God Said, “Live!”

Day 6

On Saturday, February 15, I awoke to agonizing pain radiating around my left side, which was probably due to the bone marrow biopsy performed yesterday. I could barely stand. My body curled itself, and my jaws clenched due to the excruciating pain running throughout my system. I really couldn’t tell whether it was my insides that were hurting or my outer body. Dr. Arellano thought a nerve could have been hit during the procedure, which can sometimes happen. I had to have medication to control this pain, which resulted in severe waves of nausea and dry heaving.

My family did their best to hold pans for my nausea and wipe my forehead. This experience only made me realize there were many more days of this ahead—more days of being sick, more days of having to have someone help me in the bed or out of bed or not be able to leave the bed at all. I knew God wouldn’t put more on me than I could bear, and even though I was moving slowly today, I was still moving. A fellow pastor came by to bring me encouraging words, saying the race didn’t go to the fast or to the swift but to the one who endured to the end.

Reminders that triggered the promises of God were the ones that got me by. Every time I felt like my body was giving up, I reminded myself that God wouldn’t burden me more than I can bear. He wouldn’t, absolutely not, burden me more than I could bear. I said this truth aloud thrice, and it still hit me like a fresh, new thought. It rejuvenated me.

Just as the pain and discomfort presented themselves, the blessings started showing up, too. For indeed, God only puts His best through the pain, for pain has hidden blessings that come with it. Visitors from different churches came, even people from hundreds of miles away. One group of young people from Liberty Faith Holiness Church rented a bus together and came to personally let me know they were fighting with me. One of the members of the group had started a personal fast and wouldn’t eat until I went home. Her fast lasted forty days. While they were here, they sang worship songs and prayed, and we were greatly encouraged. (Here is a link to the YouTube video of that time:
https://youtu.be/icKlFWO_56s.) Several of the parishioners from Pineview Holiness Baptist Church also came to express to me that victory was indeed going to be won.

The idea that I had touched so many lives was unbelievable. It made me forget the pain I was going through. Sometimes a loss seems great, but just when you think you’ve hit the darkest hour, God comes with the ray of light. I truly experienced that the gain, indeed, is much more than the loss we face in our lives. At every single point, moment, and fleeting second, we have something to be thankful for. I had something to be thankful for as well. When push comes to shove, nothing feels better than feeling the presence of God and holding onto the everlasting bond that exists between the two of you.

Looking back over the pictures and recalling that day, I can see that a life of service can impact many people of all ages, even for years to come. If God said, “Live,” I must not be finished. It is never too late to hope for a miracle. I learned that you need to ask God, for He will always answer your prayers, no matter how impossible they may seem. I held onto God, and He held onto me. I wouldn’t have made it out if my bond hadn’t existed with Him. It’s because of this one sacred and oh-so-personal relationship that everything in my life has been so blessed. Be it my family or those very people who came out in my support; everything in my life, I owe to God.

Many years ago, I preached a message about the little Shunamite woman. With more trouble in her life than she could fathom, she was asked, “How is it with thee?” Her response was felt by everyone present that Saturday on the sixth floor of Emory University Hospital in room E605, and it is still my response … It is well! (2 Kings 4:26).