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ROBO PASTOR - PART 6
She brushed her thinning silver hair away from her face and dried her tears with a tissue she had wadded up in her hand. She couldn’t remember the last time she had prayed and felt so distant from God. It was like the ceiling of the hospital room was an iron curtain that her pleas couldn’t penetrate. She had only slept a few hours as she waited to see what the future held for her husband, for herself, and for the life that they had built together.
Tim had remained in stable condition since arriving at the hospital. This 48-hour wait was to see if he would be healthy enough to undergo open-heart bypass surgery. Surely they should know, as it seemed that they had run him through every imaginable test and scan that they had.
Sedated, he had only opened his eyes twice as she ran her fingers through his hair, kissed him, and said: “I love you.”
Sue opened the Bible app on her phone again and read the words that had been so meaningful to her throughout the worst days of her life: “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.” Isaiah 41:10. Her former pastor, Rev. Davis, had given her that verse on a card when her mother was undergoing chemo for bone cancer. She had read it to her mother every day before she prayed for her. The verse meant so much to them; she had the reference engraved between her parents’ names on their tombstone.
She couldn’t believe she was back here again, holding onto that truth in a hospital room. But she was the one who had to hold onto the Lord during this trying time, since Tim refused to submit to Him. She knew that he was a hard-charging, type A, business-focused man when she met him in college and started dating. He had agreed to come to church with her a couple of times, but he just didn’t get it. Her friend Sally had tried to talk with her about dating someone who didn’t know Jesus, but Tim’s smile and charisma captivated her. She convinced herself that she would win him to the Lord, but here, 32 years later, he still was unsaved. She knew that Pastor Rogers, her childhood pastor, would never marry them because Tim was an unbeliever, so she bypassed the whole situation by having a judge perform the ceremony at a Mountain View wedding venue.
She loved Tim. He had been a good husband, provider, and father. Looking at him lying in the bed was surreal. He jogged, ate salads, and did all the healthy stuff, but the doctor said genetics caught up with him. Sue knew that if Tim had died, he would not be in heaven. It broke her heart. She began to cry again but quickly dried her tears as a doctor walked in.
“Mrs. Lyons?”
Sue stood and said, “Yes, I’m Mrs. Lyons.”
“I’m Doctor Murphy, one of the internal medicine doctors here at the hospital. I don’t know an easy way to tell you this, but as we were reviewing your husband’s scans, something concerning showed up in his lungs.”
“His lungs? I thought this was a heart issue.”
“Yes, it is, but the spots on the lungs are very concerning. In fact, we are going to have to postpone even considering the open heart surgery until we can do a biopsy on the lungs.”
It was as if all the air was instantly sucked from Sue’s body. She felt the room begin to spin and collapsed in the chair.
The next thing she knew, she opened her eyes to a doctor standing over her, holding her hand and asking, “Mrs. Lyons, are you OK?”
Confused, she barely whispered, “No, I’m not OK.”