore. If you show me in this Word that you love me, if you can ever love me, please show me,” Sonny recalls.

In desperation, he opened the Bible, and his eyes fell on Romans 8:38–39:

“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

“He told me that day, ‘Son, I love you. Not only that, but I’m going to open the future for you,” Sonny says as tears fill his eyes. “I didn’t really understand how, but I knew He would.“

Recovery was not immediate, and restoration did not come quickly or cleanly. But Sonny found a church that welcomed people with complicated pasts and allowed space for healing. Slowly, the chains he carried began to loosen.

One particular prayer changed the direction of his life:

“Lord, it’s time for me to get out of the Army for good. What am I going to do next? Is there any way you can teach me how to heal? I don’t want to kill anymore; can you teach me how to heal?”

That prayer led him back to school. At Mississippi State University, Sonny excelled academically, driven by a clarity he had never known before. When the university announced it would open its first-ever veterinary school, he applied - one of hundreds of candidates competing for just twenty-four spots. During the final interview process, he was asked an unexpected question: how many angels could stand on the head of a needle?

“As many as my Lord and Savior wants,” he replied.

He knew then he had found his place.

Veterinary medicine brought Sonny to Jasper, Alabama, in 1981. He joined an established practice, learned under a respected mentor, and eventually took over the clinic himself. For years, he worked long days largely on his own. Later, he mentored a young student who would one day take over after him, continuing the work Sonny had poured his life into.

But healing did not stop at his profession.

After a painful divorce from his first wife, Sonny once again found himself asking God for help, not for direction this time, but for companionship. He did not ask for ease or comfort, but for someone who would help him live faithfully. That prayer led him to Glenda, to whom he has now been married for 30 years.

With Glenda beside him, life took on a steadiness Sonny had never fully known. Together, they have weathered ministry work, community involvement, and the quieter challenges that come with a long partnership. Sonny is quick to point out that, while earlier chapters of his life were marked by instability and loss, this one has been defined by faithfulness and peace.

Today, Sonny is retired from full-time veterinary practice, but he has not stopped serving. He now works with a rescue spay-and-neuter clinic, easing the burden of animal overpopulation and in practical, often unseen ways.

Looking back, Sonny does not measure his life by professional success or recognition. He measures it by faith that survives breaking, wandering, and return.

“It doesn’t matter what impact I have made in this town or on this earth; what matters is what God has done here. The people who have come to know Him as Lord and Savior, that’s what’s important, he says. important,” he says. “I’m 72 years old. I can’t remember the names of people I met when I first came into practice. But I do remember my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

And that, he believes, is what matters most. 78