Do You Have the Guts to Survive?

I come from a family of gritty warriors. When my Grandpa Stroud knew he had cancer he waited two years to see a doctor, simply because he knew the disease ran in his family, and he didn’t want to be defined by it.

When he was told he was dying, he refused chemotherapy, saying God would take him when it was his time. He forbid himself to be characterized by cancer; he was still “Grandpa Stroud.”

I recall when my Grandma was actively dying in the hospital several years later. She was lying in the hospital trying to catch her breath, and I made the stupid mistake of asking her if it hurt. As she’s suckin’ oxygen at an alarming rate, she shook her head yes. Wish I hadn’t asked her that because I can’t get it outta my head, but then she did something I wasn’t expecting…

She smiled.

I believe she knew she was dying, but refused to be defined by that moment. We had a lifetime of memories, and she knew it. She was still “Grandma Stroud.”

I’ve written about how my beautiful wife Laura and I lost our granddaughter on July 13, 2021.

Rosalee Mae.

She was classified as a “COVID stillbirth.”

Nothing like that had ever happened in our immediate family, and I think we’re all still reeling from the shock. But here’s the astounding part of this tragic tale:

As my resilient daughter-in-law Maria and son Trey were in the hospital, holding their lifeless daughter, Maria started singing, and Trey soon joined in…

Oh Lord, my God
When I, in awesome wonder
Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder
Thy power throughout the universe displayed

Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee
How great Thou art, how great Thou art

I still cry when I think about it. To praise God at the absolute worst, lowest and most devastating moment of your life?

Wow, man, that takes guts.

A few months later, when we were all hangin’ out at the house, laughing and joking as we always do, Trey and Maria informed us she was pregnant again. I don’t remember any words being spoken; instead, we all broke down and cried (even my grandchildren, Joshua and Jenna, but more on them in a moment). We huddled together in a circle right there in the kitchen and just cried and cried.

Rosalee Mae’s beautiful little baby brother, Davey, was born almost a year to the day after she passed. Thus, Trey and Maria soldier on.

My mom, Connie, is one of the strongest and most fiercely independent women I’ve ever known, yet is now bound to a wheelchair most of the time. She has to rely on my dad for almost everything, but instead of giving up, the other day she told me:

“I know God is going to heal me, I just don’t know whether it’ll be here or in Heaven. I want to be healed here, but if it’s His will I sit in this chair all day and just pray for people, I’ll do it.”

GUTS.

My son-in-law Josh has survived literally hundreds of dreadful panic attacks in his life, and yet he fights on. Josh’s wife, my daughter Jessica, has fought her own battles, and is not only a wonderful wife and mom, but a professional nurse and hospice educator. She’s also a faithful daughter, and calls my wife almost every morning, just to talk. Josh and Jess have three amazing children, our grandchildren: Joshua, age 10, Jenna-Marie, age 5 and our newest, beautiful little baby Jamison, three months old.

GUTS.

It would have been easy for Josh to give up years ago, but he’s a warrior, and fights on.

Our family slogan is, “No fear of the future, no regrets of the past.” No matter what happens, we press on, in love and laughter. We figure we’re only here on this big, blue marble one time, so we refuse to leave a dark and twisted legacy of bitterness and spite. We fight on, man. Always.

More than 30 years ago, when I was around my son’s age (early 20s), I tried to commit suicide, but God saw fit to spare me. I had a mental breakdown at ARMY Basic Training, Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and began ingesting pills. I emptied my bottle of hydrocodone, then swallowed every ibuprofen I had, taking around 60 pills in all.

I wasn’t thinking about death or dying. It never occurred to me that I’d be leaving my lovely wife and little daughter, Jess, who was only a toddler at the time. Wracked by chronic pain which still plagues me to this day, and swimming in terror and confusion, I just didn’t wanna hurt anymore. No, the only thing I was thinking was…

“I have to kill this pain. These are pain killers. I’m in pain. I have to kill this pain. These are pain killers. I’m in pain.”

It wasn’t about dying, it was about stopping the pain. I didn’t think I was strong enough to live, but I was dead wrong.

Sorry, bad pun. ‘Round and ’round went the “pain” mantra in my head, until I consumed every pill I had, and then went to bed, never expecting to see another sunrise.

When I woke up I told the drill sergeant what I’d done, and before I knew it I was on my way home. When I got there, my dad asked me, “What now, son?” I simply told him, “I get a job and start climbing.”

Don’t take this next sentence as bragging, I’m merely letting you know my current situation: I have two college degrees, am the Director of Student Success for Global University, a part-time editor for a Christian publisher, Defender Publishing, and have recently been hired as an adjunct professor at Evangel University, one of my alma maters. This fall I’ll be teaching the first online criminal justice course in the school’s long and illustrious history.

Crazy, man.

It’s insane how beautiful life can be when you don’t give up. I mean, technically I did give up, but only once, and thank the Lord I lived to see the glorious future He had in store.

So, I ask…do you have the guts to survive? When every fiber of your being screams out to die, do you have what wrestler Gorilla Monsoon called “the intestinal fortitude” to stick around and see what’s next?

Do you have the guts to give your life to Christ, and watch what He can do with it?

Thanks for reading, and many blessings to you and yours. Here are some family pics, since I enjoy showing them off: