A Testament of God’s Promise to Show Me Great and Mighty Things

The phone call shattered everything. “Five years,” the doctor said. “Without chemotherapy, we’re looking at about five years.” I watched my boys—10, 8, and 6—splashing in the pool, finally laughing. They had no idea their world was about to collapse. We were already drowning financially on my teacher’s salary and Waylon’s part-time preaching income. The VA kept denying his disability claim. Now this—a death sentence with a timeline. The chemo made Waylon deathly ill. I became his caregiver, dressing him, bathing him, even writing his sermons. I wasn’t just a pastor’s wife anymore—I was drowning.

That Sunday morning, I stared at our church through the windshield, hands shaking. I walked back inside to face the deacons. “He can’t write his sermons anymore,” I said through tears. “It’s breaking his heart to struggle through preaching. We need to step away. We need to be ministered to instead of doing the ministering.”

The following weekend, I took the boys to another church. Waylon stayed home to rest. Then I heard it: “Be honest with God. Cry out to Him.” Something broke inside me. I walked to the front and collapsed at the altar. “I’m angry!” I cried out. “I’m so angry with You, God! I feel like I’m in chains—trapped in this prison of defeat and anguish.”  Gentle hands touched my shoulders. Women gathered around me, their prayers mixing with my sobs. Through the chaos, I heard His voice—not audible, but deeper:

Child, it is going to be okay. I am God. I am going to show you so many things through all of this. Just take my hand and hold on.

Peace settled over me like a blanket. For the first time in months, I could breathe. Like Jeremiah in prison, frustrated and desperate, I had cried out to God. And He answered with His promise: “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not.”

Ten years later, Waylon is still alive.

He still suffers daily, but he’s watched his boys grow up. We’ve made countless memories. God showed us that only He knows our tomorrows. He numbers our days—no doctor writes our story.

I urge you: Cry out to God. When you feel alone, angry, or grieved beyond reckoning—cry out to Him. He will show you things. It may take days, months, or years, but He promises to walk with us through it all. “When he calls out to Me, I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him.” – Psalm 91:15 “Even before they call, I will answer, and while they are still speaking, I will hear.” – Isaiah 65:24