Chapter V It is now sometime in March and Penny is scheduled for her third chemotherapy treatment. This treatment was stronger than the previous other two and would take her to the brink of death. Penny was sent home like she was after the other two treatments and while she was home she went into convulsions and seizures. The life squad was summoned and she was rushed to our local hospital. While she was at the hospital, they managed to stabilize her condition. Once the hospital decided it was safe to move her, they rushed Penny to a Columbus hospital by ambulance. It was pouring down rain that night and the ambulance driver became lost but God had His hand on them and the ambulance driver finally managed to find the right route and get my wife safely to the hospital. Once she arrived at the hospital in Columbus, they immediately took Penny to the Intensive Care Unit. Her white blood cell count had dropped to one, which was very dangerous because it made her body very susceptible to germs and viruses. In the meantime, I did not know any of this was happening. This was because I had been working, one of the few times that I had any work, and had not arrived home yet. After I found out the Life Squad had transported Penny from our home to our local hospital, I left immediately for the hospital. Upon arriving, the hospital informed me they had transported her to the hospital in Columbus Ohio because of the seriousness of her condition. I left the hospital and began driving to Columbus Ohio in the middle of a thunderstorm with rain coming down in sheets and with lightening flashing across the skies followed by thunder booming from one end of the heavens to the other. It was raining so hard that many streets and roads were flooded and impassable. I kept praying that I would not have to take a detour because I was not that familiar with the city of Columbus. I later learned that lightening had knocked out some of the power at the Columbus hospital they had taken my wife to and they had to go on emergency power for a short while that night. When I arrived at the hospital, they informed me they had taken Penny straight to the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital when the ambulance arrived. I sat waiting just outside the room until one of the nurses came from the ICU and gave me permission to go in to see my wife for just a short while. When I entered the room, I saw all sorts of monitors with tubes and wires attached to my wife. They were taking her vital signs and feeding her intravenously. While I was in the ICU, one of the nurses tending to Penny informed me she would stay there through the night. The days passed after they took Penny from the ICU and put her in a regular room. It was now getting close to Easter, which would be on March 30 that year. I began praying and asking God to perform a miracle on Easter. I prayed, “Lord, there could not be a better day to heal Penny than on the day You arose from the dead!” I felt if God was going to heal Penny, surely it would be that day. The day before Easter, which was Saturday, March 29, I was visiting my wife at the hospital when a man, whom I perceived was a minister, passed me just outside the hospital and he was carrying a Bible, which was identical to the one I carried with me. I struck up a conversation with him and while we were talking the subject of Easter sunrise services came up. I asked him if his church still had sunrise services to which he replied they did. I then asked him if I would be welcome to come to his church and come to the service. He replied that I would be most welcome. Our church did not have Easter sunrise services at that time and I was anxious to participate in one of them. I had not been to an Easter sunrise service since I was a young man. I also had another reason I wanted to attend the service. I felt in my soul that that would be the day God would heal my wife. What a glorious service that would be, I felt. I was in high hopes when Easter morning dawned. I drove the 50 miles to the Columbus hospital with a song in my heart. When I arrived at the hospital, I received some news that shook the foundations of my soul. Instead of this being the day my wife was healed, she had suffered a mild stroke and the left side of her body was partially paralyzed. I cannot begin to describe the emotions that sprang up inside of me. Penny could barely lift her left arm and she was unable to walk because she could not move her left leg. I remember when the doctor told me that morning that Penny has suffered a stroke, I began to remember a movie I had seen. The movie was about a ship that was sinking in the ocean. The people on board were putting forth every effort to keep the ship afloat until they could be rescued. One catastrophe after another began happening and the captain shouted out in desperation, “God if You won’t help us, please don’t fight against us!” For a brief moment the thought that “God was fighting against us,” tried to enter my mind but I knew I had to cast it out and not let it take root. I had to have faith and believe in the ultimate goodness of God. I however began sinking in despair that Easter morning and I was at the lowest point in my faith that I had experienced so far. At that moment, the second intervention of God’s grace began to happen. A mysterious stranger walked into the room my wife was in and said he came to pray for her. He carried a Bible and looked like he was a minister. He was dressed in a suit and a tie and had the mannerisms of a man of the cloth. I had met many ministers in my life and I felt I was able to distinguish one when I encountered them. I began to sense that something out of the ordinary was happening. What would a minister be doing at a hospital on Easter Sunday? I wondered. Why wasn’t he in church on this the most Holy Day of the Christian faith? Was this man really a minister or was he just disguised as one? Was he an angel, sent by God? I did not know but I knew, however, that there was a holy presence in the room. The man said, “I came today to pray for your wife.” I replied, “I will pray with you.” As we prayed, I felt a liberty to pray unlike I had ever felt before. We prayed together for quite some time and the spirit of the Lord came, after which the man prepared to leave. As he was leaving my wife’s room he turned to me and said, “Son, you are a praying man.” I felt so humbled when this man told me this because it had felt at times that God was not hearing my prayers. To this day, I do not know who the man was. I had never met him before and I have not seen him again since that day. The doctors told me on this Easter Sunday that it would take weeks, maybe months of therapy before Penny would ever be able to walk again, if ever. Three days later the doctors were stunned because she began walking and using her left arm and she has been walking ever since. The day that started out as one of the lowest days of my faith became a milestone in our walk with God. I have experienced many Easter Sundays before and since but never have I experienced one like that. Having the benefit of knowing the outcome of this long struggle, I now know that God was preparing us for a greater battle that was yet to come. The Bible says that God the Father has the times and the seasons in His hands and we do not always know why God delays in answering our prayers but I have come to learn this; God’s delays are not God’s denials. During the months that my wife Penny endured and suffered with cancer, I never once heard her ask God, “Why did You allow this to happen to me?” She could not understand why God permitted her to develop cancer, but she had faith that God knew what He was doing. Many times I heard the nursing staff and others as well ask her how she was doing on a particular day and she would always answer, “I’m doing all right.” Many of the nurses said that Penny was the best patient they had ever treated because she never complained. The following week after Easter, Penny began receiving physical therapy treatments. Although she began walking three days after Easter Sunday, the muscles in her left leg were still weak and so they strapped a leg brace on her leg to strengthen it. God even had a plan in this that we could not see at the time but He would reveal this to us later. I now know that God could have healed the leg completely at the time, but He wanted a witness to the Physical Therapists that could only come about the way He had planned. Penny continued wearing the leg brace for several months following this day when she would be in the hospitals and during the times, she was home. Two therapists would come to our house for a couple of hours each day to continue the physical therapy. One day I asked them how long Penny would have to wear the leg brace. One of the therapists answered and asked, “Do you want to know the truth?” I replied, “Yes.” He then replied, “For the rest of her life.” That has been seven years ago and for seven years Penny has not worn a leg brace and she does not wear a brace today! When God does something, He does it right. Oh, Hallelujah, what a Saviour! TOMORROW—WEDNESDAY—CHAPTER VI—THURSDAY—CHAPTER VII—FRIDAY—CHAPTER VIII—SATURDAY—CHAPTER IX AND CHAPTER X THE CONCLUSION.
Posted on: Tue, 21 Jan 2014 08:25:02 +0000
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