(OPINION) David Baker had stage four melanoma. A tumor on the side of his face had grown so huge he couldn’t see out of his right eye, and he could barely eat. Doctors said there was nothing they could do for him.
David was suffering more and more, day by day. Still, he managed to get to church on Easter morning, and that’s where he received a miracle.
“When you’re going to the doctor and you hear nothing encouraging, that’s when your faith, it’s going to have to stand,” says Jerilyn Baker. In November 2020, her husband David started having constant nose bleeds. Doctors removed a polyp from his sinus cavity. But soon after, things got worse.
Jerilyn remembers, “When his face began to swell I thought, he’s got an infection. And I told him, ‘We need to contact the doctor quickly.'”
The results of a CT scan shocked the family. David’s brother-in-law, Chuck Denny was there. “They told him he had stage four nasal cavity melanoma,” says Chuck. “They said surgery wasn’t an option. Cause of the facial disfigurement would be too massive.”
Jerilyn felt hopeless, “They told us that, that there was really nothing that they could do. Chemo wasn’t for that type that he had.”
Chuck says, “I’d never seen anybody healed of cancer. Every time I heard the word cancer, it was a death sentence. And I feel like unless God moved, I feel like David wouldn’t, you know, he wasn’t gonna make it.”
“You know my first thought was in my teaching is that we need to move into a fast and seek God and see God heal,” says Jerilyn. David’s face rapidly swelled to the point where he couldn’t eat or see out of his right eye.
Pastor Marl Gilbert remembers the many prayers from multiple church locations and beyond. “Both church families was praying for David and there was a multitude of other people. It wasn’t just our churches.
David used to be a pastor himself. So there’s a lot of people that he knows. It was praying for him in different areas of the country, just believing God for the turnaround in his life,” he says.
“Several times a day we would pray together,” says Jerilyn. “And there was times that you felt like you were just lost for words. You felt like that you were only repeating yourself because you were worn out. You were worn down from this sickness.”
“His condition just kept getting worse,” says Chuck. “But the prayers at that point, we didn’t see much.”
“This was swelling inside of his mouth, as fast as it was on the outside,” says Jerilyn. “And he couldn’t hardly eat. It was just terrible. And we knew that we were facing a horrible storm in life.”
On Easter morning, Dr. Tom Renfro and his wife, Sid, were visiting their church for a special prayer service. Remembering her husband’s own miraculous healing from cancer, Sid was moved with compassion to pray for David.
Sid remembers, “When I prayed for David, I don’t touch people’s head. I, I normally just touch their shoulders, but I did touch his face because I, I wanted to be very specific and very direct.”
Jerilyn watched, “I remember standing there and I thought that’s going to come off in her hand because you could feel such a presence of God’s Spirit.”
Sid continues, “I prayed the prayer that my dad had prayed. ‘By this time tomorrow, this side of your face will look like this side of your face’ because that prayer had worked for my dad.”
The day after Easter, something amazing happened. “He said, ‘There’s a change in my face. Do you see it?’ I said, ‘I’ve already seen it,'” says Jerilyn. David smiles as he recalls, “I looked at my wife and I said, ‘I see a change in my face.’ She said, ‘I do too.
But I was afraid to say anything.’ So, we decided to go eat with our family again. And we said, ‘Well let’s just see what they have to say.’ And they all seen me and they said it, ‘That thing’s shrinking.’ And it was just a matter of days. It was gone.” (CONTINUE)
