Dec 12, 2011 Posted on Dec 12, 2011 in This Is My Story | 0 comments

This Is My Story: Gene & Lucy Martin

On a Sunday morning in February of 2000, Gene and I prepared to go to church, but we ended up at the hospital instead. This began a very trying time for us but because of our personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, He gave us grace.

Gene had gone out to the van.  I was ready to go, but he came back in the house and said, “I’m sick.” I wanted to take him to the hospital, as I suspected a heart attack. He wouldn’t go. A few minutes later he got up from the chair, put on his coat, and went to our van. He didn’t speak. I drove to the Findlay Hospital, and he was there for two days. The doctor told me that Gene was a time bomb ready to go off. He had gone through heart attacks many times. I was praying. I knew it was going to be bad, but I also knew that Jesus was with us.

God’s grace not only sustains and comforts us during bad times but also more importantly gives us eternal life.

The Bible says that Jesus “has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows”; but He was also “wounded for our transgressions.”(1)

Our transgressions, or sins, have separated us from the Holy God; therefore, when we die, we have to pay for our own sins in hell. The Bible says, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”(2)

We cannot have eternal life unless we believe that Jesus died for our sins and rose again from the dead; we also need to confess our sins to God and humbly accept Him as our Lord. Gene and I have trusted Christ and have the comfort that “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”(3)

This is the reason that God answers the prayers of His children.

Gene was taken to St. Vincent Hospital Toledo where the doctors prepared him for surgery. We all told him we loved him and were praying. Four bypasses later, the doctor said, “He did well. Three arteries were 100% blocked; one was 95% blocked. He will be fine, but you can’t see him for two or three days.” The rest of us came home to Fostoria. Later, his sister and her husband and my sister left for southern Ohio. I was alone, but I knew that God was my comfort “who comforts us in all our tribulation.” Gene and I are very close, and I missed him. I wished I had been able to see him.

The hospital called to say that Gene had had a stroke. Our pastor took us up to see Gene, who was having seizures. For days he lay as if he were dead. They took brain wave tests every day. They said he was just barely alive. We prayed, knowing God’s Words of hope and mercy.  That’s all we could do. It was all in God’s hands.

Days later he moved a little. He was trying to find his hand. His right side was paralyzed, and he was blind. He never spoke. It broke my heart. Sometime later he spoke, but not coherently. I went day after day to be near him.

One day we arrived at the hospital, and I saw many people in Gene’s area. I thought he had passed away. Our pastor comforted me and said he would see what was happening. He soon returned to report that there were medical students observing Gene because of Gene’s near death condition.

Then one day Gene began to talk and his sight returned! He was sent for rehabilitation. There I noticed a lot of people near my husband’s room, and they were told he was dying. I was there alone, and I was very upset. He was transferred to St. Vincent’s again and quarantined. Having contracted a highly contagious bacterial infection, he was full of fluid; he also had pneumonia along with blood clots in both lungs and legs. There were more days of waiting, more days of prayer.

After a total of thirty days, he came home with home health care. After three months, he was off the oxygen. I had been told he would be home bound the rest of his life, that he would not be the same, and that the breathing machine had been in too long, damaging his mind. I said, “With God’s help, he’ll be up and about.” Earlier, the surgeon had told me, “It’s in God’s hands, keep praying. Wait upon the Lord.” When the surgeon saw him later, he had tears in his eyes and said, “See what God can do?” Day by day God did the healing process. Three years of recovery. God gave me strength, and I promised Him with His help, watch, and care, that I’d devote my life to care for Gene.

To God be the Glory: He hears prayer and heals. We will never forget. God did not spare His Son from the death of the cross so that you and I could go to heaven. Have you accepted Jesus as your personal Savior?

1Isaiah 53:4
2John 3:3
3Romans 8:32