Read my father’s story. It is both shocking & inspiring. This happened when he was 66 years old. Now he’s 74 and is a changed man – both spiritually & physically. Just one of the many inspiring testimonies documented in the book: ‘Seeing Beyond the Natural, Student: Me … Professor: God’ – a revolutionary book that will change your mind, change your perspective & change your life!

SEVENTEEN

Faith For The Battle

 At the end of chapter five, I posed the question: What do you do when you are in a bind and have absolutely no idea what is going on – when there is no vision, no dream, no premonition? As you read this chapter, you will discover the answer to that question.

My father had been a very quiet man for as long as I could remember. Although he kept my siblings and me in line, he was never abusive and did his best, along with my mother, to take care of us.

Daddy barely uttered a word to us about his past, but you just knew that he had experienced a lot of hardships in his life-time and was holding on to some painful memories. I don’t remember him smiling much. He probably saw it back then as a sign of weakness and there was no way he was going to give anyone the impression that he was weak. With that seemingly impenetrable exterior, he did not seem happy at all. Though alive, he was not really living and sometimes, I truly felt sorry for him even as an adult going about my own life. Daddy was a closed shell; walls were up and had been up for decades. Now at sixty-six years old and set in his own ways, any future change for him seemed highly unlikely.

My father was hypertensive for many years and sometimes, he failed to take his medication. In 2006, he started having some chest pains and difficulty breathing. As he was not a fan of the hospital and practically never went for check-ups, he had to have been in a very serious physical state to agree to see a doctor at one of the local clinics. His visit there, however, appeared fruitless as he literally had to sit up night after night since lying down proved unbearable for him. Then one night, I got the call that every child who loves his parent dreads: My father had been rushed to the emergency room of the hospital.

Ozzie and I immediately drove to the hospital where we met other family members waiting there with my mother. Daddy was lying on a gurney looking very frail – unlike the robust man I had known him to be all of my life. In a short space of time, he had dropped a considerable amount of weight which indicated to me that before he had opened up to my mother about how he was truly feeling, he had been suffering quietly.

With a heavy heart, I went over to him and said these words that still ring in my ears today, “Daddy, just as you walked in here, you will walk out.” It was not his physical state that convinced me – as it dictated quite the opposite. It wasn’t hope that convinced me (though hope is vital in any trial); it was the Holy Spirit that gave me those words for my father and attached to those words was my faith.

Ozzie and I accompanied Daddy as he was wheeled upstairs. They connected him to an echocardiogram machine where his heart was displayed on the monitor. We were stunned to see how slow each heart-beat was. Imagine opening your hand and taking ten to twelve seconds just to close it into a fist. That is how slowly his heart seemed to be beating. Ozzie and I were amazed that he was even alive with such a sluggish heart.

Several tests were performed and the doctors discovered that Daddy’s heart, due to years of poorly treated high blood pressure, had enlarged to the size of his chest. His kidneys and liver were also not functioning optimally which presented a solemn diagnosis of heart failure. Needless to say, the news was crushing.

We were told by the chief cardiologist that Daddy would need a heart transplant which happened to be very costly. Furthermore, even if we could afford the cost of the procedure, Daddy would be on a long waiting list. The doctor explained that my father’s heart would never reduce in size and that if he did not have the heart transplant, he would have to rely on various medications to sustain him for the remainder of his life. In other words, his chance of making a full recovery was nil.

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