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Today, July 15, 2002, I spoke with Mrs. Nelson Verret at her home in Victoria, Texas.  I had not spoken with Mrs. Verret since about 1986 when her husband, Nelson, was a patient at Methodist Hospital in Houston.  I was there for an angioplasty procedure and met Nelson the day I left the hospital.

He had been in the hospital for several days “waiting” for a donor heart since a transplant was considered by physicians at this “heart famous” institution to be his only hope to live beyond just a very limited number of days.  He was pleased that I asked him if he would like for us to have a prayer.  Two heart patients, one glad to be going home, one waiting maybe to live…maybe not!

I came back to the hospital the next day and the next and the next to pray with Nelson, and to encourage him in his desperate circumstances.  After two or three weeks of daily prayer times, my work schedule made it impossible for me to continue the routine.   I suggested to Nelson that we continue to “pray together” each day wherever we happened to be and that ten o’clock each morning would be our prayer time.  It was agreed that no matter what was taking place in his hospital room, nurses, doctors, whatever, prayer at ten was to be the priority.  Whoever was there at the time would share this time if they wished to do so. 

Our prayer bond continued as we sought God’s grace for comfort, healing, and peace of mind and encouraging Nelson to trust God completely and to be commited to His will.  Our covenant proved to be a blessing to both of us, as well as to Nelson’s family as they coped with his lengthy hospital experience.

Days and weeks went by and the physicians attended him with each procedure or regimen of medication deemed prudent to keep him alive and strong enough to cope with the anticipated transplant procedure.  Still waiting for a donor he gradually became strong and stable enough to move into an apartment near the hospital so as to be immediately available if a donor heart became available.

One afternoon Nelson called me at my nearby home in Bellaire.  He was understandably uneasy and depressed after anxiously waiting now for weeks.  He asked if I could come and talk with him.  On arrival we talked about his lack of peace and hope.   I disclaimed any ability to advise or suggest anything pertaining to the medical aspects of his depression or absence of peace in his heart.  However, I assured him that if his problem was spiritual, I was ready to help him if that was his reason for falling.  He confided that this was indeed the reason for his concern.

On that day, under these circumstances, it became my privilege to help make known the answer to his greatest need.   On that day, still a waiting candidate for a donor heart to save his life, Nelson Verret found the answer to the yearning for peace in his heart by coming to know Jesus Christ in the forgiveness of sins and trusting Him for salvation.  Earthly life, still in the balance, eternal life became his guarantee. 

Kneeling there with Nelson and Mrs. Verret, depression vanished and in it’s place came a peace that passes all understanding.   One “heart” was made new and whole that day and the joy that filled the room was as real as turning on a light.  After Nelson had voiced his decision, the joy was multiplied as Mrs. Nelson said “I need to do the same thing” and did so within moments.  There were three happy people in that small apartment near Methodist Hospital in Houston that day.

A donor heart never became available.  The good news is that God still can and does work miracles.  Just today, July 15, 2002, sixteen years after the day after Nelson and Lilly, by faith, just put everything in God’s hands, I telephoned Mrs. Verret.  Recalling the hospital days, she told me that Nelson passed away just a couple of years ago, fourteen years after he had been given “just a few more days to live”.

I was so ashamed for not having maintained contact since moving from Houston in 1990.  But it was good to know that Mrs. Verret was “managing” to cope with health problems that most of us seniors deal with on a daily basis.

There is however, more to the story.  Recalling the day that Nelson called when both he and Mrs. Verret had made such meaningful decisions, she shared some information that no doubt had a strong bearing on the things that occurred that day.

She mentioned that for several months their son Richard and fellow church members in Portland, near Corpus Christi, had been praying for Nelson.  The son was praying that God “would send someone to talk to his dad”.   She added, “They believe you are that person”.  This was a very humbling word for me to hear, but at that moment I somehow felt that I had experienced the high privilege at least one time in my life of being the direct answer to someone’s prayer.

Today, after visiting with his mother on the phone, I called Richard at his office in Ohio for a brief  “reunion” of sorts as we recalled the joy of remembering how God had answered his prayers.  It provided me with an opportunity to tell him how much it meant to me to have known his parents and to have been included in their lives at such an important time. 

Confident that Richard and his family are serving the Lord wherever his professional life takes them, I’m equally certain that the Houston experience will always remind them and me that God is fully capable and often anxious to overrule human impossibilities.  Prayer really does make a difference and assuredly it can mean the difference between life and death, a truth I wish to never forget.   God be the glory, great things hath He done!  To have been a prayer partner with this fine man is one of the highlights of my life. 

Frank Denton

(Frank Denton, in retirement, would later serve as a volunteer chaplain at that same Methodist Hospital in Houston.  Now residing in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, he serves as a consultant to a missions foundation that funds various Christian Ministries throughout Texas.  For more from Frank, check out his website at http://www.countrypoet.com)