Dan's Thoughts

Trish #36 - July 21, 2004

Today, amid the increasingly good news about Trish's recovery, came a distressing phone call. It was from my daughter and son-in-law who had taken our granddaughter, Moira, to the emergency room. She had a very high temperature. So far, the doctors didn't know why and had not been able to get her temperature down.

Tiffany and Austin have been in Nashville for a couple of weeks, visiting friends. I have been happy for them because they have worked so hard these past few weeks helping me through this present difficulty . Of course, they have also been dealing with their own struggles during these many weeks because of Trish's aneurysm. So I wanted them to have a good time.

My rational self told me that there was not anything to get excessively worried about. My experience told me that children get fevers and that they are rarely life-threatening. So, over the phone I spoke calmly to my children. But my insides were churning. As I began to write this, I was alone in our house, a house that just two months ago was ringing with lively voices. Tonight, our house is empty. Silent. The recent threat to Trish's life casts a shadow that is hard to shake. For the moment, the usual optimism through which I tend to view the world, got clouded by that shadow. It obscured my intention to see things rationally and reasonably. Trauma does that to people.

Until this month, I have not faced serious personal tragedy. I have walked through traumatic experiences, of course. I just haven't faced this kind of threat to the lives of my loved ones. Though I have consoled many as they faced tragedy and death, even wept with them out of my sympathy and concern, it is new to experience it myself.

I haven't known what to do with it. Each night, I set down and use the keyboard of my computer to force pain to produce meaning. The words take hours to form because numbness utters no speech and real pain delivers no soliloquy. Writing about pain is the work of translation. I listen to the emotions churning in my gut and force them to speak English. I then take the translated material and thrust it out into the world. Sometimes, afterwards, I can sleep.

"In all likelihood, this incident with Moira will turn out to be a passing thing," I said to myself, "it will turn out to be something that years from now, when someone mentions it, we will scratch our heads and look puzzled until one of us will say something like, "oh, yeah, I remember that!"

But that will be then. Tonight is now.

Sometimes, people walk through seasons in which there is nothing to do but endure. And when it feels as though we have endured all we can, we simply ask for the strength to endure some more. That is what we have done these past few weeks. Thanks be to God, strength has been given. Not in abundance certainly, but always enough for that day.

The ability to endure and even thrive during this present trial came from the struggle of the past ten years.

Trish and I have ministered together for thirty-one years. During this time, we started four churches, three of which are still thriving. We have served house churches. We have served mega churches. We have lived in five countries and learned three languages. Most of our work has been wonderful and rewarding. However, a few years ago, we ran into embedded evil and high-handed wickedness. From that time forward, we began to face storms the like of which we had never experienced. At times, it seemed as though the very mouth of Hell had opened up to swallow us. During such battles, we just hung on for dear life. After a while, the struggle became so long and intense, developed so many twists and turns, that we stopped trying to explain it to people. We just knew that we had inadvertently entered some kind of spiritual battle that was beyond our understanding.

I am a reasonably educated man. I have a low tolerance for superstition, stupidity and ignorance. I did not want to admit that what we were facing was supernatural, even though we were experiencing spiritual phenomena that was at times hair-raising. I just knew I was in over my head. So, I asked spiritual people for advice. I "cast down" and rebuked. A few times, I prayed all night. I confessed, pled the blood and quoted scripture. I got counseling. I studied for another degree to gain more knowledge. I received visitors from far away places who manifested fascinating and bizarre gifts. Once, I even fasted for over a month. Only lately has the intensity of that struggle subsided.

I still am still not sure what all the struggle with darkness was about. It remains a mystery to me why evil seemed so intent upon destroying this church, my faith and our family. But I know one thing: we have endured. Furthermore, I know that we have won the battle. Darkness did not overcome my marriage as it intended. It did not destroy my belief in God as it desired. It did not make me bitter. It did not make me cynical. It did not make me stop laughing. It did not make me stop being curious or adventuresome. It did not steal my heart. It utterly lost. My wife had the rest of her hair cut off today because the front part had been shaved. She looked in the mirror and laughed at herself. "Maybe I will get a nose ring and impress the kids downtown" she said. "Lets go to the cafeteria and eat!"

So, on second thought, we have not just endured. We have thrived. We have grown and expanded. We have learned things. We have changed. We never stopped believing that "weeping endures for the night but joy comes in the morning." We refused to stop worshipping. We embraced natural life. We learned to love one another. We refused to accept defeat. We determined to live. And, we are fully alive tonight.

"And thought this world with devils filled, should threaten to undo us; we will not fear for God has willed His truth to triumph through us!"

As I was finishing this note, I got a call from Austin. He and Tiffany were surrounded by Pastor Hardwick, Pastor Paul Russell, the Gardner's and other friends from the church in Nashville. The doctors had just released our baby and told everyone that she should be fine. Evidently, she has a virus that must run its course.

Then, Trish called from the hospital to check on the baby. I told her all is well and that she should go to sleep now.

"Praise God!" She said.

I got off the phone before I realized that Trish just called me from the hospital. She can pick up a phone, remember our number and call our house! Most of all, she can still praise God even in the midst of her fiery trial.

I thought of a scripture: "This is that which overcomes the world, even our faith." The man who wrote that experienced hardships and deprivation that would make my trials look like a Sunday school class. His faith was not based upon easy answers nor upon a cushy life style. And yet, he found joy in the midst his trouble. Like I said, we are not even close to the class of spiritual life that the apostle John experienced. But we too have experienced joy in the midst of our pain. We have known faith that stands in the midst of uncertainty.

About three months ago, before all this happened, I thought that I heard a word from God. "This season is over. You are about to enter a new season of joy and productivity." When I told Trish, she said that she had received the very same thing. Trish and I rarely talk that way. We tend to shy away from saying "God said" very often. But this time we really did feel that way. We were waiting to see how it would all happen. I didn't expect anything like we have experienced.

Life and faith are like that. We continually "see through a glass, darkly." That's why we need faith. Faith, after all, is not certainty, it is trust in the face of UNcertainty. We do not have the option of escaping death, sorrow and struggle. We do have an option about what we do with them.

Tonight, for a few minutes I was really uncertain -- even afraid. But I made it through. I am ready now to go to bed and sleep.

As I finish this day, my Lord tells me not to worry about tomorrow. He promises that when I awake in the morning, provision will be given to me that prove to be enough for that day. As for this day, the portion of daily bread I was given proved to be fully sufficient.

Dan