by Amy Newmark
That was why his telephone call to me at work the Friday of Memorial Day weekend was so frightening. When I answered the phone he said weakly, “Mo, I don’t feel well. Something is wrong.” I don’t think I had the phone in the cradle before I was running out the door. Dad had been on a trip to visit both of my sisters in the last month and to see a new great-grandson. He had fun but came back exhausted and nursing what he thought was a bad cold. I worried it had turned to pneumonia, as his weakened lungs were susceptible.
I called ahead to let the emergency room know we were on our way, and within ten minutes we were pulling up and being met by a nurse with a wheelchair. I was stunned, after my father’s initial workup, to be told that he was having a heart attack. Later that day he had a stent placed and he was admitted to a regular room for observation. He was discharged to my care two days later on Sunday. He complained he still did not feel well, but his doctor assured us that this was to be expected after a heart attack. Once I got him home, he said to me, “I am so glad I have you girls to look after me.” The next morning, I walked into his room to discover that he had a second heart attack earlier that morning. Although I tried to revive him with CPR, it was too late.
That was the worst day of my life. I had so much guilt and remorse. I was paralyzed with pain. So, when I flippantly mentioned three months later on that August morning that I wished he would send me a penny, it was because I longed to connect with him again. I felt like I had let him, and my entire family, down by not protecting him. I was struggling mightily with the loss and not moving forward very well at all. So even though I asked for a penny, honestly I did not expect a response!
I finished breakfast and went upstairs. I went into the walk-in closet and took out my clothes for work. I walked a few steps back into the bathroom to get ready for a shower, talking to my husband about mundane stuff. I turned around to grab something else from the closet, and there, centered right in the middle of the carpeted floor was a penny. I gasped so loudly I scared my husband. I started to cry and knelt down and clutched the penny to my chest. I had just been in the closet seconds earlier and the penny was not there. I would have seen it. It was not near any coats or purses from which it might have fallen. It was, indeed, a penny from heaven. I sobbed and sobbed and through the tears I knew I had been visited by a miracle.
I had that penny made into a necklace I cherish. The most wonderful thing now is that every time anyone in my family finds pennies in odd places, we say, “Hi Daddy,” or “Hi Grandpa.” We find them all the time now. My niece was showering one day, heard a plunk in the shower and looked down to see a penny in the tub! I was using my iPad one day, set it down and came back later and a penny was sitting on top of it. These occurrences happen so often that we all see it as the norm in the most personal, spectacular, inclusive way.
I never try to convince others of how these pennies make their way from heaven to my family and me. I have no idea myself. All I know for certain is that it happens at those times when our hearts crave the connection the most, and we know it is not a coincidence. The most delightful part is that we aren’t consciously expecting them, we are living our lives and they just seem to appear when our need is the greatest.
My father’s passing left huge holes in our hearts. Every time a penny arrives, we remember him and the love of family he left behind. That is a legacy, a miracle, that my family knows we are blessed to have, and we cherish it every time we are visited by his spirit of love.
~Maureen Buckley
Miraculous Healing
Never Walk Again?
When the world says, “Give up,” Hope whispers, “Try it one more time.”
~Author Unknown
As I lay in my hospital bed after surgery, I tried to comprehend the doctor’s verdict. “You will never walk again.” Never walk again? It sounded like a death sentence. Even though I was already eighty-nine years old, I was not ready to stop living a full life. I turned on my side and cried out to God for mercy. “Please, Lord, I need a miracle.”
Two weeks earlier I had gone to my great-nephew’s wedding in California. While leaving the hotel pool area one day, I tried to push open a door to the hallway, not realizing that it was locked. That’s when I suddenly fell backwards onto the cement floor. Pain seared through my body. My niece and nephew rushed to my side. “Are you okay?” they asked. I was too stunned to answer just then, but I was hoping that I had not been seriously injured. Quickly, they helped me up and took me back to my hotel room. Since I could still move around, I wasn’t too concerned and believed I would be fine for the wedding in two days.
Even though I had to sleep in a chair, I managed with some help to make it to the rehearsal dinner the next day. The following day, I was still able to attend the wedding. Yet after the reception I couldn’t get up from the chair. I knew something was seriously wrong and I needed to get back home to see my own doctor.
My daughter took me back to my hometown and rushed me to the local hospital. My pain was so severe by that time that the medical staff couldn’t get me into the correct position to take an X-ray. After keeping me in the hospital overnight for observation, the doctor, unable to determine a cause, sent me home. However, the next few days I was in so much pain I had a hard time getting out of bed.
“Lord, what’s happening to me?” I cried out again and again. “Please, heal my body.”
When the pain continued to worsen, my daughter had an ambulance take me back to the hospital where an X-ray revealed that I had fractured three vertebrae. Right away I was transferred to a larger hospital where a specialist advised immediate back surgery. “It’s a delicate surgery and at her age she may not survive,” the doctor had told my family. Yet I had survived, although the surgery had not improved my condition. That’s when the doctor had told me that I would never walk again. “Am I to live the rest of my life in a wheelchair as an invalid?” I now agonized. Somehow I couldn’t accept that verdict. There had to be a way that I could walk again, even at my age.
I believed that God was a God of miracles and I knew God could heal my body. But I realized that I also had to do my part, so right then I determined to at least work at trying to walk again. Rehabilitation exercises taught me to stand. I worked hard at holding onto bars, hoping my feet would move just a little on their own. But they didn’t. At first I was somewhat discouraged. Should I just give up and accept the medical prognosis? Then, these words from the Bible suddenly popped into my mind and filled my heart with renewed faith and hope: “Everything is possible for one who believes” (Mark 9:23, NIV).
“I’ll walk again. I’ll show everyone,” I told my visitors. They smiled but they didn’t seem to believe me. They prayed for me, mostly that I would accept life in a wheelchair. But I kept praying that the Lord would give me the strength to keep trying to walk again.
How I longed to go outdoors, to walk along the streets, to do all those things I had been able to do before the accident. What would my future be like not being able to walk? My imagination ran wild, but I didn’t want to dwell on it. I had to be positive about my future. I had had my share of challenges, but none as formidable as this and I was not one to give up easily.
Determination to walk again filled me with energy. I worked hard during my exercises each morning. As I willed my feet to move little by little, I finally was able to push my feet forward while standing in a walker. I was so encouraged that I tried even harder. My faith and courage soared as week by week I felt some improvement. Within a few months I could take one step at a time when holding onto my walker. Then two steps. Now I knew that if only I would work at it hard enough, I would achieve what the doctors thought was impossible. A year and four months after the accident, I was finally able to walk around the room holding onto a walker. How excited I was, knowing this was the first step toward a normal lifestyle.
Today, two years after the accident, I can walk well even outside on the street holding onto a walker. The broken vertebrae have healed. Now I am l
ooking forward to the future with hope and a thankful heart. “A miracle,” the staff told me. I agreed. I knew that with faith, determination, courage, and hard work anything is possible.
~Beulah Dobson
A Glimpse of Heaven
If we have died with Him we shall also live with Him; if we persevere we shall also reign with Him.
~2 Timothy 2:11-12
The assignment was to “draw heaven.” I took out my prized box of perfectly sharpened crayons and searched for my favorite sky blue crayon. I carefully drew a large sky, dotted with puffy white clouds, separated in the center by a beautiful, arching rainbow. On each cloud, I drew tiny angels; some with harps and others singing and dancing.
At the top of the rainbow, I tried my best to draw God’s face with deep brown, loving eyes and a long flowing, white beard. His loving arms were outstretched. I tried to position the rainbow so that it reached from God’s face to connect with the earth He had created. His domain contained pastel-colored tulips, trees and people of all ages and backgrounds.
I was a child then, and I saw heaven as far away, connected to us by one of God’s exquisite rainbows. Since then, I have often wondered about heaven, not as much about its appearance, but rather what kind of life I needed to live to be worthy. What would it be like to experience eternity and timelessness? What would it actually be like to come face to face with God?
The same year as that assignment, my life turned upside down. My dad, my hero, suffered a massive stroke. He was hospitalized for several weeks and then spent three months in a rehabilitation facility. In what seemed like an instant, my dad’s life dramatically altered. He went from being a highly successful lawyer and a vice president of a major corporation to being unable to utter even one word. His right side was completely and permanently paralyzed and he would need to work for years to regain some of the expressive language skills that had been his forte.
Despite the daily struggles he faced, my dad was the epitome of kindness, love, compassion and fairness. He treated everyone with respect and dignity. He never let the effects of his stroke affect his ability to give and love completely. He never complained of his immense struggles or how even simple tasks such as eating, writing or extending his hand for a handshake needed to be renegotiated using his left hand.
For seventeen years following his stroke, I held my breath as he labored up and down the stairs in our colonial home. I would watch as he clutched the mahogany banister with his strong left hand. Then he positioned his left leg on a step and with effort, pulled up his right leg until his legs were side by side. Step by step, in a slow, methodical rhythm, he would repeat this process until he reached the next floor. It was that way every day for seventeen years.
That was until June 30, 1981, two weeks after my dad had gallbladder surgery and the surgeon explained that they had “almost lost him several times on the operating table.” His heart and body were unable to withstand the time needed to complete the surgery so they brought him out of anesthesia without being able to close his bile duct. Day after day, my dad coughed up bile, grew weaker and was filled with pain. Despite all of his suffering, he approached life and everyone around him as he always had—with an amazing spirit and a genuine, loving, compassionate kindness for others.
On the morning of June 30, 1981, my dad couldn’t move even a finger without excruciating pain. He never complained but I could see the effects in the creasing around his eyes and the slight groan he tried to conceal under his breath. After he tried several times to get up from bed, I tried to pull him up without hurting him. When he was finally able to sit upright, I looked into his eyes. Despite the significant struggle, he looked at me with gentleness and warmth, and he smiled.
After resting for several minutes, he leaned on me. Walking very slowly and in terrible pain, he made his way to the center staircase. Walking the twenty feet from the bedroom to the staircase took almost all of his energy.
He was supposed to go back to the hospital and my mom was getting everything ready downstairs. Dad had insisted that my sister go to work that day, but I still wish she had been with us to experience what happened. At the base of the staircase, my mom had a chair waiting for him just in case he needed to rest before heading to the hospital.
As my dad placed his left hand on the banister, as he had done countless times before, I noticed that the overcast day suddenly looked bright. There was a light like I’ve never seen before radiating from the window behind him, enveloping his face, body and the steps ahead of him.
I was reaching out to help him when I saw the pain in his face disappear. He was no longer holding onto the banister. As he began his descent, he virtually floated down the steps. His feet skimmed over the steps and he wasn’t holding the railing. My mom and I watched in amazement.
His right leg and arm were no longer encumbered. He seemed free.
At the base of the steps, he fell into my mother’s arms. My mother quickly asked me to call 911 as she attempted mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Even with the paddles and considerable effort, the paramedics were unable to revive him. As they lifted Dad onto the gurney, one kind paramedic informed me that my father wasn’t on this earth anymore. Maybe he knew what my mom and I knew already—my dad had gone to heaven.
So, now if I were asked to “draw heaven” I would try to describe it as a place where all physical limitations are lifted — a place where God’s love and light heal and where people who have lived good lives are rewarded. Heaven is a place where there is only love—God’s love.
If I am ever feeling discouraged or sad, I think back to the day when God gave me the gift of a glimpse of heaven. With my own eyes, I witnessed my dad gracefully floating from his place on earth to his well-earned place in heaven.
~Mary Ann Klein
The Healing Hand of God
The prayer that begins with trustfulness and passes on into waiting will always end in thankfulness, triumph, and praise.
~Alexander Maclaren
My husband and I had agreed to a weekend camping trip with our good friends, Doug and Kathy, fellow youth leaders from our church. Our three young children were just as excited about time at the beach as we adults. We had a great time swimming during the day and at night we decided to gather around a campfire.
We edged our lawn chairs closer to the fire pit as a chill settled over the day. While we were talking and roasting hot dogs and marshmallows on long sticks, I realized that our four-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, had wiggled her chair too close to the fire. I opened my mouth to instruct her to move back when the unthinkable happened. The chair tipped forward, dumping her onto the ground at the edge of the pit. She dropped onto a bed of smouldering coals.
All four adults reached for her. My husband and I grabbed her and ran to the nearby water tap. My first thought was to douse her smoking shorts. I hadn’t considered the possibility of burns—until I saw her feet. Blisters swelled like balloons filled with water. Our daughter wailed out her pain. Adrenaline took over as we hustled to our vehicle. We covered Elizabeth’s burns with a clean towel and, leaving our older children with Doug and Kathy, headed for the hospital in the nearby town.
“She has second- and third-degree burns on her feet and her hip.” I wanted to cry for this innocent child who wept out pain she didn’t understand. “You’ll want to take her to your family doctor to keep an eye on them.”
We headed home where Doug and Kathy waited with our other two girls. Elizabeth sat quietly in the car with me, her feet swaddled in white gauze, the burn medicine giving her temporary relief.
The next day we rented a small wheelchair. Our doctor informed us that Elizabeth would be off her feet for a few months and would likely undergo skin grafting. By Wednesday, an infection set in and Elizabeth’s temperature soared. That evening, she hallucinated, experiencing an imaginary card game of Go Fish. We headed to the hospital again.
A child should never have to endure debriding. It is a painful process where the burnt skin is remo
ved. Anaesthetic is useless since the nerves in the burned tissue are damaged. For the next week, our little girl underwent the removal of the decaying tissue while I held her and prayed for God to give us a miracle.
I was supposed to go to a women’s retreat two weeks after our camping weekend. I called our group organizer and told her why I had to cancel. “Pray for Elizabeth. She’s in so much pain. Pray for healing.”
Unknown to us, that request went to the retreat leadership team. While the ladies from our church began their adventure in the Muskoka woods, I made daily trips to the doctor to have the bandages changed and new medication applied. Standing behind Elizabeth’s chair, I waited patiently while new gauze and tape covered wicked wounds and I prayed. I prayed that God would heal our daughter and that he would use this moment in time to show his love.
Saturday morning came and I headed out into the countryside to our doctor’s home. He’d been very concerned about the infection and insisted that the bandages be changed daily. Sunday morning showed no improvement in Elizabeth’s feet. We went to church as a family, her little red wheelchair carrying her down the aisle. She played quietly until the service finished and we headed home. That evening, the phone rang and I made my way to the kitchen to answer it.
“The whole group prayed for Elizabeth.” Our group organizer’s voice hummed with excitement. “It was something. Over 200 women gathered together praying for a miracle. I can’t wait to see what God will do.”
Monday morning brought a warm September sun and the girls and I climbed into the van and headed to the doctor’s house. He’d warned me the day before that he would not be in the office until Tuesday and to come to his house. We pulled up the long drive and parked. Lifting Elizabeth into her wheelchair, I instructed her sisters to remain in their seatbelts until I called them. I turned toward the porch and spied the doctor coming down the walkway.