August 20th, 2007 by admin

            A couple of months progressed, and late in the summer of 2004 we sold our house. It was now time to move and help with the church plant. I was nervous because all of the doctors and people treating me were in Tulsa, and I was moving to Arizona. The pressure in the eye was still high, and if God did not do something, I was going to lose more sight. Upon arrival in Arizona, I found a new glaucoma specialist, who believed that I did not need another surgery. He added a few eye drops to the routine and was able to bring the pressure down into normal levels. I believed that finally, something positive was happening and that maybe God was around and helping me after all. My pastor friend, Brad Larson, encouraged me to believe God even if my eye was falling out of the socket. A little gruesome, but I knew what he meant. I could not give up. Christians must believe that God is the healer.

            Over the next few months going into the end of 2004 God directed me to a scripture: �Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose hope is the Lord, for he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river and will not fear when heat comes but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit� (Jeremiah 17:7-8). This was awesome. The Lord was telling me that if I trust in the Him, I will not fear when heat comes, but my leaf would be green. I understood what the scripture was saying. Heat is a form of destruction to the tree and the leaf is its physical component. I also was not going to be anxious or worry and I would continue to be fruitful. This was huge to me and the second spiritual milestone in this journey. Remember the first was that it is God�s will for me to be healed, and I learned that through Kenneth Hagin Sr. tape �Healing is the Children�s Bread.� So now I had two keys to believe. It is God�s will for me to be healed, and I needed to trust him to do it. Every key brought me closer to feeling like my healing was going to happen any moment.

August 19th, 2007 by admin

            Naturally, I was really hoping that this procedure would solve the issue. At this point, I was getting really tired of dealing with this eye thing. I had tons of questions for the Lord who somehow seemed to be quiet in this battle. I did not know what to do but keep believing that God was going to heal me. He had to. I could not go through this much longer. I felt that I was like one of the disciples in the boat, struggling to row in the midst of the storm.  Jesus was sleeping, not seeming to help. I did not know why he was not helping me.

            Unfortunately, only a month passed, and the hole that the needling procedure had opened up began to close again causing the pressure to increase in the eye. The needling procedure had not worked. I had to start up the drops again and make a new decision. The next surgery option was to physically place a valve in the eye that would open up when needed and release the fluid as it built up regulating eye pressure to normal. I was not ready to take that step, so I elected to remain on the eye drops even though the pressure was in the upper twenties.

August 18th, 2007 by admin

            I went back to see the glaucoma specialist who had done the surgery on the eye, and we tried to treat the eye with the eye drops. This was the only thing to do unless I wanted another surgery. I did not want to think about that. It was not fun the first time and I was sure it would not be the second. Over the next few months, the pressure in the eye was in the mid to upper twenty�s and damage was occurring slightly to my peripheral vision. I did not want another surgery, and we were still planning on moving to help plant a church. By June of that year on one of my doctor visits, that were now getting more frequent, my doctor mentioned to me that he could do a special procedure. This procedure could be done immediately sitting in the chair and would only take 30 seconds. This sounded good to me since he said that it would alleviate the pressure which in turn stops the glaucoma from causing more blindness. It was called a needling procedure. This procedure is designed to pop a hole in the area that had been clogged up when the blood vessel burst. Exactly as the procedure is named, a long needle is used to penetrate the eye. The doctor will then poke a few holes in the back of the eye, which then relieves the pressure. This is done by hand while the nurse assists. This will then allow the eye fluid to flow the way it is supposed to, and in return bring eye pressure back to normal. The procedure is performed while the patient is fully conscious. The eye is treated with some numbing drops but that is the extent of pain avoidance. The patient must look down and avoid blinking. Now how am I supposed to avoid blinking when a needle is going into my eye and is going to stay there for 30 seconds? A nurse held my eyelid open, I clinched the chair arms. I felt the needle go in and can honestly say that it was the longest 30 seconds of my life. After 30 seconds, the doctor slid the needle out, and I immediately was overcome with nausea and its impending results.

August 17th, 2007 by admin

            By the time I got to his office Missy and I had been praying a lot, and I was starting to regain some of the vision. I thought we were seeing a miracle. After Dr. Skaggs checked me out he said that a blood vessel had popped on the inside of the eye, and the blood had filled the lens thus blocking my vision. That was a huge relief because I thought the worst had happened — blindness. As I would stand upright the blood would rest in the bottom part of the lens and I could see again. If I bent over the blood would fill the lens and I would lose vision. It took a month for the blood to absorb fully back into my body and my sight to return to the way it was before the blood vessel burst. Dr. Skaggs took some glaucoma pressure checks in my eyes and found that the right eye pressure was creeping back up. He felt that the blood vessel bursting probably had something to do with that.

            Over the next few weeks the pressure in the eye would not descend, and I restarted the eye drop regimen. I was pretty discouraged, and I began to question the Lord. Was I doing something to deserve this? What was I supposed to be learning through this? Actually, however, �how do I get out of this� was the real question. It is human tendency to try and avoid the trials in our lives instead of doing what the Bible says: Count it all joy when you face trials (James 1:1). This was not joy; in fact, I could not find joy anywhere in the room. The Bible is difficult to follow sometimes. I guess that is why following God is a journey in faith.

August 16th, 2007 by admin

            The surgery went well, and I came through the recovery period in a timely matter. All seemed to be going smoothly. The pressure in the eye had stabilized, and I was able to stop using the eye drops. The only problem now was that I was still blind in the lower half of the eye. I settled back into normal life, but continued to believe that God would restore my sight completely; I just did not know when.

            A few months passed, and we were in the early part of 2004. Missy and I had our house for sale and had plans to relocate to help a pastor friend plant a church. One late evening I was reading, and my right eye went completely blind. I was in disbelief and frantic. I jumped up from the chair, called my wife and told her I could no longer see out of my eye. How could I have gone totally blind when everything seemed to be going so well after the surgery? I called the emergency number for my doctor, and it just rang and rang. After no answer from the emergency line, I called a doctor friend from church. He was an optometrist with a local practice and was the doctor I had originally gone to see. I woke him up out of bed and he graciously told me to meet him at his office in 30 minutes. (For those of you in the Tulsa area his name is Dr. Derrick Skaggs and I recommend him highly, and not just because he met me at almost midnight in his office.)

August 15th, 2007 by admin

            As I listened to the tape multiple times, I realized that even though I had been raised in a faith filled environment and had seen neat things pertaining to healing, I was battling doubt that God was going to heal me. Hopefully the eye drops would keep the pressure down, but maybe I would have to live with the blindness. Healing is the children�s bread. In this message, I thought I had found the answer. I had believed that God could heal. I knew He had the power to heal. I knew that He had healed other people, but the question was:  Would He heal me? I knew that God could but I did not know that he would. When I listened to the tape enough to get it in my spirit that He would heal me and that it was his will to heal me, I just knew it was going to happen any day. I could see where I had misunderstood, and I was thanking God that I now had the key. Days passed, then weeks, then months and as time passed neither the eye drops, nor the prayer, nor the key I thought I had found seemed to work, and the pressure in the eye began to creep up again and surgery was inevitable. I did not understand, but I did what I could.   

            I knew what high pressure in the eye could do and I did not want to lose more sight, so I opted for surgery in October of that year. The surgery was going to help open up the area that was blocking the flow of my fluid in the eye. I was assured by the doctor that the surgery was going to work, and I would not have to suffer with the pressure rising again until later in life. It was a laser surgery to open up the area in the eye to allow the fluid to move more freely, and it was also a common surgery for glaucoma patients. For those that want to know, the surgery was called a tribectelectomy. I was ready to get this behind me and felt as though God would guide the hand of the doctor and exercised my faith in this direction.

August 14th, 2007 by admin

One day I went over to Rhema Bible College and bought a teaching tape on healing by Kenneth Hagin Sr. The title of the message was �Healing is The Children�s Bread.� This was my first real study on healing. Even though I had grown up believing in healing, I had never really done any studying on healing. I even experienced miracles in my own life: I survived an abortion attempt in my mother�s womb; at the age of eight, I was protected from a crippling injury when my leg was run over by a riding lawn mower, narrowly missing the Achilles tendon. The doctors had to decide on the operating table whether or not to amputate the foot. They did the surgery to put my foot back together and I have not had a minute�s trouble since. At the age of eighteen, I took my first missions trip to the Philippines and contracted hepatitis.  I was sicker than I have ever been in my life, losing sixteen pounds in five days, but recovering miraculously after three weeks. I decided that since I had recovered from these things, surely I would recover from this too. I was also a graduate from Oral Roberts University, which has a great emphasis on being whole in every aspect of life. Healing is the children�s bread. That was what I needed to hear.

August 13th, 2007 by admin

For the next several months, the doctor prescribed different eye drops that I had to take everyday to keep the pressure down to normal. Apparently there had been some damage to the area where the fluid in my eye was supposed to be draining. Of course I sought God in prayer and had friends and pastors pray for me.  Furthermore, this was Tulsa, so healing ought to happen here in the faith capital of the world. I knew the Bible said that if anyone is sick let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, and the prayer of faith would save the sick and the Lord would raise him up (James 5:14). If the Bible were true, why was I not getting better? After all Jesus healed the blind eyes all the time in the Bible, and if He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8) then what was the problem? I had been raised in a faith filled environment and believed in healing all my life, but obviously I was missing something.

In many places, the modern church is plagued with sickness, and there are not an abundance of healing miracles in local churches. It seems like whenever there is a healing service or a call for those who are sick, many in the church respond or raise their hands. Why is the church so sick? The scriptures make reference to a church that is healed and free from sickness, but it does not seem that we are seeing it today.

August 12th, 2007 by admin

It was April 20^th 2003, Easter Sunday. My wife Missy and I went to church that morning not knowing that this day would change our lives forever. We had a good service and enjoyed Christian fellowship afterwards. Then it happened. While shaking hands with some of the men after the service in the parking lot, I realized that I could no longer see out of a portion of my right eye. I did not know what was happening. I had felt fine and nothing apparently had caused this, but something was definitely wrong. I went to the doctor the next day and found out that the pressure in my right eye had risen to 55, which is dangerously high, and I had gone blind in the lower half of the eye. I was diagnosed with glaucoma at the age of 36. The heartbreaking news was that the doctors said that I would never regain the lost sight. I wasn�t really sure how to take this — after all I am a Christian, and we are supposed to be protected from these kinds of things. In fact, I had just been hired by a church as one of their associate pastors, which was something I had wanted for a long time.

What had happened? The battle in the mind began, and the thoughts concerning how this could have happened flooded in. Was God trying to teach me something? Or maybe I was reaping something? How did the devil do this if we are in Christ? And — well� you get the point.

August 11th, 2007 by admin

The encouragement of a few special friends has inspired me to record the last four years of my life � 2003 to 2007.  The last four years have been an amazing journey of emotional and spiritual ups and downs because of a physical battle with cancer. I am compelled to be painfully honest herein since many times only the victory is heard and the battle rarely communicated. For those who only want to see the victory, I must be clear:  the battle still rages. This writing is intended for those who want to share in the journey and battle, not just the victory. If a cozy success story is all that matters, then stop here and go watch a good movie. This is a journey of identity, and sometimes finding who you are gives you experiences you never thought possible. I pray that as you peek into the last four years of my journey, these words will strengthen you and encourage you in yours. Journey on…