Miracle Story #8
“This is an old one. It was almost 17 years ago.
I dated a girl whose father was a Presbyterian pastor. His name was Warren and they lived in Derby.
I’m not positive of the dates, but several years before, he had been diagnosed with bone marrow cancer. He had been given a fairly short amount of time to live and he surpassed that by years. He lived another six to eight years after the diagnosis because he had gone in and out of remission.
Even when he got really bad, he was still preaching. As a matter of fact, the Sunday before he died, he preached. He had to be basically carried in. He preached from a recliner but he was so drawn to the church and the people. And he never really wanted to take on people’s sorrow or pity.
Up to months before he died he was still visiting sick people in the hospital. He just wasn’t paying any attention to the fact that he was one of them.
His wife was a nurse at the time and they had made the decision that they didn’t want him to die at home. But he didn’t want to spend a bunch of time in the hospital either.
So they had decided that he was going to stay home and when he knew that his time was coming, you know within a day or two, that he would let them know and they would get him to the hospital.
Now for the first part of this story, I wasn’t there. But for the second part I was.
Warren had gotten to the point where he was under a hundred pounds. He was having difficulty even walking to the bathroom. He couldn’t hold down any food or any water or anything.
To keep hydrated, he always wanted ice cubes, just small ice cubes that he could suck on. And it was like that was his craving. He loved the ice cubes and it was refreshing to him. He was always feeling kind of hot and dry.
I got a frantic call from his daughter one day and she had said that he was about to go. It was a few days before his other kids were going to be in from out of town and we could tell he was kind of holding on.
His wife was there and like I said, she was a nurse. On this particular day she had walked into his room and he appeared to already have passed. And when she checked his vitals, he didn’t have any.
No heartbeat.
Wasn’t breathing.
She wasn’t sure how long he had been dead, but she had been in the room just prior, and he had been alert at that time. I don’t remember the exact amount of time but I do remember that it was several minutes that had gone by.
So at the time, she thought he was gone. And he was.
But then all of a sudden, a huge gasp of air. Big old smile. And he was back.
He told his wife that he had something to tell her and he proceeded to say that he had died. And that he saw Jesus.
He said he was on his uncle’s farm, if I remember correctly. He said Jesus was there, and saints, and people. His uncle was there. He described an old water well and that Jesus was pumping cold water over his body. And he was told it wasn’t time yet.
He described feeling that refreshing feeling of the cold water running over his body. It was almost like Jesus was washing him while he was sitting back.
And that’s when he woke up.
I remember his wife saying that when he woke up, it was clear that he had seen something. And like I said earlier, Warren was always hot. Always thirsty, just craving water. He couldn’t hold anything down so he sucked on ice cubes.
Warren didn’t have much energy but he had enough energy to tell the story about what he saw in those moments, to every single person that walked into that room from that point on.
He was very weak but he was really excited.
So that prompted them to take him to the hospital. They knew his time was fast approaching and that he was very, very close. They called Hospice in and they got him in to the hospital.
His daughter and other family made it in, they got to see him. I think it was a couple of days, maybe three days at the maximum. And he told every person that came into the room the story about seeing Jesus and the pumping of the water.
So the afternoon that he died, and this would’ve been October of 1999, we were all there.
Family, friends.
It was a pretty active place and he loved the company. Most of us were outside of the room, and I remember that two of his daughters and his wife were in the room. It had just started to get a little darker in the late afternoon and he wanted the blinds open so some daylight could get in.
We had been singing and praying. It was a constant flow of church members and pastors and people coming in and basically saying their goodbyes and all of that.
And honestly, I didn’t really think he was really going to go that day. I thought he was probably going to hang on for another couple of days. But all of a sudden he asked his daughter to open the blinds and we heard this commotion, so we went into the room.
Warren had raised up as soon as the blinds went up and the light came in. He raised up with as much strength as he had, which really was just barely above the pillow.
And he turned his body and he looked out the window like he saw something. And his eyes just got huge and he got this huge smile.
And he was gone.
It was almost like he knew something was out there. He saw something. We don’t know what it was because he was gone instantly.
And that time, he was really gone.
We stood around his bed and we sang “I’ll Fly Away,” and we sang a bunch of different hymns and stuff like that.
And then everybody went their way.
Warren had a huge impact on me.
The first time I had ever seen a picture of Jesus laughing was in his office. You walked into his office and there was this big picture.
He actually left it to me when he died, but I gave it back to the church. They have it there at the church.
And then several years later my parents had been in Branson and they brought back a smaller version of it. So then I found out that it’s actually a fairly common photo. The only two I’ve ever seen are those, but if you Google it, it pops up.
So it’s out there.
It was really telling of who Warren was. He wasn’t a ‘thump the Bible’ and preach at people kind of person. He was just full of love.
And like I said earlier, that week before he died he preached. His son and I walked him into the church and got him in the recliner to preach from the stage.
It wasn’t an, ‘I’ve got to go because I’m full of pride and I’m not gonna accept it so I still need to work’ type of deal. He wanted to experience it again. And you could tell.
Just a huge heart.
From that point on, when we walked him back out of that church, I don’t think he ever got out of bed again. It was like he was hanging on for a couple of things.
He wanted to preach one more time on Sunday. And he wanted his kids to all be there in time to say goodbye.
So it was impactful.
I ended up writing a song called, “Warren’s Song.” And it talks about that. It talks about standing around his bed singing, “I’ll Fly Away.” And just a little bit of insight into who the man was.
This is a story of confirmation. You can call it a miracle if you want.
I think it’s all a miracle.
You see big marketing. You know, the marketing ploy where they use real people. Like eHarmony for example. Real people that used their service and then they got married. They do that because there’s a huge difference between an actor and real reality.
The people that really experience something, they come across that way. As real.
It’s the same way with stories.
So when you’re in the presence of someone that experienced that and they tell you the story, you feel it. And you just know.
Like you just know there’s no way it’s a dream. And maybe it is a dream.
I think God gives stuff to us in dreams all the time. It’s kind of like that painter, Akiane Kramarik, who as a very small child had dreams and would wake up and paint them.
Her parents were athiests and when they saw these paintings and illustrations, and how alive they looked, and heard her stories, they had no other option but to believe. They were so real they could tell that she was telling the truth. She was painting what she saw.
They were so full of life and so real, it was undeniable.
I don’t believe there was ever any doubt but it was confirming. To hear Warren’s story and to see his face was confirming. And just the simple fact that he had to tell everybody that came in the room.
The guy could barely talk at the time. He was saving every bit of energy.
To preach.
To share some love with his kids and his family before he was gone.
And to tell that story.”
To hear "Warren's Song" click the following link: https://itun.es/us/6O5z?i=6789688
© Written and performed by Jared Brown. All rights reserved.
© 2017 by One Million Miracles. All Rights Reserved.
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My name is Jared, and I live in Wichita, Kansas.
In the midst of my mentor dying of cancer, I AM miracle story #8.