This article is featured in GO! Christian Magazine’s Summer 2018 issue
“Just three years ago I was a totally different person physically and spiritually than I am now. Though I went to church I wasn’t as close to God as I should have been. A lot of the time I was more interested in myself than God. He was on the back burner.”
In September of 2015, Steve Brown was diagnosed with Acute Myeloid Leukemia, a very aggressive form of Leukemia. His doctor, with a heavy heart, told him he had 3 to 6 months to live. He had gone to his doctor for a checkup, where they found some irregularities in his blood. Steve’s only symptoms were some fatigue and shortness of breath. His doctor took the time out of his schedule and did a bone marrow biopsy on his lunch break for him.
Steve was a fire fighter for 28 ½ years, retiring from the Fire Department in 2003. He went on to get his teaching certificate, teaching classes in Fire Standards, Hazardous Materials, and Fire Chemistry at Gulf Coast College. A teacher at heart, Steve said “I like turning the lights on in people’s heads.”
Up to the day of his diagnosis, he and his wife Connie were leading full lives. Connie had recently retired from nursing, and they were enjoying their grandkids and doing some traveling. After the news of his impending death, they both marveled at how God had set the stage many years earlier for Steve’s illness. You see, Connie, after becoming a nurse, had obtained her national registration in Chemotherapy and had run the outpatient chemo unit at Bay Medical. They were also debt free, and were part of a local church family and small group who gave them all the emotional and practical support they needed.
Four whirlwind days after hearing those terrifying words, Steve checked into the University of Alabama in Birmingham’s blood disease center. He was there for about six weeks where he had a port placed in his chest, receiving both chemo and other drugs. The treatment made him very sick with horrific headaches and exhaustion. They had to ‘wipe’ his bone marrow. Chemotherapy gets rid of as much cancer cells as possible, but it wipes out the bad cells as well as the good cells, so Steve had no white blood cells left to fight infections.
He went into complete remission for the first time in April of 2016.
In November of that same year, Steve relapsed. “This was the hardest time for me psychologically. I almost resigned myself that I was going to die. I wrestled with God over and over about it until I said, ‘ok, Father, your will be done.’ Then I had peace.”
Both Steve and Connie believe with all their heats that when you give your life to God there’s going to be divine providence in your life.
During his second remission, he was doing so well, they sent him home from the UAB 10 days early. During his sickness, Steve learned early on to read his Bible and pray. “The first time I got chemo I learned how real God is, and the second time around was how steadfast God’s Word is. Sometimes, I would be so sick or in so much pain all I could do was remember bits and pieces of scripture but I would stand on them and His Word saw me through.”
For Steve’s daily devotions he found himself reading a lot in the Old Testament reveling in the descriptions of God’s absolute power. The Holy Spirit encouraged Steve to substitute his own name as he read, making the verses very personal to him. Verse after verse began to jump off the page. “And the Lord said, I have surely seen the disease of Steve in Panama City…” Steve remembers many times waking up in the night just hugging God to himself as he clung to his Bible like a child to his blanket.
At one point Steve told me when he was in such agonizing pain, he was crying out to God, “Don’t take the pain away but help me bear up under it.”
Connie and Steve read a book by Alistair Begg about divine providence, and how we are sheltered under his protection and guidance. “Even though you believe in God there are days that you struggle so I always tried to look for the positive in everything. To keep my trust in God. Through it all there was going to be a good outcome one way or another.”
After the round of chemo, Steve was able to receive a bone marrow transplant, and during this last relapse and remission, Steve and Connie stayed at the American Cancer Society’s Joe Griffin Hope Lodge living among many other cancer patients and their caregivers.
On the day of Steve’s bone marrow transplant, he and Connie read their daily devotional with hopeful hearts. It read, “The Holy Spirit is Christ’s life transfused into you and flowing through you. The Spirit changes us from the inside out and empowers us to live out the call of God.”
They decided to start a Bible study at the Center of Hope.
A lot of the cancer patients in their group were in bad shape. One lady had throat cancer. When she first joined the group she could hardly talk or pray. Then a preacher came who had cancer and Steve asked him to lead the group. The lady with throat cancer was a pianist who played the piano at the Hope Center. During one of their Bible studies, they had a prayer meeting right then and it was awesome.
The will to stay alive was evident in everyone. Some patients were in intense pain, but, as Steve said,
“God has put eternity in our hearts and you could see it there”. Everyone checked on each other, shared their lives and stories, and encouraged each other.
With a smile on his face, Steve said “one thing we learned was that Stage 4 is just a number to God. Nobody knows how much time you have but God. I wouldn’t trade what I went through for anything. Jesus loved me enough to allow me to go through it to break me and make me into a different person. Isn’t that awesome?”
Steve and Connie continue to serve others in their church and small group, encouraging and strengthening hearts weighed down by sickness and pain. They bring the hope of salvation and eternity to all who will listen, praying with them in the power of the Spirit from lives that have been transformed from the inside out.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. This will bring health to your body and nourishment to your bones. (Proverbs 3:5-8)
