STOLEN AND BROKEN MOMENTS IN THE VALLEY BOOK

My story begins six months earlier when life continued as normal. Life was good. I had a full time ministry up and running. I had my oldest son back home living in my home. We were prospering as our soul prospers. Although I was battling diabetes, high blood pressure, acid reflux, high cholesterol, tendentious, fatty cysts on my body, rhinitus, and osteoarthritis in my joints plus other symptoms I was okay. I had learned how to manage. With all these ailments I still remained as energetic as possible.

I missed my swimming exercises, as it was now late October. Halloween lurked around the corner. I dreaded this time of year because of all the demonic decorations. It appeared to me that more emphasis and glory was placed upon this hell day than upon Christmas day that was supposed to earmark the Savior of the world’s birthday. I dreaded going shopping because of having to look upon the skulls, bones, ghouls, ghosts, witches, bats, monsters, spiderwebs, and tombstones. When I would walk down the isles my skin would crawl from the evil that was portrayed at every turn and that loomed over the cast registers.

I recalled my days of working in the public when my employer demanded that his employees dress in Halloween costumes so we could represent the dead or undead. I had my own way of rebelling against this satanic demand once I became enlightened to the ways of Christ. All it took was the precious blood of Jesus to set me free from the law of sin and death. I verbally announced to my store manager that it was unfair for a Christian to have to submit to these demands but I nonetheless lost the battle.

My first year after my repentant conversion to a holy God met with many new obstacles. Those were the days when a Christian had the right to speak the Lord’s name in public without being put in jail or fired from their job.

As usual I was scheduled to work on Halloween night since I worked the evening shift. My job was to back up the head cashier, stock the coolers and shelves, sweep and mop the floor, carry out the garbage and clean the bathrooms. If you have never been employed to do such a humble work then you don’t have a clue of what I’m talking about. Anyway I had decided what costume I would wear. I painted one side of my face white paint and the other side of my face black paint. I knew this would give my customers something to think about and many questions to ask. Sure enough, it worked. Nearly every customer wanted to know why one side of my face was white and the other side was black. Their questions gave me the grand opportunity to witness one on one about once I lived in darkness and now I live in the light. There was a buzz around the store that I was a radical believer. I can’t imagine why anyone would think such a thing, can you?

Well, the next year I topped my previous costume ten to one. I showed up at work wearing a white choir robe with massive angels wings attached to it. You should have seen the people’s faces. I would walk out of the walk-in cooler looking like I had just flown to earth to walk among men. Several times that evening I snickered inwardly knowing that I had outwitted my employer’s demands. I had submitted to his authority but I had the ability to choose how I wanted to dress. I wore my large paper wings and gold halo all evening even while cleaning the toilets. Let’s get real for a moment. What angel have you ever known that scrubs toilets? I don’t know of any that even wash dishes. Those were the good old days before I lost my job and went on disability. I had a lot of fun although the work was demanding.

This October was no different from all the others except that my son had been plagued with constant diarrhea the past month. His stomach was bloated and he complained of his stomach hurting. On his nights off he was so uncomfortable he would lie flat on his back on the living room holding his stomach. Neither of us thought much about it. We figured it was only gas. He was working 12-14 hours a day so I only saw him on the weekends. When he was at home he stayed in his room on his computer. No big deal, this was his daily habit. For over a year he had only slept about 4 hours in every 24-hour cycle. I mumbled and complained but he wouldn’t change his habits. He quit smoking a year earlier and I was very glad because he used to light a cigarette off of a previous cigarette.

When he had returned to Tennessee in 2003 he had a large carbuncle on his head where he had injured his head while working on a Rider truck. He is a diesel mechanic with over 25 years of experience but he failed to follow through with this injury. He didn’t have medical insurance when he came back home and worked at several different truckstops.

Suddenly he wanted to change jobs. He would take a large cut in pay but he would have great medical benefits. I was against this but thank God he ignored my pleas. In the end he took the new job and stayed on part time at his old job. It took over a year for his medical benefits to kick in so he still couldn’t go to the doctor to have the wound on his head examined. He got injured one night at word and had to go to the emergency room so he had the doctor take a look at his head also. The doctor told him to set up an appointment with a skin specialist. He also told Stephen that the wound on his head was cancerous.

Anyone who has no medical insurance knows that it is impossible to set up any type of appointment unless you have insurance. The doctors will not see you. He went to a free clinic and was told that he mad too much money so he couldn’t come back. Time passed and the wound on his head got much worse. When I would pass his bedroom I smelled a foul odor. When he opened his bedroom door the odor was so bad it reeked all the way into the living room. His pillowcases were continually bloody. Sometimes I had to throw his pillows away because of the odor. I griped and complained. The stench would almost make me sick at my stomach. I prayed and I asked God to heal him over and over numerous times. I waited and prayed and prayed and waited to no avail.

Finally his medical insurance card came in the mail but he still wouldn’t call a doctor and set up an appointment. During this same time my youngest son started having some problems with irregular heart palpitations so he called a new medical clinic and set up an appointment. When he got back home he called me and told me about the wonderful care he had received. He prompted me to call his new doctor and schedule an appointment because we were both dissatisfied with my current physician’s lack of concern for his patients. I called at his insistence and found out that this was the same doctor that had treated me one year earlier for a sulfa allergy during an emergency room visit. He had admitted me overnight and I recalled how kind he was and that he had returned to my room three time to check on my health. He had a slight foreign accent so I asked if he was from India. He informed me that he was born and raised in Epypt. He was a Christian doctor. I had thought and had even prayed back then that if it was in God’s power to please let him be my doctor. When I was released from the hospital I looked up his name in the phone book but there was no medical practice he was affiliated with so I soon forgot about this matter. My family doctor had misdiagnosed me so many times that if it hadn’t been for God, I’d probably be dead.

God works in mysterious ways indeed. When I walked into my new doctor’s examination room I realized that he was the same doctor I had prayed to be my physician. God had truly worked this all out in my behalf.

Within the week my oldest son finally set up an appointment with my new doctor. He was still having diarrhea but he mainly wanted him to check the wound on his head.

The date that brought our lives to a halt was October 27, 2008. Stephen’s new doctor told him bluntly that he had a cancer on his head so he scheduled 3 cat scans on November 3, 2008. When the results of the 3 cat scans came back it seemed like the end of the world. Stephen had a basil cell carcinoma on his head. He had 2 tumors on his lungs plus a large mass of tumors in his colon. Most folks would have panicked but I took it with stride. I was really surprised that fear didn’t try to enter into our lives but it never touched me. I saw a few glimpses when Stephen seemed to tremble outwardly. When this happened I would quietly say, "God has not given us a spirit of fear but of love, power, and a sound mind." I would rebuke the fear and go on. Faith is a love walk, not a zealous marathon race. I knew deep in my heart that we both would finish the race that was set before us. We were going to reach the mark of our high calling in Christ Jesus.

Our next hurdle was fast approaching over the horizon. On November 11^th Stephen was scheduled for a colonoscopy examination. Usually there is a relatively long wait to get the results back but this was not the case in Stephen’s life. The next day he was scheduled to visit a surgeon that his family doctor had referred. Dr. Gray, like Dr. Rollhouser, was quite frank and to the point. He had colon cancer that had to be invasively removed immediately. There were no delays offered. There were no second opinions. All systems were go.

Two days later Stephen was scheduled for a gastralation enema that would determine whether the cancer had spread to the right side of his colon. The colonoscopy had revealed a large mass on the left side of his colon to his rectum. In the photographs there appeared to be two tumors in his liver. The doctors were concerned that the cancer had spread to his liver. You could see it in their faces and hear it in their voices. So now the bomb had dropped and exploded on our lives. We knew that somehow we would never go back to that idealistic place of security and refuge again that we had once known.

The face of Stephen’s mortality drastically changed into his immortality. In the twinkling of an eye he realized that his mortality was close to ending and could end if he didn’t have the much-needed surgery to remove the massive tumor of cancer. Dr. Gray, his surgeon, had already explained all the risk factors. We had to trust God every step of the way.