I wasn’t looking for excitement. Not hoping for challenge. Not anticipating anything other than a long day in the waiting room, while my mom got the cancer cut out of her face.
I was treasuring the silence. A full day without lessons or obligations, demands or expectations.
A thick Francine River’s book waited in my purse, as my mom stepped back to have the skin on her face removed.
A lot of waiting and little talking….or so I thought.
An older couple sat across from me. However, an introvert by nature, I was happy in my arm-railed seat, tucked away from reception.
But something about the older man appealed to me. He was tall, lanky, and carried, ever so gracefully, light blue eyes that glimmered.
He had a phone and was talking to someone. The only way I can describe him is, every fiber of his being was open, available, free…connected.Â
- Connected to his wife who sat next to him.
- Connected to the person on the phone who called to talk to him.
- Connected to the nurse who came to get him, to have the lesion of cancer removed from his lip.
When he went back to have his procedure, I reached out, almost involuntarily, to his wife, “You and your husband seem like such a sweet couple.”
It started out innocent, but before I knew it, she was talking about their marriage, their past marriages, and how they have been together now for over thirty years.
I was in awe. They both looked so young and happy. So deeply and utterly content.
No striving to impress. No adapting to represent. No fake or phony. Just him and her. A love song made and destined, forever.
Her husband came out from the back room and had to wait with us, to make sure all the cancer was removed. The wife pulled him into our conversation. He didn’t hold back.
He shared about how they had gone to school together, in a one room schoolhouse.
And about how he had kissed her at age thirteen, and was waiting his whole life, and two marriages, just to find his way back to her.
A story more beautiful than any Hollywood romance.
She was shy. He was bold and confident.
Then, a quick turn came to the conversation. “Are you a Christian?” He asked me without hesitation.
“Yes, I am”, I replied, locking eyes, as if I had just met some distant relative.
He tells me a story…
His wife had bought a new motorhome for some people, and had it placed on their property, so they would have somewhere to live.
The husband was bold and confident, while she lived her life through service, giving, doing, and being the hands of Jesus in ways that were very practical and tangible. Cooking for her grandchildren. Doing taxes for those needing her help. Serving the church for decades.
“The gas was on and filled that motorhome”, the elderly gentleman continued. Then, his friend ignited something and he heard a loud, audible voice from no physical person in that motorhome with him,
“GET OUT….NOW!”
He ran from the motorhome, just as it exploded. His face partially burned, but je miraculously survived.Â
I clarified, “Who was that voice? God?” He shared how there was no one else in there with him. And how the voice was loud. And it wasn’t anyone he could see. He knew it was God’s hand saving him.
I was hooked.Â
Then, the man shared more stories…Â
His friend had been in the navy, working under water when Pearl Harbor got bombed. As a result, his friend lost his hearing. Awhile later, this man dated a sweet, church girl. Eventually this partying navy man decided to show his face in church. When the alter call came, he went forward.
As his friend went forward and lifted his hands, he heard a loud pop. God touched him! HE COULD HEAR!!!
But the stories got better….
The older gentlemen waiting for word in that waiting room of the doctor’s office, shared how a friend was preaching to a bunch of kids. His preacher friend encouraged the kids to lift their hands and to just talk to God. They did.
Then, what can only be explained as a gust of wind, came moving through that place, and every single one of those kids became filled with the Holy Spirit and started speaking in tongues.
“I was video recording it, at the time”. He assured me. It was on tape. Documents. Legit. 
I didn’t need evidence. I believed him.
But then, the biggest story of all came. One that moved me with such encouragement.,,
The gentlemen in the waiting room shared how he had been working with a friend. He heard a loud, “THUD”. He ran over to his friend and his friend had fallen. His friend lay completely dead. Eyes open. Heart stopped.
Paramedics and fire engines came. They confirmed as well, the man was gone. They tried to revive him to no avail. The man called his friend’s wife to tell her the terrible news.
But then….
A whisper reminded him of Scripture, John 14:14, “If you ask for anything in my name, I shall do it.”
So, in the mighty name of Jesus, this man walked up to his dead friend and declared, “God, you said, if I ask for anything in your name, you shall do it.” And he asked for his friend to be made alive.
Sure enough, within a minute and a half of his prayers, the man’s dead friend started breathing again.Â
Another miracle.
It’s time we live bold, friends.
I learned so much during those few hours of talking to this couple that day. The husband had brain cancer. He had cancer all on his face. He was due for another kind of surgery and face reconstruction.
His brain was riddle with death….but his Spirit was more ALIVE in him, than anyone I had ever met!
In the grips of a place people came from the office, covered in patches of cloth where cancerous skin was now gone…I was encouraged and blessed by the testimony of one man who was bold enough to speak up.
And I am reminded, Scripture tell us, “The enemy is slain by the power of HIS BLOOD and the WORD of our TESTIMONY”.
For hours I heard testimony! And to be honest, it was so much better than any “how to” sermon, or man of cloth lecturing us on what we should or shouldn’t be doing.
His words were FIRE and LIFE, POWER that ignited something in me that I have never ever felt!
Finally….
The old man that I might never see again, the one that belted out the truth of his life as others sat for their cancer surgery, shared a word that will always stick with me…
He challenged me…
“BE BOLD….Isn’t that what Scripture tells us to do?”
I nodded in agreement as I rallied my Spirit, confirming by locking eyes with the man filled with so much life and hope, death couldn’t defeat him.
Where are we when it comes to faith and boldness?Â
I wake this morning and read, “No one after he has lighted a lamp covers it with a vessel or puts it under a [dining table] couch; but he puts it on a lampstand, that those who come in may see the light.”
I am challenged today, to let my testimony surface.
And I vowed right then and there to never be ashamed of the gospel or what God has done for me. If God can do it in one old man, riddled with cancer and married to the love of his life….
He can do it in you and me, too.
God, won’t you challenge us to share the POWER of our testimony with others. Don’t let us wait until we are dying or old, or riddled with disease. Let us do it now! There is power in the tongue and deliverance that comes as we share about you and all the good things you have done.Â
