The Book of Steve

A lot of people say “God had a plan,” but it hits different when it’s spoken by someone who’s walked through hospital hallways, marriage vows tested by years of illness, and the kind of loss that changes your calendar forever. Steve tells the story of meeting Jerry, learning how to become a family with two daughters, and finding unexpected mentors in Papa T and Mama Granny, whose gentleness and grit leave a mark that still guides us years later. 

Then the ground shifts. We talk through Jerry’s health battles, including severe respiratory disease, a pneumonia crisis that leads to an induced coma, and the moment a hidden hospital chapel becomes impossible to ignore. A “bargain” prayer turns into something deeper: a lived experience of grace. We also share the strange timing that follows, including job loss and immediate provision, and how church becomes less about obligation and more about being held up when you can’t hold yourself together. 

The most painful chapter is also the most honest: multiple spine surgeries, complications, dialysis, machines filling a room, and a decision no spouse wants to make. We reflect on what it means to love someone well at the end, how community carries you, and how looking back can reveal a pattern you couldn’t see in the moment. If you’ve ever asked where God is in suffering, caregiving, grief, or rebuilding after loss, this story is for you. 

If this connects with you, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review with the words you wish someone had told you in your hardest season.

Transcript

Terrifyingly Excited And One Message

SPEAKER_01 0:03

Hello everybody. Good to see all your smiling faces today. Um I when Sean asked me about doing this, he said, What's your first reaction? And I said, I'm terrifyingly excited. And uh and uh uh I worked. I'm a horrible overthinker. I'm sorry. I'm a horrible overthinker, so um I uh I wrote this a thousand times and uh revised it and hopefully I'll get a good message out of this. I was I woke up at three o'clock this morning, thought it was time to get up. And uh in that time that I was awake, God gave me the not that it not that we need a uh a heading for this, but God gave me a heading, he just pounded it in my head this morning, and it's uh but God had a plan.

Meeting Jerry And Becoming A Family

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Um my wife, um Jerry, I met her in 1986. Uh we worked at the same dealership. Uh we uh knew each other for quite a while, and uh finally one day uh we asked her out already, already knew, I mean, I already knew some of her story. I knew she had two girls and everything, and I'm from a family of five boys. I'm the youngest of five boys. So mama was the only female in the house. Well, um, we uh met and obviously hit it off well. Uh I met the girls, Tammy the oldest, Chris the youngest, and um other than a few awkward things, we all there's always awkward stuff, but other than a few awkward things, we really got along good from the start. Uh so uh time kind of just moved on. We we got familiar with each other. Uh we uh probably within a year or so uh they all moved into my house. And uh again, a house full of women versus a house full of guys is a whole different story. Uh I'm blessed that it happened that way, no doubt. But uh but uh there was certainly some uh adjustments that were were to be made. And um we uh really became a family. Uh uh you know, the at that time the girl's Tammy was uh 18 and she had college and friends and she was gone a lot. Chris was at home a lot. That's Chris over there, by the way. Let me introduce you. That's my daughter Chris, that's her husband Matt, my great-grandson Brody, and my Taylor. That is she is livingly called Tater Ben. Her name is Taylor Lynn. But when we told Jerry's brother that when she was born, and he said, Well, what's her name? And uh we said, Well, Taylor Lynn, and he said, Tater Ben, and I've called her Tater Ben ever since. Um she's she's just Tater Ben. So but uh we I I can't help but think that that this was something I didn't think it at the time. Uh it took a few years to understand this, but uh aside from the normal things that families have, it was a real easy, easy time. We we uh we bonded and and and loved each other and and uh uh it's been a huge blessing in my life. Um after they moved in and everything, we had a uh uh I had never been to one before, but we went to Jerry's family reunion. Um she was from Millington, Tennessee, and uh they had a family reunion in uh in a little town called Brownsville, Tennessee, where a bunch of them opened uh grew up. And uh

Papa T And Mama Granny’s Example

SPEAKER_01 5:16

man, that reunion was something, probably 150 people, more kids, uh just it was I I never had a family reunion like this before, but I met Jerry's dad, and his name was TJ Duncan. Uh TJ didn't stand for anything, his legal name was TJ. He's not Thomas Jefferson or any of that stuff, he was TJ. Uh TJ was while he could be stern if he needed to, he was the most gentle human that I had ever met. And uh something in me told me that I need to be close to this guy. And uh he uh I I I can't say much more than just uh even though he's you know he's a World War II vet, got uh injured in South Pacific. Uh he was carrying ammunition back and forth from the camp to the gun sides. Uh he bumps a corrugated steel building and cuts his arm, and they said, Well, you're gonna get the purple heart, and he said, No, I'm not. I'm not gonna take a purple heart for cutting my arm on that building. Uh my brother lost his arm in Europe. I'm not gonna take that, and he didn't. He wishes he did later on. There's a lot of benefits to having a purple arm. Uh but um uh along with Papa T, uh TJ's wife. Everybody called her Mama Granny. Um her name was Fanny Louise, but uh um she was incredible in herself, thank you. Uh in the late 40s, early 50s, Louise had a brain tumor, and they did brain surgery on her in the four in the late 40s, and uh she lost complete sight. Um, she had already had two girls at that time, and they later went on to have two boys that she never saw. She never put her eyes on them at all. She'd feel their face, and that's how she knew who they were. She could serve you at the table, uh, she could feel your glass, your tea glass. Uh she she did nothing slowed her down in the in the earlier days, and uh uh she was as incredible as as Papa T was. And um and I looked at we we went many times and and I looked forward to every every uh every visit. I didn't know what it was teaching me along the way, I just knew I bonded with that with Papa T for sure, with TJ. But um our lives moved on, the girls got married, started having grandkids, well, grandkids for me, and uh Taylor's the first grandkid. Again, I was the youngest of five boys, and uh and I I've never had a child on of mine, but that's the first child I saw grow up from a baby. So we have a super special relationship, and um uh we um um my grandkids are Taylor, Jeremy, and Trent. Uh Jerry and I moved into a house with a swimming pool so that so we could have the kids over and have a good time, and and uh we had just so many happy times. Uh this family still growing together. Um again, I will admit at that time I didn't think God had anything to do with this, but as I look back, I know he did, and we will cover that here in a minute. Um the girls all moved away for a period of time. Tammy went to Wisconsin and lived for a while, and uh this part of my family moved to Missouri and uh still stayed close, but you know, we were separated for a long, long time. Well, as the years passed on, Jerry started having medical issues. Um first a back surgery that ended up making her disabled where she couldn't work or anything anymore. And uh so also she had a severe respiratory issues, and in her

Pneumonia Crisis And The Chapel Prayer

SPEAKER_01 10:55

life uh she had an antibody missing from her bloodstream, and she couldn't fight off respiratory infections because of it, and uh she had pneumonia 37 times in her life, and her lungs were wrecked from all of this, but uh uh in this one particular occasion um Jerry got a bad case of pneumonia, and uh after being admitted, they um she was in such bad shape that they put her into an induced coma. And uh and she was in that coma for 10 days, and uh and so she was innovated. Uh I go see her every morning and every evening. Um one thing where uh where God did step in is the night nurse. Turned on Christian broadcasting in the room, she was out, but she said she still hears it. And uh and uh always always uh look back on that and think thank her so much for doing that. Um but uh we went uh I mean I went twice a day, and uh, you know, I'm pretty much talking to myself, but uh every day I I walk down the same hallway at the end of the day and you know walk the same path. Well, about day eight, um I'm walking down the same path I walk every time. I noticed there was a chapel there. I passed it every day, never saw it. And uh I stepped into that chapel that day, and I asked God to heal Jerry. And uh and you know I made a bargain with God, and uh the bargain was that if you heal Jerry, I will go to church every Sunday, and and I will dive into you. And uh so uh I really felt different leaving that chapel that night and going to the car, but uh the next day she's getting better, she's improving. Uh they uh end up extubating her, uh, well, backing off the medication, and they extibated her, and then you know it takes an hour or two to get your ability to talk back, and um and uh and she was doing great, and and I left her that night, and I came back the next day about I came about 6 a.m. every morning, but I came back about 10 o'clock, and she said, What are you doing here at 10 o'clock? I I worked at a car dealership just up the street. I worked 40 years in the in the parts business. I was a Ford Parts salesman and parts manager and stuff. And um I said I told her, Well, they fired me. That's the that's the uh uh that's the plague of being a manager, you know. At some point, somebody does something and you know, and it happens. And uh she said, Well, you know what, we're gonna be alright. And uh I said, Well, I think we will too. And um I believe it was the next day we got out of the hospital. I took her home. I needed to be there. She was barely able to do anything for herself. I needed to be there. And uh over the next few months, I uh she got, you know, our lungs were healing more and more, she got to feeling better. Um we uh go to a doctor's visit, and the doctor says, you know what, I think you're you're good as you're gonna get. Uh you're doing fine, so I'm just gonna release you. So he did. We go home, we're not home uh less than 10 minutes for sure. And I get a phone call, and it's a friend of mine in the parts business, he's a manager. He said, You gonna go to work? The day that they released Jerry, I got a job.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Started the next day.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

God's everywhere we turned. God had a plan. I didn't know what it was, but uh, and and I worked for that organization for 17 years and retired out of it. Um the um uh also uh when she uh got out, I went to church with my family at a place called the Cowboy Church of Ellis County. It's a it's a huge cowboy church. It was the first big cowboy church that other than the ones that they have in the rodeos, but it was the first big standalone cowboy church, and uh and I went there for 12 years every Sunday, and uh and that's when I learned that my bargain was really God's grace, it wasn't it wasn't anything to do with the bargain. So um we had made uh uh many trips back to I I keep bringing up my father-in-law, but we made many trips back to Tennessee and and visited uh mom, granny, and papa T. And um I began to see my future in what Papa T had to deal with because uh Granny had a lot of medical issues just like Jerry had a lot of medical issues. They looked a lot alike. I told Matt one day we were sitting on on the or they were uh uh Granny and Jerry and Chris were sitting on a porch swing on the back porch, and I turned to Matt and I said, Matt, you see you see what your history, what your future is here, because they all looked alike. It's just different ages. So um but um the things about Papa T, uh I want to go a little deeper with him now. Um they and rightly so idolized that guy. And uh he spent quality time with them. They worked in the garden, they worked in the yard, uh, if he had a project, they were included in it. And um the they told me so many stories of the times that they got to spend with TJ and uh the loving and care, loving care and and that he provided

Surgeries, Dialysis, And Letting Go

SPEAKER_01 18:40

for both of them with that garden and his time. Um really important memories that these young ladies had. He he shaped their lives. And um, and his adoration for it for the girls always prevailed. Um TJ and Louise's home or my girl's safe place when their home life wasn't necessarily the best in the world, but they always had TJ and Louise to run to. Um January 2016, Jerry started having upper back and neck pain. And um we were referred to a spine, well, a specialist. He was a surgeon also, and uh did an MRI, and Jerry had a crushed vertebrae that was squeezing her her spinal cord. And so uh he said, we're gonna have to do surgery immediately. This is this is very dangerous. And uh they explained to us what the surgery was gonna be. Uh Jerry uh they would apply a metal structure to the back side of her neck that went half, you know, six or eight inches down her back, and then they would flip her over in surgery and apply a metal structure to the front side of her neck that went down about to her collarbones. And he said it would take five to six hours of surgery to do that. So uh we went into surgery. Uh about uh I don't know, it was probably 5 a.m. or so the first day, uh they came and get her. She's in surgery, they get all the surgery done, they bring her back to the room, and uh they soon begin to extubate her, get her off of the profil that she was on, and uh and soon she was talking. Uh she was still out of it, but still, but talking, you know, so we could we could have a discussion. Well, about two o'clock the next morning, the uh some uh nurses come in and they take her to get an MRI and they wanted to see make sure that all the stuff was in place, that nothing moved or anything. And uh so they go do their MRI, brings her back to the room. About five o'clock, the doctor walks in and he says, several screws have backed out, and we're gonna have to go do this again. And I said, When you say again, what are you talking about? He said, Essentially, we're gonna have to do the whole thing over again. So I go through the same uh procedure. This happened three days in a row. She had four surgeries, 20 hours of anesthesia. Uh And uh although she had a lot of trouble uh healing from the incisions and everything, uh the structure was was doing fine for her. But um that amount of anesthesia was not good. Not gonna, it didn't work out really well.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

Um so um a month or so later, Jerry started having abdominal pain.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

And they looked at her and her family doctor thought she had an internal bleed of some kind, uh, but didn't know what it was, and they sent to the hospital and they did all kind of tests and stuff at the hospital. And they said uh um we can't find it. We know there's one leading, she's she's losing uh she's losing blood somewhere, but we don't know where. And uh through all of this, uh her kidneys started failing. And um they put her on dialysis. Well, uh, as the days go on, machines start piling up around her. She ended up on eight machines, keeping her respiratory going, keeping her heart going. And uh one night uh some dear friends of mine were in the room with me, and uh the doctor comes in and says, Listen, uh we know there's an internal bleed, but we can't we can't find it. And if you want me to open her up, I'll do it. And uh I didn't think very long about that. It's a decision you never want to make. But I said no, we're not gonna do anything to her anymore. She's only being held alive from all of these machines. She's the Jerry we know is gone. So the hardest part of all that, thank you, sweetie. The hardest part of all that is calling the girls and the grandkids and having to tell them that I made a decision. Um I agonized over that thing so long. I absolutely know I did the right thing, uh, but that didn't make me feel any better. So um, so we um gathered people together the next day. Uh she had to drive in from Missouri. Uh my other daughter Tammy was in town, uh, and quite a few friends gathered in our room that day. And uh in talking to the chaplain, he said uh uh she was still on the machines right at this point, and uh there was a time set for turning them off, but uh I don't know what it was. But uh he said y'all just need to, she said she can hear you, y'all just need to tell her you love her and that it's okay to go. Well, um, and that's what we did, but uh they disconnected all the machines and they said she will last about 15 minutes or so, wouldn't it? How long did she last? Two hours, yeah. Yeah, she was stubborn, she was a fighter, but uh at 1223 on May 25th at 17 we lost her, and uh um not not a uh not not a favorite memory of mine, but what I discovered in in looking back when all the pain and the hurt was mostly gone was that God had introduced me to the kindest, gentlest man on the planet, and that was TJ Duncan. Um he went through a ton of stuff with his wife, and uh and God put that guy in my life. There's no doubt about it. And uh he he was an amazing, amazing human. And uh and and as I look back on everything, the um God had a plan.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

Uh He had a plan for me when He made me notice the chapel when I walked by and I walked in there and the first time I talked to God in a long time. Um everywhere I turned, God had a plan.

SPEAKER_01 28:03

Um one of the one of the one of God's plans in my life, and honestly in many folks' lives in here, was in um I believe it was 2021, I was at a Nate

Finding A Church Home And A Pastor

SPEAKER_01 28:30

show, and uh in one of his breaks, we were talking about man, uh there's just not a church on this island that we connect with. And he said, Man, I know that there's a new one starting, and I'm going this Sunday, and then I'll let you know about it. And uh so the next week at his show I went to, he says, Man, this is gonna be the place. This is gonna be our place to go. And uh three weeks into one-two church, I walked into the church in a bar. Um, and I got taught the goodness of God's grace and mercy, and that nothing happens by accident. Uh, he's got a plan. He's got uh, and he's not it's not just a plan, he's got the whole thing laid out. He knows before we knew it, for sure. Um and um we came here or I came here and uh I loved I love the learning that we were getting. It was not like any other place. And uh about three or so years later, and um I'm going to Laguna Bob's and and Matt and Crystal, Pastor and his wife, were crossing the street, and she said, Hey, hey, they stopped me and they said, Hey, I want to tell you before you hear from anybody else. But she said, uh, God's calling us to start something new. Now, as we talk about this plan thing, let me back up one thing. Matt and Crystal during COVID were taking a vacation to Jamaica, and when COVID hit, all that got canceled. And so they're looking for a place to go to go to an island. And he opens up the map and he goes, Well, here's an island. He's pointing to South Padre Island, but he thought it was in Mexico, and he thought that they needed a he needed passports down here, and uh he came down, and Crystal came down, and I don't know what the time frame was, but him and a few other folks came here to lunch, and they were just talking about the possibility of opening up a church, and and they were talking at the time they were talking about well, where are we gonna where would we gather at?

SPEAKER_00 31:25

Frank happened to walk by and Frank hears him and he says, Well, heck, you can do it here for free. And Crystal finished her vacation three about three months later.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

Matt goes to Crystal and says, Honey, what would you say if I told you that I think God's called me to open a church on that little island? She says, I think we need a pack.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

And they did. Matt showed us uh Matt showed us a uh a different kind of love.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

And uh I'll forever be grateful to them for it. And then when uh when they did decide to go, we went on a search. Uh, and uh in the first week of our we we put out an ad for a new pastor. I didn't even know they had all that. Um, but uh we put out an ad for a for a a uh pastor, and I think we ended up with 73 uh 73 applications. But in the first week, one guy stood out, and uh we met for four weeks, and we we got we watched all the sermons online. We we uh we did our due diligence to find uh to find somebody, and uh we go went the second week and they said, Yeah, well these guys are okay, but that guy in the first week is I think he's still the guy. Same thing the third week. Yeah, these guys are okay, but that first guy in the first week is is special.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

Um and that guy was Sean Rensl.

SPEAKER_01 33:24

And uh we uh uh we had Sean down, and and uh uh the cool thing about Sean is he he gives us a different angle of Jesus with with the simple grace uh plan that he that he preaches off of. And uh so if if we think if you have any clue, God has a plan. And it's nice to go back and look and see that plan and work. We didn't see it when it was going on, but to go back and look and see that every heartache that we had, uh every hard situation that we had, God had a plan. He was ready. Um and uh I think that Sean is uh is doing a great job of uh of just proving that to us every week. And uh I just uh I'm just thankful for my Heavenly Father and this family that he put together again uh never had any kids of my own. But as we said here today, I have two daughters. I have three grandkids, and I have five great grandkids.

SPEAKER_00 34:57

God had a plan. Y'all can't do that.