An Unbelievable But True Weekend

The story I'm about to tell is 100% true. It sounds absolutely unbelievable -- so unbelievable that though I say it's 100%, I'm sure you'll have doubts. With everything I'm discussing in this story, I've considered changing my name from John to Job.

Here goes....

I had a doctor's appointment on Thursday before Labor Day. I assumed beforehand that it would be 15 minutes -- go in and get weighed, have vitals taken, have the doctor listen to my heart and then to McDonalds for breakfast. I didn't consider the fact that I would leave 2 hours later with an appointment to be admitted to the hospital the next day for another cardiac cath.

The cath was about as uneventful as it could be; though the doctor decided I needed to stay at least overnight for some "additional tests".

My wife picked me up on Friday. We were on our way home when I received the first call that put a negative imprint on the holiday weekend. It seems that a friend of ours was spending the holiday weekend riding horses near the Virginia - Tennessee line. His horse was spooked by dogs; he was thrown off; he was transported to the local hospital and was in a coma.

That was bad enough; but at 12:15 on Labor Day morning, I received a call from my sister's middle daughter. All three of my sister's girls were visiting for the long weekend because their dad had quadruple bypass surgery less than 2 weeks before. My sister had fed the oldest daughter's three month old son and was rocking him to sleep when the baby cried out and died in her arms. As paramedics worked on the baby, my sister had a near fatal heart attack.

That obviously put a real damper on the holiday -- and that was certainly more than enough to make this story completely surreal; but it's not over.

At 11 o'clock that morning I received yet another telephone call. The senior minister of the church I served during the near decade we spent in Washington had suddenly died of a heart attack. Jerry was the brother I did not have during the years in DC; so his death was traumatic.

But the story is still not over. A follow-up doctor's visit indicated that the etiology of the pains I have been having in my legs and extremities is in my lower back; so surgery is likely to correct that near term.

See what I meant. We're stretching the belief that God never gives one more than can be tolerated.