Raising the Dead Page 10

  Prayer Army

  Joel Stockstill, the pastor of Bethany World Prayer Center, a church that has three campuses in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, came to our area to preach at the small Jupiter, Florida, church. Joel was a young man in his mid-to late twenties. The circumstances of his appearance at the Jupiter church were peculiar, because he preaches regularly to thousands and he found himself this day appearing before a congregation so small it could not pay his trip expenses. The Lord told him to accept the invitation, so he did.

  After his powerful sermon, the minister had to take off, and Joel was left standing alone but for his four huge, African-American bodyguards: Big Mike, Floyd, and two others. (That he felt it necessary to travel with an entourage of four suggested the need for crowd control at his usual venues.)

  I felt as if God was telling me to honor this man of God, and I asked Joel and his bodyguards to the best place in town for lunch, the Breakers Hotel. Pastor Joel Stockstill impressed me as someone with wisdom way beyond his years. His wisdom came from study of the Scriptures—a study that he conducted even as he suffered from a debilitating illness. He had been on kidney dialysis since the age of sixteen, and anyone who looked closely could see the crippling effects of this. He was required to be on the machine for four to six hours, three times a week. Like any young person, he would sometimes rebel against the treatment, become seriously ill, and have to be admitted to the hospital. He came close to death more than once. Gradually, he adjusted to the treatment and used the time to read the Bible and pray, deepening his life in the Spirit. He came from a strong family of believers and felt a call to the ministry at a young age.

  When I met him, he was not in good health, having been through a botched renal transplant. At lunch he asked if I might be able to help him as a doctor. I said I would do whatever I could for him, whenever he liked.

  Not too long after our first meeting, he called from Baton Rouge. He said, “Listen, Doc, they’re doing everything they can for me and they don’t know what’s wrong with me, and I’m dying. Can you help me? None of the doctors here in Louisiana can get this thing straight.”

  “Fly on out—get here as quickly as you can,” I said.

  When he arrived, I met him in the emergency room. I thought that his kidney problems might be causing complications with his heart and did an ultrasound study. His whole heart was full of fluid, and he was closer to death than anyone knew.

  I ordered surgery immediately. Once the fluid was removed from his heart, he rebounded immediately and did great. I became his doctor, and he became one of my spiritual counselors. Subsequently, I found out that both David Hogan and Greg Rider had come out of Bethany World Prayer Center and been mentored by Joel’s father and grandfather. I had always wondered who had influenced them, and now I knew.

  In this way the Crandall family began to have a prayer team—people to intercede with us and back us up during the tough times. Deborah and I began flying occasionally to Baton Rouge to worship with Pastor Joel and others in the Bethany World Prayer Center community. I’d spend time with him discussing the Scriptures and what they say about healing.

  This taught me, once again, that at the heart of Christian spirituality lies the principle of exchange. I became Joel’s doctor, and he became my spiritual counselor. I now have relationships with many people like this: I help them physically, and they help me spiritually.

  The Front Lines

  One of the things I learned from Pastor Joel Stockstill, the Hunters, and others they introduced me to including Andrew and Randy McMillan—great charismatic missionaries in South America—is that God’s blessing comes when a Christian accepts being on the front lines for God. The amazing stories of God’s blessings they told all came from times when they put themselves at risk in God’s service.

  For example, Andrew and Randy McMillan were among the few North American missionaries who remained in Colombia—specifically Medellín—during guerrilla and terrorist attacks in the eighties and nineties. Andrew and Randy stayed, and God blessed them for it. I’m sure this was a deep influence on my thinking when I faced the hardest time of all in the days ahead.

  Through this evolving prayer network, what our family was going through began to be known to a wider circle. This resulted in instances of spiritual generosity that were astounding. People started flying to the Palm Beach area just to pray with Chad. (Chad, incidentally, didn’t enjoy the extra attention. To him it was a constant reminder of his disease.)

  One day I received a call from a man in Oregon. He said, “I heard about your son. The Lord told me to fly out and pray for him.”

  “God did?”

  “Yes, He did.”

  “When are you going to be here?”

  “I’ll be there in two days.”

  In two days the doorbell rang. The man from Oregon walked in. “I’m here to pray for your son,” he said. “All I’ll need is ten minutes.”

  We sat in the living room together with Chad and prayed for those ten minutes. At the end of this very brief time, the man said, “I’ve honored the Lord.” And he left—just like that. He paid all of his expenses and never asked for anything in return.

  Pastor César Castellanos pastors one of the fastest-growing churches in the world with more than 250,000 members at its Bogotá, Colombia, location alone.1 Many think of Pastor Castellanos as the “Billy Graham of South America.” Frankly, I had never heard of Pastor Castellanos when he called me one day at home. He said, “I’ve heard about your son, and I’m flying up tomorrow from Bogotá.” He landed in Miami, drove to our house, and prayed with Chad for two hours. He told us, “There’s a huge battle in the heavens over your son. Just keep praying. Ask as many people to join you as you can. There’s a huge battle.”

  I wanted to extend him our hospitality after we had prayed together, but he said he had to return to Colombia immediately. He drove straight back to Miami, boarded another plane, and arrived back in South America the same day. It was hard to realize: the Billy Graham of South America was here to pray with our son—he came all that way and went back the same day just to pray with Chad!

  Blessings

  Through these events we saw how lavishly God loved Chad and us. We began receiving similar blessings more often than we could count. The little house we owned where missionaries and other ministers stayed for short periods was particularly helpful, as these men and women of God would come to our house in the evenings for dinner and we’d sit and talk over how God had revealed Himself in their ministries. Their stories of miracles built up Chad’s faith and his parents’.

  Occasionally we’d have someone stay who was overly eager to see evidences of the supernatural, found the devil under every toadstool, and mistook yawning for the casting out of demons. But even those who had gone around the spiritual bend proved a blessing in one way or another. We knew they wanted God’s will to prevail in our lives.

  We continued to go to crusades, particularly those of Benny Hinn. I needed Benny’s ministry during that time and found praying with him powerful.

  We went to other healing services as well, whether they were in a church, a crusade, or a revival. Anything we could do to advance the kingdom of God in our lives, we did.

  Sometimes we joked that our lives had become “tennis matches and God.” We were on the road all the time. With each miracle service we attended, Chad seemed to get better. He certainly received a spiritual lift.

  I also sought out the great evangelist Reinhard Bonnke, who talks about how Satan likes to enter a person’s life wherever there’s a weakness in his character or behavior or circumstances. We had certainly encountered this—without knowing it—in the case of the Togo fertility statue and Chad’s infatuation with Peter Pan. Common weaknesses like alcohol abuse, drug addiction, pornography, and marital discord also provide openings to the devil’s destructive ways. But it can even be something like a car accident or surgical trauma that makes someone vulnerable.

  Prayer and Fasting

>   Many of the men and women of God with whom I’ve become close emphasize fasting along with prayer as a means of preparation for the tasks to which God calls us. I’ve found that if I fast and pray before a speaking engagement I feel the power of the Lord in a way I don’t otherwise. I usually practice liquid fasts, drinking plenty of fluids but not eating anything solid. The first three days are rough, but then the body quiets and the mind and spirit are able to commune with God in a powerful way. As a means of honoring Chad and his struggle, we fasted frequently during his illness. When Chad faced particularly tough treatments, we would fast until he had endured the suffering the procedures entailed.

  I realize now that Chad’s illness taught me how to fight the spiritual battle every Christian faces. We have to cling to God through reading and meditating upon the Scriptures, through prayer and fasting, through radical obedience, and through joining together with other believers both for the sake of community and to accomplish tasks that are too big for any individual. I had been a Christian for twenty-five years without really understanding how to fight the battle.

  I’ll never forget getting slammed by the devil when I went into a situation unprepared. I knew I had God on my side, but there’s a difference between godly confidence and presumption. Even the disciples were not able to cast out certain demons, which Jesus said demanded fasting and prayer.

  Early in Chad’s illness I went to New York, to the Hamptons on Long Island, to give a lecture on cardiology. We were scheduled to speak to a community group on preventive health care—particularly keeping the heart healthy. This event took place at a private school. The school was classified as “alternative,” and a lot of actors and actresses as well as New York media moguls sent their children there. The place was stuffed with bamboo plants, African masks, and what looked to me like voodoo dolls. As soon as I arrived I felt a sense of oppression.

  I went into the kitchen, waiting my turn to speak. One of the organizers waiting with me, not a Christian, commented that the place gave her the creeps—it felt evil. It certainly felt that way to me. I got riled up about the devil’s presence, and I thought I’d take care of the matter.

  When I went into the amphitheater to give my lecture, I said silently, You devil, I’m going to get you. You have no right to do this. In the name of Jesus, leave this place. As I began speaking, strange reverberations started bouncing off the walls, and the longer they went on the more they sounded like voices. The audience members looked around them. What was going on? Laughing and hissing seemed to be coming out of the walls.

  I looked at the audiovisual technician, asking, “What’s going on? Are we getting echoes from other rooms?”

  He didn’t know.

  “Check it.”

  “Everything seems to be fine.”

  “Well, turn it off and let’s see what happens.”

  He did, and the supernatural heckling continued.

  I was really starting to be teed off then, and I prayed once more, “In the name of Jesus, I command you to stop!”

  The voices stopped.

  So I started my lecture. I was using a PowerPoint presentation, and the movie screen started going up and down uncontrollably. I looked at the audiovisual technician again. What was up? The hair on my arms stood up as I started freaking out.

  I asked the technician to turn off the screen, but it continued to scroll up and down in fits and starts. Finally, I walked over and unplugged it and was able to finish my lecture. As soon as I did, I headed back to Florida. The place was too bizarre. I thought just getting out of there would put an end to the spiritual oppression.

  The “Widow Maker”

  When I arrived at the airport, I pulled my suitcase out of the backseat and felt a sharp pain in my shoulder. I couldn’t understand how I might have pulled a muscle. I put the suitcase down, popped the handle, and rolled it into the airport. As I walked the pain intensified. I was only forty-eight, not diabetic, didn’t smoke, with no family history of heart disease. It couldn’t be my heart.

  I boarded the plane and the pain went away. When I arrived in Palm Beach, I picked up my bag. Toting it brought back the pain in my shoulder, now with a little pressure in my chest. But I was fine again by the time I arrived home.

  It was late fall and the kids wanted to go to the beach that night to hunt for sea turtles. That sounded like lots of fun. So we went to the north end of the island and Chad and Christian got out and were racing around with flashlights—this was early in Chad’s battle with cancer, remember. I walked along in the sand or tried; I could not go twelve steps without getting a severe pain in my chest. It was as if I had run the 440 and I had that liver ache that makes you stop, only this was far more intense. The most unbelievable pain you could ever have. I would stop and rest, feel better, try to catch up with the kids, and then immediately feel the onset of pain once more. It didn’t take long for me to sit down in the sand and rest. The kids raced by, saying, “What’s wrong, Dad? Come on!”

  “I had a hard day, I guess. You go on.”

  I watched them go down to the end of the beach, and as they turned to come back I wondered how I would make it back to the car. I didn’t want to tell my wife. I kept going through a differential diagnosis sequence in my head, explaining to myself why it couldn’t be heart disease.

  At the end of the night I managed to make it back to the car. I drove home and the pain went away. I took a bunch of aspirin and went to bed, resolving to forget about the episode.

  The next morning I felt fine. I thought what I experienced might have been a fluke or brought on by stress. But I decided to test it. My wife runs in the morning. I thought I’d walk along behind Deborah. (If I collapsed she was sure to see me on her way back to the house.) But I didn’t make it to the end of the driveway without severe pain. I sat on the steps and waited until she came back. I said, “Deborah, you have to take me to the hospital. I’ve got a heart problem. I don’t know why, but I do.”

  As we were driving in, I called the hospital, telling them to get the operating room ready. I called my partner in our cardiology practice and told him to sterilize his instruments. He thought I was joking at first, but I managed to convince him with a description of my symptoms.

  When we arrived at the hospital, Chad did not want to come in. He had been through too many treatments. Bad things would happen if he went into that place.

  Deborah told Chad he had to come in. “This is your dad.”

  “I can’t go in, Mom,” he said, and started crying. “I can’t make it through this, what I’m going through, without Dad.”

  Deborah said, “You have to come in, son. Dad is sick. We have to take care of him.”

  So he came in, but he was a bundle of nerves, worrying about me.

  Deborah received permission to stand outside the operating room, and she pinned herself, spread-eagle, up against the operating room door while I was being worked on, crying out to God for my life, to spare me. That no harm would come to me.

  The boys told her she was embarrassing them.

  She did not care. “This is your dad’s life! We have to cry out to God for him.”

  By the time the medical team had me on the table, I was screaming in pain. I had what’s called the “widow-maker lesion.” Three major arteries feed the heart, and the main one is called the LAD: it runs down the middle of the heart and feeds the bulk of the muscle. The widow-maker lesion is a blockage, a stenosis, at the very beginning of the artery. It shuts off the whole arterial bed that feeds most of the heart, and it usually results in death. That’s why that ache was so severe. The whole heart was crying out for blood and it couldn’t get any—my LAD was 99 percent blocked. I had an emergency angioplasty and received two stents.

  My partner put me in the intensive care unit overnight. The next day, I felt fantastic, and in the afternoon I pulled out the IVs, dressed, and prepared to leave. The nurses came running—“You can’t do this.” But, being rebellious, I insisted I was fine and left. (Doctor
s truly are the worst patients.)

  I learned two things from this episode—lessons that appear to be contradictory but are actually a paradox that is the hallmark of everything I do. The first is that you have to be prepared to fight the spiritual battle. You cannot just invoke the name of Jesus as if waving a magic wand. When going into a new territory like the lecture venue, where oppressive forces might be present, you have to be prayed up and fasted up and have people interceding for you; otherwise, the devil will find weaknesses and exploit them to his advantage. As I sometimes tell people now, you have to prepare and think like a Green Beret or a Navy SEAL. You need to be in training every day, because you never know when the president—or the Lord—is going to call you into battle.

  Part of that training, as with other types of soldiers, comes in the form of taking care of one’s health. I had to get serious about exercise, stay on a restricted diet, get a periodic stress test, and pray for the healing of my body. The physical and the spiritual go together. I tell my patients, “I’m going to give you the best of modern medicine and the best of Jesus.” Any weakness in one’s spiritual or physical preparation for the battle we find ourselves fighting can be an entry point for evil—the “open door” Reinhard Bonnke talks about. I was prepared neither spiritually nor physically for what I faced on Long Island, and the devil nearly used my lack of preparation to take me out permanently.

  Now I pray for healing in my body every day. “Lord, heal my heart; keep it strong so I can go the distance.” I knew then that I had to stay in shape for my son, just as I know now that I have to stay in shape for the opportunities of service God presents, in both medicine and ministry.