More Miracle Than I Can Count

I told you previously that preparing for the 1992 Charleston Distance Run brought about a miracle where God turned back the clock an hour and proved to me faithfulness is always rewarded. I also told you that I have personally witnessed more miracles than a man is entitled to in his lifetime. Well, that’s only half the story. In the tale I about to relate to you, you will see that I was immeasurably blessed. Perhaps no man, since Job, can say what I can in the past paragraph of this incredible story.

A Race to End Races

I wasn’t expecting a miracle that crisp September morning. Standing in my position in the marked section of Kanawwha Boulevard waiting for the start gun, I was mumbling a prayer under my breath. Miles away, on the East end of Charleston, four of my five children waited with my estranged spouse at the finish line. I had talked her into coming with us, my children too young to drive. I needed somebody to get my car and children to the finish line. It was a trade really. I had been going through a spiritual revival and my children who had all been living with me, had been attending church with me. My oldest daughter had gone to a Wednesday teen service with her mother at a much bigger church a couple of times. Her mother convinced me to take myself and the children there and I had. She was negotiating a deal for us to repeat the second Sunday there as a family. I consented, but she didn’t have to twist my arm. The kids had real appropriate age teachers that the small church we had attended did not have. We had been getting along better than ever in our short separation. It was a win-win and I couldn’t wait to see their smiling faces at the finish line. I did not know at the time that I would not.

An Uphill Battle

For those of you who have never run this race it goes down the Boulevard before turning up a side street then across the  bridge and up the mountain to Oakwood Road through Kanawha State Forest down across the bridge to downtown and eventually to the East end. Fortunately, the worst and hardest part of the race is that grueling uphill jog to Oakwood Road near its beginning. Once there, Oakwood levels off and meanders through Kanawha State Forest where the road is lined on both sides by trees and lovely stone walls and fences. I agree the mountain was indeed brutal but the breeze and shade of Oakwood Road was beginning to restore my strength. I passed one of the many ambulances parked along the way. I saw ahead of me the most comfortable spot on the side of the road and I ran up to it, leaned against the rock wall for a breath or two while I leaned over and supported my weight on my knees. It would be the last of the race I would remember.

This Might Have Been a Mistake

I left out an important part of the story. Since the practice run a week or two earlier that would provide such a big miracle in my life, I had gotten very ill. Flu really. It hit me on Monday just as I was going to work. I made it all day, despite the vomiting and diarrhea. It takes a lot to make me quit. It seriously curtailed my three-mile practice run that evening. It took me two days to come to the realization that vomiting would stop when I stopped eating and limited my water intake. I still made it to work, I still made my runs (no pun intended). But I needed more fluids that would not come back up. So, to my ice water only diet, I added lightly sweetened tea. By Thursday I was feeling better, but paranoid about taking in anything but tea and water. So I went to work Friday and before coming home, I stopped at the Civic Center and ate a free Spaghetti dinner provided for all registered distance runners. It was a ‘carb fill-up’ a tradition associated with the race. I kept it down. I needed it. It was the only thing I had consumed since the previous Sunday. My bad decision to go without fluids or sodium drinks, I would find out later, contributed to what happened to me at the race. I would later discover not only was I severely dehydrated but I was dangerously deficient of both salt and potassium, two essential elements in the human body.

The Helpless State of Oblivion

In the darkness I could hear them above me. People talking. I could make out some of it, “he’s coming around, wake up buddy.” And “he’s dehydrated.” I really did try to open my eyes, when I did a couple of times all I could see were flashes of light. “He’ll be alright in a moment. Maybe we should insert an IV and transport.” Another would argue, “Just give him a moment.” I could hear. But that was all. It was like I didn’t have control over my eyelids. I tried to talk and couldn’t. I couldn’t feel my arms or legs, was unsure I had fingers or toes but couldn’t move any of it. I was breathing but only for a moment as a horrible thing happened. They laid me on my back. I have always had a little sleep apnea, but now I was in real trouble. My tongue dropped back into the back of my throat with the weight of it, blocking my airway and I didn’t have the muscle control to push it up. The people above me talked and laughed and paid no attention to my silent screams: which in reality were just thoughts motivated by my panic. As it began to dawn on me that I might die, like everybody I began to plead with God. What would happen to my four minor children. I wasn’t even sure they were saved. Who would teach them. How about my wife. What about all those things I had always intended to finish, or start or get around too? Darkness engulfed me and I couldn’t hear any longer.

A Better Place Just Around the Corner

I had heard about NDE’s (Near Death Experiences) and had largely mocked them. And what I experienced may not track with what the media tracks as one of those. But I was suddenly overcome with an unearthly calmness. I was aware that I was surrounded by many, many others. They all seemed familiar, intimate. I felt like I knew them all, like family. I still couldn’t “see” anything but an occasional out-of-focus movement of light and shadow. Without a word spoken I was assured my children would be fine, they, and my wife would eventually join me, and life on earth would be fine without me. And that’s when the most unusual thing happened. An intense joy came over me. It is Impossible to describe in mere human words and in the intervening years since even impossible to fully remember. When I described it a day later to my wife I said, “Imagine you’re six and you wake up and in your foggy state you remember it is Christmas morning. Suddenly your heart bursts with intense joy and anticipation and you rush with joy down the stairs toward the room with the bright twinkling lights and you’re about to turn the corner into the best moment of your life. Recall that feeling. Now multiply it by ten.” I was on my way to the twinkling bight light when suddenly I could hear again. It was chaos. Noises, beeps, an ever present siren. “He’s back. He’s back. I got a heartbeat. We are a minute out.”

On Arriving Alive

I lost consciousness they say a second time after this. A nurse at the hospital said I was spitting at them as I couldn’t move anything but my neck, that I said, “it’s O.K. I can go. I can go.” One of the ambulance tech’s told them I was “having a religious experience. I’ve seen this a couple of times.” They didn’t leave me unattended in the ER, afraid I’d stop breathing again while they waited on a dozen test results. I don’t remember anything during that period.

Sorry to See You Leave

What I do remember is that while I still could not see, I was alive and barely conscious. And while I was no longer filled with that joyful anticipation, I was still not alone. Others, a hundred or a thousand pressed around me, their presence wonderfully assuring. Later, I would be terribly disappointed when I opened my eyes to only a few people in the room. For the first time in my life I was speechless. I was quiet, a little confused and introspective about what happened.

Lost My Shirt Not My Life

My wife came into the room, apparently they located her without my help. She was quiet too. Everything was so serious. Hours later they would release me after filling me with a cocktail of sodium and essential minerals missing from my body. I would be fully alert and conscious when I left the hospital. The logo shirt donated by my employer was returned to me in pieces. They had to cut it off of me to use a defibrillator. I felt grateful that they saved me from my stupidity. It would be the end of my running hobby. I moved on.

Fearless

In the years since, my memory of that NDE experience fades. I still remember the joyful anticipation but not with the intensity I once did. I still remember the feeling of the great crowd of company. I don’t know for sure if this applies, but I remember the Apostle Paul in the 13th chapter of Corrinthians saying, “For now we look through a glass darkly; but then, face to face. For now we know in part; but then we will know, even as we are known.” It doesn’t seem unreasonable to me that in Heaven everyone will know each other, like family, intimate and loving. Seems to me, that is exactly what Heaven should be. If that’s what Paul meant it is just speculation on my part. But what I did get that day, and has remained with me even into this very moment is this: I totally lost the fear of death. I can say, with Paul, “to be absent from the world is to be present with the Lord.” I KNOW what that FEELS like. Someday it will happen, can’t hardly wait, but till then like Paul I am sure I have unfinished business here.

NDE the Second Time Around

Everything I told you, while interesting, is NOT the miracle. The miracle began the next day. But before you see how it relates to all this, indulge me one minute more for something interesting. That event was my second brush with death. When I was a toddler, being the first in what would be six children I was the “practice child” for my mom and dad. Like all of us, they made mistakes. They let me get away with everything. I was so spoiled that I threw temper tantrums over everything. Somebody told my mother “let him cry, ignore him and it will stop.” Well, as a parent myself I know that toddlers adapt. As a toddler myself I did. I began holding my breath in mid tantrum when I saw it not working. I held my breath till I passed out. Again someone told my mom, “It’s not hurting him, let him pass out.” She did. Until one day after a lengthy tantrum I was silent longer than she was used too. When she found me I was blue and unconscious, she scooped me up and yelled at my dad. There is 9.7 miles between that Dunkirk, Ohio house and the Hardin Memorial Hospital in Kenton, Ohio. My dad did that distance in five minutes. The ER team went to work on me and fifteen minutes later declared me dead. Gary Lee Stuber died 1954. Doctor DeWar broke the terrible news to my parents.

Once More into the Battle

My tiny now blackened body was taken to the morgue. The nurse filled out a tag and tied it to my little foot. She covered my small frame with a blanket and was on her way out. Then she heard a sound. I cried. She had laid me on a metal slab in a cold room. My body reacted. She brought me up immediately to my mother in the doctor’s office where my mother had just been given a certificate of death. A collectors item indeed, except she tore it up joyfully in pieces.

Doctor DeWar told my mother, “When he throws a tantrum or holds his breath, jerk him up and turn his butt red. You break him of this.” My younger siblings never got the free ride I did for my first two years I did. The free ride ended for all of us.

Oh Yeah, About That Miracle

I came home that afternoon and sat in quiet contemplation of what had transpired. I knew the story of my NDE as a toddler but had no memories of being younger than five. This event was different. I was alive and filled with strange memories and emotions. I was quiet, but did relay some of what happened to my wife when I dropped her off at her trailer on my way home with the kids. As promised the next morning we all went to church as a family. The service was good, but had a more profound affect on my wife than on me. After the service, she pulled me aside, “I am having trouble forgiving myself.” It wasn’t long before we got the pastor involved in the conversation. “Are you saved?” He asked. She wasn’t sure. “Well, let’s go get sure.” Our two daughters listening to this, caught the Pastor’s attention. “Anyone else want to come to the alter and get saved?” My oldest daughter said, “Yes.” And was chimed immediately by my youngest daughter. I sat behind a few pews back as I watched the event. I wept. The assurance I had been given only a day earlier came true. I thanked God. But this miracle was not over. My wife and I ended our separation and attended this church becoming a real family again and members. A few months later, our two boys would join their sisters in salvation. We were all baptized a few months later. Our oldest son would join us a few years later.

Few Men Are Ever This Blessed

And the miracle continues. Our five children continued to attend church and each in turn would marry Christian spouses. They would give us over the next 22-years, twenty-two grandchildren and two great grandchildren. I watched my grandchildren grow up in church and each (except the very young, too young to know) have accepted Christ and been baptized. I am the only man I know who can say he has watched all his children and grandchildren (of a family this size) all be saved. All of them will join me in Heaven just as I was assured back on that September day in 1992. Hey! Who says I didn’t win my race? At least the one that counts. Like Job, I am a blessed man.

(Note to my Daughter-In-Law Brandy: Took me a while but I got around to writing this down as per your request)