Lessons from Dr. Lowell

By Barbara Furman Hall

Are you struggling with helping your loved one in the final phase of life, anger, selfishness, trying to parent from a Christian perspective, dealing with your family post-divorce, and figuring out how to be successful in a blended family? You might be surprised how much you can learn from my mistakes and these invaluable lessons learned from bo

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trilogy Christian Publishing
• Release date: Aug 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685567521

Barbara Furman Hall

Barbara Furman Hall is a southerner with a heart for God. She lives in North Carolina and has been married twenty-nine years and has two grown daughters. She owns her own business as a psychiatric nurse practitioner and cheers for Appalachian State University Mountaineers, University of North Carolina Tarheels, and Clemson Tigers. Barb serves at her church, Upward Christian Fellowship, in Flat Rock, North Carolina, and supports World Medical Mission, the medical arm of Samaritan's Purse in Boone, North Carolina.

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Lessons from Dr. Lowell

By Barbara Furman Hall

Lessons from Dr. Lowell

Trilogy Christian Publishers A Wholly Owned Subsidiary of Trinity Broadcasting Network

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Copyright © 2022 by Barbara Furman Hall

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.TM 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.TM Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

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Cover design by: Natalee Dunning

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Trilogy Disclaimer: The views and content expressed in this book are those of the author and may not necessarily reflect the views and doctrine of Trilogy Christian Publishing or the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

ISBN: 978-1-68556-751-4

E-ISBN: 978-1-68556-752-1

Dedication

This book is dedicated to both my earthly and heavenly fathers. Thank you for loving me and teaching me so much every day. I love you both so much.

It is my intention that some of the royalties from this book go to World Medical Missions, the medical arm of Samaritan’s Purse, to further the work of my heavenly Father, my dad, and my uncles.

Table of Contents

Chapter One: The Beginning 1

Chapter Two: My Dad’s History 9

Chapter Three: The Funeral 31

Chapter Four: The Lessons 53

Chapter One: The Beginning

It’s important that you know who I am so that you can gain all that is offered in Lessons from Dr. Lowell. Dr. Lowell was my dad.

I am a psychiatric nurse practitioner that currently works in a private practice setting prescribing psychiatric medications to my patients. I used to own a small private psychiatric practice in North Carolina that included several master’s prepared therapists. We all worked together and hopefully provided quality psychiatric care, including medications and therapy for kids and adults. I have been a psychiatric nurse since 1985 and a psychiatric nurse practitioner since 1999.

My story begins in Boone, North Carolina, where I lived from three years old until I left for college. My father, Dr. Lowell Benjamin Furman, was a general surgeon in Boone. With the help of Franklin Graham, my father and my uncle Dr. Richard Furman established World Medical Missions in addition to their busy surgical practice. My father and my uncle would both travel internationally on mission trips to perform surgeries and witness to the nationals and their families. World Medical Missions is now the medical arm of Samaritan’s Purse, and they coordinate doctors traveling to third world countries, sending over 300 physicians a year, providing medical care, and witnessing to people about Jesus Christ.

I was raised in a Christian family. I asked Jesus Christ into my heart and was baptized as a preteen. After high school, I moved to Colorado and completed all my formal education. I became a registered nurse in 1985, a clinical nurse specialist (master’s prepared counselor/therapist) in 1993, and then a nurse practitioner able to prescribe medicines in 1999. I married Steve Hall in 1993, and we’ve been blessed with two incredible daughters, Samantha and Sydney.

Our picture-perfect life came crashing to a halt as I was diagnosed with stage IIIB lymphoma in 2001. It was God’s timing that my parents happened to be in Colorado on a ski trip when I was diagnosed. As my oncologist initially declared my diagnosis, without a blink, my father stated, We must pray. My family, along with the oncologist, whom we had just met, bowed as my father asked for guidance, direction, and healing from our Lord. This simple prayer reset the pace, goal, and overall priority of my life.

Next, I took my children and my husband to an inexpensive hair salon. My hair was a little longer than my shoulders. As I sat down in front of a twenty-something stylist, I requested that she cut my hair to about one inch all over. She quickly corrected me and said surely you mean one inch trimmed. My two- and three-year-old daughters were crawling all over my lap as I explained that I had just been diagnosed with stage IIIB lymphoma and I would be losing all my hair as I started chemotherapy. I will never forget looking in the mirror as I watched this young stylist cutting and crying. This young woman had never seen my face before ten minutes ago, and here she was crying on my behalf. I was so touched by the simplicity of basic human caring.

My prognosis was poor as my oncologist told us that he had treated one other person with the same cancer, and she had died within six months. My parents quickly got me on at least a million prayer lists, and I started on my journey of chemotherapy. Initially, things looked grim, and I told my husband that I wanted to go home to North Carolina to die. As we prepared to move, it became clear that the treatment and prayer were helping, and I was improving. I literally started to feel lifted up in prayer, and my strength grew physically and personally, and the cancer diminished internally. I was considered a survivor as we moved in February 2002 to North Carolina. Even my oncologist agreed that my healing was a miracle.

My family settled in North Carolina, and we were blessed to move into a neighborhood full of Christian families. We were nurtured and loved as we reset our life, and my hair began to grow back. We joined an incredible church, Peninsula Baptist Church, which defined fellowship, humility, and Christian love for all four of us. Mooresville, North Carolina, the home of rough and tough NASCAR, was such a soft place for the Halls to fall after a hard course of chemo.

Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. My husband and I started to notice God’s handiwork in all these events. We didn’t understand it while we were in the midst of my lymphoma, but now we know that my cancer would turn out to be our greatest blessing. This was a time of great adversity, a time when my thoughts centered on death for the first time in my life. I would awake during the night and wonder what my girls would do without a mom and how Steve would raise our girls without me. It all felt incredibly unfair, as you will learn that I, too, had lost my mom at a young age. However, in looking back, I can see that my suffering was actually good for me. It made me aware of the Lord’s presence in such a way I had never known before. There is a passage in the Bible where I could identify with David when he wrote in Psalm 119:71–72 (NLT), My suffering was good for me, for it taught me to pay attention to your decrees. Your instructions are more valuable to me than millions in gold and silver. I was being taught some great lessons that were changing my life. We would never have moved back to North Carolina if I hadn’t gotten sick. We would never have left Colorado. Being near family and focusing on a relationship with Jesus Christ weren’t our priorities until we suddenly were faced with no more time together and death. God had reset the clock with my lymphoma. We were back to the basics of life. Others, kindness, caring, family, and God were back on the radar, and self, success, money, prestige, and power were dimming on the screen. We also noted that of our list that was on our radar, God had to be first and utmost.

In March 2003, I mentioned to my father I was thinking about opening my own independent private practice. My father questioned a nurse practitioner treating patients independently without a doctor, but I quickly educated him on the ability of nurse practitioners to practice independently with a collaborative agreement with an MD. Nurse practitioners in North Carolina are required to meet with an MD biannually. With this hurdle crossed, my father quickly stated that I must bathe this thought/plan in prayer for a while and that if it’s the Lord’s will, doors will be opened. I had anticipated that my dad would talk with me about money or cash flow or a business plan. I was already racing to make it more complicated. I was quickly taken back to two years ago on that winter day in Colorado when I had been diagnosed with my cancer, and my father’s initial response was prayer. I remember wondering when prayer would be my first instinct.

After much prayer, in December 2003, I met with my father and my husband to plan out opening a new office/practice. God again had provided, as a neighbor mentioned, the perfect empty office building. The door had clearly been opened. My father quickly asked me many questions about my plan and goals. What was the purpose of this office? If God wanted this office, then he should be involved in the plan/goal. He sent me to the Bible. I spent Christmas vacation up in Boone, North Carolina, that year writing a mission statement for the office. My dad kept saying to boil it down to the basics and keep it simple so I could reference it in every question that would come up regarding the business.

Psychiatric Services of Lake Norman was born in 2004 with the goal of providing quality psychiatric service, including medications and therapy, in a Christian environment. We do not provide Christian counseling, for none of us are proficiently versed in the Bible, so we refer our patients to local churches for Christian counseling. However, all our psychiatric care is delivered through Christian eyes and hearts and hopefully in a Christian environment.

I do have to say, initially and ongoing, the hardest part of establishing an office is the struggle of the Christian environment. I find Satan very active and vigorous as