Introduction
A few days ago I went out to lunch with a parishioner, John Fox, and we got on to the subject of the Holy Spirit. He told me that he believed that God did things, and started telling me what God had done in his life. One of the first things he told me was how his son had had some health problems, including migraine headaches. Finally, when his son was in his teens, he got a terrifying headache that lasted ten days. John called up a priest couple that he knew. They arrived, anointed his son, said some prayers, and left. Then his son broke into an intense sweat, after which he took a bath. His migraine went away never to return.
The thing I noticed the most about John Fox was how much he loved his family. His daughter had just gotten married, and he was very proud and thankful for her. "She is drop dead gorgeous," he said. I could tell he loved her. She is in her mid twenties and has a job with considerable responsibility. I commented that his wife, whom I knew thirty years ago when we taught in the same school, was the most beautiful woman in the school. "She still is," he said. He was not at all pretentious about this, just loved his family. He was also very proud of his son who is quite gifted intellectually.
As the conversation went on, he began to tell me how God made promises to him when his son was in the hospital due to a premature birth. I asked him if I could write this story down. He said he had already written the story down for his children, along with some other stories. He wrote them for his mother-in-law, Liz, who was over ninety. He said he would give these stories to me, which he did. I thanked him. There are four of them. They are exactly as he gave them to me, except I capitalized the proper nouns and made a few other small corrections. I did not change the wording. The stories are addressed to Liz, his mother-in-law. I offer them to the reader because they reveal how God keeps his promises, and how a man has surrendered his life to the Lord.
One final note: At one point in the story given below, God speaks to John. When John was telling me about this, I asked him if he had been praying before God spoke. He said he had, that he had been praying intensely to God the Father in the name of Jesus. In his words, "God doesn't come unless he is invited."
John's Story, How God Keeps his Promises
April 8, 2000
Dear Liz,
As the years merge one into the next some of the most important events are not discussed and relived to preserve them. Ancient tribesmen used to pass all of a culture's history from one generation to the next by telling what had transpired in the past. These stories were added to and repeated so that future offspring could benefit from the past to educate their children and to also use it as a tool to prepare for the future.
I don't know if you have ever been told this story, but it is true. I know I haven't ever told you, even though I should have, but I really want you to know about this. Since the majority of the events directly involved me I am certainly the one to tell the story.
Let me take you back to the days just before John was born. Peggy had been confined to the bed until she delivered. I was working on the formation of the animation company project that I had been working on. Navey Lou was taking care of Peggy. Things were going along as best that they could under the circumstances and then on November 25, 1977, little John came for a visit, three and a half months early, at 2 lbs 4 ounces.
The next part I know you remember. You had come down for the delivery with Betty and after a full day of labor and the birth we finally made it back to the house late that night. The next few days were filled with anticipation and discovery as we got John situated at university hospital in the neonatal ICU. He was doing much better than any one had predicted and so I left for New York for the first marketing exercise in the animation company effort. I was gone about 5 days. You stayed with Peggy and Mcgehee took her back and forth to the hospital. When I returned and you had gone back to Talbotton, John turned for the worse and things became very bleak.
In today's world of modern, or should I say more modern, medicine the procedures that they have for taking care of premature babies is much more advanced than it was in 1977. Twenty two years have brought about many great technological breakthroughs that have greatly decreased the infant mortality rates. But, as I look back on those days, I believe in most cases that John would have been just as well off if the doctors would have come into the room chanting and dancing around his bed with beads and incense.
John was not able to breathe on his own and the doctors had to put him on a respirator. This device was very large and very noisy. When it breathed forcing air into his lungs it made a blowing sound that I can still hear in my head today. We were told that he would have to be on the machine for about a week or so until his lungs developed and he could breathe normally.
Everyday was a reoccurring nightmare. The phone would ring every couple of hours and it would be a nurse giving us an update about John's condition. Most of the time they would say that he was holding his own, but sometimes they would say that it was very touch and go and that he would not make it for another day. Those were not the calls that you wanted and we never really knew from one call to the next how he was or what the next report would reveal.
We had 24 hour privileges at the hospital. No matter what time of day we had a pass that would allow us to go through the emergency room and up the back hall to the ICU where he was. This area was a fairly large rectangular open room. It was about the size of the downstairs of your house....without the walls....and had many incubators and open type beds that the babies were in. The ward was over crowded because this was the only neonatal ICU in all of northeast Florida and southeast Georgia and the demand for the beds was great. Beds lined the walls and also filled the center of the ICU making small aisles large enough for the hospital staff to work on their infant patients. I have often thought of what would have happened if we were not able to have John admitted into this hospital. He wouldn't have had a chance.
John's bed was on the far end of the ward. He was on a little open type of a heater bed that kept him warm even though he was very naked with just a little diaper covering his middle. He had multiple needles in his arms and legs and probes in more places than he had places to put them. He had restraints on his arms and legs to hold him down and at the fighting weight then of 1 1/2 pounds he had a very large breathing tube down his throat pumping air into his lungs every 15 seconds.
There were many other children in the ward who were in varying conditions themselves. When an apnea monitor would sense that a baby was not breathing or when some other sensor would indicate that a baby was in distress alarms would go off and nurses and doctors would scramble to the side of the one who was in need of emergency help.
We saw many babies die during those days. Some died in front of their parents and some died alone. When we were there the only prayer we had was... "Please dear God take any of them but please spare our's." I guess all of the parents there shared the same prayer.
It was in this type of atmosphere that I found myself one late night beside the bed of my son, it was 3 in the morning.
As you might imagine I was not sleeping very well those days. Peggy and I had so many feelings of guilt. What could we have done differently? What could we do better? What should we have done? ...what should we do? ....and trying to work with my home building company....keeping some sense of normalcy for Caroline in the home....Peggy was still very much recuperating from the delivery and trauma of coming home without her baby. The pressure was on and now I found myself leaning over John and talking to him.
The neonatal ICU ward was pretty much the same at night as was during the day. Doctors and nurses were coming and going. The lights were as bright at night as any other time of the day. The noise level was just as high. John's respirator continued to bellow out oxygen and noise as it wheezed almost mournfully.
I said..."John, you are worrying your mother and me to death....I want you to tell that machine...I want you to say, 'machine...thank you very much but I do not need you anymore....thank you Mr. Machine but that's enough'....I want you to tell that machine to just go to hell, John and that you do not want this hose down your throat anymore....I want you to breathe on your own John ....do you hear me..."
My words were getting louder and louder as my frustration started to increase. It really didn't matter though because the noise level in the room was loud enough to almost drown my words to the others that were around.
I kept up my talk to John though and lowered my voice so that only he could hear me. I must have been there saying basically the same words over and over for over an hour and I knew that I had to go soon. But before I left I told John one last thing...
"John?...since I know you can hear me and I know that you understand every thing that I am telling you I want you to give me a sign that you will obey me and tell this machine to go away and start breathing on your own..."
Since John had been so premature he really had not fully opened his eyes to this point. They were just kind of slits that I guessed that he could barely see light through. At any rate I had never seen him open his eyes and so I thought that would be a definite sign....so I said, "John I want to make a deal with you....if you understand what I am saying and you really want to do what we are talking about and you will start breathing on your own then I want you to open your eyes....when I count to three I want you to open your eyes....ok?....here we go....1...2...3..?"
I swear to you Liz at the count of three he opened his little eyes as wide as they could be opened and my heart about leaped out of my chest. ...."Ok...ok...John, you did pretty good that time but we have to test this thing one more time so when I count to 2 you will close your eyes and we are going to do this all over again....1...2..." And once again I swear he closed is eyes.
Well by this point in the program I can tell you that I was beginning to get pretty excited not knowing what was in store for us in the next few moments. It was just about that time that I counted again.... "... Ok John one more time, pal....here we go...1...2...3..."
And of course right on cue he opened his eyes one more time. Well I thought I had to share this with someone and so I straightened up from my leaning over position. I saw a nurse and a doctor who were walking away from me down the right side of the room. They were looking at a chart and talking.
This is where it starts getting really weird so bare with me.
The noise level in the room sort of wound down....like you would take a record that was playing on a record player and put your finger on it to slow it down and the noise would then be slowed and become groggy and unintelligible.
I looked directly at the doctor and nurse and they appeared to be in slow motion...very slow motion....but did not appear to discern the difference in time as I had. Because the fact was that time had slowed in the room, if not fully stopped, and John and I were a part of it.
I looked back at John and there was a slight glow around him. Things could not have been more surreal. My mind raced to interpret what was going on...and then I heard a voice.
I cannot tell you if I heard this voice from within my body or actually heard it through my ears. I have thought of this often and after almost 23 years I can still not reconcile with myself how I heard the voice of God. I do know that I will never forget the sound of the voice and how familiar the voice sounded to me...as if I had heard it before. I knew instantly who it was and in that moment he told me three things.
He said... "I will take care of your son....I will take care of your daughter too....and I will take care of your business."
That was it, short and sweet. He didn't tell me what a rotten person I was or what I had to do to make all this happen. He didn't scold me or tell me any more than the three things...but oh my goodness, there was no mistake what had happened.
I looked over at John again and said..."John...did you hear that?"....he was fast asleep. I looked up at the doctor and nurse. They regained their normal speed and walked to the door at the end of the room unaffected by the past moment's events. The noise level in the ward ground back up like someone releasing their finger off of the record. But something had changed....something was different....
The respirator which had pumped air into John for the past 10 days had turned off and the baby was breathing on his own. This day is documented in John's medical records as the day that our son started his long climb of recovery. He had bottomed out and God was there to start the process back to health.
This story is far from over. I went home and told Peggy what had happened. She thought I was crazy as a loon, but in the days to follow God would show her and reinforce to me that his words were very true.
I will continue this in my next letter to you. I ask you not to second guess what happened because you will only know the truth when the story ends. I can tell you that when I have told this story and the others...yes there are others....about how God has intervened directly in our lives and the lives of our children that the lives of those who have heard the stories have been changed forever. I only regret that I have taken so long to share these with you but as you can see I am in the process of remedying that.
There's lots more to tell so hang in there and i'll talk to you later.
John
April 9, 2000
Dear Liz
I hope that you are having a good day. I have decided to go ahead and write the majority of these stories in a rather short timeframe so if the dates seem a little old please excuse that. I will be sending them to you kind of spread out so as not to bombard you with them all at once. Sort of like a serial at the movies.
When last we met.....
John had started really doing better after my encounter with the Lord. That in itself sounds pretty funny to say. I can't even begin to think what Paul must have thought on the road to Damascus. Not to draw too much of a parallel but can you imagine walking down the road and being struck blind by someone you could not see and didn't believe in to start with? In my case I believed but was not expecting him to show up on my behalf or that of John's....especially in a neonatal ICU at three in the morning...but he did.
We rocked along for a few weeks. John had been totally off of the respirator since the encounter as promised and it really seemed as if things were going to be sort of smooth sailing. In retrospect I know that was just me being naive.
It was almost Christmas and our neighbors were having a little party next door. Peggy and I went to make a cameo appearance because neither one of us felt much like partying.
We stayed for about an hour or so. Peggy was ready to go but I wanted to stay a while longer so she walked home by herself.
I came along in about 30 minutes or so. I'll never forget the way Peggy looked when I walked into the house. She was sitting on the sofa in the family room and was sort of slouched down in the cushions. She was as white and pasty looking as I've ever seen her and when she began to speak the words caught in her throat. "The hospital called....John is in very bad shape....they think he's going to die tonight," she said. Tears were starting to come into her eyes as the reality of the situation began to sink in.
The only thing I could think of was how to comfort my wife in a time that she needed me the most and still make a stand for what God had told me. The words just came blabbering out of my mouth...."Damn it, Peggy...I thought I told you....John is going to be Ok....he's going to be fine....God has told me, everything is going to be alright."
I am sure at the time my words did not give my wife much comfort. Not only was she about to lose a child but her husband had gone off the deep end as well. She started to protest and tell me that I was wrong and how he had fought the good fight and now he was going to die. This is about the time that I kicked the conversation...or better said, the fight into another gear.
I tried to make her understand that this was really the truth and that I was not making it up. God had spoken to me and all we had to do was believe in him and his word.
She sadly agreed but very reluctantly. About that time the phone rang. I can remember answering it as if it were just yesterday that this happened. Of course I used all my southern tact and charm...it was Christmas wasn't it.
"Hello and what the hell do you want!"...I answered. What a command of the english language I have when I am mad. I was seriously hoping that the person on the other end of the phone was up for a fight because I sure as heck was.
"....ah...Mr. Fox?...this is nurse so in so....at the hospital?....and we don't know what has happened with your baby son...but....I sure am sorry that we....ah....called before...but....everything seems to be ok....He's just fine....as a matter of fact....he's great.....I sure am sorry that we upset you guys..."
I handed the phone to Peggy. She couldn't believe her ears. How could this be.
What had happened was that when they had taken John's blood gases which is a blood test to see how much oxygen he was absorbing and what condition his general blood count was in they found that he had lost about 60% of his blood. They call it an hematercrit dip. But in John's case it was off the charts.
But this was a triumph that night. The bad side had tried to make an end run on what God had promised. We had stood our ground and believed and the truth prevailed.
The good news was that he had stabilized from what was surely a catastrophic event. The bad news was, we would find out the next day that it was probably caused by a cerebral hemorrhage and that he would be a vegetable in later life.
The next day I met a doctor who was like the chief resident doctor. Remember this was a teaching hospital and the second string docs were either interns or residents, but more residents than anything else. I can see him today. A nice looking guy with a full head of hair, rather long as I remember, and he had a full beard. He was about my age, keeping in mind that I was 28 at the time.
We got along great and he had really taken an interest in John. He promised me that he would be the one to take John to get a catscan which would tell us where the blood went...hopefully....and he promised to stay with him throughout the procedure and to bring him back when they were through.
Those kind of guys you remember and so it was. John came back to the ward several hours later.
The doctor really had a hard time trying to answer to my question of ..."So where did the blood go...?" There was no answer. The catscan was negative. The blood hematercrit was absolutely normal....and there was no brain damage at all....Oh, and by the way, before they called and scared the heck out of Peggy that night after the party....they had checked his blood gases twice before sounding the alarm....so they knew he had lost the blood.
Now if that don't put a smile on your face I don't know what will...!
That same doctor was the one who told me that John was fully stabilized but he would not gain weight because of the electrolyte solution that they gave to him. He couldn't tolerate anything else so we were pretty stuck.
So what could he eat..... The doctor said that if he received breast milk it would start him gaining weight. Peggy unfortunately did not have any because they had given her something at the time of the delivery to stop milk production because they were sure John was going to die at birth or shortly thereafter.
I came up with a plan where we would locate nursing mothers and they would donate milk to him. I would go around twice a day and give the mothers sterilized bottles for them to fill up...or as close as they could....and then I'd pick them up and take them to the hospital. This would be about the time that my new friend the resident doctor was coming on duty and he agreed to administer the milk and check to make sure our baby was retaining the milk and digesting it.
He agreed because his tenure at the hospital was coming to a close in a couple of months and he had the time and desire to do this feeding project because....it was...fully against hospital policy....but we did it anyway.
This feeding idea was very successful. John began eating and tolerating the milk and began putting on about an ounce a day. To look at him today you can not really imagine an ounce making much of a difference...but it sure did and we fought for every ounce he could put on those little bones. After all was said and done the doctor gave his superiors the findings and based on what we had done during that time they changed their policies and those of the hospital and allowed the other babies to get the same type of milk. No telling how many babies were saved because of this.
The rest covers the next 2 months or so in the hospital and then finally home. Everyday filled with new challenges. Everyday we had those challenges answered so quickly and easily that it was almost frightening.
When we got him home the next challenge was to pay the bills and that's when I found out the health insurance company we were using was going bankrupt.
And that's where I'll end this time. I also want to tell you next time the inside story about Caroline and the disease she had....diagnosed almost the week that we got John home....
I'll talk to you soon.
April 19,2000
Dear Liz
Well its 6 in the morning. I just let the dog out and he's playing with our cat on the back porch. Peggy is coming home today from being with her 8th grade kids in the mountains. She called from the Dillard House last night. I hadn't come home from work yet so she left me a message. The group had been white water rafting all day. I think her breakfast duty shift started at something like 5 in the morning. Then helping on the river in very cold water all day. I dare say no one had to rock her to sleep last night. Hopefully she will be home around 9 tonight. She's only been gone 4 days but I am really ready for her to come home, I must admit I miss her so.
Let me continue with our retelling of the story.
We finally got John home from the 3 hospital tours he had taken. He was now 3 months old and weighed in at a strapping 4 pounds and about 13 ounces. As you well know it had not been an easy time of it....even though, since my encounter with God....or should I say, his encounter with me....things had progressed about as well as they could have under the circumstances.
After we started him on the mother's milk program he started picking up weight and really had few if any problems of any consequence during the rest of the time that he was in the hospitals. He was literally and definitely in God's hands and we knew it....we still know this today.
But what about Miss Caroline? What was she doing all of this time?
Caroline at the tender age of 2 and a half was doing all of the normal things that a toddler was suppose to do. She had spent a good deal of time with her Jacksonville grandmother and they had bonded while John was in the hospital. But now it was time to try to put our little family unit back together. Peggy, being one of the best mothers God ever put on this planet, noticed a faint rash on Caroline's hands and knees. It really didn't look like much to me but she took her to our pediatrician anyway just to be on the safe side.
He gave her a little cream to rub in on the red areas of her skin and told her to come back if it didn't go away.
It didn't go away and actually started intensifying in color. So Dr. Frame sent her to a skin specialist. This was a guy who we did not know but someone who our good friend Dr. Frame thought could identify what was the underlying cause of the rash.
The dermatologist was a guy named Charniko. That's not the real way you spell his name but is pretty close to the way it is pronounced.
Charniko is a guy who even today I have not laid eyes on. Peggy took Caroline by herself and with one look at the rash he told Peggy to do something quickly to save her daughter....Save my daughter? Peggy thought....why on earth....
The doctor went on to explain that it appeared to him that Caroline had a disease called dermatomycetes which is an auto immune dystrophic disease that is ultimately fatal.
I can remember coming home and hearing the words from Peggy as she told me about the wretched man she had been to that day and how he had scared her and how he told her that Caroline was really sick with some disease that she couldn't even pronounce.
John had been home almost 2 weeks before this next chapter in our lives started. We were directed to go Gainesville where the University of Florida had a teaching facility called Shands hospital. It was there that we met Dr. Ayoub.
Once at the hospital we made our way through a sea of indigents waiting for their turn to one of the free clinics in the hospital. I was hoping that we were on the wrong floor. Certainly this could not be the place where we would find a cure for what was wrong with Caroline!
We were getting pretty use to dealing with doctors and nurses and hospitals about this time. There were a few nurses still bearing the mark of my hand on their shoulders where I had grabbed them to get their attention during the ordeal with John. I was wondering if this would be a similar experience.
If you are thinking that I should have realized at this part in the program that God had told me that he would take care of Caroline too...you would be right....I should have realized and believed in that....but I can honestly say that the thought to that point did not even cross my mind. I was drinking in the ever changing environment as we made our way through the hospital and was on guard all of the time about the people we were being thrown in with and the situation as a whole. God was the last thing on my mind at that time....I was on a mission and I had to do everything in my power to help and protect.
We walked up to the reception counter and told them who we were. They wrote our names down and told us we would have to wait our turn. There must have been over a hundred people in this waiting room....damn, this is going to take forever.
To my surprise in about 20 minutes they called our names and in we went.
His name was Elia Ayoub and he was Palestinian. Dr. Ayoub looked like an Arab movie star. He was dark but very handsome and walked with the gate of a prince. He had very black piercing eyes and a most gentle smile. His touch was kind and gentle and his speech was that of an Oxford grad.
Dr. Ayoub examined Caroline. He was a specialist in auto immune diseases. This is a category of diseases that little is known. 20 years ago even less was known about them. Auto immune is a term that basically means that your body gives the disease to itself. The triggering mechanism is some type of a virus that you get from an outside source.
After some time with several blood tests and studies Dr. Ayoub confirmed that Caroline had dermatomycetes, but there was hope.
It just so happened that Dr. Ayoub was conducting a study about this very disease....how about that! ....and that he had been seeing good results through using a steroid called Prednisone. As it turns out this doctor was one of a very few in the world who even knew of this disease and how to try to treat it. He was known throughout the world as an expert and all within 70 miles of Jacksonville.
Now...I ask you....who would have thunk it....God would have ...that's who!
To go past this time about a year.... Dr. Ayoub went on a 12 month sabbatical to Egypt to conduct a workshop and conference to instruct other doctors from all over the world on this and other auto immune diseases. After this yearlong absence he came back to us in Gainesville. I tell you this fact here to later show how fortunate we were to have this guy.
It was on our second visit to Shands that I fully realized what was really going on. Dr. Ayoub had told us at this point about the diagnosis and had prescribed the medicine that we needed to give to Caroline. He told us about the many side effects that the medicine would give to her. How she would be extremely hungry all of the time and how her face would blow up like a balloon. How here joints would swell and how hyper she would get.
At this point these were just words and even though we heard them, never having experienced the effects of steroids on a small child who was taking large doses to knock out a potentially fatal disease, they initially meant little to us.
Dr. Ayoub called me into the hall and asked me to go with him to another patient's room. As we walked down the hall he told me that we were going down to visit a boy who also had this disease. That's all he said before we walked in.
I stood inside the door as dr. Ayoub greeted the boy and his mother. The boy was in the bed and looked very sick and weak as he tried to gain strength enough to talk to the doctor. I could see the stress and worry on the mother's face. They both looked like the pictures you see of refugees that have been through many sleepless nights running away from a pursuing enemy. Dark bands under their eyes, gaunt but hopeful faces.
He continued to talk to them as I watched. Dr. Ayoub gave the boy a very cursory examination and made small talk with the mother for a few minutes before promising to return later in the day. He turned for the door and I followed.
"So what did you see", he asked as we left the room.
I told him that I saw a very sick child and a very worried mother.
"That's right", he said."that child has the same disease that Caroline has. The difference is that his mother did not discover the rash until too late and he will be dead in less than a year because of it. Your wife found the disease very early on and if you do what I say and when I say it I think that we can save your daughter....but you have to be strong. Always, no matter how much your wife complains, no matter how much your daughter cries, no matter what ever happens you make sure that Caroline always gets her medicine on time all of the time no matter what....do you understand?"
I sheepishly agreed. It was like I was getting the lecture of my life by the kindest and gentlest man I had ever known. I knew at that instant that he was truly a messenger from God and I remembered what I had been told a few months before in the ICU back in Jacksonville...."I will take care of your daughter too".
Dr. Ayoub continued by telling me how rough things were going to get with Caroline and how we all had to hang I there. The bottom line was that he believed the medicine would pull her through but had it not been for Peggy and her immediate instincts that the day would have been lost before we would have ever seen Dr. Ayoub.
Ain't that great....seriously.....Peggy saved Caroline and didn't even know it. Ayoub was there to direct and facilitate the process and confirm what was going on. All I had to do was believe in God's promise and make sure that Caroline always got the medicine. What a plan!
Of course it wasn't that easy or even, at that time, that well defined but, in a nut shell, that was it.
Well, as they say in church....of course there is more but we'll save that for next time.
And just wait, there's a whole bunch more to tell. The good news is that Caroline is happy and healthy and so is John. Just getting them to this point has been a little trying at times....but that was the fun of it....maybe fun is not the right word.
The last time I saw Dr. Ayoub he called me aside to tell me that one of his teen aged sons had just been diagnosed with the same disease as Caroline had. When you get this after about age 6 the chances of survival are greatly reduced. I hope that I am wrong but he probably lost that child....I do not know this for a fact.
A tragic ending for our triumph over death. Life is filled with ironies isn't it.
I'll talk to you later
John
May 7, 2000
Dear Liz
When last we met.....we had finished with Caroline's episode ....and oh what a time that was. Just to re establish the time line Caroline was under the doctor's care for about 3 1/2 years or from the time she was 2 1/2 until she was about 6 years of age. Even then after tapering off of her medicine for the last 2 years or so of her regiment she was still a very chubby faced little girl. My eyes still swell with tears every time I look at the pictures we took of her during those days. I must admit that she was a real trooper and even though she hated going to Gainesville and taking the medicine and getting all of the shots and blood tests we all three knew somehow that it could have been a whole lot worse.
Then there were a few years of calm....so to speak. I was trying to dig myself out from under a mound of hospital and doctor bills. You see, my health insurance company filed for bankruptcy protection right after John got out of the hospital and in those days you could not just run out and obtain other insurance....not with what is referred to as pre existing conditions. And since both of the children were not in the best of health and they could not be insured we....the Fox, junior family, had to self insure. That is to say that since I was the only breadwinner in the family and the only source of income, I had to figure out a way to make enough money to not only keep the family afloat but to also pay for the $40,000 50,000 in bills that came from John's internment and also the bills that Caroline had run up over her treatment period. That was only about $10,000 or so but keep in mind in those days 10,000 dollars was a year's salary for a whole lot of people....and was damn hard to come by for me as well.
I was building and selling houses in those days. My animation company was going on as well but not really making us much money. I can remember one Sunday going out to the houses that I was building. I use to stay at the houses all weekend long in order to sell them myself so that I would not have to pay a real estate commission and ultimately would be able to make more on each house.
This particular Sunday while I was driving out I was trying to figure out how much longer our money would last us. I had almost spent us down to nothing and the hospitals were calling on a daily basis trying to get us to pay down our balances. Interest rates were really high and the housing market was very poor in Jacksonville. I figured that we had only about 350 dollars or so in our checking account and I could not get another construction draw on any of our houses for a couple of months. The good news was that I never used the house money to pay for our living expenses but I sure did need some cash to just get us by until a house could sell and close.
I could re hear the words of God in my mind as I drove along and remembered him saying that not only would he take care of the children but he would take care of my business as well.
In a quick prayer I reminded God of that promise...as if I had to remind him of anything....as I drove along. That afternoon was really very slow and only a few tire kickers came by to walk through the houses. No one bought or really showed much interest in me or the houses.
When I was driving home I thought of all the things that I could do to be a better homebuilder. All the things that I could do to market the houses better or try to attract more customers. My back was literally up against the wall and I did not have any place...other than asking for help from my family....to turn to and no real place to go.
It was at that time that I really had what you might call my epiphany. (you said the other day that the stories that I had told you were "some kind of a religious experience". Which, I might add has to be the greatest understatements of the millennium. You also said that it might even be called an epiphany....while those times with the children were any and all of that I must now tell you that this drive home was my true encounter with the power of prayer and the one on one contact we all can share with God.)
I simply started talking to God and asking for his help. I told him that...sure I could do all the many things that I had thought of to be better and wiser when it came to my business but....would that really help? I told him that the bottom line was that he was in control and that I was not in control....even though for the first 30 years of my life I tried to be....and that if it was going to happen he was going to have to make it happen and that I was turning the whole show over to him and I would simply follow his lead.
No lightning bolts bouncing off the inside of my truck....no thunder shaking the ground as I drove along...no cracks in the earth...no resounding utterances from heaven. That was that and I entered the next week as I always did.
There was a slight change though. By the end of that next week I had sold 2 of our houses and had a contract for another to build. My animation business had its first large contract from a restaurant company and the insurance company that I had to sue because they had sold me a bad health insurance policy rolled over and paid up a large chunk of what they owed. My cashflow increased dramatically in a very short time and we were well on our way to getting out of the woods financially.
Liz....I know that you might think that I have embellished some of these stories or have taken so kind of poetic license to make some kind of a point, but, I assure you that I have not and I encourage you to ask anyone of our children...even though when it comes to the financial part they really don't know that part very well. They certainly do know the other parts though and Peggy knows every detail that I have told you too. This is all true and powerful and why we are what and who we are today.
Ever since that day I have always tried to let God be in full control. When I find myself taking over, things in my life always get really rocky on all fronts. If I can recognize this early enough I can straighten it out and tell him how sorry I am and let him take back over....if I do not recognize it early enough then things will deteriorate until I make things right.
And so it goes, I have totally given my children, wife, my businesses and, yes, even my total self to God. He runs the show. I try to take his lead and do what I can do on a daily basis to make things happen. It has been that way for about 20 years now.
There is a place in the Bible that talks about coming to him as a child. Being like a child, a child of God. And much like a baby depends on a parent for his survival I threw away my claim on my life and let him handle it totally and it really has seemed to work out quite well.
We have just today gone to bring some of John's furniture home from school. He will be arriving home for the summer in the next few hours. I think I told you some weeks back that he was going to come home to help me start a new internet company. That will, of course, be in God's hands as well.
If the new venture makes it that is what he would want. If it leads us down another road, so be it. It will be another interesting chapter, that I know. Maybe this will be the reason that God saved John from death 22+ years ago. I know one thing for sure, he saved him for some reason and one day we will find out why.
It ought to be an interesting summer....and then some because if we can launch this company and can find the financing, John will be running it with me and probably won't be heading back to the hallowed halls of higher education at the University of Florida.
This will be his choice completely and John will have to take it up with his father the same way that I took it up with mine.
Consider this your mother's day card. I hope that you have a great one and I hope that you have enjoyed reading these stories as much as I have enjoyed telling them to you. I needed to put them into writing and am glad that you are their first reader. These will be handed down to the children for them to read to their children and somehow I hope they inspire others to trust totally in our Father God.
People will say things like....how did God allow Mary Lou to die....or other type things. I don't have a very good answer for them because we all have to find those answers for ourselves. All I can tell them is to trust in the Lord and one day it will be revealed to us.
Our next and last story in what might be called "the miraculous series" will tell you about the time Peggy called 2 of our friends who are Episcopal priests down to help John when he had a migraine headache for 10 days and couldn't open his eyes to the light. I think I will get her to actually write that one and then I will tell you about the stick up the nose trick that John pulled and the angel we encountered in the emergency room that night.....and you thought I was through with our stories didn't you...?
And so I also say to you Elizabeth, trust and be well and be happy in everyday. You are the mother of the wife that God gave to me and I love you.
Happy mothers day Liz....and I'll be talkin to ya soon.
John
