Kim: A Dying Child’S Spiritual Legacy

By Fred G. Womack

This book is an autobiographical account of how a six-year-old girl was diagnosed with terminal cancer and how her father coped with the shock and trauma of it all. The illness, the death, and the fathomless depths of anguish that followed are not sidestepped in this volume, but are described as accurately as author Fred G. Womack was capable of doing.

As the great trial got underway, Womack had a good idea of what he might expect of people in the face of the challenges before them. But in all honesty, he did not know what he might expect of God. Of course, he knew that God had done some extraordinary things for people in the Bible who found themselves in various predicaments. All the same, he had no assurance that God would provide any comparable help to his daughter and family in their painful plight.

At this time, Fred Womacks Christianity was much like that of a hypothesis that had never been tested. Be that as it may, early in the illness it became clear that the worst thing that had ever happened to his family would be the occasion for spiritual revelations that would amaze and enthrall himself and his ill daughter to the degree that they would ameliorate the anguish being feltand occasionally fully compensate the emotional suffering that was so devastating. After the daughters death, God continued to bring to the fathers attention many inexplicable spiritual manifestations, all of which correlated in some way with the spiritual happenings that took place during his daughters illness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Mar 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490828954

Fred G. Womack

Fred G. Womack is an ordained minister who pastored six local churches across a time frame of forty years. He holds a bachelor of science in education with a major in biological sciences, a master of divinity with a major in New Testament theology, and a doctor of ministry with concentration in the pastoral area. He is the author of Untaught and Unlearned Knowledge, an apologetic treatise on the substance and operations of faith, published by Writer’s Club Press in 2002. He is married and has three living children and six grandchildren.

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 Fred G. Womack.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™ All rights reserved.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1 [phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4908-2894-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-2896-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-2895-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014904003

WestBow Press rev. date: 07/02/2014

Contents

Introduction

1.      Blindsided

2.      Dark Night of the Soul

3.      Euphoric Prophecy

4.      Tangible Hope

5.      Unanticipated Compensations

6.      A Detour and a Prayer

7.      Fail-Safe Sanctification

8.      Remission

9.      Relapse

10.   Granted Every Prayer, Save One

11.   Angelic Rendezvous

12.   The Vision

13.   The Final Days

14.   Agony Unrelenting and Deity’s Reprieve

15.   The Funeral and a Posthumous Farewell

16.   The Onset of Depression

17.   Not all Beliefs Doubted

18.   Consolation from Feathered Visitors

19.   The Dream

20.   Dream Truth Corroborated

21.   Comfort from Mechanisms, Machinery & Motors

22.   Comforting Sounds near the Veil

23.   Comforting Sights near the Veil

24.   What Went and How

25.   Gone Where

26.   Acts, Deeds, and Doings in the Hereafter

Conclusion

Postscript

To my wife Judy for her prayers,

devotion to the children and other irreplaceable support;

to the many good ones of God, named and unnamed,

who provided the setting and staging for this story;

to Andrea Moreau for her technical skills and final proofing;

and to the God above whom I came to know better

through it all and without whom

there would be no story to tell.

Introduction

… the things revealed belong to us and our children (Deut. 29:29).

My child had been dead for about three hours. It was 9:30 a.m., Monday, July 10, 1978. Then it happened for the second time—not identical to the first, but bearing similarities. All that I will say about it for now is that I heard a silent voice say, "Tell how I have helped you." Don’t ask me how a silent voice speaks, because I cannot describe it. That was more than thirty-five years ago. Since then the frost of many winters has blanched white the hair that remains upon my head. But neither time nor weather could fade the bold and colorful memories stored away in this paternal mind. Finally, I’m getting around to doing what I was assigned to do back then on that unforgettable day.

Why so long in coming? I have asked myself that question many times, for the delay was not deliberate. I now think I know some of the reasons why it took so long.

Initially, a measurable amount of hesitancy was baked into the delay in that my descent into the valley of bereavement was just beginning when the mandate was given. If the voice I heard was the voice of God, then the verb tell had to have been one of continuous action. For God, knowing all things, would have surely known that right then I was not ready to write about anything and most certainly not about what had taken place over the past ten months, for I was in a full free fall of grief. Moreover, moving forward out of that horrific nadir and into the mournful months ahead would require just as much help from God, if not more, than what had been provided during the illness. So early on, neither my mind nor my spirit had the temperament, perspective, nor capacity to tell anything summarily and sufficiently, until the worst of the wailing winds had blown past. Only then could an adequate assessment be presented. In no way does this imply that the mystifying voice was untimely. Most certainly, it was existential and propitious. It put in place Spiritual coordinates that would bring focus and direction to my pastoral career and enrich even more my personal and private life.

Some of the delay to go public in the early years, stemmed from my being unfamiliar with the wondrous and inexplicable events that often occur in illness, death, and the aftermath of sorrow. Many of the experiences that my daughter and I underwent were like none that we had ever encountered, outside of the Bible that is. If I, a minister, could have been oblivious to the many unsuspected things God was doing in my generation in the troughs of calamity and misfortune (which I must say were the environs in which I regularly worked) how much more unaware might be the general public, which was even further removed from these things. So, in the early days of my ministry there was a hesitancy to tell simply because I did not want to be misunderstood by my peers nor the general citizenry of my community. The 1970s was a highly secularized and scientifically oriented decade, an empirical period in American history where nothing was accepted without verification from laboratories or confirmation from multiple sources. To be sure, what I had experienced did not yield itself to this kind of scrutiny. In addition, to heighten my dilemma further, during these same years, fringe church groups were falsifying the Spiritual landscape for everybody. The news media were periodically bringing to light the chicanery and fraudulence of phony healers and false prophets. To say anything associated with the paranormal in these early days of my ministry was to invite askance gazes that might not be easily deflected.

Another portion of the delay came about because a few of the experiences seemed just too painful, too personal, and too deeply Spiritual to be told. What had happened was fraught with great agony and suffering; and yet by the techniques of God’s untraceable ways, the worst that could have happened (which did happen) was inexplicably transformed into life’s greatest treasures. Jesus cautioned his followers to be careful with whom they shared their most intimate Spiritual experiences lest those biased against sacred things trample … under their feet the very events held to be priceless pearls (Mt. 7:6). To be sure, some of the most heart-rending moments I could divulge became unbelievable blessings through paradoxical mystifications. To announce strange wonders to the public could invite irreverent comments from the uninitiated, for admittedly, a few Spiritual developments could sound like tales coming from a schizophrenia ward if taken out of context. Be that as it may, never was I reluctant to tell of the experiences to anyone whom I knew to be interested in hearing them. For instance, on the first Easter after my daughter’s death, I managed to muster the courage to recount one of the experiences in a sermon. Vocalizing the precious pearls to selected friends or receptive audiences never quite seemed as premature or improper, as did putting the story into publishable circulation. So, for a protracted period, the thought of having my family’s most intimate moments with God set forth for the whole world to read was enough to keep me in retreat. I knew that once the intimate material went public, the precious pearls would fall into unpredictable hands. The confession is not flattering, but for a time, a lack of boldness on my part kept what is in these pages from being circulated.

Another reason that this volume may have been delayed is that Providence knew all along that the narrative was incomplete. Kim’s illness and death was only the first half of the Spiritual saga. Equal, if not greater, help would be forthcoming from God throughout the long aftermath of grief. Three times I attempted to put this material into print and each time I would come to realize that there was something still not quite right about it. At first, I reasoned with myself that it was because I lacked the necessary time to devote to the project. The typical minister has no spare time available for the writing of a book, unless it is a book of sermons or essays arising from the normal preparation times of preaching and teaching. But deeper down, I had a suspicion that it wasn’t just adequate blocks of uninterrupted time that were needed. It was more of a gnawing sense that the story was still going on. And to be sure, more episodes relating to the original theme continued to develop for years. By the time I did finally settle down to write, I came to see a Spiritual pattern much larger than the initial one that I thought I was to tell.

Soon, the years were accumulating, and the desire to finish the assignment was growing stronger. At last, it seemed that my time and God’s time were converging. Things that long stood in the way were no longer there.

Never was there any mistake about what was to be done. From the beginning, I was duty bound to go forward with the charge given me (I Cor. 9:16b). Essentially, it came down to enumerating and describing how the most horrid and pitiable predicaments a father could possibly face were unbelievably transformed into the most Holy and beatific times of life. The events that caused the momentous changes in perception and attitude were regarded as Spiritual gifts. And understandably, such gifts, by design, were to be shared through some means of communication. So, finally, after all these years, the time had come to tell how God helped my daughter and me through the worst that we could have ever encountered. What follows is like the efforts of an artist, doing his best to paint what he has seen; putting tiny specks of color, as it were, upon that great canvas of attestation, where the acts of God are painted and preserved. It is believed by this author, that if the Holy events within these pages are described sufficiently and accurately, they can only adorn that revelation anchored within the 4,000-year history of Judeo-Christianity.

So, then, men ought to regard us as servants of Christ and as those entrusted with the secret things of God (1 Cor. 4:1).

Chapter 1

Blindsided

… at an hour when you do not expect … (Luke 12:40).

It was a day of high spirits when I finished my Sunday morning sermon. Ordinarily the assembly evacuated the cramped makeshift worship area once we concluded the service. But on this day, the people remained as if fastened to their seats. Professionally speaking, it was the highest hour of my ministerial career. I felt like I was on top of the world. The moment had arrived, after a year of study and planning, when the recently formed congregation would view blueprints and pictorial drawings of a new worship building.

As the building committee was setting up visual presentations of the new facility, the children began filing in from Children’s Church and locating their parents. Smiles and other expressions of delight were noticeably present on every child’s face, except one—my six-year old daughter, Kim. Her cheeks were red and tears were streaming down from both eyes. In a muffled moan, hunched forward holding one hand on her back, she made her way to her mother sitting in the choir loft. This demeanor was uncharacteristic of my daughter and I was concerned. During the building committee’s presentation, I kept glancing at her as she sat in her mother’s lap. Soon I was relieved to see that motherly attention had soothed her countenance. After a time of questioning and discussion, the people embraced the plans for the new worship building and an atmosphere of joyful expectancy settled upon the group as the meeting adjourned.

Our hearts were filled with excitement as Ann and I drove home with our two beautiful daughters, Kim, six, and Kathy, four, sitting on the back seat chatting cheerfully and entertaining mom and dad as we went. The date was September 12, 1977, a significant point in time for everyone in our church. Never would we have dreamed that the first episode in a Spiritual adventure, far greater than that of a new church building, was simultaneously getting underway on this Sunday. The tears we had seen streaming down our elder daughter’s face moments earlier were symptomatic of something that would mark and chart the remainder of our lives.

During lunch, I examined Kim’s back where she said it had been hurting. While doing so I remarked to Ann that while we were in the country the day before on a picnic, Kim ran, jumped and turned summersaults with her sister without a single complaint. Adding information I had not known, Ann said that Kim had been constipated for about three days. Once we finished eating, we gave Kim a laxative and shortly the two children were busy at play, as on any other Sunday afternoon. With no further indications that anything was amiss, Kim could hardly wait to board the school bus for her first grade class the next day.

That afternoon, with my wife teaching at a different school many miles away and Kathy in daycare at the same location I met Kim as she got off the bus. Immediately I knew something was wrong. Her appearance did not look right. Her stomach was distended and she was flushed with fever. Upon entering the house, she went directly to the couch and lay down.

Daddy I don’t feel good, she groaned and added, I need to go to the bathroom, but I can’t. Straightaway, I arranged for her to be seen by our family pediatrician, Dr. Noel Womack. We were at the pediatrician’s office only minutes when he referred us to a surgeon, Dr. Raymond Martin, who was on staff at the Mississippi Baptist Medical Center in Jackson. Before darkness fell over the city, the little first grader was undergoing a number of tests in preparation for a major operation that would take place the following day.

Ann, four months pregnant with our third child, elected to spend the first night with Kim in the hospital, as I attempted to look after a few matters at home and work. I made several phone calls to my church leaders and close family members, requesting their prayers as I informed them of the sudden and uncertain developments with Kim. Although apprehension was building inside me all this time, I remained hopeful that things would go well the next day. I clung to a comment the surgeon had made after one of the tests. He noted that the X-rays showed something pushing against my daughter’s colon and intimated that if he could correct it, the constipation she had been having might be resolved.

The tense and suspenseful day of surgery arrived soon enough and then slowed down to a crawl. Ann and I took up positions around the bed of our little girl with the big brown eyes and bouncy brown hair. Once we briefed the little patient on the necessity of the doctor looking inside her tummy, she pulled the covers snugly up around her shoulders, laid back, and waited calmly and trustingly for her turn in the operating room. I was not as composed. I expended much energy while forcing myself to remain seated in my chair. Several hours passed. Finally, hospital staff wheel the gurney to the door. Ann’s father, the Rev. David Cranford, and uncle, the Rev. Hermon Milner, both pastors in the area, arrived just in time to say prayers for the patient. As a nurse pushed our firstborn down the hallway, I walked alongside the gurney until it disappeared behind the elevator doors that led to the surgery suite.

… trouble comes … (Job 4:5).

About an hour later, the surgeon appeared in the doorway. Dressed in his green sanitary clothes and cap, he held his surgical mask by a single string in one hand. For an instant, he seemed to hesitate there as if he preferred not to enter the room. Then he approached and his face said it all. It would not be good news. The long unbroken stretch of our family’s sheltered lives was now abruptly ending. While Dr. Martin appeared to be searching for the right words to say, my wife and I reflexively queried, perhaps attempting to steer him away from the harsh report that was sure to come. Was it a compaction? Ann pleaded. Before he could answer, I appealed, Was it a telescopic intestine? Ann’s older sister had died from that very ailment while in route to the hospital when only four.

Then in a grimace almost as frightening as were his words, he began shaking his head with a sigh, saying softly, No. No. No. It was none of those things. I’m afraid your little girl is in very bad shape. Ominously proceeding, he said, She has a large malignancy. And it is the worse I’ve ever seen in my twenty years of practice. Her whole abdomen is full of cancer. Of the 120 types of cancer that attack people’s lives, the doctor did not specify which one Kim had.

My mouth went dry, my throat tightened and my stomach contracted into a knot. Stunned to the point I could barely think, much less speak, I managed to roll out these words, longingly, Were you able to remove it all?

Continuing to shake his head, he explained, We were not able to remove any of it, except a small specimen for biopsy.

Stillness then washed over the room as everyone absorbed the shock of what we had just heard. Then the surgeon seemed to have saved the worst for last. He stressed that Kim’s disease was too far advanced for her to be released from the hospital. She was already having complications and they were only going to get worse.

My wife, choking back emotion, asked, Dr. Martin, does this mean that you are not going to give us any hope?

With his reply coming a bit slowly, I injected, What about drugs? At that time drug therapy was relatively new but I was aware that a few hospitals in the country were administering this type of treatment to cancer patients.

I wish that I could tell you that drug therapy would help, he returned. But I can’t. If we had caught it earlier, there may have been some benefit. But once cancer has progressed as far as it has inside your daughter, there is simply nothing that can be done.

In full revolt to this foreboding prognosis I continued to probe, There must be something we can do! What about radiation? The physician explained that the tumor was simply too large and too extensive for radiation to be effective. The room then grew conspicuously quiet—too quiet. No one had any further questions to ask.

The surgeon, disappointed with the outcome of the operation and regretful that he had to be the harbinger of such a formidable report, concluded, I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry. Words spoken, ever so softly by a man with a sympathetic heart, had just turned our world upside down! Indicating that he would be looking in on Kim later, he exited the room, leaving us reeling in fear and dread, a predicament too traumatic for tears.

Our little first grader who loved her teacher and her class so very much would not be going back to school. She would not even be leaving the hospital. I could not bear the thought of it—not taking her home again was just too painful to contemplate. But the doctor had made it very clear. At best, our child had only a few days to live, and they would not be pleasant days.

What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me (Job 3:25).

Sometime later, nurses returned Kim to the room and placed her back into bed. A forearm pad was taped to her left hand and wrist, giving support to I.V. tubing running from a vein on the back of her hand to suspended bags on a pole. Another tube ran through a nostril and down the back of her throat into her stomach and was connected to a bag attached to the side of the bed. A urinary catheter ran from her groin to still another bag on the side of the bed. Carefully, one of the nurses showed us the large sutured incision bisecting Kim’s abdomen, and instructed us that the area should be protected at all times. We were also cautioned to keep the little patient still and allow her to have nothing by mouth except ice chips. As time passed, family members and others, who had begun to come by from the church, gave affectionate kisses to the forehead of our first born as the strength of the anesthetic wore off.

It was my night to stay in the hospital. Ann would be going home to be with Kathy. This arrangement had worked out perfectly for me, since I could not have stayed away anyway. One thing I needed to do though, before Ann left. I had to get alone and do some praying. I had already been praying. All the same, it was now a stark fact that I needed to pray more than ever.

When I was in distress, I sought the Lord … (Ps. 77:2).

I confided in my wife that I needed to be alone for a moment and went down stairs to the chapel. No one was inside. I was glad. At first, I walked around and attempted to gather my thoughts as to what should be my petitions. The word cancer was so overwhelming there seemed to be little that I could ask for in prayer. Dreadful memories of this merciless adversary were trouncing upon every positive thought I could muster.

While I attended seminary, my pastor’s seven-year-old daughter died of leukemia, even though the church prayed for her every day, as did the seminary students and faculty. Then there was the friend who studied with me in the library on the seminary campus. He got cancer and died in the same year that he was diagnosed. Many prayers were said for him, too. How could I forget the upper classman living next door to me in our college dormitory? He got cancer shortly after he graduated and died just as his career was taking off. I knew that many prayers had been made for him also. I could not think of a single person discovered with cancer to ever survive the disease. What could I possibly expect from my frantic prayers against such an invincible affliction?

Rationally I was ready to pray, but emotionally (Spiritually and psychologically) I was a wreck. Panic, terror, and helplessness whirled inside my head. I tried sitting on one of the chapel’s small pews, and attempted to reach a state of mind compatible with prayer. But the longer I sat there, the more empty the place felt and the more alone I seemed to be. Finally, just as unsettled as when I entered, I got down on my knees and stayed there. It was evident that I would not be reaching a calm and confident frame of mind in which to pray. Fortunately, by this time, however, I did know what my prayer would be. Above all things, I didn’t want Kim to suffer and I desperately wanted to take her home and have a little more time with her before she died. So, from a kneeling posture, I began speaking my thoughts aloud to God:

"O God, for many years now I have believed you to be a powerful and compassionate God. If you are as great today as the Bible teaches you were in ancient times, then what I am about to ask will be a small thing for you to do. I confess that I deserve no favors from You. Nobler and purer parents than I have been caught unawares in similar circumstances and I know, from their own testimonies, that their prayers for their children were not granted. Nevertheless, even though I know this, I can do nothing other than plead for Your mercy.

As You know already, Lord, since You know everything before it is asked, I don’t think I could stand it, if Kim were to start hurting and we were unable to assuage her pain. (1) Please Lord! Don’t let her suffer from physical pain that the cancer could generate.

(2) And please don’t let her suffer from mental anguish that could arise from her gruesome condition.

Also Lord, (3) please permit me to take her home for a few days before the end comes. As if you need the information, when Kim was born in Louisville, Kentucky, I was in the seminary preparing myself to be your servant. During those first years, I devoted practically all of my time to my studies and working in the church. The child You gave me received only the left over hours of my time and the guilt I feel right now for this neglect is ripping me apart.

Since it seems to be Your will to take her out of this world, in that her cancer was not detected until it was too late, please consider granting my request for a tiny measure of additional time—a small thing from Your perspective but a huge thing from mine. Please allow me to take her home for just a few days and show her how much I love her before she passes. The doctor says she will not be able to leave the hospital, and I would not wish to remove her if she is in physical pain. All the same, I ask that You somehow, someway, make it possible for me to take her home for just a few days before it’s all over. I desire so much to show her how much she is loved and show You how deeply I treasure the irreplaceable gift you put in our home when you gave her to us. Amen."

As I rose to my feet, I felt better that I had prayed but felt no assurance for what I had prayed. The ominous cast of mind was still very much in place. Without a shred of assurance that God might respond affirmatively to my requests, I exited the chapel.

As I made my way back upstairs, I began to think of the hundreds of patients in this large hospital who had families praying for them. My imagination raced onward to the thousands of hospitals throughout the world holding millions of patients, whose families were surely praying for them. And it occurred to me that God’s circuits could easily be jammed under the right conditions. If all of us called on Him at once, my prayer could easily go unheard due to technical difficulties. So to be safe, I resolved to pray the same prayer all through the night, imagining that if there were a disconnect, it could just as easily take place on my end of the line as on God’s end.

Soon, I was back in the room where I would spend the most frightful night of my life.

Chapter 2

Dark Night of the Soul

O Lord, my God, I call for help by day; I cry out in the night before thee … (Ps. 88:1).

As the night began, Kim was restless from the residual effects of anesthesia, not to mention the topsy-turvy changes that had come into her small world so quickly. She napped on and off throughout the night—sleeping for about five minutes, waking for about three, then dozing off again. When she was awake, she did not wish to talk, just make sure I was there. I wanted desperately to do something for her each time she awoke. Repeatedly, I offered her ice chips or to call the nurse. Frequently she took the ice chips, but consistently declined my calling the nurse saying she did not hurt or need anything. The nurse came in anyway, about every thirty minutes or so, looked at the eight-inch incision on her tummy, checked the I.V. and quietly slipped out.

As the night wore on, Kim said, Thanks, Dad, for staying with me. I masked all the dread and fear I was feeling for what she was facing and reassured her that there was no place on the planet I would rather be than precisely where I was. I noticed her fingers extending out from the I.V. pad. I recalled when her mother accidentally closed a door on those very fingers. She was three at the time. We were all so worried that a portion of the middle finger might have to be amputated. Oh, what mocking irony that minor incident appeared to be now. Every trouble, worry, and distress ever encountered, all put together in one bundle, would not compare even slightly with the horrendous situation that this child and her family were now up against.

Before this great trial commenced, I did not know what I thought about a lot of things. I was in the early stages of [working out my] salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:13c). Prayer, for instance, was an activity of great interest to me. I had always thought of prayer as being humankind’s most direct link to God. Yet, I did not feel that I had a sufficient grasp on this Spiritual dynamic, even though I prayed publicly in church and in the privacy of our home. Even so, no strong leanings had developed in my mind about how prayer worked or what could be expected from it. As the hours passed, I kept repeating silently the words I prayed in the chapel. Saying them only once did not seem adequate.

Then sometime late into the night, nihilistic thoughts began forcing their way into my mind, challenging everything I ever believed about God. All the disheartening ideologies I ever studied in school, ever read in a newspaper, ever heard uttered on television, or ever heard spoken by frustrated friends, took turns assaulting my hope in Divine help. For several years, I had been paddling up stream against these undesirable ways of looking at the world. Now, in view of my horrific circumstances, these unwelcomed ideologies were rising to flood stage, and seemed intent on carrying me downstream to a place I did not want to go. Attempts to barricade them from my mind were unsuccessful.

I’m not sure which disparaging theological issue assailed my soul first, but I think it was the one marginalizing the role of prayer. Having graduated from the seminary just three years earlier, I read books and heard lectures that said prayer was no panacea. A few brash professors announced unapologetically that prayer was overrated, intimating that those who prayed a lot may be naïve, if not lazy should they attempt to substitute prayer for the hard work of the ministry. "No