From the Archives: 2009

Written by Larry Allen

Pain shot through my chest and shoulder. I thought I was having a heart attack, so I drove myself to the hospital. The doctors there fussed at me for that. But after thorough testing, they couldn’t find any heart problems that would cause chest or shoulder pain. However, they did find an aortic aneurysm in my stomach—a dangerous, life-threatening condition, if allowed to grow untreated. I may never know what caused the pain in my chest and shoulder that day, but I am thankful to God that I had it. If I didn’t, the aortic embolism might never have been found. Ironically, it was a similar situation that allowed the doctors to find my wife’s cancer.

About 3 years ago, Peggy was having some abdominal pain. As the doctors were checking her out, they found a small cancer called leiomyosarcoma. It turned out that her abdominal pain wasn’t related to her cancer, and the pain eventually went away.

Unfortunately, the cancer didn’t go away. But the fact that it was discovered early gave Peggy more time. Originally she was given one year to live, but that one year turned into three. In spite of her sickness, it was three of the best years we ever had.

It was amazing to see the way Peggy held up. God used Peggy’s illness to touch a lot of lives. Whenever she went for treatment, she was always witnessing, helping and giving hope to the other cancer patients she met.

After Peggy died last March, I couldn’t help but wonder, with just a little bitterness, why God would take away such a wonderful, godly woman. Peggy and I loved studying the Bible together. Sometimes we would just sit at the table and read it aloud to each other. Other times we would take retreats, just the two of us, to go away and study the Bible.

I always knew Peggy as a godly, church-going woman. On the other hand, even though I had been saved years earlier, I could always find an excuse not to go to church. That never kept Peggy from being faithful in her attendance and faithful in her prayers that God would touch my life. 

Some of our neighbors attended Bald Mountain Baptist Church, which was nearby. They often invited us to attend there. When Bald Mountain built its new sanctuary, I became interested in seeing what was going on there. I talked Peggy into going with me. The first time I walked in, I could immediately feel God’s Spirit. Peggy and I began attending there and became more and more active in their ministries. During Peggy’s illness, the people at Bald Mountain were wonderful to us.

Since Peggy’s passing, I have become even more involved in serving God and have seen him work miracles over and over. Last summer we had a missions team preparing to go to Nicaragua. That team didn’t include me, but when, with just 3 weeks until departure, a spot opened up on the team, they invited me to go. Getting everything together in time appeared impossible. I didn’t even have a birth certificate, much less a passport. I quickly applied online for a birth certificate. It arrived within one week. I sent that off with my application for a passport. Incredibly, the passport arrived in only 10 days. 

The week prior to our departure I was with our youth at camp. When camp ended I had to leave from there and go straight to the airport to catch our flight. All the pieces fit together perfectly—one of God’s little miracles.

Another time Peggy and I were driving to Winston-Salem for a treatment that needed to take place before the end of the year. It was December 30. Just the fact that the doctor would make room in his schedule at that time of year was a miracle, but there was more.

We had just gotten to Wilkesboro when I realized we had forgotten Peggy’s medical charts. We had to have them, so we had no choice but to turn around and return home to get them. That put us about an hour behind schedule. We passed through Wilkesboro for the second time, and, not too far down the road, we came upon a 26-car pile-up caused by ice on the road. I am firmly convinced that had we been on our original schedule, we would have been right in the middle of that pile-up. I could tell stories all day of how God has protected us like that.

Peggy loved music. She sang in the choir and played the piano and organ when needed. Her favorite hymn was “Great is Thy Faithfulness.” Throughout her sickness, Peggy never doubted God’s faithfulness. Her own faith was incredibly strong. So many people have told me what an inspiration she was to them and there is no doubt that her faith rubbed off on me. 

I still don’t have the answer to the question of why God took such a godly woman from this earth, but as I look back on our life together I see that of all the lives Peggy touched, there was none she touched more than mine.