AN ORDINARY LIFE TOUCHED BY AN EXTRAORDINARY GOD – Part Six

My parents with Grandma, my sister and two younger brothers in tow visited us that summer when Laurie was six months old. We spent a few days camping and at night trying to avoid skunks on the way to the outhouse. I felt great and we had a wonderful time. I felt so well I figured I wouldn’t die anytime soon; though, it’s something we never talked about.

Day to day life resumed after they left and I continued to see the doctor on a monthly basis. Larry’s four year tour in the Air Force ended in November of that year and we’d decided to retire to civilian life.

On my doctor visit in October the doctor gravely informed me that he deemed it about a 95% chance that a new mass had formed in my abdominal cavity. Because of our soon release from the Air Force he wanted to do surgery almost immediately, that way I would have time to recover some before we travelled northward.

First I needed to make arrangements for child care. My mother again was invited to enjoy her grandchildren for awhile and gladly came. My mother-in-law also came as she planned to help Larry as he drove back to Portland, Oregon. We’d decided to settle in Portland and would live in the trailer while we looked for work and a place to live. She would drive our car and he would drive the pickup and pull the trailer home we’d purchased just for this purpose.

My mother, then, would accompany me and the children on the bus to Boise. No, we weren’t breaking up but because of the surgery and my need for help as I recovered further, this seemed the best plan of action. Larry would find a place for us and then when I felt able to take on my responsibilities, he’d come take me home.

Thus it worked out that I had two grandmas, two kids and one husband in one small trailer home and me in a hospital bed—again. My mother, when she got the word that I needed surgery again got on the phone and called her church prayer line, all our relatives and all her friends. Anyone who could and would pray she called, so I knew I was surrounded by prayer as I went under the knife—again.

Boy, was I mad! Someone just slapped me in the face and if I could have I would have slapped them back. My eyes flutter opened and looked directly into my kind doctor’s eyes, the same one who’d done my first operation. He said, “We thought you’d never wake up.” I blinked and saw my mother on one side of the bed and my mother-in-law on the other side both anxiously watching me.

It seems they had a hard time waking me up from the anesthesia. I slept peacefully long after I should have roused thus the doctor felt it necessary to slap me in the face—and that did it. I was mad when I woke up but calmed down when I knew the whole story. But the rest of the story is even better. The doctor said, “We didn’t find any mass. I was certain there was one there or I wouldn’t have put you through the operation.” I looked at my mom and we both knew God had arrived on the scene.

My husband sat in the lobby watching over the two kids and anxiously awaiting word of my condition. They swapped places and we rejoiced that the mass somehow either wasn’t there or disappeared. I took this opportunity to point out to Larry how faithful God is and that He took care of me. But Larry didn’t believe in the God I believed in. He’d been raised in the Catholic church by his mother, a devout Catholic, and somewhere along the way lost any belief he might have had in a loving, caring Heavenly Father.  This caused problems in our marriage for many years after. We had become a house divided. 

Has following God caused a problem in your marriage? 

An Ordinary Life Touched by an Extraordinary God - Part 5

My folks had five children, all of us crammed into a small house. We lived twenty miles from mom’s parents, so she systematically shipped us over to them two at a time almost every weekend and for a week at a time in the summer.  The eldest went by himself. I’m sure mom welcomed a quieter house while knowing we were in good hands.

My grandparents’ house sat half a block from our denominational college, Northwest Nazarene College, (now University). Behind their house sat College Church. For reasons known only to them they attended Nampa First Church of the Nazarene across town and not the church on whose doorstep they virtually sat. I mean, all they had to do was walk out their back door, down the alley half a block and they were at the door of the church. I haven’t figured out this phenomenon to this day but the beauty of it for me meant that in the summer when we spent a week with them, my sister and I got to attend three Vacation Bible Schools. The one at our home church in Boise and two in Nampa.

I loved VBS as it gave us something fun and exciting to do instead of chores at home. The summer I turned six, College Church erected a tent in Kurtz Park which spread out its green skirt a block or two away from gramma’s house. On the last day of VBS at the last gathering before we were dismissed, the speaker told us about how we could accept Jesus into our hearts and He would help us be good and help us when we needed help.

Now I wasn’t a bad little girl but I knew I wasn’t good, either. I didn’t lie—unless it might be to my advantage; I didn’t steal; I didn’t swear; I didn’t beat up on my little brothers or older sister—unless provoked and needed to retaliate. But I thought people might love me more if Jesus made me good so I went forward, knelt and asked Jesus into my heart. I don’t know what happened but I know I was a changed person when I walked back to gramma’s house.

I can’t tell you I lived perfectly from then on but I always wanted to please Jesus. I learned Bible verses—it helped that Grampa gave me a nickel for every verse I learned—but those verses have stayed with me, helped me and comforted me over the years.

Then I became a teenager. I didn’t set out to yield to peer pressure but I did. I never did anything bad or wild—well, not too wild, anyway. I just drifted away from following Jesus. I married, had two kids and now sat in our little house facing the “Big C” and almost certain death.

With my upbringing and my background I knew the best way—really the only way—to deal with this new, ugly situation meant turning back to the God I’d left behind. One day, the two little ones were napping a the same time, a miracle in itself, and I decided it was a good time to mop my kitchen floor. I got on my hands and knees with a bucket and a rag and began scrubbing. Then Jesus showed up. I don’t remember what He said, I just remember knowing that now was the time. There with the bucket as an altar, I made the choice to walk with Him again and that this time there would be no turning back, no matter what.

I didn’t know at that moment how this simple act would impact my life or the difficulties that lay ahead. I knew for sure, though, that I belonged to God, come what may.

Question: Have you reached that place and chosen to walk with God?  I'd love to hear about it.