January 4, 2007 7:00-9:30
The day John was born my wife and I realized there was something wrong with him. He never cried. Well, he did cry, but no sound came out. I don’t really know how to explain it. He was mute. Some friends of ours joked they wished their babies were mute, but I felt bad. I’d wake up every night and check on him, only to find him crying. How long he’d been crying I never knew. I felt so bad that he would be laying there alone, so upset about something, but my wife and I never heard to go help him.
A few weeks after John’s birth we began to notice he didn’t seem to hear us when we spoke to him. I don’t know exactly how we figured this out, but I could just tell. I convinced my wife that we should take him to the doctor. He confirmed our fears. John was both deaf and mute. A few days after we heard the news my wife left us. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. She was never as concerned about John as I was. When she discovered the full scope of his disabilities she decided it’d be easier to leave us. I don’t want to make her sound like a bad person or anything. She wasn’t. She just didn’t want to have kids. When she found out she was pregnant with John I could tell she wasn’t really happy about it. I guess I can’t blame her.
So, it was just John and I. For the first few years things went pretty well. Yeah, it was hard being a single parent. John was my life. Good friends helped take care of John while I went to work. They always said what a well-behaved boy he was. John accepted from an early age that he couldn’t speak, but he certainly had all the emotions of a regular boy. When something funny happened he’d laugh and laugh without making a sound. When he was old enough he began to slap something or clap his hands to show he thought the thing was funny. I remember one time we were playing catch. John threw the ball over my head, trying to prove how strong he was. As I backed up to catch the ball I tripped right over a rock and fell on my backside. John ran up to me a little scared I’d been hurt. When he saw me smiling and OK, he began to laugh and laugh and clap his hands. He doubled over with his arms crossed over his belly. I laughed too. How silly I must have looked sitting there in the dust.
It was one of those times he was laughing with me that suddenly the look of joy left his face. In its place I saw a look of both fear and questioning. Immediately I stopped laughing as well. John started to come toward me, his hands up and pleading. Then he started shaking. I grabbed him, unsure of what was happening. He just convulsed over and over again and began foaming at the mouth. I held him loosely in my arms, my hand supporting his head so he wouldn’t hurt himself while jerking around. In several minutes he was fine again except that he started to sob out of fear. I had heard of others having these convulsions, but had never seen one myself. I put him to bed and nothing happened again for several months.
For about five years John would have convulsions several times a year. The doctors couldn’t find anything medically wrong with him. They tested him and poked and prodded him each time charging a fee and ultimately only frustrating John and depressing me. Even the families who had helped us for so many years go to scared to help any more. They didn’t want John to get severely hurt while he was with them. One family was down at the river washing clothes when John had convulsions. While the mother’s back was turned toward him he fell into the water shaking and jerking. Luckily some of the other children saw what happened and told the mother. By the time they pulled him out of the water he had nearly drowned. That poor mother, she was beside herself. I could barely console her. Her husband told me a few days later that she couldn’t watch John anymore. I don’t blame her. He was my responsibility.
One day, I remember it clearly, I heard about a man named Jesus said to heal people of blindness, lameness, and leprosy. Of course, I wanted to believe it, but for years people had come to me with suggestions or recommendations of physicians or remedies. None had worked, so why should I think this Jesus would be any different? At first the talk about him came only in rumors. A friend heard from a friend that a brother in law’s mother had been healed of a tumor. After a few months though a man from several towns away was healed of his blindness. Here seemed to be truth. I knew this man. As long as I had known him he had sat on the edge of his town begging money. Now he was running into our town shouting of what Jesus had done for him.
I didn’t wait any longer. John and I left town right away and within a day we had found the disciples of Jesus. Jesus had left town and no one seemed to know where He was or when He would return. I took John before the disciples and one of them tried to cast out the demon. Nothing happened. John just stood and looked at me with disappointment written across his face. I couldn’t believe it. Even this would not work.
Just then several of the townspeople on the edge of the crowd began a fervor. I turned around and saw the man who I knew must have been Jesus with three other men. I rushed to him and told him everything. He was my final hope. If this man who could heal the blind, sick, and lame could not heal my son, then nothing could.
As I brought John to the Master my son turned and looked at me. I knew then what was coming. No sooner did I wrap my arms around him than he began to shake as he never had before. He jerked and shook so violently I thought I would lose him right there. He foamed at the mouth and his eyes rolled back in his head so far that those surrounding us gasped in fear. “God, please don’t let him die,” I thought.
When the spell finally passed I laid John on the ground and knelt beside him fearing the worst. He looked as though he wasn’t even breathing. I could not believe this. I finally find someone who I actually thought might heal him, and he dies before that could happen. I could not believe this. Tears filled my eyes for my son. He was all I had left. I began to sob.
As I wept and wept I felt someone kneel beside me. I turned and looked into the eyes of Jesus. Behind us people were whispering and some cried quietly, “He’s dead. The boy is dead.”
“If you believe,” I heard Jesus saying, “All things are possible for those who believe.”
Could He really mean that, I wondered. My son lay dead in the dust before me, were all things truly possible if I only believed? I wanted to believe, but it seemed so impossible. I looked into the eyes of Jesus and spoke the most honest words I could.
“I believe, Lord. Help my unbelief.”
Jesus said nothing but only smiled the most calming, assuring pitying smile I’ve ever seen. He placed his hand on the boy and spoke quietly, “You deaf and dumb spirit come out of him and trouble him no more.”
As if on cue John’s body convulsed one more time almost as badly as before. I reached to grab him afraid this would kill him, but Jesus firmly held me back. In a moment John’s body fell motionless one last time. I almost gave up hope, but looking into Jesus face I saw that merciful smile again, and refused to believe he had failed. Jesus reached down and took John’s hand. John’s fingers slowly grasped the hand of Jesus. He inhaled a huge breath and his eyes opened. I began to sob again, but this time out of joy. My son, my only son was alive. We locked eyes and John smiled.
“Dad,” he spoke for the first time in his life, “I love you.”
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