by Peggy Hatton | Oct 4, 2022 | Commentary, Headline News, Prayers & Devotionals |
In the journey of my life, yesterday a chapter ended. Thank goodness, I didn’t get stuck but moved past my circumstances, when I was diagnosed with my first brain tumor.
I say first because there was a third time around. And each time, it was a severe blow that overpowered me and almost put me under. I have a history of brain tumors (Meningioma). Therefore, I want to share what God has done in my life, God brought me through it all.
I was a single woman working in the medical field with no expectations of bad news. I started having severe headaches, and knew something wasn’t right. A MRI was ordered and my peaceful life was impacted significantly when the doctor called me at work and gave me the results. My physician asked: “is this Peggy Hatton?” I said yes. He said “your “MRI” results revealed a large brain tumor.” I said, “what?!” I cried, wanting to scream, but had to hold it in because I was at work.
And the first thing that came to my mind was, “I’m going to die.” I notified the supervisor of my situation and let them know that I had to leave. I wasn’t any good after hearing this. I had to call my cousin to pick me up because I couldn’t drive either. I was weeping non-stop. I cried unstoppably until my face was swollen. I knew God was the only one who could help me and I prayed and talked to him saying, “Why Me Lord?” I felt the Holy Spirit respond: “Peggy, why not you? Don’t be discouraged, I will always be with you.”
God comforted me and I moved forward and had the first brain tumor surgically removed. Although I woke up temporarily blind, the surgery was successful. I was still in ICU when an optometrist came and worked on my eyes. I was so scared. Later on that day, my vision returned.
After all of the procedures, my eyes have never been the same. Today, I use numerous eye drops and visit an optometrist regularly. I accepted what I had no control over.
Years later, I started having severe headaches again and knew the brain tumor had returned. Another MRI was taken and showed it had returned with a vengeance, it was brain cancer. I prayed and put it in God’s mighty hands.
I had radiation treatment for brain cancer. Today, I am still having more treatments and is scheduled to graduated soon. None of this was easy and if I didn’t have a mustard seed of faith in God, I wouldn’t have made it.
I interacted with cancer patients and we all need encouragement, inspiration, and love. This is whyI am sharing my story to uplift others in their battles.
This illness shattered my life, caused me to become disabled, and live less fortunately financially. However, God has truly blessed me and I thank him for placing supportive saints around me.
During all my trials and tribulations, real compassionate people reached out through texts, calls, and visits. I thank God for his mercy, grace, and his angels. act of kindness and thoughtfulness was greatly appreciated.
When going through battles, everyone needs somebody. It helps so much just knowing other people care and you are not going through this alone. There is always someone in circumstances worse than yours. No matter how tough this battle has been. I never lost my faith in God, therefore I never lost a battle. I kept my head up, wiped tears, and kept moving.
Through it all, as a wounded soldier, God gave me peace that passes all understanding.
by Adelle M. Banks, RNS | Sep 26, 2022 | Headline News, Social Justice |
Visitors with a Let’s Talk initiative pose together at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Sept. 13, 2022, in Washington. RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks
WASHINGTON (RNS) — For missionary Doug Gentile, it was seeing the “shackles for tiny children” used during American slavery.
For seminary professor Darrell Bock, it was confronting the specificity of the list of “Black codes” that restricted the lives of Black people after slavery ended — mandates in many states, for instance, that they sign annual labor contracts on pain of arrest.
These revelations, and many more, came out of an early morning tour Tuesday (Sept. 13) of an otherwise empty National Museum of African American History and Culture for 42 Black, white and Asian American evangelical Christian leaders, sponsored by an initiative called Let’s Talk, which aims to foster racial unity among evangelicals.
“A lot of folks had some real eye-opening moments at the museum,” said Bishop Derek Grier, founder of Let’s Talk, the day after the tour.
The visitors, who included Council for Christian Colleges & Universities President Shirley V. Hoogstra, public relations executive and longtime Billy Graham spokesman A. Larry Ross and National Association of Evangelicals President Walter Kim, followed a museum guide, most listening silently, past Harriet Tubman’s hymnal, a dress made by Rosa Parks at the time of her bus protest and an exhibit about the bombing of Birmingham’s 16th Street Baptist Church, which occurred 59 years nearly to the day before the tour.
Their guide explained that enslaved Blacks regularly attended “what could be called church” secretly in brush arbors, because it was illegal for them to preach or gather during the time of slavery.
But there were other lessons about how the slave experience formed the basis of what some view as racial injustices today. “Most people did not realize the economic impact slavery had on the founding of the United States of America and one of the plaques said something along the lines of 60% of the U.S. economy was based on slavery,” said Grier, who is Black.
The initiative comes in answer to the rejection by some evangelicals of the idea of systemic racism. A 2019 survey found that, when asked if the country has historically been oppressive for racial minorities, 82% of white evangelicals did not agree.
Gentile, founder of Alexandria, Virginia, nonprofit James 2 Association, said the tour bolstered his organization’s goal “to use the Bible to fight back against these white-rage, rear-guard attempts to cancel discussions of racial history and racial justice in the public schools.”
Pastor Lee Jenkins, the leader of the nondenominational Eagles Nest Church in Roswell, Georgia, and co-chair of the regional organization One Race, said he appreciated how some white visitors to the museum were affected by what they saw.
“It shook some of them to their core,” he said. “And that was encouraging because it showed that they had compassion and they were willing to acknowledge that America has had a problem in this area and this problem of racism and injustice needs to be addressed.”
Bishop Derek Grier, right, founder of Let’s Talk, talks with missionary Doug Gentile outside the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Sept. 13, 2022, in Washington. RNS photo by Adelle M. Banks
The Let’s Talk initiative was launched at a banquet at the Museum of the Bible in November, and since then more than 500 people have signed its “Statement of Change,” which says in part: “We believe both the spirit and clear moral imperatives of scripture require the Christian community to lead the way in defeating racial bigotry.”
Some of the signers have also committed to meeting regularly — at first monthly and now quarterly — over Zoom to continue conversations about racial tensions.
Many of the participants already work on race issues through their churches or organizations. But Kim said Let’s Talk was a chance to learn, share and network together. “There’s a desire for us not to be territorial about this work,” he said. “This is gospel work, and it is really important for us to be in collaboration with others, sometimes applauding what they’re doing from afar, other times collaborating closely.”
Bock, a white New Testament scholar who has taught at Dallas Theological Seminary for 41 years, said the museum tour helped orient the work the group has ahead. He said their focus on unity in Christ is a starting point for conversations about polarization in the country, adding that discussions of race should not be separated from the church’s testimony.
“Most of the evangelical church is about individual salvation and a person’s individual walk with God,” he said. “This is all about larger community structures and being able to think through that space and to help people see that space is an important part of the conversation.”
Kim said his organization expects to support Grier’s plans for a “Unity Weekend” in June 2023, when churches will cooperate across racial and denominational lines on service projects and hear sermons about unity.
In March, the NAE hired a director of its new Racial Justice & Reconciliation Collaborative who has been meeting with leaders of local and regional initiatives to address racial injustice such as One Race. The NAE, an umbrella organization for a wide range of evangelical organizations, hopes to foster networks that address not only what the churches can do within their own structures but beyond them to transform their communities.
Grier, who is pastor of an independent church in Dumfries, Virginia, said his reasons for founding Let’s Talk are based on biblical lessons about collaboration, including Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels “that they may be one” and that “a house divided against itself will not stand.”
“I have children I love, people I love that are going to be here a lot longer than I will be,” said the 57-year-old pastor. “And I want to make sure that I do my part in trying to make this a better country for the young people that are going to follow us.”
