The Tumor and The Heart
The Tumor and The Heart
I own a construction company. From time-to-time I will wind up spending a lot of time with my clients on a one-on-one basis or even with the families and we usually become friends. I have always thought that making friends was one of the most enjoyable aspects of what I do.
Another part of my job is going to home shows, garden shows, and such. In 2003 I met a young couple at a garden show who were building their first home in Tigard, Oregon. I sold them a retaining wall and a couple of weeks later on a Monday morning I was out there getting my employees started on the job, and the client came out to watch. We were standing together on the bare dirt looking down over the hill. I was not looking at him but I was looking at the guys down the hill making sure everything was going smoothly.
The customer said, "I just hope the wall is finished soon so the landscapers could get in there before…" and then he started crying.
I turned around and said, "Sir, what's wrong?"
"Never mind." he replied. "It's okay."
"No, no really," I said, "What's wrong?"
The client looked at me with tears still in his eyes and said, "Well, my wife is terminally ill with a cancerous tumor underneath her heart." He took a deep breath and went on. "It's all wrapped around and within the bowels and main stems to the heart. It is inoperable and incurable. She is 38-years-old and she has less than three weeks to live."
Well I was just shocked because I had met her at the garden show and you'd never have known that she was that ill. "Nothing can be done?" I asked.
"They gave us two options." he said. "One, leave it alone and let it take it's course, or two, attempt an operation to remove the tumor which if successful may possibly give her another thirty to sixty days." That would give them enough time to have their yard finished. He wanted so badly for his wife to see their first house completed. Even though there was only a 50/50 chance that she would even survive the surgery they had decided on option 2 and were going to take her to St. Vincent's Hospital the following morning.
I went home that night unable to get this young lady and her husband out of my mind. The next day I went over to their house and arrived just as hospice was wheeling her from the house to the car that would take her to the hospital. I was standing on the other side of the yard. As I looked over at her, I said to the Lord, "That lady is too young to die." The Lord told me to go over and pray for her.
I walked across the yard and said, "Excuse me Mam," I said, "My name is Bob Elliott. I'm an evangelist and God sometimes speaks to me. I believe the Lord asked me to pray for you. Would that be okay?"
She looked up and she started crying. She said, "Would you please? I don't want to die."
I didn't really know what to pray, I just knew God said to pray. The prayer that came out, I will never forget. It was the simplest prayer. It wasn't fancy. I just said, "Father, you have asked me to walk across this yard, and I realized that when you asked Peter to get out of boat he walked on the water. So Father, you have asked me to walk across this yard by faith and you have asked me to pray for this lady. Father, by your Son's stripes at Calvary, Your word says that 'By His stripes we are healed'. Father, by the faith you gave me to walk across this yard, you summoned me to walk across here by faith and I did that. And you said that you would heal this lady, and I just thank you for that right now. Father, in the name of Jesus, cancer be gone, in Jesus name. Amen."
After the prayer, they put her in the car and drove off to the hospital. I didn't heard anything more about the young couple. Three years went by and I found myself at another show in February. I was in my booth minding my own business when I heard somebody hollering, "Bob! Bob! Bob!" And I looked up and some lady that I did not recognize with a full head of hair was running across the auditorium with her hands up in the air, calling my name. Then I caught sight of her husband behind her and I immediately started crying. It was the lady who had been given thirty days to live. As I jumped up to greet them she grabbed me, she started shaking up and down and jumping and saying hallelujah!
It took her a moment to calm down enough to tell me the rest of the story. She said that when we prayed that day that a warmth came over her chest and that by the time they got her to the hospital and began to prepare her for surgery, they took x-rays that showed her cancerous tumor had gone from the size of a 10 cm grapefruit down to the size of a golf ball. They were able to remove the tumor completely, and she has had no other cancer and no chemotherapy, and it is almost four years later.
It just amazes me how God can use us as vessels, and that we can pray for people and that they can be made whole. It doesn't matter that our prayers aren't fancy and flowery it only matters that they are prayed out of faith and obedience. It was so exciting to see her face that day at the show, so different from the last time I had seen it. I got to spend some time with her and her husband recently at their home. We stood looking at the yard from the same place where the husband had shed tears of sorrow four years ago but this time the tears were of joy and thankfulness because God had saved his wife from death. "Inoperable" and "Incurable" just don't mean the same things to God as they do to us.
I own a construction company. From time-to-time I will wind up spending a lot of time with my clients on a one-on-one basis or even with the families and we usually become friends. I have always thought that making friends was one of the most enjoyable aspects of what I do.
Another part of my job is going to home shows, garden shows, and such. In 2003 I met a young couple at a garden show who were building their first home in Tigard, Oregon. I sold them a retaining wall and a couple of weeks later on a Monday morning I was out there getting my employees started on the job, and the client came out to watch. We were standing together on the bare dirt looking down over the hill. I was not looking at him but I was looking at the guys down the hill making sure everything was going smoothly.
The customer said, "I just hope the wall is finished soon so the landscapers could get in there before…" and then he started crying.
I turned around and said, "Sir, what's wrong?"
"Never mind." he replied. "It's okay."
"No, no really," I said, "What's wrong?"
The client looked at me with tears still in his eyes and said, "Well, my wife is terminally ill with a cancerous tumor underneath her heart." He took a deep breath and went on. "It's all wrapped around and within the bowels and main stems to the heart. It is inoperable and incurable. She is 38-years-old and she has less than three weeks to live."
Well I was just shocked because I had met her at the garden show and you'd never have known that she was that ill. "Nothing can be done?" I asked.
"They gave us two options." he said. "One, leave it alone and let it take it's course, or two, attempt an operation to remove the tumor which if successful may possibly give her another thirty to sixty days." That would give them enough time to have their yard finished. He wanted so badly for his wife to see their first house completed. Even though there was only a 50/50 chance that she would even survive the surgery they had decided on option 2 and were going to take her to St. Vincent's Hospital the following morning.
I went home that night unable to get this young lady and her husband out of my mind. The next day I went over to their house and arrived just as hospice was wheeling her from the house to the car that would take her to the hospital. I was standing on the other side of the yard. As I looked over at her, I said to the Lord, "That lady is too young to die." The Lord told me to go over and pray for her.
I walked across the yard and said, "Excuse me Mam," I said, "My name is Bob Elliott. I'm an evangelist and God sometimes speaks to me. I believe the Lord asked me to pray for you. Would that be okay?"
She looked up and she started crying. She said, "Would you please? I don't want to die."
I didn't really know what to pray, I just knew God said to pray. The prayer that came out, I will never forget. It was the simplest prayer. It wasn't fancy. I just said, "Father, you have asked me to walk across this yard, and I realized that when you asked Peter to get out of boat he walked on the water. So Father, you have asked me to walk across this yard by faith and you have asked me to pray for this lady. Father, by your Son's stripes at Calvary, Your word says that 'By His stripes we are healed'. Father, by the faith you gave me to walk across this yard, you summoned me to walk across here by faith and I did that. And you said that you would heal this lady, and I just thank you for that right now. Father, in the name of Jesus, cancer be gone, in Jesus name. Amen."
After the prayer, they put her in the car and drove off to the hospital. I didn't heard anything more about the young couple. Three years went by and I found myself at another show in February. I was in my booth minding my own business when I heard somebody hollering, "Bob! Bob! Bob!" And I looked up and some lady that I did not recognize with a full head of hair was running across the auditorium with her hands up in the air, calling my name. Then I caught sight of her husband behind her and I immediately started crying. It was the lady who had been given thirty days to live. As I jumped up to greet them she grabbed me, she started shaking up and down and jumping and saying hallelujah!
It took her a moment to calm down enough to tell me the rest of the story. She said that when we prayed that day that a warmth came over her chest and that by the time they got her to the hospital and began to prepare her for surgery, they took x-rays that showed her cancerous tumor had gone from the size of a 10 cm grapefruit down to the size of a golf ball. They were able to remove the tumor completely, and she has had no other cancer and no chemotherapy, and it is almost four years later.
It just amazes me how God can use us as vessels, and that we can pray for people and that they can be made whole. It doesn't matter that our prayers aren't fancy and flowery it only matters that they are prayed out of faith and obedience. It was so exciting to see her face that day at the show, so different from the last time I had seen it. I got to spend some time with her and her husband recently at their home. We stood looking at the yard from the same place where the husband had shed tears of sorrow four years ago but this time the tears were of joy and thankfulness because God had saved his wife from death. "Inoperable" and "Incurable" just don't mean the same things to God as they do to us.