“Frankly, their prayers were infectious. Within a few days we were all praying for Reese. They talked me into hobbling over with my cane and laying my hands on Reese's head and praying with them.
“Richard, I could not have explained it to you, then. But eight days later, after almost around-the-clock praying, Reese was not only still alive, but he woke up from his coma and smiled. I mean, here this guy was—his whole midsection was spaghetti—and he wakes up and smiles at his buddies!”
Richard noticed that Scott's eyes were becoming moist as he retold the story from nine years earlier. “Reese was in terrible pain, but as soon as he could, he began praying with his friends. Richard, a week later, the black guy got up out of his bed, and with the help of my cane, he walked! The doctors and nurses were flabbergasted. They started calling us the ‘Prayer Power Ward.’ Other men in the hospital began coming to my three new friends and asking them to pray and to lay hands on them. People started being healed, Richard. And just as importantly, they started believing.
“When I saw Mac—that was the black guy—walk, I told all three of them that I'd seen enough. I wanted whatever it was they had, which was not only healing them but giving them such inner strength. They explained to me how simple it was, and that night, with them, I prayed for Jesus to forgive my sins, and I asked Him to come into my life, take it over, and use me as He wanted.”
Richard could not believe what he was hearing from his old fraternity brother. I guess you had to be there to appreciate it, Richard thought silently to himself, but Scott has really gone off the deep end.
“At any rate,” Scott continued, “in that hospital the four of us began a friendship that is still flourishing to this day. In fact, they were from near Tampa, and it was with those three guys that I started the insurance business here several years ago. If you and Janet come to church with us in the morning, you can meet each one of them. And unless you look closely, you'll never be able to tell that they spent many months in Army and VA hospitals.
“So when I say that my life changed in Vietnam, that's what I mean. I thank God every day for the little bit of pain I went through in order to receive such a blessing.”
“Well, Scott, we'd certainly like to go to church with you in the morning,” Richard said, “but we promised the kids we'd get to Disney World as early as possible after spending the night with you. So I think we'd better shove off for Orlando when you guys head to church. But I really appreciate your story, and maybe next time we can make it.”
“Sure, Richard, sure. That'll be great,” Scott said, knowing that it would probably never happen. “Well, let's go in and see how the kids are doing. It must be time for a goodnight kiss or two.”
The next morning the Sullivans packed their station wagon and left for Orlando as the Petersons left for their church. On the way down the interstate, Richard repeated Scott's story to Janet. When he finished, he said, smiling, “Isn't that wild? Imagine. It sounds like something out of a holy roller TV show.”
“Yes, it does,” agreed Janet. “Cindy mentioned their faith and their church several times in our conversation, but I didn't really pick up on it. Isn't it amazing how people can change?”
“It sure is.” Richard shrugged off Scott's experience as some kind of hallucination. But a seed was planted in Richard that might bear fruit many years later.
16
FOUR YEARS EARLIER – Janet was feeling a little tense. One of her best friends from growing up in Vermont, Sally Coker, should be driving up any minute to spend the night with them, and Janet had only just arrived home from her new job at the TV5 television station. Although she had been preparing for Sally's arrival for days, her new responsibilities had caused her to work later than expected, and now there were many last-minute preparations to be made. So she said goodbye to the housekeeper who looked after their children in the afternoons and then set about preparing dinner, hoping that the children's homework demands would not be too great that evening.
Sally Coker had been through a tough time with her marriage. Always interested in the outdoors, she and some friends had taken a camping trip to an unpopulated barrier island off the South Carolina coast one fall, several years after college. There she met an ardent outdoorsman, Henry Coker, from Charleston. They hit it off immediately and were married only six months later, in a spectacular outdoor ceremony at one of Charleston's beautiful and historic gardens.
For the next several years, Henry divided his time between his paving company, camping with Sally, and hunting with childhood friends. Sally joined Henry in camping, especially in the early years of their marriage, and then concentrated on raising the three children who came along quickly.
The Sullivans and the Cokers had seen each other during several summers in Vermont, when Janet and Sally returned to their parents’ homes for vacations.
But as Janet put the finishing touches on her special chicken dish that Richard liked so much, she thought through what a difficult ordeal Sally had experienced during the past five years. Like a bolt of lightning, Sally was awakened early one morning by a telephone call from Henry, who was in the custody of federal marshals, arrested for attempting to smuggle bales of marijuana into the country on a friend's fishing boat.
Sally thought that Henry was duck hunting that night, but in fact, he and his three friends had rendezvoused off shore with a mother ship and had then transported a full load of marijuana up one of the hundreds of nondescript rivers and creeks that make up that part of the South Carolina coast, to what they thought would be an abandoned shrimping dock. Unfortunately, there had apparently been a tip-off of the federal agents, and Henry and his friends were all arrested, along with a boatload of evidence.
There had then followed a year of legal maneuvering and extremely expensive legal fees, which drained the income from Henry's fledgling company. The Cokers were forced to sell their home and to move into a much smaller rental home in the suburbs.
Almost eighteen months after his arrest, Henry was finally sentenced to five years in prison. He was sent to a minimum security facility in the West, and due to his record of good behavior, he was being paroled this week. Sally had left the kids with friends near Charleston and was driving to meet Henry at the prison. She would be spending the night with Richard and Janet, then driving on in the morning. Although they had spoken on the telephone many times, neither Janet nor Richard had seen Sally since Henry was sentenced to prison, and they wanted to make her feel very welcome.
Richard arrived home a little after six and immediately noticed the wonderful smell of Janet's chicken dish in the oven. That's how it used to be almost every weekday, Richard was reminded, before she took this new job at the television station six months ago. I wonder if she'll really stay there? I know it's selfish of me and her income is nice, but I certainly did like having her at home.
Richard and Janet kissed in the kitchen, and he went upstairs to change clothes. Just then Sally drove up, and Janet waved through her large kitchen bay window. She then went out to the garage to welcome her lifelong friend.
After Richard greeted Sally in the entrance hall and her bags were stored in the guest room, he mixed them all drinks, and they sat in the den while Susan, at age thirteen, sipped a Coke with them. Tommy, after a quick hello, elected to watch television in the basement.
“I feel like I'm coming out the end, finally, of a very long tunnel,” Sally reflected, thanking Richard for her cranberry juice and soda. “There's not much in general life training from parents or teachers to prepare you for your husband being arrested and taken to prison for almost four years.”
With characteristic early teen bluntness, Susan asked. “What exactly did your husband do?” Richard shifted in his chair. Janet looked down, but Sally smiled at Susan.
“I don't mind talking about it in the least. In an incredibly complex way, it's probably about the best thing which has happened to us in our marriage, other than the birth of our three children, of course.” And Sally
recounted for Susan and her parents all the factual details of their experience.
As Sally was nearing the end of her story, Janet excused herself and put the finishing touches on their dinner in the kitchen. A few minutes later, Tommy joined them. They all enjoyed a chicken dish that Janet's mother had taught her to make. Sally remembered it from when they were childhood friends in Vermont.
Two hours later, when the kids were in bed and Richard had quietly pulled some papers out of his briefcase, signaling that the two women were free to talk without involving him, although he politely listened with one ear, Janet asked Sally, “I can't help but remember your earlier statement that this mess with Henry has been one of the best things that ever happened to your marriage. How on earth could that be possible, Sally?”
“It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't experienced it. But I'll try. Less than a week after he was arrested and released on bail, Henry and I left the children with friends and spent a night alone together in one of the downtown Charleston hotels, just to get away. I was so hurt, angry, and humiliated. Nothing in my background had prepared me for a seemingly loving and respected husband being arrested as a common criminal, with his picture paraded almost daily across the local newspapers. As you can imagine, the telephone calls began immediately after his arrest. First local calls from our friends, then from farther away as our families and long-time friends in other places heard the news.
“Until that night with him in the hotel, I had held in all of my anger and my humiliation, but in that hotel room, I let it out. For a few minutes Henry became angry and defensive, but then he slumped into one of the hotel chairs, put his head in his hands, and started crying, like a baby. I'd never seen Henry cry before. He was sobbing. I was still angry and frustrated, but my heart went out to him. I sat down and put my hands on his knees while he cried.
“After about five minutes, I guess, he regained enough control to tell me that the whole night's trip was supposed to have been a ‘sure thing,’ a lark. His friend, Bob, who owned the fishing boat, had proposed it to the three other men six weeks earlier at a dove shoot. He told me that because of the recession, his business had been losing money, and his share of the seven-hour boat ride was supposed to be over $150,000.
“He then told me that he loved me deeply, that he had been a fool, and he asked me for my forgiveness. I was so angry I couldn't forgive him, and I told him so. I reminded him that this was all going to hurt our children, who were already being taunted at school by their friends, calling their daddy a criminal. And we could already foresee that we would have to sell the home—and maybe the business.
“Although I appreciated his honesty and knew he was a decent man, I simply couldn't understand his stupidity at risking everything for any amount of money. We stayed like that for several weeks, almost a month, living together—but I hated it. Then I was introduced to an incredible woman from Savannah who headed up a special support network for wives in my situation. We had a long telephone conversation one day. I imagined she would recommend some therapist or psychologist for me to go see, but instead she asked me whether we had been to talk to our minister about all of this.
“I was shocked. We had been attending a small church for six months with a young minister about our age. It had never occurred to me, I am ashamed to say, to talk to him about this problem. But thanks to her suggestion, we did. I don't know whether she called to prepare him or if he just knew what to say by himself. But the result was that, at our meeting, the Holy Spirit worked a miracle inside me.
“This young minister, Carl Scott, explained to me about forgiveness. For a long time he didn't say anything about our specific situation, but rather reminded us of God's plan for forgiveness for all sins, even those much worse than Henry had committed, through the death and resurrection of His Son. He reminded us that if we are believers in Jesus, then we will receive God's grace, which we don't deserve, rather than God's judgment, which we do deserve. He went on to cite Bible passages in which Jesus specifically told the people of His day to forgive one another, so that His Father could forgive them.
“And the most striking thing Carl told me was that by hating, or not forgiving, someone—anyone—I would not hurt that other individual. Rather, the hate and the unforgiveness would simply consume me. I reflected on how awful I felt, and I had to agree with him that the anger was eating me up inside.”
Richard put down his papers and was now listening to Sally's story, which obviously moved her greatly. Janet was also fascinated, hardly taking a sip from her drink while Sally spoke.
“Once I agreed with Carl that I wanted to be freed from the devastating power—the bondage, really—of this anger, all three of us knelt in prayer, right there in his office, and he prayed with me to give my anger to the Lord and to forgive Henry for the pain and the problems he had caused.
“And you know what, Janet? As we knelt in prayer and Henry and I quietly wept, I could feel this huge weight being lifted from me. I mean physically. I was suddenly able to hold my shoulders up again. My mind cleared. I saw Henry in a whole new light, with both his strengths and his weaknesses. I suddenly loved him even more and wanted to hold him and to support him in that difficult time.
“Carl suggested—and we kept it up until Henry left for prison—that we pray together, on our knees, holding hands, every day. Janet, I don't know how couples who pray together ever split up. When both partners in a marriage ask their common heavenly Father for forgiveness and guidance and strength to cope with the ills of the day, it binds the two people together in a way I really find difficult to describe. But it happens. It works. By the time Henry had to leave, our faith had broadened and deepened, and we shared that joy during the last few months I had with him at home.
“Listen, it hasn't been easy, at all. The kids and I are renting a two-bedroom house that would fit into a corner of the home we used to own. I had to go back to work. Thank God Henry's brother took over running the business. Henry has a place to come back to for a job, although we had to sell the ownership to his brother to pay the legal fees.
“But you know what, Janet? The other three guys on the boat that morning were also married. Two of them are now divorced. Their wives left them. The third wife is, I think, having an affair. I don't know what's going to happen when her husband comes home. But despite all the pain and all the problems, our marriage is actually much stronger than before this all happened. Our children have backbones. The oldest one has a paper route, and his income helps put food on our table. They have learned so much about life and love and good and evil and forgiveness.
“And every morning, Janet, I've awakened up and said out loud, remembering several of my friends whose husbands and brothers died in the war, ‘Thank God he's not dead. Henry is alive and will come home. Whatever our problems are, they could be a lot worse. Just look around.’ And that, along with the Holy Spirit's in-filling, is how I've made it through each day.
“I'm sorry, Janet and Richard. I've talked too much. But His power has turned what could and should have been a disaster into a great blessing. I have no idea what the future will bring, but I know that Henry is getting out and coming home day after tomorrow. The kids know that too. We're all healthy, thank God. Henry has a job. We don't have much else, but we have each other. And we'll make it, with God's help.”
Janet could not help but feel the moisture in her eyes as her old friend finished her moving story. She felt as if she had just read a short story or seen a movie. It was interesting and entertaining, but not immediately relevant to her. She couldn't help thinking it would make a good script for a television docudrama. Janet could never imagine anything like that actually happening to her or to Richard, but she appreciated what Sally and Henry had gone through. Richard and Janet looked at each other across the den, and each one had words of comfort for Sally.
Once again, nothing changed in either Richard or Janet as a direct result of Sally's experience. Yet another seed was planted, and the groun
d became a bit more fertile, under the simple power of Sally's testimony.
17
ONE YEAR EARLIER – When Court and Sandy Shullo moved to town, and Court joined Richard's law firm in criminal litigation, they also joined the Church of Faith, a relatively new and growing church near their home. The Church of Faith had a dynamic young pastor, Stephen Edwards. Court and Sandy had both grown up in homes where the Christian faith was an active part of their families’ lives; they were pleased to find a strong and growing church of their denomination, just like Morningside was on the other side of town.
Richard and Janet had been looking for a reason to take the young associate and his wife out to dinner, but their four schedules always seemed to be in conflict. Then Court and Sandy invited the Sullivans to a Friday evening dinner preceded by “Praise the Lord,” a joint musical production by their church's young adult forum and their youth group. At first Richard and Janet hesitated, thinking the show would be pretty silly. But Court finally prevailed, and the younger couple drove the Sullivans to the private school where their church had leased production facilities for four performances in one weekend.
Richard was frankly astonished by the quality of the production, both in its original songs, its casting, and its staging. Several of the city's better actors and actresses were interested enough in the event to volunteer their time to the show.
The story line was about a modern family in disarray, with the husband and working wife spending too much time away from the family. Lives were changed, and a tragic near-death was averted because the teenagers in the family learned about the power of the Holy Spirit, and brought faith to their family.
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