Chapter 11: OUR LOVE’S GREATEST TRIALS, Part 3

My Sheep Hear My Voice and Answer When I Call

During the course of Jack’s brain cancer experience, he twice tried to take his own life.  He became very discouraged; full of hopelessness, and despair gripped his soul.  He was in fear – anguish overtook his mind over what he may go through (and put his family through) regarding this brain tumor.  Our doctor was meticulous in forecasting doom and gloom, revealing all that Jack was likely to experience – what we should watch out for.  Some of these things were:  seizures, headaches, memory loss, sleeping – eventually going into a coma: not waking up at some point, losing his thinking faculties, losing his ability to walk –become bedridden at some point, and probably much more but this is what stands out most that bothered Jack.  He felt he was just a burden to everyone and that he could no longer be the main provider – he hated that I had to go back to work and he stay home.  Also, sharing the room with the dentist in the final stages of this cancer did not help as he constantly brought it up.  I would always tell him: “Jack, I do not believe you are going to loose your mind or suffer those things as I have asked God to number your days and not let you suffer those things – I believe He heard me and that is not going to happen.  Also, every day that you are alive and draw your breath, it is a testimony to the world, of God’s hand upon you, as you should not be alive now.”  This would appease him for a period of time but these tormentors would constantly return hitting him faster and harder with each attack.

Also, Jack loved gardening and he was very good at it.  He was always tilling his garden of weeds, watering it, and preparing what he would plant next – even drawing little diagrams, rotating his crops, ordering plants and seeds for his next planting.  It was torture when he had to give up his gardening!  I actually tried to take over one summer while he sat outside but it was a disaster!  He had a Troy Horse tiller and while he had shown me how to operate it, the tiller was so powerful (and I was not) that I could not turn it at the end of the row and it went into our chain link fence!  That was the last of my tilling days, needless to say.      

After Jack’s brain tumor changed to stage 4, he contemplated quite a bit, what the doctor said he would probably experience.  He began to speak of “checking out” or finding a way to end his life – make it look accidental, so the girls and I would have double life insurance.   One way that came to his mind that he mentioned to me, was driving very fast down the East-West connector near our house at night and having it appear he had fallen asleep.  At this time the East-West connector ended on Hicks road, right at our church – there was a very high wall of dirt and rocks: phase II had not begun yet on this connector.  I would always counter his thinking by telling him: “Your life is not your own – it belongs to Christ, the day you accepted Jesus as savior – you were bought with a price and now Jesus gets to say when and how you leave this world – the choice is His now, not yours.  I would also ask how he could even consider something like that, leaving the girls and me with that kind of legacy.”  He felt God would understand his wanting to end his life as he had no purpose now, he was becoming a burden and that would get worse in days ahead.  I remember repeatedly telling him: “Jack, one day when you get to heaven you are going to see your ordeal through the lives you touched just by living!  You do not have to do anything but live and breathe – you’re a living testimony of God’s intervention in your life, as you should not even be alive right now.  Some day you will be ashamed that you even asked those questions, when you see the place that the Lord has prepared for you, it will tell you how intimately He knew you – it will probably have rich, black dirt and plenty of places for your garden.  You will understand one day, when you see the actual faces of the lives your story has touched.”  

One night, some months later Jack got up to smoke and mentioned he needed some coke as we were completely out.  He was going to find a station or something open to get some cigarettes and cokes.  He had many times done this so it did not really alarm me, only I began to realize he was gone much longer this time.  I got up to see what was taking him so long and looked all over the house for him to no avail. I began searching outside when I noticed our Chevy Astro Van was missing, so I went back into the house to wait.  But what should have been a 30 minute trip was now two hours.  I sat on the couch looking out the window, watching for headlights and praying.  As each minute seemed like an hour, I prayed earnestly for him.  I wanted to go out and search for him, but “where would I start – he has had time to travel hundreds of miles by now.  I agonized before the Lord at what to do – I felt like I was helpless and totally in the dark on what to do, how to proceed.  My girls were in elementary school and Rebecca was still very young so I could not leave them alone.  My questions were: “what if my girls wake up and find me missing; what if I leave to go find him and he has crashed someplace and the Sheriff comes out to tell me – my girls would be alone, having no idea where either of us were, and I could get into trouble for leaving them unattended.”  My prayer was: “What am I to do Lord?  Should I take a chance and go look for him or wait?  Please bring him back home – don’t let him take his life Lord, please give your angels charge over him and keep him from succeeding.”   

While I lost track of exactly how long Jack was gone, I knew it was at least 2-3 hours since he left.  Finally the Lord spoke, urgently: “Go get your clothes on now!”  I ran and threw on what I had taken off that evening, and grabbed my keys.  I started the car and at the end of my street I asked: “Lord, which way do I turn – left or right?”  He answered: “Left”, so I turned left onto Seminole Circle.  Next I came to Floyd Road and had to turn either left or right so again I inquired of the Lord: “which way?”  He answered:  “Just wait here – see that vehicle coming way down the road (the headlights were far away – I could barely see them) wait for it to pass.”  Now, I could have pulled out two or three times by now but nevertheless, at His command – I waited.  (“Doesn’t that sound like Peter when the Lord told him to cast his net and he said: Lord, I have been fishing all night, but nevertheless, I will do as you say?”) When the vehicle was about to pass I suddenly realized it was Jack!  I just could not believe it was him the Lord had me waiting on – talk about perfect timing, God has it, let me tell you!  I pulled out behind him and followed as he turned right onto the East-West connector.  I drove up next to him and blew the horn and yelled:  “Jack, what are you doing – come home, please!”  He looked bewildered and shocked to see me but turned around and followed me back home.

After I had him safely back in my arms again, I held him and let him speak his heart.  He said: “I made up my mind, I was not coming back home; I decided I would keep trying until I accomplished it, only each time I would build up speed a car would suddenly cross my path and I would have to turn suddenly onto Hicks Road – where are all these people coming from at this time of the night.  They should be home sleeping at this hour, not driving around all night.  I have been going around the neighborhood for hours!”   (I felt like the Lord had an angel appear each time Jack tried to crash, to deter him!)  I also felt the Lord reveal to me that this time Jack would have been successful, if I had not gone out to find him.  I knew that knowing the Lord’s voice, trusting Him and waiting upon Him had saved Jack’s life that night.   I again encouraged him that Jesus Christ paid the price for his life – “it now belongs to Him, not you and you just need to let Him number your days – I know He will not let you go through more than you can bear.”  When he would ask: “Momma, what are you going to do when I become like that dentist and am totally out of my mind?  I do not want you having to deal with what that man’s family went through, with me.”  I told him: “Jack, God will give me the strength to handle whatever you go through. He will give me the strength and wisdom to handle it – if and when it happens.  I trust Him to be there for me and to guide me when that time comes.”

A few years down the road, on a Thursday night, Jack evidently decided to end his life, again.  I thought he was over that, but that evening he needed his Flexeril prescription filled and I went to get it for him.  When I returned home he had a bottle of “Jack Daniel Whiskey” sitting on the table which really upset me.  I do not like alcohol and its effects upon people but I let it go considering what Jack was dealing with.  He wasn’t one to get intoxicated so I said nothing but I was concerned at mixing his med’s with alcohol – some of them warned about drinking alcohol.  I was getting ready to go to bed and Jack was sitting on the deck smoking, so I went to kiss him goodnight.  I felt a presence on the deck with Jack and knew that he was going to try something that night.  As I embraced Jack and kissed him, he started telling me how much he loved me and the girls, that he was grateful to God for bringing me into his life and that I had been a good wife to him.  When I went to bed I just came against the spirit of suicide and committed Jack to the Lord’s keeping all night long and asked the angels to watch over him and keep him from harm.  I asked the Lord not to let it work, if Jack was not ready to stand before Him. 

The next morning I got up to get the girls off to school – Rebecca was in the 1st grade at this time, Christina – 5th, and Elena 4th.  When I went upstairs to wake them up, I found Jack lying on the floor at the front door!  I checked his breathing and he was barely breathing, and his eyes looked strange – all black like there was no pupil.  I got the girls out the door to catch their bus and I remember they looked troubled, not understanding what had happened to their daddy.  I told them he probably just fell and was not able to get back up and just fell asleep till I got up to help him.  Truthfully, I did not have any idea what he had taken or done. 

After the girls left I phoned my sister Betty and my mother in Tampa, Florida to tell them what happened, and to ask for prayer.  My mother and sister both told me to get off the phone and call 911 immediately.  But as I picked up the phone to call, I felt the Lord speak to me strongly: “No, wait”.  So I decided to call my pastor Steve Brown and have him pray with me – while he was praying I felt a tremendous anointing like static electricity!  Afterwards, I immediately fell upon my face before the Lord and humbled myself in His awesome presence and asked Him to show me what to do about Jack: “should I call 911 or wait?”  I knew Jack would not want me to call them, so I would be going against his wishes to call 911.  Still, common sense tells you, you must call!  So I called another close friend, Ruth, who also said: “Sharron you have to call 911 right now, before something happens to Jack!  I again picked up the phone to call, when I heard the Lord’s voice again, only this time louder and stronger: “No, wait”! 

A couple of my friends expressed their concerns over whether I may have to answer for it, if Jack died, and I sat there and did nothing.  Questions were presented to me like: “what are you going to tell the police if he dies as to why you just sat there and did not call for help?”  I admit that this did cause me great concern, but every time I thought about it I felt the Lord standing there with his hand outstretched – as if to say: “Stop - wait!” like police officer’s do.  Finally the Lord spoke: “If that happens and he dies, I will put the words in your mouth to answer, I will speak through you.”  So I just sat there and watched him sleep, prayed and wondered. 

I began to investigate what he may have taken, in case I had to tell authorities what I thought he had ingested.  I found the Flexeril bottle in the trash, empty which had 20 pills in it, and also I knew he only had 11 Percocet, for pain.  I knew he had drunk approximately one third of the Jack Daniel, but that was all I thought he had taken.  Jack lay there, from sometime during the night (?), until around 5:00 PM when he finally started to move and speak.  Christina helped me get him into one of those rolling office chairs as he needed to go to the bathroom; he could not stand as he still had all that junk in his system. 

After it was all over and he came out of it, he began to discuss it with me.  I let him know what my investigations had discovered, that he had taken: 20 Flexeril, 11 Percocet, alcohol… when he corrected me and said: “I took more than that – I had a bunch of sleeping pills and some more Percocet too – that should have done the trick – I don’t understand why it didn’t work!”   I found out that Jack had been planning this for some time and had been saving his pills – acting like he was out or low and hiding them in a Rolaids bottle so I would not know; altogether he had over 100 pills in his system!  (I also considered the fact that he was operating on very little prescription drugs in order to save them all up – that alone is incredible considering the grade level of his cancer!)

I knew the Lord had performed a miracle!  I told Jack: “the fact that you lived through all that should tell you the Lord intervened in the situation and also, I prayed that it would not work.  But Monday morning I went to work and was discussing the situation with my boss, Johnny Johnston who is a strong believer when the Lord revealed something to me.  He showed me that had I called 911, Jack would have blamed the pills not working on you, the ambulance staff and ER medical staff (especially you though).  But by letting the Lord totally have the situation – God got all the credit for it’s not working.  The Lord wanted Jack to see that it was God and God alone that had kept it from working!  Jack never again tried to take his life, as he came to understand that the Lord was not going to allow that to happen and he began to draw closer to the Lord up to the time of his death.

I believe it will be very important in the days ahead to know His voice and be lead by His Spirit.  We need to familiarize ourselves with His voice now before trouble comes unexpectedly.  This was quite a lesson on waiting upon the Lord and trusting in Him totally for guidance – going against the grain, so to speak.