While Walking with God

My son, Buddy Melton, has a large farm. He had recently purchased a new breed of cattle which he wanted to keep at the barn above the house. He wanted to move all the other cattle of a different breed to the barn across the road. He was leaving the house for work when he looked at his watch and realized he had enough time to transfer the last six head of cattle before he left.

He went to the upper pasture, loaded the cattle onto the cattle truck, and as he was shutting the heavy steel gate, the last cow loaded kicked the gate, which caused it to crash into his face. He knew immediately that his injury was serious, and he was afraid he was going to pass out. He knew if he blacked out before he locked the gate, the cattle could come off the truck and trample him to death. No one knew where he was or what he was doing as his wife and daughter had left much earlier for work and school. The Lord provided and he was able to lock the gate.

A second miracle occurred when he was able to call 911 because there are very few places on his property with cell phone reception. Still, miraculously, he was able to walk off the mountain and down to his house where the emergency medical personal would be able to find him.

He was transported to the hospital and underwent eleven and a half hours of brain surgery with three teams of surgeons. Neurosurgeons performed two craniotomies to remove the bone fragments that had cut into the lining of the brain, which caused spinal fluid to leak out his nose; maxi-facial surgeons did reconstruction to his face and an eye socket; then plastic surgeons performed further necessary work.

My son was taken down to surgery at 6:30 Sunday morning. When the surgery began, it quickly became apparent that Buddy’s injuries were far worse than the CT scans had indicated, and an ordeal that was expected to last five and a half hours lasted eleven and a half. The surgery went well and after one day in ICU, he was moved to a step-down unit with hopes that he would go home on Thursday. However, by Thursday, Buddy’s condition worsened. He was on three different painkillers: morphine, oxycodone, and Percocet. Even those failed to relieve his pain. Still, we remained hopeful and prayed that he would go home on Sunday. By Sunday he was much worse. The pain was then accompanied by nausea, vomiting, and fever. His white blood count was high, and they could not determine the location of the infection. That Sunday will live forever as one of the worst days of our lives. Our son was dying.

When the accident first happened, I had called a minister friend, Ron Childress, whose spiritual gift is the gift of healing, and I asked him to pray for Buddy. At 11:30 that Sunday night he called me. “I have called to pray for your son. . . . I’m going to ask God to send a healing angel to him.”

At 9:00 the next morning, when I walked into my son’s room, his wife, Carla, looked up from his bedside. “How was your night?” I whispered. She replied, “We had a really good night; Buddy slept all night and so did I.” I was relieved to hear this but was totally unprepared for what she said next.

Carla went on, “I have to tell you; Jesus visited us last night! It was around 11:30. Buddy was asleep. The room was dark, and I had my eyes closed because I was praying so hard. I was so afraid, so worried, so sad and heart-broken for Buddy, and suddenly, I realized a light had come on in the room.”

Carla continued, “I opened my eyes and Jesus was standing on the other side of Buddy’s bed. His face was so bright I couldn’t see his features, but I knew he was smiling at me. He laid both hands on Buddy’s chest, and in a few moments he was gone! “

I stood there hardly moving. I was in awe! I remember thinking about the passage in the Bible that says “… and Mary pondered these things in her heart.” All day I pondered Carla’s experience in my heart and contemplated the presence of Jesus at my son’s bedside. I thanked him again and again for such grace, mercy, and love.

That day we had Buddy up most of the day. All day we pushed him to eat tiny bits of Jell-O or take small sips of a protein drink. When his supper tray came, he thought he could eat something. I had just given him one bite when suddenly he lost everything he had eaten that day. As soon as I could, I called my minister friend again to ask him to pray harder for my son.

“Listen to me!” my friend said emphatically. “You must be praising God for the healing that is taking place in your son’s body right now!” Seven times he said that, each time with greater emphasis than the time before. After I got off the phone, I went back into my son’s room and told Carla what Reverend Childress had said.

Buddy is a member of Balsam Range, an internationally known bluegrass band. Thousands of people were keeping up with his progress and were praying for him. When I reported what the minister had told me, Carla immediately got on the Internet and asked everyone to join us in praising God for the healing that was already taking place in Buddy’s body.