Today marks 50 yrs exactly when @janethuckabee & I faced an unexpected challenge. After getting married in May of 1974, I was in my final yr of college and Janet left college to work full-time with the plan for her to finish once I did. We couldn’t afford to both go at same time. In Spring of 1975, less than a year into our marriage, she started experiencing back trouble originally thought to be connected to her work as a dental assistant bending over patients. Months of various meds, therapies & doctors pointed to a disc problem. When it didn’t get better, an orthopedic surgeon recommended surgery to repair what he called a “textbook case” of a slipped disc. The surgery was scheduled for mid-September. The day before, a myelogram was performed to determine the exact location for the “textbook case” of the disc. I was retrieved from the general waiting room at the Little Rock Hospital and taken to a small private room. That is NEVER good news. Good news gets delivered in the big room; bad news is shared in the small private room. The doctor came and his face was as white as his lab coat. He told me that Janet wouldn’t be having the surgery because she didn’t have a disc problem. His “textbook case” was not accurate. He told us she had a tumor in the canal of her spine that was blocking her spinal cord. He couldn’t operate on it but had called a neurosurgeon to come and talk to us that night. That evening, Dr. Thomas Fletcher came to our room. He was kind, gentle, and honest. He saw 2 kids both barely 20 years old & married for barely a year. He spoke with candor but with genuine compassion. He assessed that the tumor was malignant and because it was in the canal of the spine, was likely inoperable. That meant terminal. He would try to make her as comfortable as possible but there might not be a medical option. The only alternative was to do surgery to see if the tumor could be reached, but attempting to remove it would most likely involve severing her spinal cord which would leave her permanently paraplegic. That was the best outcome we could hope for and that was a long shot. Hardly good options. We thought we had our whole lives in front of us. Now we were faced with the likelihood that there was little future for US ahead. It was 50 yrs ago today, Sept 29, 1975 that Dr. Fletcher performed the surgery. When I saw him walk down the hall toward me, it was several hours before I expected him. I feared the worst. He told me that when he got the spinal canal open, he was able to remove the tumor but he wasn’t sure if she would have any movement or feeling from her lumbar area down. But she survived the surgery and we had to wait to see if she would be able to move legs, and toes. Hours passed as I watched and hoped to see sign of movement. It was evening when a small movement of her toes gave a glimmer of hope. People from everywhere let us know they were praying. And they truly were. Dr. Fletcher ordered 6 weeks of intense radiation therapy to eradicate any remnants of the cancer. He and the radiologists did say to us that the radiation would render her unable to have children due to the almost certain damage to her ovaries. The dream of having children was erased, but she was at least alive. She would have to slowly learn to walk again building bits of strength over the coming weeks and months. Everyday for 6 weeks, I would drive the 150 miles round trip from our little $40 a month duplex apartment to Little Rock for 6 minutes on the radiation table. I made a bed in the backseat of the car where she would ride as she couldn’t sit. We would leave at 5am each day and return in time for me to get her in the hospital bed set up in our 2 room apartment and for me to go to class in what was my final semester of college. I was working 40 hours a week, caring for her, and taking enough classes to finish my degree by December. People we didn’t even know from everywhere sent us cards with $5 or $10 to help pay medical expenses that mounted way beyond our capacity. We had made the decision to take out medical insurance when we married, thinking we would not need it. The following year, in November of 1976, we had our firstborn, a son. We lost our next child, but in July of 1980, our 2nd son was born. And in August of 1982, our daughter joined the family to remind us that God had indeed blessed us with 3 miracle children we were not supposed to have. 50 years later, all those children are grown. We now have 7 grandchildren that too are a part of the miracle of God’s grace. Life during all of the years has been a mixture of peaks and valleys. We’ve seen depths of poverty in our lives to a level of prosperity we never imagined possible. We’ve taken large risks. Some failed, but others succeeded beyond our dreams. September 29 is just another day for most people. But for us, it’s a HOLY day. A day we remember that God heard the prayers of many. He didn’t answer with a sudden miracle or with blinding lights and a dramatic moment. But step by step, moment by moment, He intervened and built a road for us to travel. We believed Him then. We believed His Word. All these years later, we believe even more. And we believe His Word even more than ever. It’s not something we merely “think.” We have lived it. I will always remember what the great Bible teacher Ron Dunn said, “That when you hit bottom, you at least find out it’s solid at the bottom.” And he said, “It’s one thing to say ‘God is all you need; but when God is all you’ve got is when you find out that He truly IS all you need.’” I don’t have a clue about the future, but because of having lived the past, I am certain that whatever challenges come, God is still good…all the time!