The Lord by His grace and mercy saved my wife, Betty, and me eighteen years ago. We heard the gospel at a home Bible study that I was invited to attend. I went that evening, but would not allow Betty to go, because I didn’t know who these people were. So I went alone. That night, I heard Ephesians 2:8-9, John 3:16, and other verses that presented the true gospel.
I went home and got Betty out of bed. “Get up! Get up! I’ve got some great news I have to tell you.” She got up, and we sat there and talked about it late into the night. We read the Scriptures from a list I had been given that evening. I had a Bible and I just went through it again and again and I believed, just like that. Within a week, Betty and I both believed. We both believed and the Lord made a difference in our lives.
The Christians said we hit the ground running for the Lord. We just loved the Lord so much. He was all we talked about, all we thought of, He was all we lived for. We started attending Martin Road Gospel Chapel immediately, and within months we were baptized. We were involved in the Bible study where we heard the gospel, and we started teaching Sunday School at the Central Bible Mission in Detroit. This was all within the first few months. We were really running.
Within that first year, we got involved in a new work in the area where Lakeside Bible Chapel is today, the result of that work that started in a basement as a Bible study. It was just something we had to do, something we wanted to do. We wanted to live for the Lord.
But like the fable of the tortoise and the hare, that’s what happened to me. Within 5 or 6 years, I ran out of steam. I took my eyes off of the Lord. Basically, I put myself back in the world and I started living for myself and the world. The cares of the world began to predominate my life, so much so, that I lost my first and greatest love, my love for the Lord. The Lord that saved me took second place in my life. Consequently I became backslidden. This condition lasted for a decade.
Now all the time that I was running on my own steam, I just knew that I wasn’t living for the Lord. But the Lord never left me alone. I asked Him to. But He didn’t leave me alone for a minute. I was under conviction from the start.
During this time, I came up with a formula for my life that I would recommend to no one: “Jesus plus sin equals misery.” That’s the way it was. We were really saved. It wasn’t like I heard the gospel and believed for a season and then said, “Ah, forget it!” No. The Lord saved us. Yet, in my backslidden state, I had no peace. I couldn’t enjoy my sin. I knew I had to confess it, and go back to the Lord. But I would not, even though nothing had ever satisfied like the Lord. I just continued for a decade. That’s a very long time. But the conviction grew stronger and stronger in me that I had to repent. The Lord kept drawing me back.
So finally, two-and-a-half years ago, March 17, 1991 to be exact, I was sitting in my easy chair with my newspaper, the kind of worship I was doing every Sunday. I just couldn’t sit there anymore. I got up, started getting dressed, and my wife asked,
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going back to Lakeside.”
“I’m going with you,” she replied.
So we came back. Not that I wanted to; a part of me didn’t really want to come back. But deep in my heart I did. We walked in and sat down right where we always sat. That day Chris Schroeder was speaking on James. He brought out the Scripture that says our lives are “but a vapor.”
Boom! Right between the eyes. I broke down and cried. I repented right then and there and recommitted my life to the Lord. We both did. That was the greatest move we ever made. Because when you belong to the Lord, you can’t run with the world and be satisfied. Only the Lord satisfies.
All the time that I was wandering, I knew that I owed it all to Him. I knew that I was purchased with a price–His blood. I had wandered and wandered, and when I came back I was totally different. I used to tell Betty, “It would be better if I never knew the Lord, than to live in this misery.” When you live for yourself, and you are the Lord’s, it is miserable.
Now, we haven’t regretted one day coming back to the Lord. I realize now that He has used my fall to teach me to be humble. I needed to be humbled because I was proud of being saved. I got to that point. I used to say, “I don’t believe in backsliders. I don’t think they were ever saved.” I would tell brother Barry Mahloy this. And he would say, “Brother, there isn’t any depths a saint can’t fall to, if he takes his eyes off the Lord.” I didn’t believe it then, but I believe it now.
After we came back, I got into reading the Bible again and studying it. I quickly found 1 John 2:15-17. “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” There’s the secret!
What has the Lord done for me and Betty in the last few years? Everything. Everything that we could possibly think. I couldn’t even tell half of it. He sustained us through the most difficult time of our lives. The year 1992 was good for us, physically and spiritually.
Physically, the Lord answered my prayer. It was the first time in 19 years that I was pain-free almost the entire year. I used to pray, “Lord just give me one day without pain. One day without back pain.” He gave me a year without back pain. We really grew. We learned to rely on Him through adversity.
In 1992, Betty had a terrible time at work. Money had been stolen, and she, being the manager, was questioned by police, along with other employees. She became the chief suspect, and was requested to take a polygraph test.
The Lord came to us and seemed to say, “Don’t worry. I’m in charge.” That is when the Lord gave us Psalm 27:1, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom shall I be afraid?” We would get on our knees every morning and pray and recite that verse, because it was out of our hands.
But soon the thief was found–an assistant manager. Soon things got back to normal, and we just praised the Lord. Yet through this, although we didn’t know it at the time, He was preparing us for what was to come.
Betty and I have been going through a few other trials lately. The day after Thanksgiving, I was injured at work. I incurred a second ruptured disc. The first one, which had been removed, was ruptured in 1990.
This one was a bit different. I was hospitalized in December, but the doctor wouldn’t operate. He said there were complications with the scar tissue from the first procedure and it could debilitating. So he said, “Go home, rest up for a couple a months, and see if it will get better.”
I went home and laid there. I couldn’t walk; I couldn’t sit up. Many of the Lord’s people came and visited me at that time. I couldn’t move, but the saints were wonderful at that time. They prayed, they sent cards, made telephone calls, and visited. Some men even came over and had the Lord’s Supper at my house, because they knew how much I loved the Lord’s Supper and worshipping the Lord. They knew how much I missed it because I couldn’t be out.
Things were bad. They were real bad for us. I was told I would never work again. But things were good, because I knew that the Lord and the saints were on my side. With them on our side, I knew things would work out for us. So we just held on to that truth . . . and then the ceiling dropped in.
On February 1, Betty went in for a biopsy. It turned out to be cancerous. This was the same lump we had been told repeatedly, for two years, that it was nothing. I couldn’t even be there with her that day at the hospital, but some believers were there. They called me and told me the news. It was like being stabbed. I don’t know how else to relate it. I just dropped to my knees and asked the Lord to help us. And He did. I didn’t lose heart. I knew that the Lord was in charge.
That night, Tom Johns and his wife Lizzy, Pam, and Rick came over and prayed with my family. Tom said, “Look brother, you have fallen. But here’s Psalm 37:24. Read it, and put it in your heart. ‘Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholds him with His hand.'”
That night, I went to sleep thinking about that wonderful verse. The next morning, since I couldn’t drive, my sister had to drive me to my doctor. He said, “You need back surgery. Your condition is worsening.” Another blow! What can I say? We were devastated, but we just had to rely on the Lord. And by His grace, we both did.
I had to postpone the surgery for several months because I knew Betty had to go into surgery. Someone had to take care of her.
Three days later, we went to her doctor. Betty’s doctor said that she needed a mastectomy and chemotherapy. Could we keep taking these blows? We didn’t know where to turn but to the Lord. It was during this time that the Lord gave us Psalm 27:13-14, “I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.” We memorized it, we prayed about it, we just held on to that.
Well, Betty had her surgery on February 27, and started her chemotherapy in March. It was a bad time. But we still held on to that Scripture and the Lord continued to strengthen us. She had been in and out of the hospital with complications and blood clots. She spent ten days in the hospital in April. She was released for Easter Sunday but returned to the hospital. I went in for my surgery the following Wednesday.
During this time, she was in Royal Oak Belmont and I was in St. Joseph’s East. We made the rounds in the hospital. The accommodations aren’t too bad, but I would rather have been home. I had to go in for a test to see where exactly the disc laid before they operated. On that occasion, the doctor also found that I have a condition called spinal stenosis. This is a closing down of the vertebras, or the spinal canal, onto the spinal cord. And this can cause pain, many complications and paralysis. And he said that he recommended some extensive surgery which would entail cutting the vertebras in half vertically and then removing the disc and fusing three vertebras to my pelvic bone with six pieces of my own pelvic bone that they would cut out. It was another blow. The doctor asked me to decide if I wanted this operation.
I couldn’t even consult with Betty because she was in the hospital at Royal Oak and I was at the hospital in Mount Clemens. What could I do? I got on my knees and prayed to the Lord. I was afraid. I said, “Lord, take this from me. You make the decision. I can’t make this decision. I can’t do it, Lord.”
I asked the elders to please pray that I make the right decision. Two days later, the phone rang very early in the morning. It was my doctor. He said that though this condition is like a time bomb waiting to happen, he chose not to do the surgery at this time. He would just remove the disc.
Well, I was elated. I said, “Praise the Lord, Doc! Time bombs don’t always go off. This is an answer to prayer.” It was. It was out of my hands, and the Lord took care of it. By the way, if they did that surgery, I would have to stay in a body cast for four months, without moving.
On April 14, I went in for my surgery. Betty could not be there for all of it, because she was so sick because of the chemo. But Pam Mahloy was there from dawn until dark every day. She had promised Betty that she would be there with me.
We have since continued to receive our strength and guidance from the Lord–and our patience as well. The love of the saints at Lakeside was wonderful to us: the cards, the letters, the phone calls. We were never left alone. Not ever. Every surgery we ever went through, someone was there from the chapel, praying with us. We could not have done it without the Lord. We could not have done without the Lord and the saints.
The Lord knew what we would be going through, and He drew us back. He has sustained us since then and continues to sustain us. I’m still going through therapy. I’ve since gone back to work (though not in full capacity), but I have gone back to work. The Lord is continually strengthening Betty to face her ordeals. Her chemo is to go at least to the end of the year, and she has several other surgeries. But she continues to trust in Him.
Has it been easy? No! It hasn’t been easy. Could we have lived through it without the Lord? No! Have we been blessed through it all? Yes!
In conclusion, I can take the words of Psalm 116:1-2 to sum it up for us: “I love the Lord, because He hath heard my voice and my supplications. Because He hath inclined His ear unto me, therefore will I call upon Him as long as I live.”
What a difference He has made.