12 PEARLS OF CHRISTMAS - JOY
The Answer
by Susan May Warren
Whos, Here, we are Whos here, smaller than the eye can see. Whos here, we are Whos here, I'm a Who and so is she...
I've always wanted to live in a musical. When I was a kid, I loved Oklahoma, Sound of Music, West Side Story. I seriously thought that, if the moment was right, maybe the stars aligned, people would break out into song and dance.
I was sorta right. Because in my house, one needs to be able to talk in movie lines and song lyrics to effectively communicate. At any moment, someone might break out with a quip from the Princess Bride, or Finding Nemo. They might sing Tomorrow from Annie, or My Favorite Things like Julie Andrews.
But, most recently we've found ourselves speaking in "Suess"...
It's suppertime, son, and the time is near To call far and wide the sneetches who hear Just the sound of their bellies, the whir of their gear The Gurgles and Burbles that give them great fear Tell them all, tell them loud, tell them clear Their hands they should wash, check their face in the mirror Because the food is now ready and it's time to steer Close to the table, where they'll find hot gribbles here.
Why, you ask? Because David and Sarah are performing in the community theater's production of Suessical the Musical, a hilarious conglomeration of Dr. Suess' fun work, from Horton hears a Who to Horton Hatches an Egg.
As the Christmas season draws close (and the songs from the play linger in my head), one line has stood out to me... "We are here, we are here!" You know the story - that part where, after everyone has called Horton names and they're about ready to boil the speck that contains Who-ville, Horton calls out to the Whos to send up a cry to prove themselves as real. "We are here, we are here!"
It strikes me that sometimes we can feel like Whos...smaller than the eye can see. Tossed hither and yon by the wind, helpless and facing being boiled. Tired, perhaps, or alone. Wishing someone might find us and pay attention.
Someone has, and that's the good news about Christmas. Because we don't have to "make ourselves heard," like the Whos. In fact, even before we realized we were headed for the cauldron, God intervened. God demonstrated his own love for us in this - while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. (Rom 5:8). That's what Jesus is all about - he's the answer to even the unspoken cry of our hearts, saying, "I am here, I am here." Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.
So as this season approaches with its whistles and bells I hope you hear the voice where the Mighty One dwells -- down deep in your hearts, so nothing can shake the knowledge of his love, given all for your sake.
Merry Christmas from Susie May Warren
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Susan May Warren is the award-winning author of twenty-one novels and novellas with Tyndale, Steeple Hill and Barbour Publishing. Her first book, Happily Ever After won the American Fiction Christian Writers Book of the Year in 2003, and was a 2003 Christy Award finalist. In Sheep's Clothing, a thriller set in Russia, was a 2006 Christy Award finalist and won the 2006 Inspirational Reader's Choice award. A former missionary to Russia, Susan May Warren now writes Suspense/Romance and Chick Lit full time from her home in northern Minnesota. www.susanmaywarren.com Check out her Christmas Novella, The Great Christmas Bowl.12 Pearls of Christmas Series and contest sponsored by Pearl Girls®. For more information, please visit www.pearlgirls.info
12 PEARLS OF CHRISTMAS HOPE
Christmas in a Barn
by Mary DeMuth
The Christmas of 2006 we were homeless. We didn't have keys. Not to a car, not to a home. We'd flown halfway around the world, leaving behind a ministry we toiled over. Much, particularly in our hearts, lay in ruins.
Some friends had a camp, and on that camp stood a barn. In the corner of the barn was a tiny apartment, flanked by this caboose and hundreds of acres of Texas pasture. We'd never been there before, so we followed directions at night, making plenty of wrong turns.
When we found the place, we drove a borrowed car over the cattle guard toward what would be our home for a month. String lights illuminated a small porch, a window and a door in the corner of an aluminum-sided barn. We hefted large pieces of luggage to the apartment.
And when we opened the door, Love welcomed us.
The place, usually completely unfurnished in the winter, was decked out with just the right amount of beds, couches and tables. The pantry was full. We had dishes and garbage cans, and cups and forks and food. But even more, we had a Christmas tree. Friends had hijacked the place, decorating it for Christmas. Cookies preened on the table.
I will never, ever forget that Christmas. We had so little. We felt the painful burden of failure. But we were loved, so terribly and wonderfully loved.
Christmas felt right there, in a barn. We heard the nickering of horses, the meowing of kittens, the clop of hooves against the barn floor. Chickens and goats and cows served as a holy object lesson of the incarnation. Although we were warm and clothed, we understood more keenly the Savior's homelessness, how He left the splendor of heaven for the sodden earth. We experienced barnyard life alongside him, without much to call our own except our Heavenly Father and our sweet family.
He was enough, that Christmas. And He will always will be.
Some friends had a camp, and on that camp stood a barn. In the corner of the barn was a tiny apartment, flanked by this caboose and hundreds of acres of Texas pasture. We'd never been there before, so we followed directions at night, making plenty of wrong turns.
When we found the place, we drove a borrowed car over the cattle guard toward what would be our home for a month. String lights illuminated a small porch, a window and a door in the corner of an aluminum-sided barn. We hefted large pieces of luggage to the apartment.
And when we opened the door, Love welcomed us.
The place, usually completely unfurnished in the winter, was decked out with just the right amount of beds, couches and tables. The pantry was full. We had dishes and garbage cans, and cups and forks and food. But even more, we had a Christmas tree. Friends had hijacked the place, decorating it for Christmas. Cookies preened on the table.
I will never, ever forget that Christmas. We had so little. We felt the painful burden of failure. But we were loved, so terribly and wonderfully loved.
Christmas felt right there, in a barn. We heard the nickering of horses, the meowing of kittens, the clop of hooves against the barn floor. Chickens and goats and cows served as a holy object lesson of the incarnation. Although we were warm and clothed, we understood more keenly the Savior's homelessness, how He left the splendor of heaven for the sodden earth. We experienced barnyard life alongside him, without much to call our own except our Heavenly Father and our sweet family.
He was enough, that Christmas. And He will always will be.
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Mary DeMuth writes fiction and nonfiction. Her latest book, A Slow Burn released in October and she has a memoir entitled Thin Places coming out in February of 2010. You can meet her: http://www.marydemuth.com, http://www.thewritingspa.com, on Facebook and Twitter!
12 Pearls of Christmas Series and contest sponsored by Pearl Girls®. For more information, please visit www.pearlgirls.info
CHRISTMAS RECIPIES FROM KATHY CARLTON COMMUNICATIONS AND THEIR AUTHORS
From KCWC Authors
Christmas smells are in the air. Cinnamon, evergreen, vanilla, pumpkin, cranberry...the aromas are mouthwatering. Share these special holiday recipes with your readers during the holidays. Compliments of the KCWC authors and staff, these delightfully scrumptious tastings will be sure to tantalize the senses this season.
The KCWC Staff and Authors
Author Sandra Glahn released Kona with Jonah and Frappe' with Philippians in 2009. These Bible studies are part of her Coffee Cup Series.
From the kitchen of Sandra Glahn
CHEESY BROCCOLI CASSEROLE
Serves 6
2 heads fresh broccoli
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 c. grated sharp, cheddar cheese
1 t. dry minced onion
2 egg whites, well-beaten
1 c. mayonnaise
Salt and pepper to taste
Crushed potato chips
Cut flowers off broccoli. (You can shred the spears for slaw later). Chop broccoli flowers into bite-sized pieces. Microwave on high in 2 T. water for 3 minutes (or steam for 5 minutes on stove). Drain. Mix everything together except broccoli. Add broccoli and mix gently. Put in Pam-sprayed casserole (1-1/2 qt. size). Sprinkle with crushed potato chips. Bake at 350 for 20 to 30 minutes.
Virginia Smith's January 2010 release of Third Time's a Charm is the much anticipated conclusion of the Sister to Sister Series.
Virginia Smith’s Favorite Christmas Recipe
My grandmother made this every year before she passed away. I’ve continued the tradition.
Mono's Lemon Cake
3/4 cup oil
1 cup canned apricot nectar
4 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 Lemon cake mix
Combine ingredients with mixer. Pour into greased, floured Bundt pan. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes. Reduce heat to 325 for another 25 minutes. Turn hot cake onto cake stand and poke with toothpick. Pour on a mixture of:
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
Cover with the cake stand lid and wrap tightly with several layers of plastic wrap. Let stand for 2-3 days before serving.
Kathy Carlton Willis, owner of the same named communications firm, can’t get enough Christmas. She takes the star off the top of the tree and makes it shine in the lives of her clients all year long. They aspire to reflect the true star of Christmas, Jesus Christ, every day.
In the Kitchen with Kathy
People think this is a puff of sweet potatoes—and try to debate me every time when I say it’s carrots!
Cafeteria Carrot Souffle'
Serves 8
2-3 15 oz cans sliced carrots, mixed or blended until mashed/pureed
1/2 cup melted butter (I melt in the microwave—use REAL butter)
1 cup white sugar (I use a tad less, this is SWEET)
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
small amount of spices of your choice (I use cinnamon)
3 eggs, beaten (I go ahead and beat this with a mixer so that it makes the casserole really pouf)
1 teaspoon confectioners' sugar for dusting
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Mix all ingredients except the confections’ sugar, and transfer to a 2-quart casserole dish.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 30-60 minutes (Recipe says 30 minutes, but because I puree the carrots, it takes longer to solidify in the oven.)
4. Sprinkle with confectioners' sugar, optional.
With the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season, Gina Stinson, publicist assistant for KCWC, enjoys the special opportunity to spotlight fiction and non-fiction authors who reflect the light of the Savior all through the year.
Ready, Set, Bake with Gina
These are fast becoming a favorite with family and friends....ooey, gooey goodness!
Caramel Bars
32 individually wrapped caramels, unwrapped (or you can use one package of caramel chips)
5 tablespoons heavy cream
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). In a medium saucepan over low heat, melt together the caramels and heavy cream, stirring occasionally until smooth.
In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, oats, brown स
ugar, baking soda and salt. Stir in the melted butter until well blended. Press half of the mixture into the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking pan. Reserve the rest.
Bake the crust for 8 minutes in the preheated oven. Remove and sprinkle with chocolate chips and walnuts. Pour the caramel mixture over the top and then crumble the remaining crust mixture over everything.
Return to the oven and bake for an additional 12 minutes, or until the top is lightly toasted. Cut into squares while it is still war
12 PEARLS OF CHRISTMAS - INSPIRING STORY
The Pearls We Pass Down
by Holley Gerth
Ten years ago my Grandma Frances went home to heaven in her sleep just before Christmas.
My Grandpa carefully handed me a brightly-wrapped box on Christmas morning and said, "This is her gift. Now I want you to have it."
I opened the lid slowly and tears came to my eyes as I saw a lovely string of pearls.
My Mom gently helped me fasten them around my neck. As I ran my fingers over each one, I thought of my Grandmother and all she taught me through her life...
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13:13
1 Corinthians 13:13
FAITH
At age twenty-nine, my Grandma contracted polio and learned she would never walk again. She had a husband, two little girls, and a future suddenly very different than she imagined.
A pastor came to visit her in the hospital. He said, "Frances, this can make you bitter or better." She often told that story with a sparkle in her eyes as she said, "I chose better." I learned through her example that faith is a choice and with God we can thrive through anything.
HOPE
My grandparents took a leap of faith and started the first Christian bookstore in their city with a small kiosk in the center of a mall. Over the next few decades that little kiosk grew into a large and successful store that touched countless lives.
Many of my favorite childhood memories are of curling up in the back room with a stack of books. My Grandma taught me hope is like a small seed and, watered with prayer, it can grow into a huge blessing for many.
LOVE
For fifty-six years my grandparents shared a life together. I adore these two pictures because one is taken when they were dating and the other just a few weeks before she died. The twinkle in their eyes is still the same-and that's not easy in this world. They faced their share of challenges, like my Grandma's disability, but always got through them together.
My Nana also loved her family deeply. When I went to college, she often wrote notes to me and signed each one, SCTH (Stay Close to Him). She showed me love is a commitment that begins with Christ and then overflows to everyone else in our lives.
I still miss my Grandma Frances, especially this time of year. Sometimes I pull out her string of pearls and hold them in my hands. Then I think about how we're all creating our legacy as we live. And while the difficulties we face may seem hard to understand now, God can turn each one into beauty that blesses our family for generations.
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Holley Gerth - Cofounder of (in)courage, editorial director for DaySpring, author of Rain on Me, wife of Mark, lover of Jesus, friend to YOU.
Visit Holley at Heart to Heart with Holley or follow her on twitter as @HolleyGerth.
12 Pearls of Christmas Series and contest sponsored by Pearl Girls®. For more information, please visit www.pearlgirls.info
TURNING BACK THE PAGES WITH THE ANGEL OF BASTOGNE
THE ANGEL OF BASTOGNE
By: Gilbert Morris
Published by: Broadman & Hollman
ISBN#978-0-8054-3291-6
156 pages
Description: A young reporter's assignment to write a Christmas story takes him back to World War II, providing a glimpse at ""the greatest generation"" and renewing his faith in mankind.
REVIEW: The Angel of Bastogne is a Christmas story. It begins one Christmas day in a battle in the French countryside during World War II where a young American sergeant named Willie is faced with almost certain destruction, but is befriended and encouraged by a stranger who advises him on how to save the lives of his small outfit of soldiers. Courageously, Willie risks his life to save his men and is left with injuries that hinder his health from then on. More importantly than the injuries, he is left with the knowledge that God intervened that day and sent an angel to help him.
Fast forward about fifty years, and we meet Willie’s son, Ben, a jaded newspaper journalist who is “bah-humbug” about Christmas and especially about his dad’s war-time angel story. Burdened with the assignment of writing a Christmas story for the newspaper, Ben decides to investigate his father’s story in order to disprove Willie’s claims and to smugly prove himself right that believing in God is pointless.
The journey of Ben’s investigation takes him around the country and deep into his own heart. This novella is the story of courage, sacrifice, miracles, and God’s loving pursuit of those far from Him. The Angel of Bastogne is a heart-warming read for the Christmas season that will inspire you to look for the miracles in your own life.
Reviewed by The Page Turner
12 PEARLS OF CHRISTMAS STORIES
A Long Ago Christmas Memory
by Patricia Crisafulli
The old farm on a dirt road in the backwoods of northern New York State was described to me so many times, I can imagine the place, even though I never saw it: the big frame house with the wide porch, the pair of maple trees out front, and the barn in the back where my grandparents kept a cow or two, pigs and chickens, and a team of work horses.
That old house came alive for me in dozens of stories that my mother told, of how she and her sisters grew up there during the Depression. The stories had that long-ago feel not only because of the years that had passed, but also because of the era: tales of riding in a horse and buggy in the summer and a horse and sleigh in the winter. My grandfather owned an old Model A Ford, but the tires were patched beyond repair and there was no money for gasoline.
One story that has always stayed with me was of a particular Christmas in the early 1930s, a time my mother remember as the "depths of the Depression," and there was no money. In order to pay the interest on the mortgage, to keep the bank from foreclosing on the farm, my grandfather needed a relatively small sum. The amount I remember being told was $13, but for the little they had in those days it might as well have been $13,000.
Tested by trouble and sorrows, my grandparents relied on their deep and abiding faith. As Psalm 34 tells us, I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. The answer to their prayers was to be found right in their own backyard with gifts of the earth. My grandmother went into the woods to gather bushel baskets full of ground pine, with green sprouts like miniature boughs that spread in great patches along the earth. From willow branches she made hoops, around which she bound the ground pine to make wreathes.
She sat up all night making wreaths, enough to fill a large hamper basket, which my grandfather strapped to his back. At four in the morning, he hopped a ride on the milk train into Syracuse, where he went door-to-door selling wreathes. Night after night, my grandmother made wreaths, and day after day my grandfather sold them.
As Christmas approached, my grandmother had saved coupons that came in tins of coffee to get a Kewpie doll for her daughters. The only other things she gave them were mittens she knit herself.
Then on Christmas Eve, my grandfather came home from the last day of selling wreaths, exhausted but relieved. The farm was safe for another year. From what he had earned, he had a dime left over, which he spent on his beloved wife to buy her a powder puff. That night, my grandmother gave him her surprise: enough money from selling butter and eggs all year to buy four new tires for the Model A Ford.
Hearing this story as a child, my head was too full of the Sears & Roebuck "Wish Book" catalog to really comprehend it. As an adult, I try to fathom living with no money at all. What lingers in my heart, however, is the love of my grandparents for each other: the dashing young American soldier in World War I and the beautiful French girl he met overseas and then returned to her country to marry.
Many years, thousands of miles, and untold hardships later, that love continued. During a very dark December, they found a way together to keep the farm and the family together. And so it would always be for them.
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Patricia Crisafulli is a writer, published author, and founder of www.FaithHopeandFiction.com, a monthly e-literary magazine with stories, essays, and poetry to inspire and entertain.
12 Pearls of Christmas Series and contest sponsored by Pearl Girls®. For more information, please visit www.pearlgirls.info
THE WISDOM HUNTER by RANDALL ARTHUR - FIRST CHAPTER
Today's author is:
and the book:
Multnomah Books (September 20, 2003)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Randall Arthur is the bestselling author of Jordan’s Crossing and Brotherhood of Betrayal. He and his wife have served as missionaries to Europe for over thirty years. From 1976 till 1998, he lived in Norway and Germany as a church planter. Since 2000, he has taken numerous missions teams from the United States on trips all over Europe. Arthur is also the founder of the AOK (Acts of Kindness) Bikers’ Fellowship, a group of men who enjoy the sport of motorcycling. He and his family live in Atlanta, Georgia.Product Details:
List Price: $13.99
Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Multnomah Books (September 20, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1590522591
ISBN-13: 978-1590522592
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
PART 1: 1971-1972
Jason cleared his throat. His wife knew what was coming next, and the pain within her rose again. At every evening meal for the last five hundred and fifteen days he had prayed aloud for their daughter, always working his way slowly through the prayer, emphasizing each word as if to prove his sincerity.
"0 God," he said tonight, "wherever Hannah might be right now, we ask that she'll know your protection. Thank you for watching over her. And thank you even more that one day you'll honor our faith and bring her home."
He paused, as if to arrest the Almighty's attention, then continued with a faltering voice. "Just-just make it soon. We miss her... "
LYING ON THE living room couch, Hannah Freedman proudly realized once again that she was the reason Cody had emerged from his loneliness. He was absolutely consumed by her-and the thought was enthralling. Admiring her diamond-studded wedding band, she gratified herself with the reminder that Cody always treated her like a princess, as if by royal decree she had somehow granted him a new life.
At this very moment, alone in their suburban Miami home, she could feel his infatuation. It lingered in every room, echoing in the easy recall of Cody's loving words and embraces.
Hannah turned heavily upon her side, the baby in her womb preventing her from rolling all the way over onto her stomach. She smiled. It was like a fairy tale. She and Cody had met only ten months ago-she a runaway, not yet eighteen; and he a well-bred, 25 year-old professional. Now they were together forever. How could it be real? How could they have it so good?
She reached over her head, retrieving from behind her a framed photograph of Cody that sat alone on the end table. The picture had been taken only weeks before she met him. It was the same handsome face, the same green-eyed, ash-blond man who was now her husband-but he had been so different then. There was a smile on the face, but it was hiding a sense of loss that had governed his life ever since the death of his parents in a plane crash two years earlier. From that seemingly unshakable disorientation, she had rescued him. Likewise, Cody had taken her from a miserable existence and placed her on a lofty pedestal of fulfillment beyond her wildest dreams.
Her spirit soared with gratefulness as she pressed the photograph to her chest. Lost in blissful thoughts, she relived for the thousandth time the nonstop passion of the last ten months. First, the explosive romance-the instant chemistry, like gunpowder contacting fire. Then came the unplanned but welcomed pregnancy, followed by the exchange of wedding vows seven and a half months ago. Every day had been glorious. If she could live all of it over, she would not change a single detail.
A wall clock across the room began to chime the hour, and Hannah closed her eyes and stilled her thoughts to listen: Four o'clock. It was four o'clock, Friday afternoon, December 15th. The "Christmas spirit" with its commercialism was in full swing-and she, Hannah Freedman, had everything in life a woman ever dreamed of: a large and beautiful home, a flaming love life, and emotional security. In only forty minutes her lover would be home from a day's work at his veterinary clinic, ready for their usual early and intimate dinner together. And in only fourteen days, according to the doctor's calculations, she and Cody would cuddle their first child.
She lifted the photograph and contentedly stared through tears at Cody's picture. For the first time in her eighteen years, she knew what it was to live and to love.
She slowly reached over her head and carefully returned the photograph to its place. She contemplated getting up from the couch. But due to an early morning burst of energy she had already put in a full day of cleaning house and baking Christmas cookies, and the work had left her exhausted. Her small frame, now carrying an extra twenty-six pounds, simply refused to rise.
AT 4:40, CODY came in the back door. He slipped quickly through the kitchen, moving his six-foot-three, 170-pound athletic body with the fluidity of a cat, and began singing: "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. Oh what fun it is to live with a blue-eyed Georgia girl, hey!"
On the living room couch Hannah awoke from her light sleep, and broke into a smile as Cody continued singing heartily off-key: "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. Oh what fun it is to love my blue-eyed Georgia girl!"
When Cody poked his head around the corner, Hannah was applauding. "Coe," she said, extending tired but inviting arms, "you can love this blue-eyed Georgia girl anytime you want to."
Like a moth to a flame, Cody was drawn into her arms. Kneeling on the plush gray carpet beside her, he kissed her full, moist lips as if he had been starving for her for weeks. When he finally withdrew, he looked into her eyes and said with intensity, "Hannah, you're so beautiful-even when you're tired"
So often before he had told her she was beautiful-and had never stopped, even after her pregnancy began showing. Spreading her arms playfully like wings, Hannah nodded toward her body. "You like it, huh?"
Cody smiled his reply, then ran his fingers slowly through her long, thick auburn hair. "Hannah," he moaned in earnest, "I'm missing you, bad."
"How much?" she asked with delight.
"You really want to know?"
"Yeah."
Cody grinned. "Well, I'll tell you. I accidentally gave overdoses of antibiotics to four different dogs today and killed them all," he joked, "simply because I couldn't get my mind off you. All I've done today is dream about being with you."
Feeling aroused, Hannah slowly pulled him into another fiery kiss.
It took every ounce of self-control Cody could muster to keep from going further. When Hannah finally released him, he fell reluctantly to the floor and stretched out on his back. "Just you wait," he said with gusto, "till we're able to be together again. I'm going to make it unforgettable."
Hannah laughed seductively. "Are you sure you can hold out until then?"
With surprise, she watched Cody's mood turn sober. He rose to kneel beside her again, and took her hands in his. "Hannah, if I had to, I'd be willing to wait the rest of my life for you."
There was no doubt in Hannah's mind that he meant every word. She felt his sincerity as certainly as if it were rain pouring down on her. Instinctively she pulled him into another tight embrace.
“Cody,” she confided in his ear, “this will be the best Christmas I've ever had. And the reason is you…”
AFTER DINNER Cody raved as Hannah placed the tray of Christmas cookies on the dining room table beside him. "Better looking than Mother's used to be," he said. Taking a bite, he nodded, "And every bit as good!"
An LP of instrumental Christmas music was playing softly in the background. Hannah sat down to hear Cody finish telling her about his day: setting a German shepherd's broken leg, diagnosing an old tomcat that was refusing to eat, bobtailing a four-day old boxer, and giving an array of shots.
"And Mrs. Gravitt brought in her Dalmatian again," he said, then paused.
"And?" Hannah asked.
"And it should be the last time!" he smiled with satisfaction. "He's fully recovered, and Mrs. Gravitt is as happy as any client I've ever had."
"She should be," Hannah reassured him. "That dog was nearly dead two months ago when she first brought him to you. It was a miracle anyone could save him. But what can I say? You're the best!"
"Well, maybe not the best… But..."Cody tucked his thumbs beneath imaginary suspenders, in a mocking pose of greatness. They both erupted into laughter.
"Say," he said after finishing another cookie, "I called Reed's Travel Agency this morning. They promised they could reserve the cabin-"
Before he could complete the sentence, he saw Hannah suddenly gasp for breath, tense in her chair, then let out a low groan. Cody was immediately face to face with her, gripping her shoulders. "Are you all right?" he demanded.
She finally began breathing, then looked him in the eye and gave the most surprisingly beautiful smile he had ever seen. "I think so... I... uh... yeah, I'm okay," she answered. "My water just broke." She could feel the warm fluid puddling around her buttocks and running down her leg. For a moment she was embarrassed, but the feeling was quickly overcome by an acute surge of pain.
Still trying to figure out what to do, Cody saw Hannah tense again. He gripped her hand in silence, stunned by the piercing hurt locked on her face.
Several seconds later, Hannah relaxed and took a deep breath. "I'm not positive," she said, "but if that was my first contraction, we may be mommy and daddy two weeks earlier than we thought."
Elated, Cody held her in a big hug and said, "Can you believe it?" He started dancing around the table. "We're going to be a family!" he shouted, as Hannah laughed.
THEIR CELEBRATION was soon tempered by the quickly recurring pains, and the rush to leave for the hospital. Within twenty-five minutes from the time Hannah's water had broken, she was seated beside Cody in their Ford station wagon. He was timing her contractions, which now came at less than three-minute intervals. The quickly paced labor pains, coming so soon, made Cody nervous. He tried to relax, but it was all so new. And this was his wife, his baby.
This is happening too fast, he thought, calculating that the trip to the hospital would normally take twenty-five to thirty minutes. This time, he decided, it would have to be less than twenty. No stranger to speeding, he was confident he could meet the challenge.
He glanced at his wristwatch-5:51-just as they were leaving their residential area and approaching the nearest main road. One look ahead quickly confirmed a rising worry: It was rush hour. Traffic on the main road was packed, moving at only a fraction of the normal speed.
For the first time, Cody felt panic. To hide it, he forced a grin and said to Hannah, “I love adventure, but this is a little too much of the good stuff.”
She smiled briefly, before yielding to the start of yet another contraction.
Soon the eruptions of pain were less than two minutes apart. Hannah bravely fought back. Everything's under control, she kept telling herself. Be strong, be strong. Impossible as it seemed, each contraction hurt worse than the last, worse than anything she had ever felt in her life.
"Just hang in there, babe," Cody said. "I'll get you there."
The line of cars crept forward to an intersection which he realized was approximately their halfway point to the hospital. The flow of traffic halted again as he saw the same set of stoplights change to red for the second time. With mounting fear he looked at his watch: 6:16.
Suddenly, Hannah leaned forward, grabbed the dashboard with both hands, and screamed. Cody reached out and touched her shoulder. He was now almost beside himself with panic. "Are you going to make it?"
When her pain had passed its peak, she found her breath and shot back, "I don't know... Just hurry!"
He knew then what he had to do. And on impulse, as if the adrenaline surging through him had switched on a machine, he did it.
Trying to take charge of this desperate situation, he lurched the station wagon out of their traffic lane. Sounding his horn and flashing his headlights, he charged through the intersection and down the avenue, straddling the middle line.
Hannah did little more than flinch. The thought of how crazy it all seemed flashed in and out of her mind.
"I'll get you there," she heard Cody say again.
Jason cleared his throat. His wife knew what was coming next, and the pain within her rose again. At every evening meal for the last five hundred and fifteen days he had prayed aloud for their daughter, always working his way slowly through the prayer, emphasizing each word as if to prove his sincerity.
"0 God," he said tonight, "wherever Hannah might be right now, we ask that she'll know your protection. Thank you for watching over her. And thank you even more that one day you'll honor our faith and bring her home."
He paused, as if to arrest the Almighty's attention, then continued with a faltering voice. "Just-just make it soon. We miss her... "
LYING ON THE living room couch, Hannah Freedman proudly realized once again that she was the reason Cody had emerged from his loneliness. He was absolutely consumed by her-and the thought was enthralling. Admiring her diamond-studded wedding band, she gratified herself with the reminder that Cody always treated her like a princess, as if by royal decree she had somehow granted him a new life.
At this very moment, alone in their suburban Miami home, she could feel his infatuation. It lingered in every room, echoing in the easy recall of Cody's loving words and embraces.
Hannah turned heavily upon her side, the baby in her womb preventing her from rolling all the way over onto her stomach. She smiled. It was like a fairy tale. She and Cody had met only ten months ago-she a runaway, not yet eighteen; and he a well-bred, 25 year-old professional. Now they were together forever. How could it be real? How could they have it so good?
She reached over her head, retrieving from behind her a framed photograph of Cody that sat alone on the end table. The picture had been taken only weeks before she met him. It was the same handsome face, the same green-eyed, ash-blond man who was now her husband-but he had been so different then. There was a smile on the face, but it was hiding a sense of loss that had governed his life ever since the death of his parents in a plane crash two years earlier. From that seemingly unshakable disorientation, she had rescued him. Likewise, Cody had taken her from a miserable existence and placed her on a lofty pedestal of fulfillment beyond her wildest dreams.
Her spirit soared with gratefulness as she pressed the photograph to her chest. Lost in blissful thoughts, she relived for the thousandth time the nonstop passion of the last ten months. First, the explosive romance-the instant chemistry, like gunpowder contacting fire. Then came the unplanned but welcomed pregnancy, followed by the exchange of wedding vows seven and a half months ago. Every day had been glorious. If she could live all of it over, she would not change a single detail.
A wall clock across the room began to chime the hour, and Hannah closed her eyes and stilled her thoughts to listen: Four o'clock. It was four o'clock, Friday afternoon, December 15th. The "Christmas spirit" with its commercialism was in full swing-and she, Hannah Freedman, had everything in life a woman ever dreamed of: a large and beautiful home, a flaming love life, and emotional security. In only forty minutes her lover would be home from a day's work at his veterinary clinic, ready for their usual early and intimate dinner together. And in only fourteen days, according to the doctor's calculations, she and Cody would cuddle their first child.
She lifted the photograph and contentedly stared through tears at Cody's picture. For the first time in her eighteen years, she knew what it was to live and to love.
She slowly reached over her head and carefully returned the photograph to its place. She contemplated getting up from the couch. But due to an early morning burst of energy she had already put in a full day of cleaning house and baking Christmas cookies, and the work had left her exhausted. Her small frame, now carrying an extra twenty-six pounds, simply refused to rise.
AT 4:40, CODY came in the back door. He slipped quickly through the kitchen, moving his six-foot-three, 170-pound athletic body with the fluidity of a cat, and began singing: "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. Oh what fun it is to live with a blue-eyed Georgia girl, hey!"
On the living room couch Hannah awoke from her light sleep, and broke into a smile as Cody continued singing heartily off-key: "Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way. Oh what fun it is to love my blue-eyed Georgia girl!"
When Cody poked his head around the corner, Hannah was applauding. "Coe," she said, extending tired but inviting arms, "you can love this blue-eyed Georgia girl anytime you want to."
Like a moth to a flame, Cody was drawn into her arms. Kneeling on the plush gray carpet beside her, he kissed her full, moist lips as if he had been starving for her for weeks. When he finally withdrew, he looked into her eyes and said with intensity, "Hannah, you're so beautiful-even when you're tired"
So often before he had told her she was beautiful-and had never stopped, even after her pregnancy began showing. Spreading her arms playfully like wings, Hannah nodded toward her body. "You like it, huh?"
Cody smiled his reply, then ran his fingers slowly through her long, thick auburn hair. "Hannah," he moaned in earnest, "I'm missing you, bad."
"How much?" she asked with delight.
"You really want to know?"
"Yeah."
Cody grinned. "Well, I'll tell you. I accidentally gave overdoses of antibiotics to four different dogs today and killed them all," he joked, "simply because I couldn't get my mind off you. All I've done today is dream about being with you."
Feeling aroused, Hannah slowly pulled him into another fiery kiss.
It took every ounce of self-control Cody could muster to keep from going further. When Hannah finally released him, he fell reluctantly to the floor and stretched out on his back. "Just you wait," he said with gusto, "till we're able to be together again. I'm going to make it unforgettable."
Hannah laughed seductively. "Are you sure you can hold out until then?"
With surprise, she watched Cody's mood turn sober. He rose to kneel beside her again, and took her hands in his. "Hannah, if I had to, I'd be willing to wait the rest of my life for you."
There was no doubt in Hannah's mind that he meant every word. She felt his sincerity as certainly as if it were rain pouring down on her. Instinctively she pulled him into another tight embrace.
“Cody,” she confided in his ear, “this will be the best Christmas I've ever had. And the reason is you…”
AFTER DINNER Cody raved as Hannah placed the tray of Christmas cookies on the dining room table beside him. "Better looking than Mother's used to be," he said. Taking a bite, he nodded, "And every bit as good!"
An LP of instrumental Christmas music was playing softly in the background. Hannah sat down to hear Cody finish telling her about his day: setting a German shepherd's broken leg, diagnosing an old tomcat that was refusing to eat, bobtailing a four-day old boxer, and giving an array of shots.
"And Mrs. Gravitt brought in her Dalmatian again," he said, then paused.
"And?" Hannah asked.
"And it should be the last time!" he smiled with satisfaction. "He's fully recovered, and Mrs. Gravitt is as happy as any client I've ever had."
"She should be," Hannah reassured him. "That dog was nearly dead two months ago when she first brought him to you. It was a miracle anyone could save him. But what can I say? You're the best!"
"Well, maybe not the best… But..."Cody tucked his thumbs beneath imaginary suspenders, in a mocking pose of greatness. They both erupted into laughter.
"Say," he said after finishing another cookie, "I called Reed's Travel Agency this morning. They promised they could reserve the cabin-"
Before he could complete the sentence, he saw Hannah suddenly gasp for breath, tense in her chair, then let out a low groan. Cody was immediately face to face with her, gripping her shoulders. "Are you all right?" he demanded.
She finally began breathing, then looked him in the eye and gave the most surprisingly beautiful smile he had ever seen. "I think so... I... uh... yeah, I'm okay," she answered. "My water just broke." She could feel the warm fluid puddling around her buttocks and running down her leg. For a moment she was embarrassed, but the feeling was quickly overcome by an acute surge of pain.
Still trying to figure out what to do, Cody saw Hannah tense again. He gripped her hand in silence, stunned by the piercing hurt locked on her face.
Several seconds later, Hannah relaxed and took a deep breath. "I'm not positive," she said, "but if that was my first contraction, we may be mommy and daddy two weeks earlier than we thought."
Elated, Cody held her in a big hug and said, "Can you believe it?" He started dancing around the table. "We're going to be a family!" he shouted, as Hannah laughed.
THEIR CELEBRATION was soon tempered by the quickly recurring pains, and the rush to leave for the hospital. Within twenty-five minutes from the time Hannah's water had broken, she was seated beside Cody in their Ford station wagon. He was timing her contractions, which now came at less than three-minute intervals. The quickly paced labor pains, coming so soon, made Cody nervous. He tried to relax, but it was all so new. And this was his wife, his baby.
This is happening too fast, he thought, calculating that the trip to the hospital would normally take twenty-five to thirty minutes. This time, he decided, it would have to be less than twenty. No stranger to speeding, he was confident he could meet the challenge.
He glanced at his wristwatch-5:51-just as they were leaving their residential area and approaching the nearest main road. One look ahead quickly confirmed a rising worry: It was rush hour. Traffic on the main road was packed, moving at only a fraction of the normal speed.
For the first time, Cody felt panic. To hide it, he forced a grin and said to Hannah, “I love adventure, but this is a little too much of the good stuff.”
She smiled briefly, before yielding to the start of yet another contraction.
Soon the eruptions of pain were less than two minutes apart. Hannah bravely fought back. Everything's under control, she kept telling herself. Be strong, be strong. Impossible as it seemed, each contraction hurt worse than the last, worse than anything she had ever felt in her life.
"Just hang in there, babe," Cody said. "I'll get you there."
The line of cars crept forward to an intersection which he realized was approximately their halfway point to the hospital. The flow of traffic halted again as he saw the same set of stoplights change to red for the second time. With mounting fear he looked at his watch: 6:16.
Suddenly, Hannah leaned forward, grabbed the dashboard with both hands, and screamed. Cody reached out and touched her shoulder. He was now almost beside himself with panic. "Are you going to make it?"
When her pain had passed its peak, she found her breath and shot back, "I don't know... Just hurry!"
He knew then what he had to do. And on impulse, as if the adrenaline surging through him had switched on a machine, he did it.
Trying to take charge of this desperate situation, he lurched the station wagon out of their traffic lane. Sounding his horn and flashing his headlights, he charged through the intersection and down the avenue, straddling the middle line.
Hannah did little more than flinch. The thought of how crazy it all seemed flashed in and out of her mind.
"I'll get you there," she heard Cody say again.
12 PEARLS OF CHRISTMAS - HOW TO COPE WITH THE HOLIDAYS
How to Cope with Christmas
by Stacie Ruth Stoelting
Last night, I dreamed that God resurrected my beautiful adopted aunt, Mary Jo Hoffman. But morning renewed my mourning for her: Christmas trees, snow globes, and music greeted my grieving heart. Relate?
In previous years, my maternal grandpa (a.k.a. "Papa Ray") died near Thanksgiving and my adopted "Grandpa Morley" died near Christmas. Now, people cannot compare grief. But I believe we all know that the holidays challenge the grieving.
Christmas arrives like a pretty package full of grief triggers: Empty chairs, missing faces, and silent voices seem to haunt the holidays. Here are "12 Ways of Christmas" for the Grief-Stricken that have worked for me:
12 Ways of Christmas for the Grieving
1. Don't put excessive expectations on yourself. Don't expect the holidays to be the same.
2. Rest. Cut down the Christmas clutter and just get away from the typical, if possible.
3. Rearrange furniture to reduce "absence" reminders.
4. Avoid sugar highs and lows because they naturally induce emotional lows. Also steer clear of over-eating and under-sleeping. Eat well-balanced diets. Some mood enhancing natural foods include yogurt, kefir, green tea, omega-3 rich foods (i.e. salmon, cod liver oil, etc.), and lower sugar dark chocolate. One excellent resource for healthier lifestyles is First Place 4 Health, founded by the knowledgeable and kind Carole Lewis: http://www.firstplace4health.com/.
5. Admit grief. Trying to move forward while denying the reality of grief causes one to fall face forward. Does your face smile while your heart weeps? Give yourself permission to cry. Jesus wept. Weeping releases excessive tension. Address depression. Don't deny it. Pretending the nonexistence of depression only promotes its growth. (I include a list of counseling centers on my page for hurting hearts: http://prayingpals.org/linksforhurtinghearts.html.)
6. Forgive and receive forgiveness through Jesus. Release everything to the Lord -including any so-called regrets about your departed loved one. In Loved by Rebecca St. James (FaithWords, 2009), the point of God's abiding love encourages us: "He [Jesus] is ready to...stand in the gap between you and the pain, and to be your constant companion in the dark hours. He loves you."
7. Reach out to the more burdened and hang around kids this Christmas. It may not feel easy. It may even feel impossible. Ask Jesus to love thru you and get your eyes off problems and on to Him and others.
8. Understand the concept of new normalcy. The onset of new traditions and expectations may seem daunting, but God gave you your previous normal. Ask Him to give grace/hope in the face of the new normal. Let Him lead you to a place where you can relax and let Him beam His light on you.
9. Take a "hands off and hands folded" approach to the holidays. Reduce activity and increase connectivity through prayer and Christian companionship. If you're isolated, feel free to join my weekly online prayer group (www.prayingpals.org). And stay in touch with your local church.
10. Face and treat chronic health issues. If you feel sick, everything feels worse. (One excellent resource for those with chronic health conditions is Rest Ministries.)
11. Reclaim your Heavenly purpose on earth. Ask Jesus to grant supernaturally His grace, hope, love, peace, and comfort this holiday season. Then don't fight His help. Be open to His opening of doors to cope and hope this holiday season. Just receive Jesus. Ask Jesus to give you a Heavenly perspective on earth. God holds good things for you! He grants you great purpose for your life hereafter...and here, too. Embrace His grace and seek His face. He's there. I know. In the face of grief, I'm with Him right now.
12. Remember: Trials don't indicate a reduction in God's love for you. He loves you and promises to make things right in the end. Spend time focusing on His unchanging love for you. "For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39, ESV)
Holidays include lots of grief for relationships/loved ones that left, forsook, or died. But let's focus on the essence of Christmas: the present of Jesus' presence in our lives! Wow, may a relationship with Jesus be our miracle and encouragement this Christmas! "Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!" (2 Cor. 9:15)
Could you think of anything greater than receiving God for Christmas?
While my dream didn't come true today, I know it will: Mary Jo will be resurrected and we will be reunited. This year, focus on a different angle of Christmas: Let Christmas remind you of Jesus' birth to banish death.
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After Stacie Ruth met Jesus, her life blossomed with true joy and purpose! Life's blows hurt her, but Jesus heals and strengthens her. Now an author, actress, and recording artist, she laughs at the irony and praises God, who uses unlikely people...like herself. To find out more about her ministry visit www.brightlightministries.com.
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12 Pearls of Christmas Series and contest sponsored by Pearl Girls®. For more information, please visit www.pearlgirls.info
SHADOW GOVERNMENT by Grant Jeffrey - FIRST CHAPTER
Today's author is:
and the book:
WaterBrook Press (October 6, 2009)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Grant R. Jeffrey is the internationally known prophecy researcher, Mideast expert, and author of Countdown to the Apocalypse, The New Temple and the Second Coming, The Next World War, and twenty other best-selling books. He is also the editor of the Prophecy Study Bible. His popular television program, Bible Prophecy Revealed, airs weekly on TBN. Jeffrey earned his master’s and PhD degrees from Louisiana Baptist University. He and his wife, Kaye, live in Toronto.Visit the author's website.
Product Details:
List Price: $13.99
Paperback: 240 pages
Publisher: WaterBrook Press (October 6, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1400074428
ISBN-13: 978-1400074426
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Part 1
TECHNOLOGY
THAT DESTROYS
YOUR PRIVACY
Chapter 1
YOU HAVE NO MORE PRIVACY
In the War Against Privacy, You Are the Target
An undeclared but very real war is being waged on your privacy and freedom. Your movements, personal communications, preferences, loyalties, habits—all these things are no longer private. And in spite of the fact that our privacy and liberty are under attack on multiple fronts, the average citizen in the Western world seems blissfully unaware of the threat.
We assume that our privacy, “the right to be left alone,” is secure. We couldn’t be more wrong. High-tech surveillance methods used by governments responding to the threats of terrorism, drug trafficking, tax evasion, and organized crime are stealing one of your most basic human rights—the right to privacy, the right to be left alone.
THE ALL-SEEING EYES
An interesting metaphor for the invasive surveillance society is found in a fascinating proposal for eighteenth-century prison reform. In 1785 philosopher and legal reformer Jeremy Bentham advocated that the English government build a state-of-the-art prison to more efficiently observe and guard dangerous prisoners with twenty-four-hour surveillance. Bentham’s proposed Panopticon prison called for the use of optical instruments and mirrors to allow a very small team of guards stationed in a central tower to observe hundreds of prisoners. Bentham’s system was designed in such a way that prisoners would never know when they were under active surveillance.
The idea was that the fear of continuous surveillance would motivate inmates to police their own behavior. Tragically, the practical application of Bentham’s nightmare vision is becoming reality in the twenty-first century. Advanced surveillance technologies available to government, corporations, and even your neighbors have created a twenty-four-hour, 365-day, total-surveillance society—the same system that would have violated the privacy of British prison inmates in 1785.
The current British home secretary, Jacqui Smith, exercises political control over all UK counterintelligence operations. This includes Scotland Yard’s
Counter Terrorism Command, the Security Service (MI5), and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British government’s global eavesdropping operation. Smith is working to establish an enormous computer database that would collect for analysis every telephone call, all Internet searches, and all e-mails being transmitted within or outside of the United Kingdom.1
Your Life on Camera
Smith’s plans are but one manifestation of the all-seeing, all-hearing surveillance. The installation of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in public places makes our daily activities, including our private interactions, a matter for close examination by unseen observers. My wife, Kaye, and I conducted a research trip in the United Kingdom in 2008. Although I had previously documented the massive adoption of CCTV by local councils and national authorities in the UK, I was stunned to see the extraordinary expansion of that type of surveillance. By the end of 2008, millions of CCTV cameras were monitoring the activities of every citizen and visitor in the country. The United Kingdom, the mother of Western political freedom and democracy, is now the most obsessively watched society in the West.
Surveillance cameras followed us during every step of our passage through UK customs and British immigration at Heathrow Airport. And it didn’t stop there. We were on camera as we acquired a car at the rental car agency office and as we proceeded out of the airport parking garage. As we entered the main highway, we noticed traffic-control cameras monitoring virtually every mile and covering every road, even in small towns. More than two thousand car-recognition cameras capture photos of cars, license plates, and drivers along with their passengers. Cameras recorded us as we purchased gas and food. Recent estimates by British authorities suggest that citizens and tourists alike will be captured on camera an average of five hundred times every day. Even London’s city buses are outfitted with an astonishing sixty thousand cameras, in addition to the ten thousand CCTV cameras on subway cars and trains.
But despite the almost universal presence of CCTV, even in back alleys, law enforcement authorities report that the cameras have not suppressed violent crime as much as they have displaced it. Surveillance cameras motivate criminals to move their activities a few blocks away—to a location with less-active CCTV surveillance.
A few years ago a million CCTV systems were operating in the United Kingdom. However, a 2008 article in the Guardian stated that an astounding 4.2 million CCTV cameras were being used in the surveillance of UK citizens and tourists.2
Cameras That Hear
It now goes far beyond simple cameras mounted on utility poles. Scientists have developed “listening” cameras that, paired with artificial intelligence software, recognize particular sounds such as gunshots, car crashes, and breaking glass. In response to certain sounds, the camera rotates and captures what could be a criminal or terrorist act. Despite the enormous financial cost and the invasiveness of the CCTV system, a report by the UK Home Office concluded that better street lighting is seven times more effective in preventing crime.
If watching you and listening to what you are saying is not enough, some new versions of CCTV technology enable police supervisors to confront you verbally through a speaker system. Law enforcement personnel can issue an immediate warning if they feel you are engaging in illegal behavior. And just in case all of this has not been disturbing enough for you, some UK municipalities are broadcasting local CCTV coverage on television. They ask citizens to tune in and watch so they can inform on the activities of their neighbors. Welcome to the world of block informers, a system you thought was limited to the horrors committed by the Nazis, the Soviets, and Communist China.
CCTV surveillance doesn’t end with cameras posted in public places. Miniature security cameras designed to promote safety and control crime on private property are now used for vastly expanded purposes. Companies use CCTV for the continual surveillance of employees during work-hours. They are observed at their desks, in washrooms, and throughout the office area. Employers justify the spying operations against employees, vendors, clients, customers, and visitors as a way to combat theft and industrial espionage. No matter what reasons are used to justify the surveillance, you are losing your privacy in just about every setting imaginable.
We live in a total surveillance environment that closely resembles the horror described by George Orwell in his famous novel 1984. Orwell described a future global regime composed of three totalitarian governments. In comparison to his horrific vision, computer technologies developed in the last few decades have created a daily environment far more threatening than any faced by the character Winston in 1984.
THEY KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU
The loss of privacy goes far beyond having your public activities monitored on camera. Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, declared some time ago that “privacy is dead, deal with it.”3
There are legal means that individuals and businesses can use to acquire and store information about you, obtained from your use of the Internet and even from such ordinary activities as shopping for groceries, buying a movie ticket, or ordering items online. You might think that you don’t provide information to governments, law enforcement agencies, and marketers. However, you are dispensing vast amounts of personal information every time you use a check, credit card, or debit card. Every time you make a purchase using these forms of payment, you supply information on your bank account, financial history, buying habits, and product preferences.
It seems that no information about you is insignificant. Your Internet searches, your online shopping, the e-mails you send, and the Web sites you access—all of these are of interest to someone. The subjects that attract you, the causes you support, your brand preferences, the topics you research on the Web, your reading habits online—all of these are important to Web site operators. Everything you do on the Internet, including visiting Web sites and chat rooms, sending and receiving e-mail, researching health issues and medical questions, and shopping is permanently recorded in a computer database. Google, the most popular Internet search engine, has admitted that it gathers and stores information on every one of the more than 330 million Internet searches completed every day.
What’s more, every e-mail you’ve ever sent or received and all the online searches you have completed are available to police and intelligence agencies. Who is so careful in what they say in private e-mails that they would never include a statement that might someday be considered suspicious to certain government authorities? And who considers the potential damage to their future career plans or credit rating that could result from research they have done using the Internet? For example, an innocent medical search to gain information about a disease such as Alzheimer’s, even if you are doing the research for a relative or friend, could be accessed by an investigator during a background check when you apply for a job. Even the possibility of a link between a prospective employee and a devastating disease could be sufficient cause to reject your employment application.4
Your Entire History on Exhibit
Attacks on privacy are not new. Beginning in 1917, after destroying the first elected government of Russia, the new communist dictatorship of Lenin began a process of secret police surveillance of its entire society. Even in the democratic nations of the West, government intelligence and police agencies created a surveillance system to monitor citizens’ activities. Prior to this war on privacy, only the few individuals suspected of criminal activity, sabotage, or sedition were considered worthy of police surveillance. But now, with rapid advances in sophisticated surveillance devices and computer technologies, most national governments have developed an intense interest in every citizen. Governments gather enormous amounts of previously private information on the assets, activities, communications, financial transactions, health, and political and religious activities of virtually every person on earth—and with relative ease.
Many military intelligence agencies, government agencies, and large corporations have introduced sophisticated security systems requiring employees to wear a badge containing a radio frequency identification microchip. This RFID chip enables companies, agencies, and organizations to monitor the location and activity of every worker during every moment he or she is on the premises. When an employee enters the office, a computer records the exact time and begins monitoring his or her every move throughout the day. Security sensors at strategic locations throughout the office complex record the location and duration of the activities of the badge wearer.
Many office phone systems monitor all private phone calls made by employees while at work. Computerized phone systems maintain a permanent record of all known phone numbers of clients, customers, and vendors. If an employee places a personal call, the phone system records the unauthorized number and produces a report of the employee’s private calls, along with the duration of such calls. This data can be used against the employee at the next performance evaluation.5
It’s interesting that U.S. corporations are using secret employee surveillance more than businesses in any other nation. The American Civil Liberties Union has warned, “Criminals have more privacy rights than employees. Police have to get a court order [to eavesdrop on suspected criminals], whereas in the workplace, surveillance can be conducted without safeguards.”6 Computer network security supervisors in many companies go as far as to monitor the keystrokes and productivity of all employees who use a computer in their work. Employees often complain about the stress they experience knowing they are being monitored constantly throughout the day. In many companies, computer spy ware monitors an employee’s Internet activities. Add to this the growing use of random drug testing, secret cameras in washrooms, and intrusive psychological questionnaires. The bottom line is that companies are creating an adversarial and unhealthy psychological environment for workers.
You should be appalled to know that your local and state police, federal intelligence agencies, government officials, employers, and even curious neighbors and business competitors can acquire virtually all of your private information. A record of your travel destinations, the newspapers and books you read, your video rentals, your pay-TV choices, your traffic tickets, your medical tests, as well as your private purchases are recorded in computer files. Anyone with enough computer knowledge can access your information, legally or not.
There is a growing public awareness and concern about the numerous attacks on our privacy through the misuse of computer records. However, the United States Congress and Canada’s Parliament have failed to enact serious laws to protect the privacy of citizens’ medical, criminal, and financial records.
Your Secret Life Now on Camera
Security companies that work under contract for large corporations have found ways to make use of advances in surveillance devices. Virtually invisible pinhole cameras can be placed behind a wall to monitor everything that goes on in an adjacent room, both visually and audibly. The tiny lens, which is the size of a pinhead, is unnoticeable. Infrared cameras can record images silently and in near-total darkness. Another type of surveillance camera can be concealed in a mobile telephone, recording events through the tiny hole normally used for the microphone. This tool often is used for industrial espionage, stealing trade secrets from a competitor. It is also useful in gaining the upper hand in business negotiations. For example, during a face-to-face meeting in a protracted negotiation, the user of the cell phone can leave the phone in the boardroom when he exits to take a break. As the other team discusses their strategy, supposedly in private, the cell phone is recording the conversation.
Surveillance devices are also being used much more widely by individuals. For several hundred dollars, you can obtain a device that enables you to monitor every conversation that takes place in your home or office while you are away. A remote monitoring device known as the XPS-1000 allows you to listen to conversations in your office or home by using the telephone. From a remote location, you dial your phone number using a secret activation code. The phone will not ring, but from that moment on, you can monitor every sound in the room where the phone is located. Another tiny device, a micro transmitter powered for three months by a miniature battery, can be left in any room and will broadcast for a distance of up to one thousand yards to a hidden radio receiver–tape recorder.
While fascinating, the miniaturization of cameras, microphones, and recording devices has stolen what was left of our privacy. If a person is determined to monitor your activities, you can’t prevent it. You can try to guard your privacy by using a software program or device designed to protect your communications. But in doing so, you will have inadvertently alerted intelligence agencies and private investigators that you have something worth keeping private. This may cause them to increase the level of surveillance in an attempt to discover why you want to avoid it.
Abuse of Legitimate Data
All U.S. intelligence agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), can access data from the National Identification Center to identify and monitor every registered gun owner in the United States. However, we have to ask this question: what else will government agencies pursue using legitimate and legally acquired data?
Two of America’s most secretive agencies, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and the National Security Agency (NSA), maintain a massive global surveillance system known as Project Echelon. This system can monitor every telephone call, fax, Internet search, and e-mail transmission worldwide. (We will look more closely at the remarkable capabilities of this massive surveillance system in chapter 5.) We need to face the sobering truth that we can’t escape the growing surveillance capabilities of all governments, both East and West. These developments turn our attention to the last-days prophecy from the book of Revelation about a coming totalitarian police system. John warned that a person’s every activity will be controlled: “That no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name”
(Revelation 13:17). Remarkably, John was describing a universal population control system that would impose some kind of numerical identification on every person in order to monitor his or her financial transactions, trade, business, and ability to buy and sell. This system will enable law enforcement authorities working for the Antichrist and his partner, the False Prophet (see Revelation 13:16), to control the world’s population through a unique ID, based on the number 666, on everyone’s right hand or forehead. The recent subcutaneous pet identification chips could easily be inserted in each human being.
WHO WANTS TO CONTROL YOU?
Government authorities, national security agencies, and businesses that market and sell consumer products know far more about you than most of your friends and family will ever know. People you will never meet have compiled personal information about the details of your daily life, place of residence, type of residence, spending habits, and financial assets. Government agencies justify the invasion of your privacy by reminding us of the threats posed by international terrorism, organized crime, the influx of illegal immigrants, and citizens who defraud the government as welfare cheats or tax evaders.
The NSA possesses detailed records of millions of U.S. citizens, including your communications, health status, medical treatments, employment status, vehicle ownership, driving record, criminal record, and real-estate holdings. In addition, all of your credit records, banking and financial transactions, credit rating, educational transcripts, and travel records are available to many major corporations and government research institutes.
Your life is also of great interest to foreign governments. Most of the Western democratic governments, as well as the governments of China and Russia, are thought to maintain enormous computer databases filled with details about millions of U.S. citizens. Data storage is just the first step. Next will be the most effective ways to organize, categorize, and use this private information. This hurdle will be removed when the government assigns a unique identification number to each citizen. Once that is accomplished, the staggering number of separate files on individual citizens in various databases can be combined into a single massive intelligence file. (We will talk more about this process in chapter 3.)
A confirmation of the consolidation of citizen data was publicized in the Canadian press on May 19, 2000. The Canadian government reluctantly confirmed that up to two thousand significant pieces of information had been assembled on virtually every Canadian citizen in a massive database known as the Longitudinal Labor Force File. As a result of strident public criticism following these revelations, the Canadian government promised to destroy the computer program that linked these files. However, the federal government admitted they still will retain computer data on more than thirty million Canadians— data that are retained in separate computer files held by a variety of government departments, including the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Immigration, and provincial police forces.7
A SECRET CHIP IN YOUR CREDIT CARDS
Your credit and debit cards are much more than a convenient way to pay for goods and services. The magnetic strip on a credit card or debit card holds electronic data verifying your identity, as well as information validating your right to access particular computer databases, such as your bank accounts. More and more, these cards are being replaced by higher-security smart cards that contain even more information about you. A smart card contains an embedded RFID chip capable of holding millions of times more digital information than is contained in a card’s magnetic strip.
Smart cards provide high levels of security, since they are capable of storing biometric information, such as the iris pattern in the eye of the authorized user. These new cards will document the user’s identity by measuring 173 distinct characteristics from the rings, burrows, and filaments within the iris. The stored data is compared with an iris scan made by a surveillance camera that can read your iris pattern from a distance of several yards.
Other identifying data include your precise hand geometry, which involves identifying you by measuring the length of your fingers and the translucence and thickness of your skin. Infrared scanners can reveal and record the patterns of veins on your palm or the back of your hand. Voice-recognition software can confirm your identity through digital measurement of your voice tone and timbre. Incredibly, a new machine can puff air over the back of your hand, analyze your subtle body odors, and detect as many as thirty separate trace chemical elements that supply a positive identification reading.8 All of this data, and more, can be stored in an RFID chip.
Soon you will be able to replace your credit and debit cards with one very secure smart card that is virtually immune to counterfeiting and attacks by hackers. The data will be encrypted, and your unique passwords—including biometric information—will be required for you to use the card. More than two and a half billion radio frequency smart cards now in use worldwide can perform these functions:
cash transactions such as rechargeable stored-value cards that carry a predetermined monetary value
confidential transferring of medical data to paramedics and hospital in the event of a medical crisis
control of entry into high-security workplaces and computer systems
access to air travel as well as to trains, subways, and buses
These are some of the benefits of the smart card.9However, the growing use of RFID cards will make it possible for government, police, and intelligence agencies to track the activities, location, communications, and financial transactions of every citizen from cradle to grave.
AN INTERNATIONAL STANDARD FOR PRIVACY
Growing concerns over privacy have motivated representatives of member nations of the European Union (EU) to create an international standard for privacy. The basic rules are as follows:
All privacy regulations apply to both government and private organizations.
Data collection should be limited to that which can be obtained legally and with the knowledge and consent of the citizen subject, except where this is impossible or inappropriate (e.g., criminals).
Data sought on individuals should be limited to the original purpose and kept up to date. The purpose of data collection should be specified, and subsequent use of data should be limited to the original purpose.
No personal data should be disclosed to others without the consent of the subject or without a court order.
All personal data must be kept secure using all reasonable precautions.
All citizens should be able to access, review, and challenge inaccurate data held in databases.
The government agency controller of the database should be legally and criminally accountable for abiding by these privacy principles.
The policies and practices of organizations holding databases on individuals should reveal the information to those who legally inquire.
Private data collected by EU member corporations and states may not be transmitted to organizations in nations that do not have privacy regulations equal to those of the European Union.10
The introduction of similar legislation in America, Canada, and other democratic nations could provide significant protection against the abuse of our privacy. The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is an international group of twenty-nine developed nations from North America, Europe, and Asia that has suggested the creation of powerful, binding privacy standards for both governments and businesses.11
The reality is that the growing attacks on our personal security are rapidly overwhelming the proposed defenses. One potential solution is to use a smart stored-value card that would allow a person to make a payment while the card restricts the merchant from accessing the purchaser’s identity. The card would also prevent merchants and anyone receiving an electronic funds transfer from tracking previous purchases made by that customer. For example, a smart card developed by Mondex International allows customers to transfer funds from their card to a merchant’s account to make a purchase. However, when the merchant’s bank accepts the transfer of funds to cover purchases made using Mondex cards, the bank is not able to identify the actual purchasers. A similar system is used by Visa International in its Visa cash card. The disposable card does not permit merchants to identify the person who used the card.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
There are hopeful signs that, after years of indifference to the threats to our privacy and financial security, the public is awakening to the heightened dangers posed by new surveillance technologies.
When it was revealed that Intel Corporation had embedded in every Pentium III chip a secret serial number that would allow the person using the computer to be identified, customers and privacy groups launched a protest.12 Additionally, Microsoft had embedded a hidden identification number in all documents produced by any computer using Microsoft software. The protests that followed forced the company to provide a free software program that eliminated the identifying number.13 However, the vast majority of computer users of Microsoft software are unaware of the privacy problem, and most lack the expertise to fix it.
If we are to protect what little privacy we still have, we should encourage a healthy debate about the relative advantages and disadvantages of each new technological development. Citizen involvement and thoughtful protest against the governmental and corporate threats to our privacy can slow down this relentless attack. We need to defend our right to maintain a personal life that is free from outside interference and intrusion.
Still, in violation of constitutional guarantees to the contrary, our society continues to move toward an all-encompassing surveillance society, which is described in the prophecies of the book of Revelation. We will live to see the time when our right to privacy and the freedom to be left alone are nothing more than distant memories.
TECHNOLOGY
THAT DESTROYS
YOUR PRIVACY
Chapter 1
YOU HAVE NO MORE PRIVACY
In the War Against Privacy, You Are the Target
An undeclared but very real war is being waged on your privacy and freedom. Your movements, personal communications, preferences, loyalties, habits—all these things are no longer private. And in spite of the fact that our privacy and liberty are under attack on multiple fronts, the average citizen in the Western world seems blissfully unaware of the threat.
We assume that our privacy, “the right to be left alone,” is secure. We couldn’t be more wrong. High-tech surveillance methods used by governments responding to the threats of terrorism, drug trafficking, tax evasion, and organized crime are stealing one of your most basic human rights—the right to privacy, the right to be left alone.
THE ALL-SEEING EYES
An interesting metaphor for the invasive surveillance society is found in a fascinating proposal for eighteenth-century prison reform. In 1785 philosopher and legal reformer Jeremy Bentham advocated that the English government build a state-of-the-art prison to more efficiently observe and guard dangerous prisoners with twenty-four-hour surveillance. Bentham’s proposed Panopticon prison called for the use of optical instruments and mirrors to allow a very small team of guards stationed in a central tower to observe hundreds of prisoners. Bentham’s system was designed in such a way that prisoners would never know when they were under active surveillance.
The idea was that the fear of continuous surveillance would motivate inmates to police their own behavior. Tragically, the practical application of Bentham’s nightmare vision is becoming reality in the twenty-first century. Advanced surveillance technologies available to government, corporations, and even your neighbors have created a twenty-four-hour, 365-day, total-surveillance society—the same system that would have violated the privacy of British prison inmates in 1785.
The current British home secretary, Jacqui Smith, exercises political control over all UK counterintelligence operations. This includes Scotland Yard’s
Counter Terrorism Command, the Security Service (MI5), and Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the British government’s global eavesdropping operation. Smith is working to establish an enormous computer database that would collect for analysis every telephone call, all Internet searches, and all e-mails being transmitted within or outside of the United Kingdom.1
Your Life on Camera
Smith’s plans are but one manifestation of the all-seeing, all-hearing surveillance. The installation of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in public places makes our daily activities, including our private interactions, a matter for close examination by unseen observers. My wife, Kaye, and I conducted a research trip in the United Kingdom in 2008. Although I had previously documented the massive adoption of CCTV by local councils and national authorities in the UK, I was stunned to see the extraordinary expansion of that type of surveillance. By the end of 2008, millions of CCTV cameras were monitoring the activities of every citizen and visitor in the country. The United Kingdom, the mother of Western political freedom and democracy, is now the most obsessively watched society in the West.
Surveillance cameras followed us during every step of our passage through UK customs and British immigration at Heathrow Airport. And it didn’t stop there. We were on camera as we acquired a car at the rental car agency office and as we proceeded out of the airport parking garage. As we entered the main highway, we noticed traffic-control cameras monitoring virtually every mile and covering every road, even in small towns. More than two thousand car-recognition cameras capture photos of cars, license plates, and drivers along with their passengers. Cameras recorded us as we purchased gas and food. Recent estimates by British authorities suggest that citizens and tourists alike will be captured on camera an average of five hundred times every day. Even London’s city buses are outfitted with an astonishing sixty thousand cameras, in addition to the ten thousand CCTV cameras on subway cars and trains.
But despite the almost universal presence of CCTV, even in back alleys, law enforcement authorities report that the cameras have not suppressed violent crime as much as they have displaced it. Surveillance cameras motivate criminals to move their activities a few blocks away—to a location with less-active CCTV surveillance.
A few years ago a million CCTV systems were operating in the United Kingdom. However, a 2008 article in the Guardian stated that an astounding 4.2 million CCTV cameras were being used in the surveillance of UK citizens and tourists.2
Cameras That Hear
It now goes far beyond simple cameras mounted on utility poles. Scientists have developed “listening” cameras that, paired with artificial intelligence software, recognize particular sounds such as gunshots, car crashes, and breaking glass. In response to certain sounds, the camera rotates and captures what could be a criminal or terrorist act. Despite the enormous financial cost and the invasiveness of the CCTV system, a report by the UK Home Office concluded that better street lighting is seven times more effective in preventing crime.
If watching you and listening to what you are saying is not enough, some new versions of CCTV technology enable police supervisors to confront you verbally through a speaker system. Law enforcement personnel can issue an immediate warning if they feel you are engaging in illegal behavior. And just in case all of this has not been disturbing enough for you, some UK municipalities are broadcasting local CCTV coverage on television. They ask citizens to tune in and watch so they can inform on the activities of their neighbors. Welcome to the world of block informers, a system you thought was limited to the horrors committed by the Nazis, the Soviets, and Communist China.
CCTV surveillance doesn’t end with cameras posted in public places. Miniature security cameras designed to promote safety and control crime on private property are now used for vastly expanded purposes. Companies use CCTV for the continual surveillance of employees during work-hours. They are observed at their desks, in washrooms, and throughout the office area. Employers justify the spying operations against employees, vendors, clients, customers, and visitors as a way to combat theft and industrial espionage. No matter what reasons are used to justify the surveillance, you are losing your privacy in just about every setting imaginable.
We live in a total surveillance environment that closely resembles the horror described by George Orwell in his famous novel 1984. Orwell described a future global regime composed of three totalitarian governments. In comparison to his horrific vision, computer technologies developed in the last few decades have created a daily environment far more threatening than any faced by the character Winston in 1984.
THEY KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU
The loss of privacy goes far beyond having your public activities monitored on camera. Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, declared some time ago that “privacy is dead, deal with it.”3
There are legal means that individuals and businesses can use to acquire and store information about you, obtained from your use of the Internet and even from such ordinary activities as shopping for groceries, buying a movie ticket, or ordering items online. You might think that you don’t provide information to governments, law enforcement agencies, and marketers. However, you are dispensing vast amounts of personal information every time you use a check, credit card, or debit card. Every time you make a purchase using these forms of payment, you supply information on your bank account, financial history, buying habits, and product preferences.
It seems that no information about you is insignificant. Your Internet searches, your online shopping, the e-mails you send, and the Web sites you access—all of these are of interest to someone. The subjects that attract you, the causes you support, your brand preferences, the topics you research on the Web, your reading habits online—all of these are important to Web site operators. Everything you do on the Internet, including visiting Web sites and chat rooms, sending and receiving e-mail, researching health issues and medical questions, and shopping is permanently recorded in a computer database. Google, the most popular Internet search engine, has admitted that it gathers and stores information on every one of the more than 330 million Internet searches completed every day.
What’s more, every e-mail you’ve ever sent or received and all the online searches you have completed are available to police and intelligence agencies. Who is so careful in what they say in private e-mails that they would never include a statement that might someday be considered suspicious to certain government authorities? And who considers the potential damage to their future career plans or credit rating that could result from research they have done using the Internet? For example, an innocent medical search to gain information about a disease such as Alzheimer’s, even if you are doing the research for a relative or friend, could be accessed by an investigator during a background check when you apply for a job. Even the possibility of a link between a prospective employee and a devastating disease could be sufficient cause to reject your employment application.4
Your Entire History on Exhibit
Attacks on privacy are not new. Beginning in 1917, after destroying the first elected government of Russia, the new communist dictatorship of Lenin began a process of secret police surveillance of its entire society. Even in the democratic nations of the West, government intelligence and police agencies created a surveillance system to monitor citizens’ activities. Prior to this war on privacy, only the few individuals suspected of criminal activity, sabotage, or sedition were considered worthy of police surveillance. But now, with rapid advances in sophisticated surveillance devices and computer technologies, most national governments have developed an intense interest in every citizen. Governments gather enormous amounts of previously private information on the assets, activities, communications, financial transactions, health, and political and religious activities of virtually every person on earth—and with relative ease.
Many military intelligence agencies, government agencies, and large corporations have introduced sophisticated security systems requiring employees to wear a badge containing a radio frequency identification microchip. This RFID chip enables companies, agencies, and organizations to monitor the location and activity of every worker during every moment he or she is on the premises. When an employee enters the office, a computer records the exact time and begins monitoring his or her every move throughout the day. Security sensors at strategic locations throughout the office complex record the location and duration of the activities of the badge wearer.
Many office phone systems monitor all private phone calls made by employees while at work. Computerized phone systems maintain a permanent record of all known phone numbers of clients, customers, and vendors. If an employee places a personal call, the phone system records the unauthorized number and produces a report of the employee’s private calls, along with the duration of such calls. This data can be used against the employee at the next performance evaluation.5
It’s interesting that U.S. corporations are using secret employee surveillance more than businesses in any other nation. The American Civil Liberties Union has warned, “Criminals have more privacy rights than employees. Police have to get a court order [to eavesdrop on suspected criminals], whereas in the workplace, surveillance can be conducted without safeguards.”6 Computer network security supervisors in many companies go as far as to monitor the keystrokes and productivity of all employees who use a computer in their work. Employees often complain about the stress they experience knowing they are being monitored constantly throughout the day. In many companies, computer spy ware monitors an employee’s Internet activities. Add to this the growing use of random drug testing, secret cameras in washrooms, and intrusive psychological questionnaires. The bottom line is that companies are creating an adversarial and unhealthy psychological environment for workers.
You should be appalled to know that your local and state police, federal intelligence agencies, government officials, employers, and even curious neighbors and business competitors can acquire virtually all of your private information. A record of your travel destinations, the newspapers and books you read, your video rentals, your pay-TV choices, your traffic tickets, your medical tests, as well as your private purchases are recorded in computer files. Anyone with enough computer knowledge can access your information, legally or not.
There is a growing public awareness and concern about the numerous attacks on our privacy through the misuse of computer records. However, the United States Congress and Canada’s Parliament have failed to enact serious laws to protect the privacy of citizens’ medical, criminal, and financial records.
Your Secret Life Now on Camera
Security companies that work under contract for large corporations have found ways to make use of advances in surveillance devices. Virtually invisible pinhole cameras can be placed behind a wall to monitor everything that goes on in an adjacent room, both visually and audibly. The tiny lens, which is the size of a pinhead, is unnoticeable. Infrared cameras can record images silently and in near-total darkness. Another type of surveillance camera can be concealed in a mobile telephone, recording events through the tiny hole normally used for the microphone. This tool often is used for industrial espionage, stealing trade secrets from a competitor. It is also useful in gaining the upper hand in business negotiations. For example, during a face-to-face meeting in a protracted negotiation, the user of the cell phone can leave the phone in the boardroom when he exits to take a break. As the other team discusses their strategy, supposedly in private, the cell phone is recording the conversation.
Surveillance devices are also being used much more widely by individuals. For several hundred dollars, you can obtain a device that enables you to monitor every conversation that takes place in your home or office while you are away. A remote monitoring device known as the XPS-1000 allows you to listen to conversations in your office or home by using the telephone. From a remote location, you dial your phone number using a secret activation code. The phone will not ring, but from that moment on, you can monitor every sound in the room where the phone is located. Another tiny device, a micro transmitter powered for three months by a miniature battery, can be left in any room and will broadcast for a distance of up to one thousand yards to a hidden radio receiver–tape recorder.
While fascinating, the miniaturization of cameras, microphones, and recording devices has stolen what was left of our privacy. If a person is determined to monitor your activities, you can’t prevent it. You can try to guard your privacy by using a software program or device designed to protect your communications. But in doing so, you will have inadvertently alerted intelligence agencies and private investigators that you have something worth keeping private. This may cause them to increase the level of surveillance in an attempt to discover why you want to avoid it.
Abuse of Legitimate Data
All U.S. intelligence agencies, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), can access data from the National Identification Center to identify and monitor every registered gun owner in the United States. However, we have to ask this question: what else will government agencies pursue using legitimate and legally acquired data?
Two of America’s most secretive agencies, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) and the National Security Agency (NSA), maintain a massive global surveillance system known as Project Echelon. This system can monitor every telephone call, fax, Internet search, and e-mail transmission worldwide. (We will look more closely at the remarkable capabilities of this massive surveillance system in chapter 5.) We need to face the sobering truth that we can’t escape the growing surveillance capabilities of all governments, both East and West. These developments turn our attention to the last-days prophecy from the book of Revelation about a coming totalitarian police system. John warned that a person’s every activity will be controlled: “That no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name”
(Revelation 13:17). Remarkably, John was describing a universal population control system that would impose some kind of numerical identification on every person in order to monitor his or her financial transactions, trade, business, and ability to buy and sell. This system will enable law enforcement authorities working for the Antichrist and his partner, the False Prophet (see Revelation 13:16), to control the world’s population through a unique ID, based on the number 666, on everyone’s right hand or forehead. The recent subcutaneous pet identification chips could easily be inserted in each human being.
WHO WANTS TO CONTROL YOU?
Government authorities, national security agencies, and businesses that market and sell consumer products know far more about you than most of your friends and family will ever know. People you will never meet have compiled personal information about the details of your daily life, place of residence, type of residence, spending habits, and financial assets. Government agencies justify the invasion of your privacy by reminding us of the threats posed by international terrorism, organized crime, the influx of illegal immigrants, and citizens who defraud the government as welfare cheats or tax evaders.
The NSA possesses detailed records of millions of U.S. citizens, including your communications, health status, medical treatments, employment status, vehicle ownership, driving record, criminal record, and real-estate holdings. In addition, all of your credit records, banking and financial transactions, credit rating, educational transcripts, and travel records are available to many major corporations and government research institutes.
Your life is also of great interest to foreign governments. Most of the Western democratic governments, as well as the governments of China and Russia, are thought to maintain enormous computer databases filled with details about millions of U.S. citizens. Data storage is just the first step. Next will be the most effective ways to organize, categorize, and use this private information. This hurdle will be removed when the government assigns a unique identification number to each citizen. Once that is accomplished, the staggering number of separate files on individual citizens in various databases can be combined into a single massive intelligence file. (We will talk more about this process in chapter 3.)
A confirmation of the consolidation of citizen data was publicized in the Canadian press on May 19, 2000. The Canadian government reluctantly confirmed that up to two thousand significant pieces of information had been assembled on virtually every Canadian citizen in a massive database known as the Longitudinal Labor Force File. As a result of strident public criticism following these revelations, the Canadian government promised to destroy the computer program that linked these files. However, the federal government admitted they still will retain computer data on more than thirty million Canadians— data that are retained in separate computer files held by a variety of government departments, including the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Immigration, and provincial police forces.7
A SECRET CHIP IN YOUR CREDIT CARDS
Your credit and debit cards are much more than a convenient way to pay for goods and services. The magnetic strip on a credit card or debit card holds electronic data verifying your identity, as well as information validating your right to access particular computer databases, such as your bank accounts. More and more, these cards are being replaced by higher-security smart cards that contain even more information about you. A smart card contains an embedded RFID chip capable of holding millions of times more digital information than is contained in a card’s magnetic strip.
Smart cards provide high levels of security, since they are capable of storing biometric information, such as the iris pattern in the eye of the authorized user. These new cards will document the user’s identity by measuring 173 distinct characteristics from the rings, burrows, and filaments within the iris. The stored data is compared with an iris scan made by a surveillance camera that can read your iris pattern from a distance of several yards.
Other identifying data include your precise hand geometry, which involves identifying you by measuring the length of your fingers and the translucence and thickness of your skin. Infrared scanners can reveal and record the patterns of veins on your palm or the back of your hand. Voice-recognition software can confirm your identity through digital measurement of your voice tone and timbre. Incredibly, a new machine can puff air over the back of your hand, analyze your subtle body odors, and detect as many as thirty separate trace chemical elements that supply a positive identification reading.8 All of this data, and more, can be stored in an RFID chip.
Soon you will be able to replace your credit and debit cards with one very secure smart card that is virtually immune to counterfeiting and attacks by hackers. The data will be encrypted, and your unique passwords—including biometric information—will be required for you to use the card. More than two and a half billion radio frequency smart cards now in use worldwide can perform these functions:
cash transactions such as rechargeable stored-value cards that carry a predetermined monetary value
confidential transferring of medical data to paramedics and hospital in the event of a medical crisis
control of entry into high-security workplaces and computer systems
access to air travel as well as to trains, subways, and buses
These are some of the benefits of the smart card.9However, the growing use of RFID cards will make it possible for government, police, and intelligence agencies to track the activities, location, communications, and financial transactions of every citizen from cradle to grave.
AN INTERNATIONAL STANDARD FOR PRIVACY
Growing concerns over privacy have motivated representatives of member nations of the European Union (EU) to create an international standard for privacy. The basic rules are as follows:
All privacy regulations apply to both government and private organizations.
Data collection should be limited to that which can be obtained legally and with the knowledge and consent of the citizen subject, except where this is impossible or inappropriate (e.g., criminals).
Data sought on individuals should be limited to the original purpose and kept up to date. The purpose of data collection should be specified, and subsequent use of data should be limited to the original purpose.
No personal data should be disclosed to others without the consent of the subject or without a court order.
All personal data must be kept secure using all reasonable precautions.
All citizens should be able to access, review, and challenge inaccurate data held in databases.
The government agency controller of the database should be legally and criminally accountable for abiding by these privacy principles.
The policies and practices of organizations holding databases on individuals should reveal the information to those who legally inquire.
Private data collected by EU member corporations and states may not be transmitted to organizations in nations that do not have privacy regulations equal to those of the European Union.10
The introduction of similar legislation in America, Canada, and other democratic nations could provide significant protection against the abuse of our privacy. The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is an international group of twenty-nine developed nations from North America, Europe, and Asia that has suggested the creation of powerful, binding privacy standards for both governments and businesses.11
The reality is that the growing attacks on our personal security are rapidly overwhelming the proposed defenses. One potential solution is to use a smart stored-value card that would allow a person to make a payment while the card restricts the merchant from accessing the purchaser’s identity. The card would also prevent merchants and anyone receiving an electronic funds transfer from tracking previous purchases made by that customer. For example, a smart card developed by Mondex International allows customers to transfer funds from their card to a merchant’s account to make a purchase. However, when the merchant’s bank accepts the transfer of funds to cover purchases made using Mondex cards, the bank is not able to identify the actual purchasers. A similar system is used by Visa International in its Visa cash card. The disposable card does not permit merchants to identify the person who used the card.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
There are hopeful signs that, after years of indifference to the threats to our privacy and financial security, the public is awakening to the heightened dangers posed by new surveillance technologies.
When it was revealed that Intel Corporation had embedded in every Pentium III chip a secret serial number that would allow the person using the computer to be identified, customers and privacy groups launched a protest.12 Additionally, Microsoft had embedded a hidden identification number in all documents produced by any computer using Microsoft software. The protests that followed forced the company to provide a free software program that eliminated the identifying number.13 However, the vast majority of computer users of Microsoft software are unaware of the privacy problem, and most lack the expertise to fix it.
If we are to protect what little privacy we still have, we should encourage a healthy debate about the relative advantages and disadvantages of each new technological development. Citizen involvement and thoughtful protest against the governmental and corporate threats to our privacy can slow down this relentless attack. We need to defend our right to maintain a personal life that is free from outside interference and intrusion.
Still, in violation of constitutional guarantees to the contrary, our society continues to move toward an all-encompassing surveillance society, which is described in the prophecies of the book of Revelation. We will live to see the time when our right to privacy and the freedom to be left alone are nothing more than distant memories.
ANOTHER STORY - 12 PEARLS OF CHRISTMAS
A Tangible Reminder
by Mary Byers
Last year I read Me, Myself, & Bob: A True Story About Dreams, God, and Talking Vegetables by Phil Vischer, creator of the Veggie Tales video series. I was interested because my children grew up on Veggie Tales. But I was also interested because somewhere along the way I noticed Phil Vischer was no longer with Big Idea, the company he founded. I knew there must be a story there, so I picked up the book.
Though millions of children can sing the Veggie Tales theme song, Big Idea no longer exists. After expanding too quickly, the company was forced into bankruptcy. Vischer writes about the experience in his book, which is part memoir and part business tutorial. And it's a touching example of how one man encountered grit and allowed it to be turned into grace.
At the end of the book, Vischer outlines the lessons he learned from the rise and fall of Big Idea. In part, he shares, "I was ready to be done, if that's what God wanted. To just rest in him and let everything else fall away. At long last, after a lifetime of striving, God was enough. Not God and impact or God and ministry. Just God."
His words convicted me. As an author and speaker, I realized that I'm often more focused on my deadlines or my next speaking engagement than I am on God. I have it backwards. God first, then everything else will fall into place.
It's a powerful message for us as women, too. When we focus on God first, we'll have everything we need to handle whatever is happening in our families and our lives. As Vischer reminds us, God is enough. As we approach Christmas, I'm reminded that this is the time when God shared his Son with us-a tangible reminder of his love for us. And a reminder that when we have him, we have everything we need.
____________________________________
Mary Byers is the author of Making Work at Home Work: Successfully Growing a Business and a Family Under One Roof. She offers advice and encouragement for moms work from home for profit at www.makingworkathomework.com.
__________________________________
12 Pearls of Christmas Series and contest sponsored by Pearl Girls®. For more information, please visit www.pearlgirls.info
JOYCE MEYER -REVIEWED - A Life of Redempton and Destiny
JOYCE MEYER
By Richard Young
Published by: Whitaker House
ISBN: 978-1603741125
185 Pages
Biography of Joyce Meyer
REVIEWED: I've seen and heard Joyce Meyer speak on TV and radio. She is a passionate, confident and powerful speaker. An opportunity came to get a review copy of her biography and I quickly signed up to read about this very charasmatic women.
I had read The Penny, a novel she co-wrote with Deborah Bedford that touched on Joyce's childhood and how she accepted the Lord. This biography goes a little deeper into Joyce's horrific childhood. The acount of this time in her life was heartbreaking and a little hard to read and believe someone could live through so much at such a tender age.
Joyce Meyers birth name was Pauline Joyce Hutchinson. There family called her Joyce. Here's what the author says about Joyces name.
"First Joyce was a name from the middle ages originally given only to men. Second, it was eventually made popular as a women's name because of it's meaning: "one who rejoices."
Joyce Meyers had an unthinkable childhood no one would survive without an intervention from God! Now knowing where Joyce came from and what she has overcome it's amazing to see her walk with confidence and joy only a life healed by the touch of Jesus could rediate. In this biography you can see how God took the circumstances of Joyce's life and made beauty out of ashes. He uses the very thing enemy meant to destroy us to encourage and comfort those who have been through the same thing or worse.
The enemy tried to use horrible circumstances to rob, destroy and kill Joyce at a young age. God who has overcome this world, used these circumstances to touch the broken hearted, to give hope to the hopeless and so much more. You can see Jesus through Joyce Meyers life and how God has given her the courage and strength to be more than a conquer through Christ Jesus. This is one powerful, encouraging story you'll definately want to read!
Nora St.Laurent
ACFW Book Club Coordinator
JOYCE MEYER - A LIFE OF REDEMPTION - by Richard Young - FIRST CHAPTER
Today's author is:
and the book:
Joyce Meyer: A Life of Redemption and Destiny
Whitaker House (October 6, 2009)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
An educator, businessman, and 5th generation minister, Young’s previously published biographies include: The Rise of Lakewood Church and Joel Osteen, The Journey of T. D. Jakes, and Messengers of Healing -- the story of Charles and Frances Hunter written with his wife, Brenda. The Youngs live in Oklahoma City. They have three children and ten grandchildren.
Product Details:
List Price: $13.99
Paperback: 185 pages
Publisher: Whitaker House (October 6, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1603741127
ISBN-13: 978-1603741125
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
The Ashes
I shall not die, but live. (Psalm 118:17)
Our past experiences may have made us the way we are, but we don’t have to stay that way. —Joyce Meyer
By 1943, America had been at war for a year and a half. It would be two more years before her soldiers would return from the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific. On June 4, in the midst of this time of turmoil and sacrifice, Pauline Joyce Hutchison entered into the world. Although Pauline was her given name, it didn’t stick. Within the first few months, her family began calling her Joyce. Unknown to her parents were the two prophetic, if not ironic, aspects of that name. First, Joyce was a name from the Middle Ages originally only given only to men. Second, it was eventually made popular as a woman’s name because of its meaning: “one who rejoices.” Another ironic aspect to Joyce’s young life was that those war years were to be the most peaceful of Joyce’s entire childhood because the day after she was born, her father left to join the military, where he would serve for the next three years.
Joyce’s mother was raised on a Missouri farm many miles away from the urban streets of St. Louis. Joyce’s mother was only seventeen years old when she married—in many ways, still a child herself. With no job skills or trade, she was totally dependent on her husband for financial support. Joyce recalls that her mother frequently struggled with issues of self-esteem and never considered herself to be a person of value. Because of this, Joyce’s mother lived in fear of the fact that, in her mind, she would never be able to survive it if anything were to happen to her husband.
Joyce’s father had been raised deep in the hills of Kentucky. Because he was a blue collar worker with only a basic education, he supported the family by working hard manual labor jobs. By the time he returned home from the war, he was an extremely angry and bitter man, short tempered and seemingly unhappy with everything in his life. Besides his rage, he also returned home with a serious drinking problem. Whenever he drank, any self-control he had left, and his inner demons took over in ways usually directed at Joyce and her mother.
The Nightmare Begins
Today, Joyce does not remember a time in her early life when her father1 did not molest her. She assumes it began within months of his return from the military. He worked the swing shift from the middle of the afternoon until late in the evening. As a usual routine, he arrived home around midnight and began to drink. Joyce and her mother lived in such fear that even the sound of a key turning in the lock was enough to wake them, causing them to lie perfectly still in their beds hoping and praying to be left alone but knowing that was unlikely. As Joyce’s father began to drink, he would use the most foul and obscene language imaginable. He understood how to intimidate his family by the way he walked, the countenance of his face, and the words that came out of his mouth.
On many nights, Joyce and her mother would watch and listen for him to come up the front steps. As soon as they heard his stumbling footsteps, they would sneak out the backdoor in their nightgowns regardless of whether there was ice and snow or heat and humidity. There they would huddle together waiting for him to pass out in a drunken stupor so they could slink back into their beds. Joyce’s father controlled every moment of their lives, even when he wasn’t at home. He decided when they went to bed and when they awoke. He determined what they ate and when they ate it. He determined when they went out and when they stayed home. He decided what they watched on television. Sometimes he would scream and yell when Joyce’s mother spent money on food or other household necessities. Other times he would shower them with gifts and give them money to go shopping. They never knew which man would be coming home after work or which man would wake up in the morning. It was truly a Jekyll-and-Hyde-type of existence.
Joyce witnessed her father administer savage beatings to her mother under the influence of his alcoholic demons. Each day found the two women through a minefield around this man who could go from passive to explosive in an instant. He was like a piece of dynamite in the home and nobody knew if the fuse was lit or not. On some nights, there was an explosion, and on other nights, there was not. The lack of violence, however, did not mean there was ever peace in the home. The tension was constant.
Although her father never hit her, Joyce suffered for years from his sexual abuse. Joyce has described her father’s early life in this way: “He was born in the hills—way back in the hills. In his family, incest was just part of the culture.”1 Joyce’s grandparents on her father’s side were first cousins. In that time, and in that culture, the occasional sexual relations between cousins, siblings, and other family members were endured as an unaddressed “dirty little secret.” There were very few accusations, fewer investigations, and virtually no public convictions for these “private family matters.”
Today, most experts agree that a person’s personality is primarily formed in the first five years of life. If that is true, it is a miracle that Joyce survived those early years without becoming a severely disturbed human being. Fear was her constant companion. Through it all, her father was always careful not to do anything that would leave visual, physical evidence that would be noticed by her mother, teachers, or doctors.
The sheltered and demented world the Joyce grew up in taught her that this was something that every father and daughter did. Her father often told her that what they were doing was natural and good and that she was lucky to have a father who loved her so much. On one occasion, however, Joyce went to stay the night with her cousins. While there, she and one of her male cousins began to fondle each other. Not knowing any better, Joyce told this to her father, causing him to explode in anger. He made it clear to Joyce that this was only an activity shared between father and daughter and that she was never to do these things with anyone else. Without really understanding, Joyce did what her father said.
To the outside world, Joyce appeared to be a tough and bold little girl. As she grew older, it appeared to the world that Joyce couldn’t care less what people thought about her. On the inside, however, she was absolutely controlled by fear. She went so far as to create a pretend personality so that people would not see her true self. She did this partially to mask the pain but also as a way to protect herself. She did not enjoy what was going on, but in her mind, it was the only choice.
As she grew older, Joyce started going to school but was careful about making friends. At one point, Joyce befriended a little girl. During one of her overnight visits, this friend was also molested by Joyce’s father. Soon, her friend stopped coming over to visit, but she never told her parents about what happened. Joyce now knew that she could never develop a close friendship with any of the other girls at school. She didn’t want that to happen ever again. When Joyce became interested in boys, her father would ruin things by becoming jealous that she had “another man” in her life. Typically, her father either ran the boys off or Joyce broke up with them out of fear that her father might physically harm them.
Turning Points
Three things happened when Joyce turned nine years old. First, she finally worked up the courage to tell her mother about what her father had been doing to her. Looking back, it would be easy to assume that her mother must have known what was going on in her own home. After all, what did she think was happening whenever her husband made his frequent visits into Joyce’s room? Their lives were a twenty-four-hour house of horrors in which there was never any peace or relief. Perhaps all Joyce’s mother was able to recognize in those moments was that at least she wasn’t being beaten again.
After Joyce finally revealed her dark secret, her mother examined her for any physical signs of the abuse. When her father came home, she confronted him. He denied everything and insisted that Joyce was lying. After a long and heated discussion, Joyce’s mother chose to believe her husband, perhaps not wanting to face such a painful reality. This was a defining moment in Joyce’s life. She now felt betrayed by both her father and her mother. As an adult, Joyce has tried to rationalize her mother’s decision. If she had chosen to believe Joyce, it would have put them on the streets with no ability to work in order to put a roof over their heads or food on their table.
The second thing that happened at this time was that Joyce’s mother became pregnant. Although Joyce was thrilled with the expectation of a new brother or sister, she actually prayed for a sister who might divert her father’s deviate attention. Such an admission reveals the depths of pain that Joyce felt as a nine-year-old child who only wanted the pain to stop.
In time, her mother gave birth to a boy, David. Because they were nearly ten years apart in age, Joyce and David didn’t know each other very well growing up. He was still a child when she left home. By the time David was born, Joyce’s mother was running a boardinghouse to make extra money for the family. There were two tenants at that time: a lady named Arlene; and a man called Cotton, so named because his hair was so blonde that it seemed almost white. Joyce’s father accused her mother of having an affair with Cotton and, for a long time, denied that David was his son, only adding to the family’s tension level.
The third thing happened while Joyce was visiting the home of one of her cousins. They went to church, something that Joyce’s family never did. Because they had several visitors at the time, her cousin’s family first decided to skip church, but Joyce insisted that they go. She had been there before and had a specific reason for going on this particular Sunday. She knew that at the end of the service there was always a call for people to come forward and accept Jesus Christ as Savior. That was precisely what Joyce planned to do. She would later describe the event as a “glorious cleansing.”
Wouldn’t you know it, the pastor didn’t give an altar call that night. I sat there in my pew as long as I could, then I grabbed my two cousins’ hands and dragged them with me—“Come on, we’re going to get saved!” Through her tears, Joyce stammered to the surprised pastor, “Can you save me?” As she prayed, she felt the cleansing power of the Lord in her life. 2
All of her life, Joyce had endured the stain of incest. Now, for the first time in her nine-year-old life, she finally felt cleansed. “I always felt dirty. I was always washing, bathing, trying to get clean. And in this one moment, Jesus washed me, and He never left me.”3
The next day, while playing a game of hide-and-seek with her cousins, she cheated. Immediately, a feeling washed over her suggesting that she had betrayed God. She feared that because of her act of “sin,” the cleansing she had experienced would go away. By the time she was back at home, any feelings of being cleansed that she had found in church were gone. She would later say that she thought she had lost Jesus.
The Night Grows Darker
Things at home did not change. Now that her mother was pregnant, Joyce’s father only stepped up his perverse behavior. Whenever he demanded that Joyce meet him in the basement or the garage, she felt she had to go or else risk making him angry at her mother. When she went, the abuse became more and more deviant. He began to expose himself to her around the house, forced her to view pornography, and increased his physical contact with her.
By the time Joyce reached her teens, her father would announce to her mother that he was going to take her out for a driving lesson. Instead of driving, however, he would take her to a nearby cemetery where he would rape her in the backseat. This happened on several occasions. One night, they were actually caught in the act by a policeman. Joyce’s father lied and told the policeman that Joyce was his cousin and that she had “talked him into it”—as if that should have made a difference. Today, some consider the 1950s to be a time of innocence. In many ways, they were also a time of ignorance. Today, any older man having sexual relations with an underage girl, especially a family member, would be immediately arrested and forever branded as a sexual predator. Instead, incredibly, the policeman agreed to ignore the situation if he, too, could be intimate with Joyce. Her father agreed. An arrangement was made for Joyce to meet the policeman in a café. In a rare turn of fortune for Joyce, the policeman was called away by his police radio and she avoided having to go through with the vile plan.
Her father’s perversions were not limited to his daughter. Joyce’s aunt, her father’s own younger sister, was forced to join them in the cemetery during her stay with the family, proving that there were no limits to the demented state of her father’s mind and the actions it spawned. He was a man so controlled by his own selfish lusts that it did not matter to him whom he hurt.
Teen Years
Joyce began working at a job when she was thirteen. She didn’t want to depend on her father for anything. She also needed to establish something she could control in her chaotic life. If she could make even a little bit of money, it would be something she could control. Obviously, her father was not a man attuned to the needs of others, especially a daughter’s needs for pretty things, makeup, and getting her hair done. He had no desire for her to do anything that would make her less dependent on him or more attractive to others.
Because Joyce was a minor, she lied about her age. She was tall and mature looking for her age and easily passed for someone a few years older. She landed a job at the local dime store, and she also waited tables at small diners and cafes, which paid better because of tips. Besides getting her first taste of independence away from the controlling influence of her father, this also instilled in Joyce the importance of being able to manage her money wisely.
During this time, Joyce began to steal anything she could. She stole from her employers when no one was looking. She stole from family and friends when the opportunity presented itself. She once stole a pair of glasses from the mother of one of her friends even though she couldn’t use them without being discovered. She not only stole things, but she also lied constantly about anything and everything. As a young teen, it was her form of rebellion and made her feel smarter than other people.
When Joyce was fourteen, her mother walked in as her father was sexually abusing her. Joyce immediately thought, Thank God! Now she will put an end to it! Unfortunately, her mother stopped, momentarily stunned by the scene before her, then, as if she had seen nothing, picked up her purse and walked out. A few hours later, she returned but said absolutely nothing. It was as if the incident had never happened. In fact, her mother didn’t talk about it until many years later, long after Joyce had left home. When she did talk about it, she simply said that she had not known what to do, so she had done nothing. Without the courage to stand on her own two feet, Joyce’s mother felt that she had no choice but to live in denial. To acknowledge openly what she had witnessed would leave her with no option other than to leave her husband, and in her mind, divorce was not something she could consider. Thus, she sacrificed her daughter’s welfare and chose to remain silent.
When her mother became ill and went to the hospital, Joyce wrote her father a note begging him to stop molesting her. Because he worked nights, she put it on the kitchen table, where he would be sure to find it, and went to bed. When he got home and found the note, he became enraged, woke her out of a sound sleep, screamed at her, and shook his fist in her face. He warned her never to write anything like that ever again or she would regret it for the rest of her life.
High School Years
Joyce attended O’Fallon Technical High School in St. Louis, an institution that did not see its role as preparing students for college but rather for a life in trade professions. Students at O’Fallon were not considered “college material”—especially the women. For them, it was assumed that they would either get married right after graduation or work in menial, low-paying positions. Joyce was featured in the school yearbook, The Flame and Steel, with the June graduating class of the clerical department. It stated that she was trained in bookkeeping and listed her extracurricular activities as girls’ softball, student government, and Honorama—an honor society for students who excelled in scholarship, service, and attendance.
Many of her peers regarded Joyce as a leader. She was often sought out for advice. Others saw her, as one classmate recalled, as the “sharp-tongued” leader of a small but very close “in crowd” of girls who seemed more concerned with their hair and makeup than anything else. This provided Joyce with great cover and was a distraction from her home life. Later, one of her classmates would remark, “Getting out in front and leading the parade, that’s where she always wanted to be.”4
Despite the heinous environment in which she was imprisoned for so many years, Joyce was somehow demonstrating, even as a teen, some of the traits that would serve her so well in the years to come. She was determined not to allow her father’s abuse—or her mother’s betrayal—to determine who she would become in life. Joyce’s childhood would have destroyed many people, leaving them without the self-esteem or confidence to achieve anything in life. Although there would be many more hardships and poor choices ahead, Joyce was starting to emerge from decades of darkness and beginning to overcome the horrors she had endured. She was determined to not become the “trash” that her father had always claimed her to be. As she graduated from high school, Joyce began to take the first small steps toward breaking out of her situation and taking control of her life.
I shall not die, but live. (Psalm 118:17)
Our past experiences may have made us the way we are, but we don’t have to stay that way. —Joyce Meyer
By 1943, America had been at war for a year and a half. It would be two more years before her soldiers would return from the battlefields of Europe and the Pacific. On June 4, in the midst of this time of turmoil and sacrifice, Pauline Joyce Hutchison entered into the world. Although Pauline was her given name, it didn’t stick. Within the first few months, her family began calling her Joyce. Unknown to her parents were the two prophetic, if not ironic, aspects of that name. First, Joyce was a name from the Middle Ages originally only given only to men. Second, it was eventually made popular as a woman’s name because of its meaning: “one who rejoices.” Another ironic aspect to Joyce’s young life was that those war years were to be the most peaceful of Joyce’s entire childhood because the day after she was born, her father left to join the military, where he would serve for the next three years.
Joyce’s mother was raised on a Missouri farm many miles away from the urban streets of St. Louis. Joyce’s mother was only seventeen years old when she married—in many ways, still a child herself. With no job skills or trade, she was totally dependent on her husband for financial support. Joyce recalls that her mother frequently struggled with issues of self-esteem and never considered herself to be a person of value. Because of this, Joyce’s mother lived in fear of the fact that, in her mind, she would never be able to survive it if anything were to happen to her husband.
Joyce’s father had been raised deep in the hills of Kentucky. Because he was a blue collar worker with only a basic education, he supported the family by working hard manual labor jobs. By the time he returned home from the war, he was an extremely angry and bitter man, short tempered and seemingly unhappy with everything in his life. Besides his rage, he also returned home with a serious drinking problem. Whenever he drank, any self-control he had left, and his inner demons took over in ways usually directed at Joyce and her mother.
The Nightmare Begins
Today, Joyce does not remember a time in her early life when her father1 did not molest her. She assumes it began within months of his return from the military. He worked the swing shift from the middle of the afternoon until late in the evening. As a usual routine, he arrived home around midnight and began to drink. Joyce and her mother lived in such fear that even the sound of a key turning in the lock was enough to wake them, causing them to lie perfectly still in their beds hoping and praying to be left alone but knowing that was unlikely. As Joyce’s father began to drink, he would use the most foul and obscene language imaginable. He understood how to intimidate his family by the way he walked, the countenance of his face, and the words that came out of his mouth.
On many nights, Joyce and her mother would watch and listen for him to come up the front steps. As soon as they heard his stumbling footsteps, they would sneak out the backdoor in their nightgowns regardless of whether there was ice and snow or heat and humidity. There they would huddle together waiting for him to pass out in a drunken stupor so they could slink back into their beds. Joyce’s father controlled every moment of their lives, even when he wasn’t at home. He decided when they went to bed and when they awoke. He determined what they ate and when they ate it. He determined when they went out and when they stayed home. He decided what they watched on television. Sometimes he would scream and yell when Joyce’s mother spent money on food or other household necessities. Other times he would shower them with gifts and give them money to go shopping. They never knew which man would be coming home after work or which man would wake up in the morning. It was truly a Jekyll-and-Hyde-type of existence.
Joyce witnessed her father administer savage beatings to her mother under the influence of his alcoholic demons. Each day found the two women through a minefield around this man who could go from passive to explosive in an instant. He was like a piece of dynamite in the home and nobody knew if the fuse was lit or not. On some nights, there was an explosion, and on other nights, there was not. The lack of violence, however, did not mean there was ever peace in the home. The tension was constant.
Although her father never hit her, Joyce suffered for years from his sexual abuse. Joyce has described her father’s early life in this way: “He was born in the hills—way back in the hills. In his family, incest was just part of the culture.”1 Joyce’s grandparents on her father’s side were first cousins. In that time, and in that culture, the occasional sexual relations between cousins, siblings, and other family members were endured as an unaddressed “dirty little secret.” There were very few accusations, fewer investigations, and virtually no public convictions for these “private family matters.”
Today, most experts agree that a person’s personality is primarily formed in the first five years of life. If that is true, it is a miracle that Joyce survived those early years without becoming a severely disturbed human being. Fear was her constant companion. Through it all, her father was always careful not to do anything that would leave visual, physical evidence that would be noticed by her mother, teachers, or doctors.
The sheltered and demented world the Joyce grew up in taught her that this was something that every father and daughter did. Her father often told her that what they were doing was natural and good and that she was lucky to have a father who loved her so much. On one occasion, however, Joyce went to stay the night with her cousins. While there, she and one of her male cousins began to fondle each other. Not knowing any better, Joyce told this to her father, causing him to explode in anger. He made it clear to Joyce that this was only an activity shared between father and daughter and that she was never to do these things with anyone else. Without really understanding, Joyce did what her father said.
To the outside world, Joyce appeared to be a tough and bold little girl. As she grew older, it appeared to the world that Joyce couldn’t care less what people thought about her. On the inside, however, she was absolutely controlled by fear. She went so far as to create a pretend personality so that people would not see her true self. She did this partially to mask the pain but also as a way to protect herself. She did not enjoy what was going on, but in her mind, it was the only choice.
As she grew older, Joyce started going to school but was careful about making friends. At one point, Joyce befriended a little girl. During one of her overnight visits, this friend was also molested by Joyce’s father. Soon, her friend stopped coming over to visit, but she never told her parents about what happened. Joyce now knew that she could never develop a close friendship with any of the other girls at school. She didn’t want that to happen ever again. When Joyce became interested in boys, her father would ruin things by becoming jealous that she had “another man” in her life. Typically, her father either ran the boys off or Joyce broke up with them out of fear that her father might physically harm them.
Turning Points
Three things happened when Joyce turned nine years old. First, she finally worked up the courage to tell her mother about what her father had been doing to her. Looking back, it would be easy to assume that her mother must have known what was going on in her own home. After all, what did she think was happening whenever her husband made his frequent visits into Joyce’s room? Their lives were a twenty-four-hour house of horrors in which there was never any peace or relief. Perhaps all Joyce’s mother was able to recognize in those moments was that at least she wasn’t being beaten again.
After Joyce finally revealed her dark secret, her mother examined her for any physical signs of the abuse. When her father came home, she confronted him. He denied everything and insisted that Joyce was lying. After a long and heated discussion, Joyce’s mother chose to believe her husband, perhaps not wanting to face such a painful reality. This was a defining moment in Joyce’s life. She now felt betrayed by both her father and her mother. As an adult, Joyce has tried to rationalize her mother’s decision. If she had chosen to believe Joyce, it would have put them on the streets with no ability to work in order to put a roof over their heads or food on their table.
The second thing that happened at this time was that Joyce’s mother became pregnant. Although Joyce was thrilled with the expectation of a new brother or sister, she actually prayed for a sister who might divert her father’s deviate attention. Such an admission reveals the depths of pain that Joyce felt as a nine-year-old child who only wanted the pain to stop.
In time, her mother gave birth to a boy, David. Because they were nearly ten years apart in age, Joyce and David didn’t know each other very well growing up. He was still a child when she left home. By the time David was born, Joyce’s mother was running a boardinghouse to make extra money for the family. There were two tenants at that time: a lady named Arlene; and a man called Cotton, so named because his hair was so blonde that it seemed almost white. Joyce’s father accused her mother of having an affair with Cotton and, for a long time, denied that David was his son, only adding to the family’s tension level.
The third thing happened while Joyce was visiting the home of one of her cousins. They went to church, something that Joyce’s family never did. Because they had several visitors at the time, her cousin’s family first decided to skip church, but Joyce insisted that they go. She had been there before and had a specific reason for going on this particular Sunday. She knew that at the end of the service there was always a call for people to come forward and accept Jesus Christ as Savior. That was precisely what Joyce planned to do. She would later describe the event as a “glorious cleansing.”
Wouldn’t you know it, the pastor didn’t give an altar call that night. I sat there in my pew as long as I could, then I grabbed my two cousins’ hands and dragged them with me—“Come on, we’re going to get saved!” Through her tears, Joyce stammered to the surprised pastor, “Can you save me?” As she prayed, she felt the cleansing power of the Lord in her life. 2
All of her life, Joyce had endured the stain of incest. Now, for the first time in her nine-year-old life, she finally felt cleansed. “I always felt dirty. I was always washing, bathing, trying to get clean. And in this one moment, Jesus washed me, and He never left me.”3
The next day, while playing a game of hide-and-seek with her cousins, she cheated. Immediately, a feeling washed over her suggesting that she had betrayed God. She feared that because of her act of “sin,” the cleansing she had experienced would go away. By the time she was back at home, any feelings of being cleansed that she had found in church were gone. She would later say that she thought she had lost Jesus.
The Night Grows Darker
Things at home did not change. Now that her mother was pregnant, Joyce’s father only stepped up his perverse behavior. Whenever he demanded that Joyce meet him in the basement or the garage, she felt she had to go or else risk making him angry at her mother. When she went, the abuse became more and more deviant. He began to expose himself to her around the house, forced her to view pornography, and increased his physical contact with her.
By the time Joyce reached her teens, her father would announce to her mother that he was going to take her out for a driving lesson. Instead of driving, however, he would take her to a nearby cemetery where he would rape her in the backseat. This happened on several occasions. One night, they were actually caught in the act by a policeman. Joyce’s father lied and told the policeman that Joyce was his cousin and that she had “talked him into it”—as if that should have made a difference. Today, some consider the 1950s to be a time of innocence. In many ways, they were also a time of ignorance. Today, any older man having sexual relations with an underage girl, especially a family member, would be immediately arrested and forever branded as a sexual predator. Instead, incredibly, the policeman agreed to ignore the situation if he, too, could be intimate with Joyce. Her father agreed. An arrangement was made for Joyce to meet the policeman in a café. In a rare turn of fortune for Joyce, the policeman was called away by his police radio and she avoided having to go through with the vile plan.
Her father’s perversions were not limited to his daughter. Joyce’s aunt, her father’s own younger sister, was forced to join them in the cemetery during her stay with the family, proving that there were no limits to the demented state of her father’s mind and the actions it spawned. He was a man so controlled by his own selfish lusts that it did not matter to him whom he hurt.
Teen Years
Joyce began working at a job when she was thirteen. She didn’t want to depend on her father for anything. She also needed to establish something she could control in her chaotic life. If she could make even a little bit of money, it would be something she could control. Obviously, her father was not a man attuned to the needs of others, especially a daughter’s needs for pretty things, makeup, and getting her hair done. He had no desire for her to do anything that would make her less dependent on him or more attractive to others.
Because Joyce was a minor, she lied about her age. She was tall and mature looking for her age and easily passed for someone a few years older. She landed a job at the local dime store, and she also waited tables at small diners and cafes, which paid better because of tips. Besides getting her first taste of independence away from the controlling influence of her father, this also instilled in Joyce the importance of being able to manage her money wisely.
During this time, Joyce began to steal anything she could. She stole from her employers when no one was looking. She stole from family and friends when the opportunity presented itself. She once stole a pair of glasses from the mother of one of her friends even though she couldn’t use them without being discovered. She not only stole things, but she also lied constantly about anything and everything. As a young teen, it was her form of rebellion and made her feel smarter than other people.
When Joyce was fourteen, her mother walked in as her father was sexually abusing her. Joyce immediately thought, Thank God! Now she will put an end to it! Unfortunately, her mother stopped, momentarily stunned by the scene before her, then, as if she had seen nothing, picked up her purse and walked out. A few hours later, she returned but said absolutely nothing. It was as if the incident had never happened. In fact, her mother didn’t talk about it until many years later, long after Joyce had left home. When she did talk about it, she simply said that she had not known what to do, so she had done nothing. Without the courage to stand on her own two feet, Joyce’s mother felt that she had no choice but to live in denial. To acknowledge openly what she had witnessed would leave her with no option other than to leave her husband, and in her mind, divorce was not something she could consider. Thus, she sacrificed her daughter’s welfare and chose to remain silent.
When her mother became ill and went to the hospital, Joyce wrote her father a note begging him to stop molesting her. Because he worked nights, she put it on the kitchen table, where he would be sure to find it, and went to bed. When he got home and found the note, he became enraged, woke her out of a sound sleep, screamed at her, and shook his fist in her face. He warned her never to write anything like that ever again or she would regret it for the rest of her life.
High School Years
Joyce attended O’Fallon Technical High School in St. Louis, an institution that did not see its role as preparing students for college but rather for a life in trade professions. Students at O’Fallon were not considered “college material”—especially the women. For them, it was assumed that they would either get married right after graduation or work in menial, low-paying positions. Joyce was featured in the school yearbook, The Flame and Steel, with the June graduating class of the clerical department. It stated that she was trained in bookkeeping and listed her extracurricular activities as girls’ softball, student government, and Honorama—an honor society for students who excelled in scholarship, service, and attendance.
Many of her peers regarded Joyce as a leader. She was often sought out for advice. Others saw her, as one classmate recalled, as the “sharp-tongued” leader of a small but very close “in crowd” of girls who seemed more concerned with their hair and makeup than anything else. This provided Joyce with great cover and was a distraction from her home life. Later, one of her classmates would remark, “Getting out in front and leading the parade, that’s where she always wanted to be.”4
Despite the heinous environment in which she was imprisoned for so many years, Joyce was somehow demonstrating, even as a teen, some of the traits that would serve her so well in the years to come. She was determined not to allow her father’s abuse—or her mother’s betrayal—to determine who she would become in life. Joyce’s childhood would have destroyed many people, leaving them without the self-esteem or confidence to achieve anything in life. Although there would be many more hardships and poor choices ahead, Joyce was starting to emerge from decades of darkness and beginning to overcome the horrors she had endured. She was determined to not become the “trash” that her father had always claimed her to be. As she graduated from high school, Joyce began to take the first small steps toward breaking out of her situation and taking control of her life.
THE SHERIFF'S SURRENDER by SUSAN PAGE DAVIS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
I've always loved reading, history, and horses. These things come together in several of my historical books. My young adult novel, Sarah's Long Ride, also spotlights horses and the rugged sport of endurance riding, as does the contemporary romance Trail to Justice. I took a vocational course in horseshoeing after earning a bachelor's degree in history. I don't shoe horses anymore, but the experience has come in handy in writing my books.
Another longtime hobby of mine is genealogy, which has led me down many fascinating paths. I'm proud to be a DAR member! Some of Jim's and my quirkier ancestors have inspired fictional characters
For many years I worked for the Central Maine Morning Sentinel as a freelancer, covering local government, school board meetings, business news, fires, auto accidents, and other local events, including a murder trial. I've also written many profiles and features for the newspaper and its special sections. This experience was a great help in developing fictional characters and writing realistic scenes. I also published nonfiction articles in several magazines and had several short stories appear in Woman's World, Grit, and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine.
My husband, Jim, and I moved to his birth state, Oregon, for a while after we were married, but decided to move back to Maine and be near my family. We're so glad we did. It allowed our six children to grow up feeling close to their cousins and grandparents, and some of Jim's family have even moved to Maine!
ABOUT THE BOOK
Gert Dooley can shoot the tail feathers off a jay at a hundred yards, but she wants Ethan Chapman to see she's more than a crack shot with a firearm. When the sheriff of Fergus, Idaho, is murdered and Ethan is named his replacement, Gert decides she has to do whatever she can to help him protect the citizenry. So she starts the Ladies Shooting Club. But when one of their numbers is murdered, these ladies are called on for more than target shooting and praying. Can Gert and the ladies of Fergus find the murderer before he strikes again?
If you would like to read the first chapter of The Sheriff’s Surrender , go HERE
12 PEARLS OF CHRISTMAS - ANOTHER AMAZING STORY
COMING HOME FOR CHRISTMAS
by Virelle Kidder
My mother had remarkable zeal for Christmas. Weeks in advance, she would come home from teaching school and bake late into the night. I helped clean the house and decorate the tree while my older brother Roger wired the house with Christmas lights, transforming our humble red house into a place of magical beauty. Following the church candlelight service, a crowd of happy people crunched through the snow to our house for cocoa and cookies.
We were, like many, quite alone in the years after my father left. Our Christmas open house was my mother's supreme effort to make us feel complete. It almost worked.
Despite years in church and Sunday school, God was more a distant relative I wished I knew. I grew up with a gnawing sense of incompleteness, and longed to find meaning and purpose in life. Strangely, it was shortly before Christmas years later that it found me.
My husband Steve was fully absorbed with his new job at Johns Hopkins University, and I was home with a two year old. We wanted friends, but were both hesitant when Steve's officemate his wife invited us to attend their church. We had nothing in common with "religious types," but Steve said, "Let's be nice and go just once."
Sitting in church that Sunday, my temples pounded. Hymns and Scripture verses long ago ignored called to me from my childhood. Could others tell I didn't belong here? Oddly, I felt jealous of their peace. They looked happy.
First thing Monday morning I began tearing through the unpacked boxes in our basement. At last, I found my mildewed Bible from fifth grade. I resolved to read it cover to cover. I opened to Genesis, chapter 1. Same old story; I've heard this a hundred times, and quickly slammed it shut.
No one told me God could hear my thoughts. A soft Voice whispered, Why not read as if it were true? I opened my Bible again. Suddenly I was listening to the most interesting person I had ever heard. By afternoon I was still reading in my pajamas. I couldn't stop.
I read for weeks until one day, a picture popped in my mind of a beautiful old house with wide porches, brightly lit at night. Music, laughter and lively conversation carried onto the porch where I stood in the dark, peeking in. I saw a feast and a fire on the hearth, much like the Christmas open houses from my childhood, with one important difference. There was a Father here whose face mirrored love and warmth at His children's presence. This was God's family, and I desperately wanted to be inside. But how?
A voice taunted, Why would God want you? You don't fit in this crowd! It was true. I considered giving up. Instead, I marched upstairs to our bedroom, knelt down and prayed out loud, "Lord, help me find the way! Please don't let me go!"
Verses I'd read made sense. Jesus said, "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me." (John 14:6)
Our friends explained that God already knew I was a hopeless mess and loved me anyway. Opening the door to Heaven was a gift that cost God everything. It was on the cross Jesus died to pay for my sins. He rose again to prove forever that He is the Truth. Weeping at such love, I knelt and gave Christ my life. I found that, with or without a happy family, no one is ever complete without Jesus.
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Virelle Kidder is a conference speaker and the author of six books and numerous articles whose passion is sharing the love of God with women around the world. For her latest books, please visit her at www.virellekidder.com and www.meetmeatthewell.fm
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12 Pearls of Christmas Series and contest sponsored by Pearl Girls®. For more information, please visit www.pearlgirls.info
ANOTHER DAY ANOTHER CHRISTMAS STORY
12 Pearls of Christmas: Life Beautiful
Life Beautiful
by Margaret McSweeney
During a quiet moment after Thanksgiving, I started reading my parents' stack of love letters that I recently found in a storage box. As a Christmas gift to you, I would like to share my father's words to my mother written to her during Christmas 1949. This incredible "hug from heaven" has been a tangible affirmation that Pearl Girls has true meaning and great worth for women throughout the world. I pray that God will continue to bless this ministry and outreach. May we all realize that the grit in our lives can be transformed into grace through the love of God.
This is what I found written on a tiny folded card inscribed with "Christmas Greetings" on the front:
Christmas 1949
My Dearest Carolyn,
Truly a jewel is a thing of beauty, but a life that is lived to serve others and to glorify our Christ, such as yours, is my dearest, a far surpassing gem in radiance and beauty.
Pearls to me, symbolize this "Life Beautiful" that you have achieved, Carolyn. Each pearl is a result of a great hurt to the oyster's life. But the little mollusk builds an iridescent coat around this source of hurt, and as a result, the precious pearl comes into being. Life is like that too.
If we, like the pearl, can make of our hurts the basis of a thing of beauty, then we can bear witness to an on-looking world how Christians can overcome through Christ, blows that are seemingly insurmountable.
At this happiest season of the year, I give thanks to God for you, Carolyn - my Pearl of Great Price.
Your Claude
Isn't this an amazing Christmas Pearl? I hope this message has touched your heart, too. Another Christmas gift I would like to share with you: My father's lessons on leadership. These can be found on my guest blog post at Michael Hyatt's website.
During this holiday season, decorate your life with Christmas Pearls --- strands of God's grace-reminders that nothing can separate us from his love, not even the grittiest of circumstances.
And please celebrate the "Pearls of Great Price" in your life through Post a Pearl. It's a fun and free gift that you can share with special people who have been a blessing to you over the years.
Merry Christmas!
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Margaret McSweeney lives with her husband David and two teenage daughters in the Chicago suburbs. She's the founder of Pearl Girls and a published author. Please visit www.pearlgirls.info for more info. You can also find Margaret at her writing blog, From Finance to Fiction or on Facebook and twitter.
12 Pearls of Christmas Series and contest sponsored by Pearl Girls®. For more information, please visit www.pearlgirls.info
WHIRLWIND by ROBERT LIPARULO
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Robert Liparulo is a former journalist, with over a thousand articles and multiple writing awards to his name. His first novel, Comes a Horseman, released to critical acclaim. Each of his subsequent thrillers—Germ, Deadfall, and Deadlock—secured his place as one of today’s most popular and daring thriller writers. He is known for investing deep research and chillingly accurate predictions of near-future scenarios into his stories. In fact, his thorough, journalistic approach to research has resulted in his becoming an expert on the various topics he explores in his fiction, and he has appeared on such media outlets as CNN and ABC Radio.
Liparulo’s visual style of writing has caught the eye of Hollywood producers. Currently, three of his novels for adults are in various stages of development for the big screen: the film rights to Comes A Horseman. were purchased by the producer of Tom Clancy’s movies; and Liparulo is penning the screenplays for GERM and Deadfall for two top producers. He is also working with the director Andrew Davis (The Fugitive, Holes) on a political thriller. Novelist Michael Palmer calls Deadfall “a brilliantly crafted thriller.” March 31st marked the publication of Deadfall’s follow-up, Deadlock, which novelist Gayle Lynds calls, “best of high-octane suspense.”
Liparulo’s bestselling young adult series, Dreamhouse Kings, debuted last year with House of Dark Shadows and Watcher in the Woods. Book three, Gatekeepers, released in January, and number four, Timescape, in July. The series has garnered praise from readers, both young and old, as well as attracting famous fans who themselves know the genre inside and out. Of the series, Goosebumps creator R.L. Stine says, “I loved wandering around in these books. With a house of so many great, haunting stories, why would you ever want to go outside?”
With the next two Dreamhouse books “in the can,” he is currently working on his next thriller, which for the first time injects supernatural elements into his brand of gun-blazing storytelling. The story is so compelling, two Hollywood studios are already in talks to acquire it—despite its publication date being more than a year away. After that comes a trilogy of novels, based on his acclaimed short story, which appeared in James Patterson’s Thriller anthology. New York Times bestselling author Steve Berry calls Liparulo’s writing “Inventive, suspenseful, and highly entertaining . . . Robert Liparulo is a storyteller, pure and simple.” He lives with his family in Colorado.
Visit Robert Liparulo's Facebook Fan page: http://www.facebook.com/LiparuloFans
ABOUT THE BOOK
Which door do you go through to save the world? David, Xander, and Toria King never know where the mysterious portals in their house will take them: past, present, or future. They have battled gladiators and the German army, dodged soldiers on both sides of the Civil War, and jumped from the sinking Titanic. They've also seen the stark future that awaits if they can't do something to change it--a destroyed city filled with mutant creatures.
And they've still got to find a way to bring Mom back and keep Taksidian from getting them out of the house. The dangers are hitting them like a whirlwind . . . but the answers are becoming apparent as well.
If you would like to read the first chapter of Whirlwind, go HERE
12 PEARLS OF CHRISTMAS STORIES
I will be posting these Pearl stories on my blog for the next 12 days. Bloggers all over are doing this to share some special stories with you --getting ready for our big celebration--the Birth of Jesus!! Enjoy!!
Nora :D
12 Pearls of Christmas: Gifts of Purpose
Too Precious to Wear
by Sarah Sundin
One Christmas when my mother was a girl, she received a string of pearls from her father. Since her parents were divorced-an unusual situation in the 1950s-she treasured the pearls as a sign of her father's love. When he passed away her senior year in high school, the pearls took on even greater significance.
When I was growing up, my mother talked often about the pearls, but my sister and I never saw them. Mom kept them safe in their silk-lined velvet box tucked in her jewelry box. For dressy occasions, she wore other nice jewelry, but never the pearls.
The pearls were too precious to wear.
What if the strand broke and even a single pearl was lost? What if the clasp broke and she lost them forever? She couldn't risk it. Better to keep them cocooned in silky security.
When my mother offered to let me wear her pearls on my wedding day, I was deeply touched. This was more than "something old" or "something borrowed," but a sign that she trusted me and loved me.
A few days before the wedding, my mother pulled the box from seclusion. My sister and I watched with curiosity and awe.
The pearls had turned a deep grayish-yellow, they were flaking, and some had fallen apart.
They were fake.
For over thirty years, my mother nurtured a piece of costume jewelry. All that time she could have worn them and enjoyed them without worry. Her father gave them to her for a purpose-to wear them and feel lovely and ladylike and special. He didn't mean for her to hide them away.
On our wedding day, my husband gave me a strand of real pearls. They symbolize my husband's sacrificial love for me-they were expensive for a graduate student with half-Scottish blood.
I vowed never to tuck them away but to wear them often. Yes, I'm careful. I inspect the cord and knots and clasp, and I plan to have them restrung when necessary. But I wear them and enjoy them. That's why my husband gave them to me.
Our heavenly Father gives us gifts too-brilliant and costly. We should cherish them, but we should use them. Whether our individual gifts involve serving, teaching, encouragement, evangelism, or even money-they have a purpose. The Lord wants us to use our gifts to bless others and to spread the message of His love.
While pearls make women look lovely, using our God-given gifts for His kingdom makes us even lovelier. And just as pearls grow more lustrous with frequent wear, our gifts from God grow in beauty and strength the more we use them.
This Christmas I plan to wear my string of pearls, a sign of my husband's love-and to display my pearls from heaven, a sign of my Father's love.
Have a lustrous Christmas!
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Sarah Sundin lives in northern California with her husband and three children. She works on-call as a hospital pharmacist. Her first novel, A Distant Melody, historical fiction set during World War II, will be published by Revell in March 2010. Please visit her at http://www.sarahsundin.com or her blog or find her on Facebook.
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12 Pearls of Christmas Series are sponsored by Pearl Girls®. For more information, please visit www.pearlgirls.info
CHARACTER DRIVEN - FIRST CHAPTER
Today's author is:
and the book:
Character Driven: Life, Lessons, and Basketball
Touchstone (September 8, 2009)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Derek Fisher has spent twelve seasons in the NBA playing for the Los Angeles Lakers, Golden State Warriors, and Utah Jazz. He is the president of the NBA Players Association. Currently the starting point guard for the Lakers, he lives with his family in Los Angeles.
Visit the author's website.
Product Details:
List Price: $24.99
Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Touchstone (September 8, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1416580530
ISBN-13: 978-1416580539
AND NOW...THE FIRST CHAPTER:
Character Driven
Life, Lessons, and Basketball
Derek Fisher
with Gary Brozek
A Touchstone Book
Published by Simon & Schuster
New York London Toronto Sydney
Chapter One: Putting Your Skills to the Best Use
When people found out that my wife Candace and I were expecting a child, more than a few of them said, “Your life is about to change.” Candace and I both had a child from a previous relationship, so we had some idea of the truth of that statement. What we didn’t know was the extent of how much our lives were going to be altered several months after our twins, Tatum and Drew were born. I don’t know if having twins changes your life twice as much, but when you find out that one of your newborn children has a serious illness like cancer, very little in your life and your routine remains the same. We suspected that something was wrong with one of Tatum’s eyes; after first dismissing the difference in its appearance as parental paranoia, we took her to a specialist. When we learned that she had a rare but very dangerous form of cancer known as retinoblastoma—a tumor of the retina—it was as if someone had sucked all the air out of the doctor’s office.
After we were told initially that there was little hope of saving Tatum’s eye, we were stunned momentarily and that pit of the stomach sinking feeling could have overwhelmed us. I don’t want to trivialize the situation by comparing my daughter’s dire diagnosis to the game of basketball, because truth to be told thoughts of my career, the Utah Jazz’s prospects for the playoffs and any thoughts of winning a championship were very, very far from my mind. My energies were concentrated on doing whatever I could to help my daughter and support my wife who was understandably upset and fearful. I was experiencing a lot of the same emotions as Candace, but I could sense that this was particularly hard on her. Her maternal instincts were running at their highest level and they had been for some time prior to the diagnosis and prior to her pregnancy. Prior to her getting pregnant with the twins, we’d experienced a miscarriage. Losing that child was a blow to both of us, one that we’d recovered from to a certain degree, but not something we had by any means forgotten about.
In the wake of that sad event, we’d decided to explore other medical options to insure a safe and full term pregnancy. As a result, we’d seen a few fertility specialists, and we’d made the decision to go with what we were told would most likely be a safer alternative—in vitro fertilization. My whole life, I’ve been someone who looks at all the alternatives and choices before making a decision based on a careful risk / reward analysis. If the doctors we were dealing with felt that in vitro fertilization offered us the best chances of having a child, then that’s what we were going to do. I can still remember sitting in that doctor’s office talking about everything that needed to be done. I was able to block out all thoughts that in vitro wasn’t normal or natural and that the procedure would be done in a lab instead of in the privacy of our own home. What mattered was the results. Candace and I both were very eager to have a family together, and so we were going to do whatever it took to make that dream come true.
I do have to admit to trepidation in regards to one part of the procedure. To increase the chances of having a viable fetus develop and to avoid having to go through the painful procedure of harvesting one of Candace’s eggs, we were told that it would be good idea to fertilize and then implant more than one ovum at a time. If they “took,” we could decide if we wanted to bring those ova to full term. Candace and I knew that we would of course not destroy one or more of the eggs, so we had to decide just how much we wanted to increase the odds of our successfully producing a child together. I was cool with the idea of having twins, but when the doctor said that we could go for three if we wanted to, I had to call a time out. I looked at Candace and she looked at me. We each did some elementary school math and came to the same conclusion. There were two of us, and if God willing Candace would get pregnant with twins, we could each handle one of the twins at a time. Two parents, two hands/arms each, two children. That would work. Any number of children above that would make the math, and the amount of work we’d have to do that much harder. If circumstances were different, and we didn’t have any kind of control over the situation and God willed that we would have triplets or even more children, then we’d have accepted that also.
We looked at the doctor and said, “Two, please.”
My career as a basketball player came into play when Tatum was diagnosed and the way I was able to handle the situation. Like many people, I believe that God never puts on our plates more than we can handle, and that everything that happens in our lives fits into a pattern of His creation. When you are faced with challenges like Candace and I were, all the choices and decisions and experiences you have had leading up to the specific moment of having a seriously ill child fall into place. Because I’d dedicated my life to basketball, because I had been in pressure packed situations, and because to succeed in basketball I had to understand the role of focus, tenacious diligence, teamwork, and sacrifice, we were all able to do what it took to secure a successful outcome for Tatum. Ultimately, whether or not Tatum’s eye would be saved was out of our hands and in the hands of God. I truly believe that, but there were a lot of other human beings who made that possible. I do know that looking back at all those choices I made that lead us to those wonderfully skilled individuals who did save her eye, there was ample evidence of the guiding hand of God at work. We asked Him to lead us and were comfortable with knowing that His will would be done, and we put the power of prayer to use.
Let me give you one example of how a choice I made in my life paid unexpected dividends down the line. We were fortunate to have a family friend who worked in a medical school library and was familiar with all kinds of print and electronic resources. When Tatum was diagnosed and we were essentially told that our only option was to have Tatum’s eye removed so that the cancer would not spread, my basketball training and God’s intervention combined to make me realize that I needed to pass the ball off. This was not a shot I could take independent of the team; I needed to turn to forces greater than my own. I really believe that God put this friend in my life to do more than just someone to socialize with. He put her there because with his medical background, she was someone I could turn to to do the kind of research and study to find an alternative to surgically removing my precious daughter’s eye. With her background and training, she was able to quickly sift through much of the medical literature that existed and report back to Candace and me.
We knew that time was running out and the longer it took us to find alternatives, the riskier those procedures might be. Cancer has unflagging energy, and we knew that with each passing day, the tumor was growing. Candace and I could have tried to do all the research on our own, but poring through medical journals to try to understand all the complications and even just the possible approaches to treatment would have cost us precious time. Even developing a basic understanding of the options and then trying to track down doctors who either did those alternative procedures or who might be able to explain better to us what the potential risks were with those procedures was not something we could do either. The clock was winding down, and we knew we needed to rely on someone who could quickly cut through the lingo and technical aspects of the treatment options and feed us the information as quickly as humanly possible. As a point guard, I have always had to assess the situation on court and distribute the ball to those who are the in best position to score. Evaluating time on the clock, the score, the opposition’s strengths and weakness, and a dozen more factors are things I’ve spent nearly a life time doing. I had some idea those skills would transfer to life off the court, but being able to assess circumstances and make decisions quickly under such extreme non-basketball circumstances, put those skills to the test in ways I had never anticipated.
That our friend was able to find out that two doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York had experimented with a radical new treatment, one they’d only performed on fourteen patients and had never published the results of those early clinical trials, is in my mind, nothing short of a miracle. Those doctors had just begun the treatment in 2006—a year before Tatum was diagnosed. Another stroke of good fortune we could add to our score. When Candace and I sat in an office speaking with Dr. David Abramson and Dr. Pierre Gobin, they at first told us that the only real choice we had was to have Tatum’s eye removed. I’m sure that they figured that we were parents doing their due-diligence work, getting a second and third opinion hoping against hope that we could avoid the negative outcome of surgically removing our daughter’s affected eye. Of course, if removal of the eye meant preventing the possible spread of the cancer, and that was truly our only option, we would have agreed with that course of treatment. Something had told us, in the face of all the other opinions that lined up with Dr. Abramson and Dr. Gobin’s initial assessment, that we had to dig deeper. If nothing else, we wanted to hear that dire prognosis from the best doctors in the field, and Dr. Abramson was considered the go to guy in the area of retinoblastoma.
Like most people, I’d heard of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (though I knew it simply as “Sloan-Kettering”) even if I’d been fortunate to that point on not ever having had any firsthand experience with the place for myself or any of my family members and friends. I knew that it was a state of the art cutting edge facility recognized world-wide as one of the most advanced cancer treatment and research facilities out there. What I came to learn as we pursued this option as a potential treatment for Tatum was that the doctors at Sloan-Kettering had a long history of advancing treatment of the rare cancer affecting our baby girl’s eye. In the 1930’s, doctors there had come up with the first treatments that successfully managed the disease. Prior to that, I learned, being diagnosed with retinoblastoma was essentially a literal death sentence. Survival rates for the disease were incredibly low back then. Fortunately, thanks to the work of many doctors and researchers, the odds have increased significantly, though in most cases the patient ends up losing the afflicted eye.
The cancer is rare, only about 350 children in the United States are diagnosed with retinoblastoma each year, but it is the most common type of eye cancer among children. Worldwide, approximately 5,000 children are afflicted with this cancer and about half that number eventually die from it. I say “only” in regard to the number of children in the U.S. with the disease (compared to almost 3,000 kids with leukemia for example) but for every child and every parent of a child diagnosed with the disease, that number is far too large. In most cases, the disease is the result of a randomly occurring mutation in chromosome thirteen. Most often, the affected child is the first in the family to have the disease and it is only about ten percent of the cases that the mutation is inherited from one of the parents. Candace and I weren’t so concerned at that point about the cause of Tatum’s cancer, we were mainly concerned with treatment options. We were fortunate to find Dr. Abramson. He was the Chief of the Ophthalmic Oncology Service at Sloan-Kettering and in the ‘70s had trained under one of the leading experts in the field of eye cancer treatment, Dr. Algernon Reese at Colombian Presbyterian Medical Center. Dr. Reese, an ophthalmologist, and Dr. Hayes Martin, a surgeon had pioneered the use of radiation treatments in eye cancer in the ‘40s and ‘50s. Dr. Abramson and his team continued to advance treatment options including the type of chemoeradication (shrinking the tumor with chemotherapy) technique our friend had learned about.
When I asked them about their experimental treatment, intra-arterial chemotherapy, they seemed surprised. As Doctor Abramson later said in a New York Times interview, “I’m not sure how he knew about . . . . He must have done a lot of homework.” Thanks to Thomas, I had been able to copy someone else’s homework. Spreading the ball around, and trusting that a teammate will execute under pressure proved to be a wise move. Dr. Abramson and Dr. Gobin stepped up for us and agreed that if Candace and I were willing to take the risk, they were willing to do the procedure. We knew that we had to do everything we could to save Tatum’s eye. The decision was in that way easy. Subjecting your infant daughter to anything, even a regularly scheduled immunization is hard. Sitting there in that office, floors above the growl and hum of mid-town Manhattan, we took a deep breath, trusted that the Lord had led us to this place for a good reason, and signed the consent forms and did all the other necessary paperwork.
Obviously, there is never a good time to have anyone in your life become sick, but the circumstances of Tatum’s diagnosis was marked by all kinds of potential pitfalls. We were in the process of moving from the Bay area to Salt Lake City. I had been traded during the off season, but with the kids still infants and lots of loose ends to tie up, it didn’t make sense to move right away that summer. I’m sure a lot of you can relate to idea of moving and having to find new doctors, deal with health insurance companies (we were fortunate to have good coverage) and all the issues of who’s in network, who’s not. Candace had been concerned that something wasn’t quite right with Tatum’s eye, had been assured by our pediatrician that nothing was wrong. Only when we finally settled in Salt Lake City and Candace pursued second and third opinions did Dr. Katy McGelligot confirm my wife’s suspicions. I was at practice when the voice mail message came in telling me that we needed to get to a pediatric ophthalmologist that afternoon. I joined them there and I was glad that we had been persistent and followed Candace’s gut instinct that told her that something was wrong. If we had waited and if we’d let the red tape of insurance companies and all that deter us, I don’t know what the outcome could have been.
Call it a mother’s intuition, call it her keen sense of observation, call it the Lord moving in mysterious ways, but whatever you call it, we were grateful that we had acted on Candace’s suspicions. Neither of us had ever heard the word retinoblastoma before, and to be honest, I’d never even thought that people could have cancer of the eye. In most ways, Tatum was a typical ten-month-old child. Being part of a pair of fraternal twins, Drew and Tatum were going to be subject to a lot of comparisons, maybe more than other siblings. When they were born, Tatum had darker skin than Drew whose coloring was more cocoa. He had a lot more hair than Tatum, though now that isn’t the case, and he was always a lot less patient than her. When Drew was hungry, everyone in the house, and probably the surrounding neighborhood, knew that he was in need of food. He had to nurse or get a bottle immediately and there was nothing we could do to persuade him to just hold on for a minute. Tatum, on the other hand, would wake from a nap and assess the situation, come fully awake and alert, and then she’d eat. Even from her earliest days, she seemed quite playful and mischievous, more capable of demonstrating a bit of an attitude.
What Candace noticed was that sometimes when she looked into Tatum’s eyes, something didn’t seem quite right to her. She couldn’t articulate exactly what was wrong, and each time I looked into my little girl’s eyes, I was so in love that I couldn’t imagine there being anything wrong with her. I felt the same about Drew. They seemed to me to be God’s perfect little creations—even if they did fuss and cry a bit. Candace told me that what got her thinking something might be wrong was that sometimes when light shone in Tatum’s eye, it didn’t seem to reflect back the same way it did from her other one or in the same way it did from Drew’s. I’d learned in the more than ten years that I’d known Candace to trust her instincts. If she thought there was something wrong, then there had to be something wrong.
Candace noticed that in some photographs of Tatum, depending upon the angle one of Tatum’s eyes reflected back a white light. That white light is visible in the pupils of children with retinoblastoma. This is known as leukocoria or the “cat’s eye reflex.” Just as a cat’s pupil appears white in certain lighting, so will a child’s who has retinoblastoma or other eye conditions including Coat’s disease. Not in every case will that white reflection in photographs be a true indication of those serious conditions, but it is definitely worth checking out with a doctor. We learned all of this only after her diagnosis, and our doctors told us that it is a good idea to take a monthly flash photo of an infant and child to check for that tell-tale marker of a potential problem.
After the examination, when the doctor told us that he’d detected some abnormalities and what he suspected was a tumor, I felt like all the air in the room had been sucked out. I remember grasping Candace’s shaking hand, and my mind rushing. The sensation was like what happens when you are driving a standard transmission car and you think you’re in gear but you’re in neutral. You hit the gas and you can hear and feel the vibration of the rapidly racing engine but you don’t increase your actual speed. I had thoughts bouncing all around my head, but I wasn’t making any kind of positive steps toward coherence.
Looking back on it, I now realize how could it have been otherwise? I’m not a real worrier by nature, and despite the difficulty Candace and I had experienced in having lost a child previously, I didn’t overly fixate on the list of possible bad things that could happen to the twins before or after they were born. I had lost some people close to me, usually through a long and protracted illness as was the case with my grandmother. I’d lost a few older relatives, but they had lived what seemed to me then to be long lives. Nothing could prepare me for someone telling me that my daughter had cancer. It was a life-altering moment, a kind of sign being driven into the ground indicating that there was a then and next there was to be a now. Facing the prospect that we could lose her, and not just that she might lose her eye, was unimaginably difficult to process in a short span of time.
In a way, hearing that news was also like I’d instantly done some mental spring cleaning and thrown away anything that wasn’t needed and put everything else neatly into order. As clichéd as it sounds, I knew in that moment that very little besides my daughter’s health and my family’s safety was what mattered. All the little gripes and complaints I might have had about how the season was going—even though things were going well—any nagging pain from overuse or injury, any thoughts about upcoming games, who I’d be matched up against, all that just neatly took their place in line—a long ways behind—one overriding concern: What were we going to do in order to help our daughter?
In the immediate, Tatum was given an MRI examination the next day that confirmed the diagnosis. We had a playoff game that night against Houston and I would suit up. At that point, no one except the Jazz owner Larry Miller and the General Manager Kevin O’Connor knew the specifics of the situation. They told me that I was under no pressure to play that night or at any other point during the playoffs. They agreed that Tatum’s condition and our privacy was mattered the most.
I had been making a mad rush from practice to doctor’s appointments to the hospital for tests that the reality of what was going on with our child hadn’t really sunk in. We’d won the game (details TK) and only when I sat in front of my locker after the game did the truth hit me, and it hit me hard. I sat staring blankly ahead of me, a towel draped over my shoulders. Guys filed past me and music began blaring. A few minutes later, reporters were allowed in, and they were just doing their job, but the last thing I wanted to do was to talk about the game, the series, or anything to do with basketball. All I could think of was what my daughter potentially faced. I didn’t want anyone to see the anguish I was experiencing, so I went into TK Brigg’s office, our trainer, and broke down. In some ways the game had been good for me, a distraction, but it only delayed the inevitable. I was devastated. That private moment of despair was good for me, helped me get it out of my system and refocus on the task at hand—how to overcome the dire diagnosis and what seemed at the time the absolute certainty that Tatum’s eye would have to be surgically removed.
The day after we met with Dr. Gobin and Dr. Abramson, Wednesday May 10th, 2007 Tatum would undergo the procedure at New York Presbyterian Hospital.
Dr. Abramson knew about the playoff game the Jazz had that night against the Golden State Warriors. As a former alternate on the 1960 men’s Olympic swimming team, he knew what an athlete’s life was like. He suggested that we could hold off doing the procedure until after the game. A delay of a just a few hours would have no effect on the outcome of the procedure or the viability of Tatum’s eye following it.
“Absolutely not,” I told him, “Just do what’s best for my child. How many games I miss in the playoffs is totally irrelevant.” I meant every word of that statement, and even when Dr. Abramson suggested some adjustments could be made to the schedule, I remained firm in the commitment I’d made to Candace and to Tatum. There hadn’t been any real need for discussion—Candace and I both knew that as difficult as the circumstances were, the decision about how to approach Tatum’s care was easy—spare no cost, leave no stone unturned, and put basketball where it belonged on my list of priorities. In other words, well below my family and its needs.
Doing the right thing came so easy because of the values that my mother Annette and my father John had instilled in me from the beginning. They made every sacrifice they could to enable me to be where I am today, and they demonstrated every day that you put your family member’s needs above your own. Doctor Abramson was simply trying to accommodate me and my needs, figure my career into the scheme, and I appreciated that, but there was never a question in my mind that we would do the procedure as soon as humanly possible. This was an aggressive and risky treatment, and the two men who pioneered it gave off an air of quiet confidence that I’d always appreciated in teammates. Not that they needed any more motivation, but just to show how the Lord does truly move in mysterious ways, Dr. Gobin, who grew up in France, had lived for a time in Los Angeles while working at the University of California at Los Angeles medical center. He was a die-hard fan of the NBA team there and remembered me from my days with the Lakers. Score another bucket for the home team.
I felt confident in the team we’d assembled. Doctor Gobin and Doctor Abramson were realistic but confident. I liked that about them both. They were as personable as could be without seeming smug or distant. They were clearly brilliant men, but it was their compassion and consideration for us as people and not just as a condition or an opportunity to test a procedure that could make them famous or wealthy or both that really impressed me. They didn’t push us to try something; instead, they only agreed to do it when we brought up the possibility. Their confidence and calm helped to settle our nerves a bit, but nothing could still them completely. Dr. Gobin, who specialized in something called Interventional NeuroRadiology, was another highly respected medical pioneer, primarily known for advanced treatment for stroke victims. In 2001, Dr. Gobin joined the Weill Cornell Medical College as Professor of Radiology and Neurosurgery, and the New York Weill Cornell Hospital as the Director, Division of Interventional Neuroradiology.
I didn’t know this at the time, but there was a third member of the medical team, Dr. Ira Dunkel, a pediatric oncologist who also worked with Dr. Abramson and Dr. Gobin to come up with this treatment option. The procedure would involve injecting a tumor-killing drug through a tiny blood vessel in the eye. The doctors explained that within fifteen seconds, the drug is directly on site in the tumor. It either destroys the tumor entirely and it disappears, or it becomes calcified.
I’ve been anxious before games before, but nothing compared to the jitters I experienced that night. From our hotel room, we could see Central Park spread below us, and I envied the imagined emotional ease with which I saw the runners and cyclists circling that great expanse of green. I’d heard that some people consider Central Park Manhattan’s lungs, a breath of fresh air squeezed from the concrete ribs that surround it. I wished I could exhale, heave a great sigh of relief, but as daylight turned to twilight and then into full on darkness, I found myself drawn to that window and knew that for me there was a very different reason why New York is the city that never sleeps.
In some ways, Tatum’s being an infant was a blessing. We didn’t have to explain to her the risks involved and she didn’t have to deal with the anxiety of knowing that she had cancer or that she faced a surgical procedure the next day. Unfortunately, we had no way to communicate to her that because of the sight-saving procedure she was going to undergo, she couldn’t eat. Normally a very happy and satisfied baby, being forced to go without food had her especially fussy that night and the next morning. For Candace and I, we’d both flipped a switch in our minds the instant we got the diagnosis. We’d been in caregiver and protection mode for weeks, and were in an especially high state of alert that morning. It tore us up to hear Tatum’s wails and to listen to them and to see her in distress was gut wrenching. We made a few calls back to Utah to make sure that Drew and my stepson Marshall were doing okay. A few more phone calls to family members to let them know what was going on gave us something to do once Tatum finally fell asleep. My mother assured me that the prayer circle with the church ladies back home in Little Rock was complete and doing the necessary work. Until that night I’d never really thought of the significance of the name of my hometown. A rock can be a weapon or a refuge, and as Jesus told St. Peter, it was upon that rock He was going to build his church. Home and family have always been my rock, a touchstone, a place on which the foundation of my life was built. I could add that to the list of the many blessings I’d been privileged to receive. Though I didn’t need to hear my mother telling me that those prayers were going out, it was nice to know that we had a whole bunch of folks on the sidelines and in the stands doing their very best to help my family get through this difficult time.
We knew that waiting while Tatum was in surgery was going to be the hardest part, and showing up at 7:00 a.m. for a 10:00 a.m. scheduled start was going to be difficult. When one of the surgical team members was called into a separate emergency and the procedure was delayed, that already protracted period of anxiety went into overtime. Though we weren’t guaranteed results, but had been encouraged by the news of the success rate among the fourteen patients who had previously undergone the treatment, we had a lot of faith in the doctors. Knowing that any kind of invasive procedure was inherently risky, and knowing that with an infant the veins and arteries in such a delicate and fragile part of the anatomy—the eye—required great precision had Candace and I both on edge. We’d read up on the procedure, knew that this was the one best chance we had, but still the thought of having toxins injected into your child’s system to attack a tumor was unsettling at best. I tried to stay focused on the positive, and was grateful that my years in the league had taught me how to fight off distractions. Prayer made that task much easier as well.
By the time we were instructed to put on masks and gowns so that we could escort Tatum into the operating room, a steady diet of adrenaline had begun to take its toll. Tatum too had exhausted herself, and I was grateful that she was asleep when Candace laid her down on the table. We both kissed her and told her that we loved her. I’ve faced some tough assignments in my life, but nothing compared to having to walk out of that room. I trusted the doctors and have faith in God, but leaving your child to face any kind of uncertainty or pain had me feeling like a brick was lodged in my throat. When I turned back to catch one last glimpse of Tatum before the procedure began, I was struck again by how small and vulnerable she looked surrounded by all the adults in the room and the various monitoring devices. Walking out of that operating room was the toughest part of this ordeal yet.
Most days when I have a game, I’m able to take a short nap to rest and restore my energy before heading to the arena. We’d been told that the procedure would take a couple of hours, and I spent nearly every second of that span of time on pins and needles. I was grateful that our friend was there with us; she and I spent most of the time talking about what we imagined the progress was and counting down the minutes until someone came out of the surgical area to give us the promised mid-session report. That report never came, for whatever reason, but when one of the team members came out to report that the procedure had gone well, I was enormously relieved. When we saw Tatum being wheeled past us in a kind of incubator, my heart did skip a beat—seeing her in that device, alone and isolated, had our hearts aching for her as we alongside her to the recovery room.
I was glad in some ways that we had a job to do while Tatum was in recovery. The procedure required that a line be inserted through her femoral artery in her upper thigh. The doctors didn’t want the incision to tear open, so we were given the job of keeping Tatum still. As each minute passed post-surgery and she came out of her anesthesia-induced slumber, she grew more and more active and agitated. The other concern was that she be able to keep down any fluids or food she was fed, so Candace and I worked together to be sure that those two tasks were taken care of. It felt great to have something to do to contribute to Tatum’s well being and comfort. I’m not someone who likes to give up control and the feelings of helplessness that I experienced during the procedure had started to work on me. Just being able to hold Tatum in our arms felt as if we’d been given some powerful medicine to calm us and soothe the aches in our hearts.
With the procedure completed and the early prognosis good, all we really could do was wait—both for Tatum to recover from the anesthesia and for the three weeks to lapse before we would return to see if the chemotherapy had the desired effect. With Tatum’s immediate safety and condition seemingly well in hand, I had a few moments when I could think about all that had happened. Through the weeks we struggled with Tatum’s health concerns, I’d been in close contact with the Utah Jazz organization, and they couldn’t have been more supportive. When Tatum was in recovery and sleeping again, I took the opportunity to call Kevin O’Connor, the team’s general manager to let him know Tatum’s status. I followed up that phone call with one to our coach, Jerry Sloan, simply to let him know how Tatum was doing. No one asked me if I’d be able to make that night’s game, no one pressured me in any way to commit to anything. They both simply were glad to hear that things had gone well for my daughter. That meant a lot to me. Though they were my bosses, work was something fairly far from their minds.
During my phone call with Coach Sloan, I’d let the team know that as much as I wanted to remain on the active roster for that night’s game, I understood that it really wasn’t my decision to make. Basketball, and our series with the Warriors diminished in importance compared to taking care of my family. That said, I still felt a sense of responsibility to my teammates, the organization, and the fans. We were, after all, in the playoffs, and needed to maintain our home court advantage with a win that night in Utah. The Jazz organization and fans had high hopes that we could make a run deep into the playoffs and win an NBA championship that had eluded them.
I had my priorities straight, but knowing that Tatum’s chemo treatment was an outpatient procedure, we had scheduled a return flight for that day regardless of the fact that we had a game back in Salt Lake City that night. The Jazz had helped us out greatly by assisting us in securing a private jet to take us back and forth. The only concern we had about flying so soon after the treatment was Tatum’s leg. We needed to keep her still. The main reasons we wanted to be back in Salt Lake City was to be with our large circle of supporters and to as quickly as possible restore some semblance of normalcy in our lives. Even though Drew was too young to fully understand what was going on, I’m sure he and Tatum both were picking up on the worried vibes that Candace and I were putting out despite our best attempts not to. Marshall, Candace’s son and my step-son, had been affected as well. He was well aware, at age twelve, of everything that was going on, and I knew from conversations that I had with him, he was both worried about his step-sister’s health and his mother’s mental state. He hated seeing her worried and upset, and the sooner we got back home to him and to our life and its routine the better it would be for all of us. I also put a call into the mother of my daughter Chloe. Though she was much younger than Marshall and couldn’t fully comprehend what was going on with her baby sister, I wanted to let her know that things were okay.
Once we got the okay to leave the hospital, we took the opportunity to get back to Salt Lake City as soon as possible. If we had any indication from the doctors that it would have been in our best interest to remain in New York, we would have done it. They assured us there was nothing more to be done except to wait to see if the drugs had the desired effect on Tatum’s tumor. We were also reassured in knowing that our friend was also a former registered nurse, and she could monitor the incision on Tatum’s leg and take all the steps necessary in case something happened. The doctors kept telling us that we were in good hands on the flight and were extraordinarily comfortable in having us leave.
In our minds, the major challenge was over—the procedure was done—the rest was out of our hands. That wasn’t the most comfortable place for either of to be in. We’re both take charge kind of people, but we’d trusted in what our friend had told us and then the doctors. Everything had worked out as well as could be expected to that point. Next, we just had to let go and trust that we’d done the best we could, prepared ourselves and executed the game plan to the best of our abilities. We put our faith in God, comfortable in knowing what a prayer warrior Candace had been throughout this time.
For as many times as I’d played in either New York or New Jersey and having lived in Los Angeles for much of my early adulthood, the drive through the west side of Manhattan to the Lincoln Tunnel didn’t do much to settle our nerves. I couldn’t help but think of Tatum’s delicate physiology and be amazed that these potent drugs had managed to work their way through her veins and arteries. In some ways I wished that when we came out on the New Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel that we’d be on the other side of this crisis. In some ways we were, but just as it felt being in the waiting room prior to the procedure, with little constructive activity we could perform to help Tatum’s cause. More waiting was ahead of us, but something told me that there was more that I could do.
Once we reached our cruising altitude and we made our way west, thoughts of our playoff series crept back in. I’d done the right thing by my family, and I had another job and another group of people I was beholden to. If I could help that second group out, I wanted to. I wasn’t certain if I was capable of shutting out everything that had transpired in the previous few days, but if nothing else, maybe by being there I’d help lend an emotional hand to my teammates. I had placed a second call to the Jazz’s front office personnel to let them know I was heading home. No one asked if I was coming to the arena, and I hadn’t volunteered any information other than that we were on our way back. I appreciated that no one in the Jazz organization put me under any kind of pressure to play that night. I still wasn’t certain as we flew over the darkening fields of the Midwest if I was even on the active roster for that night.
Another “coincidence” played in my favor. Our series was against the Golden State Warriors, a team I had played for from 2004-2006. I’d been traded just that off-season, and while some of the personnel had changed, I was still familiar enough with their tendencies to feel comfortable playing against them. I had missed the first game of the series, a game we pulled out after trailing by three at halftime and by five going into the fourth quarter. The Warriors up-tempo style and the performance of their guards Stephen Jackson and Baron Davis, who combined for 40 points, made me think that I might be needed. Our guards, Dee Brown and Deron Williams, had done a great job in my absence, but playoff pressure was a whole different thing. We needed everyone on the roster to contribute, and I had no idea if I was on the roster or if I could contribute.
The flight home was quiet, each of us lost in private thoughts. Candace and I had made the decision to not reveal any of the details of what was going on in our personal life. While I was upfront with the team, I’d been so busy attending to Tatum’s needs and keeping close family members posted on what was going on that I hadn’t had time to even consider what I might do that night and the furthest thing from my mind was what anyone else outside of that very small circle knew about the situation.
When we saw the great basin and the Great Salt Lake below us as we banked into our final approach, I still had no idea what I would do if the team called on me to perform that night. Everyone wants to feel needed, but that night, I was hoping that the Jazz had the game in hand and my presence wasn’t needed. Once in the terminal, we were all met by my friend and assistant business manager Duran McGregory. He said to me again how he was thrilled to hear that the procedure had gone well. He proceeded to tell me that the Jazz had a message they wanted him to relay. I was on the roster and the team wanted me there if I felt up to it. I discussed things with Candace, and she was all for me heading to the arena. She understood that I had a job to do there as well at home. With my responsibilities taken care of on one front, it was time for me to do my job. Duran would take me to the game, and a car service would take Candace and Tatum home.
I was surprised to learn that an unmarked police car was going to escort Duran and me from the airport, which was about ten minutes from our residence in Salt Lake City, to the arena. I didn’t really sense that there was any kind of urgency, but when we turned on the radio to listen to the game, I got a better sense that the game was going anything like I’d hoped it would. Dee Brown had been hurt and taken to the hospital with a possible neck injury when our own six foot eleven inch Mehmet Okur fell and landed on him. Five minutes into the game and the Jazz was down to only ten players. I said a prayer that Dee was going to be okay. I also learned that Deron Williams had picked up two fouls within a one-minute span in that too eventful first quarter. We were forced to use a forward, Andrei Kirilenko, at the point for a few minutes. When I heard all that, my mind started racing. All of this information was coming at me so fast, and I’m listening to the game instead of being on the court or courtside participating in it, a police car’s mars light is strobing the scene inside and outside the car, and I had that peculiar sensation of both being in the car and outside of it looking in on the situation as it evolved.
To make matters more surreal, when we pulled into the player’s entrance and I got out of the car, teams of cameramen and soundmen and photographers were there. With flashes going off and the guys hustling alongside of me as I strode quickly into the arena and made my way to the locker room, I was doing everything I could to keep my mind focused on what I needed to do. At that point, I wasn’t certain of exactly what that was, but even getting undressed and then dressed in my uniform helped me filter out some of the distractions. I’d put on a game jersey thousands of times in my life, but that night I had to slow myself down and really think about left arm and right arm, right side out and inside out, frontward and backward. I wish that I could say a calm descended on me, but it was more like I was numb, that I relied on muscle memory in order to do even the simplest things like tie my shoes.
I was surprised by the sea of noise that washed over me when I came out of the tunnel and onto the arena’s floor. I knew that there was a timeout and no action going on, so what was all the commotion about? I heard a few people shouting my name, and I looked up and was impressed by the how many fans had worn baby blue to the game.
Anytime you come up out of the tunnel, you see the court fully spot lit and gleaming, but that day I really felt like I was walking toward the light. Making my way toward our bench, I saw a few of our guys on the bench looking at me. On their faces I could see a mixture of concern and a happy-to-see-you look. I glanced up at the clock, three minutes and eighteen seconds remained in the quarter. Carlos Boozer had just been fouled and he was making his way toward the free throw line. I felt as if someone was massaging my tense limbs, easing some of my anxiety. I was much more at home here, stepping out onto the floor of a basketball court than I was sitting in a hospital waiting room or a doctor’s office. New York City literally and figuratively felt a thousand miles away, and yet it felt as if in other ways I was still there.
I said a couple words to Ronnie Brewer, Paul Milsap, and Matt Harping, letting them know that things had gone well. I didn’t have much time to talk, I heard assistant coach TK call my name, letting me know that I was going in for Andrei Kirilenko. Boozer hit both his free throws to extend our lead to 84-80. I walked toward the scorer’s table, and I could hear and feel vibrating in my chest the outpouring of affection that came from the Utah fans. In the days to come, I would learn more about the amazingly supportive fans and how they embraced my family and me with their show of faith and support. Salt Lake City is a place where family and faith come together in a unique way all the time, but this was different and special, and I can never repay the people of that remarkable place for all they did for us. A thank you can never really sufficient, but I want them all to know how deeply grateful I am to them and what a cherished place in my heart they hold.
New York and doctor’s offices and waiting rooms and the fans were out of sight and out of mind as soon as I stepped across the sideline. I immediately went into game mode. On our first possession after the free throw, Carlos Boozer captured an offensive rebound, and the ball was kicked back to me. I fed Carlos for a bucket, and was feeling pretty good even though everything seemed to be happening in a blur of motion and emotion. I tried to focus on just merging with the flow of the game. The Warriors made a basket and then we turned the ball over. They converted to pull within a point at 86-85.
I threw a bad pass a few seconds later; fortunately, my former Golden State teammate Jason Richardson, rimmed out a three pointer at the other end, and we ended up leading at the end of the third quarter 90-89. Jason had gone out of his way to let me know that he was thinking of me and rooting for my family, but like any true competitor, he would have put the proverbial dagger through our collective hearts if he could by hitting those long-range jumpers of his. This was a case of give no quarter and ask for no quarter as it always was, especially in the playoffs. Stephen Jackson and Baron Davis expressed similar sentiments and only later could I fully appreciate how much those words meant to me.
Despite how numbed I was by the events of the day, the extensive air travel and very far out of my routine journey to the arena, I felt the electricity in the air. Not all the buzz in the building was a result of my being there under those circumstances. This was a definite playoff atmosphere, and it was like it soaked in through our pores and fed our adrenal glands. The game was definitely on.
Those three plus minutes went by in a flash, but when I sat on the bench during the quarter break, I once again marveled at Jerry Sloan’s game management skills. Getting me in there immediately wasn’t just an act of desperation. He knew that if I had time to sit on the bench, I had time to think. While it’s important to be aware and alert on the court, it’s often more important to react to what you observe while in the flow of the game than it is to ponder things. If I had sat on the bench, my mind might have wandered a bit—I’m only human. By being forced into the action immediately, it was as if my body was jumpstarted, and my brain instantly switched to basketball mode immediately as a kind of reflex action. No pre-meditation, just action.
I was back on the bench at the start of the fourth quarter, and at that point, I was better able to focus on the ebb and flow of the game instead of wondering about whether or not I could play and actually contribute. With that question answered, my mind focused more on how to slow down Golden State’s offense. With our guards in foul trouble, the Warrior’s Baron Davis and Jason Richardson were taking it to us with a mix of threes and dribble penetration. With just under eight minutes left in the fourth quarter, we were ahead 99-96. Right before the TV time out, Baron Davis had converted a lay up for this thirty third point of the night. When one player has a little more than a third of his team’s total output, you know he’s having a night. We had to figure out a way to put the clamps on the guy.
Following that time out, we went on a bit of a run. At the 4:52 mark, our forward Mehmet Okfur hit a three to put us up 106-100. Things were looking good, but with the way Golden State was hoisting up and hitting three, it was still really just a two-possession game. Just as I suspected, Stephen Jackson hit a trey. Next, Jason Richardson fired up a three, was fouled and hit two of three free throws. He followed that up by hitting a three, to put Golden State up by a point 108-107 with just a little more than two minutes to play.
I went to our assistant coach, Tyrone Corbin, and said, “I can play defense.” He nodded. The competitor in me came to the surface at that moment. I wanted in there, feeling like I could do what we needed to turn the tide. Tatum and my family were in my heart, but the game was on my mind. With 1:13 remaining in the game, Coach Sloan had me re-enter. We were down 110-107. A few moments later, the Warriors scored again, and we trailed by five with less than a minute to go. On our next possession, Deron made a great pass to Carlos Boozer for a jam. We put the Warriors on the line, and we were fortunate they missed a couple of free throws. With two seconds left, Deron made a runner to tie the game at 113. Overtime.
The rest, as they say, is history. We jumped out quickly to a lead, but the Warriors scrambled back into it. In the fourth quarter, I forced Baron Davis into a critical turnover just when we needed a stop. With just over a minute to play, we were up by three when Deron Williams found me open in the corner. I got the ball in rhythm, got in good bent knee position, and rose up with my eyes locked on the rim. The shot felt good leaving my hand, but I’d had that feeling before and been disappointed, but this time my faith in myself proved good—as did the shot. We were up by six, and I followed up that shot with a pair of free throws in the waning seconds, and we pulled out the ‘W.’
I did something a bit uncharacteristic for me following that three pointer. As I headed back up court during a time after that shot, I pointed to the sky. My faith in God is something personal to me, but at that moment I had to acknowledge that I didn’t make that shot on my own. A higher power, God, had helped me make that shot. Jesus Christ was there for me in that moment in ways that allowed me to find within myself the strength to do my job and do it well. I did another atypical thing for me. After the game, TNT’s Pam Oliver wanted me to do the post game interview. Normally, they go to the star of the game, the guy who had the most points or hit the game winner. Instead, they came to me because of the situation with Tatum. Candace and I had agreed to keep things within the family, but when Ms. Oliver asked me about the situation, my gut told me that I needed to open up.
With tears in my eyes and an enormous sense of relief spilling out of my mouth I told her, “It was very, very serious. My daughter’s life was in jeopardy. She has a form of eye cancer called retinoblastoma. And the only reason I’m saying this now is because there are kids out there that are suffering from this disease, and people can’t really identify it. It’s a very rare disease. And I want people out there to take their kids to the ophthalmologist, make sure they get their eyes checked and make sure everything’s okay, because we could have lost my little girl had we waited any longer.”
I knew at that moment that I had a message to deliver. I had to do the right thing, and if feeling a little uncomfortable sharing a personal slice of a sometimes too public life meant having to bare a bit of our collective soul, then I was glad to do it.
This book is in a lot of ways, a product of those experiences. I don’t know that if it wasn’t for what we went through and the enormous level of support locally and nationally my family received if I would have wanted to write a book. I’ve never felt particularly special just because I was a basketball player, am more reserved than most people, and truly felt like what I did in those days dealing with Tatum’s health situation and in the days and weeks following when I asked to be released from my contract so that I could work someplace where Tatum could receive the kind of follow-up care she needed, I was simply doing what any father, any parent, would do for a child or other family member. I was somewhat taken aback by all the attention the things I did or the choices we made as a family received. I was, and continue to be, enormously grateful for the outpouring of affection and am humbled by the media attention and people’s view of me. On many levels then, this book is an act of pay back. Not only do I want people to know about retinoblastoma (Candace and I have started a foundation to promote education about the disease and possible treatments) but I want them to know that what took place in those few weeks was the product of an upbringing, an environment, a long list of influential people, and an agency with capabilities far beyond what we humans can muster.
As I stated before, I realize that everything that came before the moment when Tatum was diagnosed, was preparing me to deal with Tatum’s health crisis. And as uncomfortable as it can sometimes be to have a light shone on me, I feel its my duty and my privilege to share with you more of those moments that lead to our victory on and off the court. I don’t feel that my life has been in any way extraordinary, but I do believe that I have something to contribute, and giving back in this way is one form of giving thanks for the many blessing my family and I have received. In the pages that follow, I’m going to share with you some of the many lessons I’ve learned that have enabled me to succeed and stay sane in this sometimes crazy game of basketball. I didn’t get here alone, and I’ glad to have you along with me on the journey.
I also know that in the most rational sense, my having spent thirteen years in the league is in a very real way less a product of anything that I’ve done than it is a product of some large plan laid out for me. In the chapters that follow, I’m going to share with you some of the fundamental lessons I learned on the court and off the court that have enabled me to succeed beyond what most people who saw me play the game ever could have expected. I’ve always had a quiet confidence in myself and my abilities as a basketball player. I’m also realistic enough, analytical enough to know that confidence alone wasn’t what got me here in the NBA and kept me here. I also know that I’ve been blessed beyond all measure—the success of Tatum’s procedure is just one small example of that. I’ve been provided with opportunities and the ability to recognize them when they present themselves and the skills and faith to seize those opportunities.
I don’t know that I go out of my way to be a nice guy, it’s just a part of who I am because of how I was raised and because of all the reinforcement I’ve gotten for sticking with some of the fundamental truths about how to live my life—whether that’s been the Golden Rule of doing unto others as I would want them to do unto me—or understanding the fundamental truths of how the triangle office should be run. It took me some time, but I’ve come to understand that the two selves, the basketball player and the man, husband, father, friend, brother that I sometimes felt like I had to keep separate actually work together as a team. Any separation between who I am, what I do, and how I conduct myself are all bound together in ways that I’ve only lately begun to understand. Just as there’s no sound reason why a guy who is six feet one and not the fleetest of foot can play in this league and contribute to the degree that I have, there’s no logical reason why, now at the age of thirty-four, I should be enjoying one of my best seasons ever as a professional. I should be on the down side of my career, but as I see it, things have never looked brighter, my future never more certain, my love for my family such a source of contentment and pleasure. In no way am I ready to hang them up, but this seems like a good point at which to stop and take stock of where I’ve been and how I got to this point. I love playing this game, I love my family and the life I’m privileged to lead. In my mind, my NBA career is only going to lead me to half-time in my life. What’s to follow will likely be as fulfilling and rewarding, mainly because of what I’ve learned about myself and the world during this thrilling ride.
Life, Lessons, and Basketball
Derek Fisher
with Gary Brozek
A Touchstone Book
Published by Simon & Schuster
New York London Toronto Sydney
Chapter One: Putting Your Skills to the Best Use
When people found out that my wife Candace and I were expecting a child, more than a few of them said, “Your life is about to change.” Candace and I both had a child from a previous relationship, so we had some idea of the truth of that statement. What we didn’t know was the extent of how much our lives were going to be altered several months after our twins, Tatum and Drew were born. I don’t know if having twins changes your life twice as much, but when you find out that one of your newborn children has a serious illness like cancer, very little in your life and your routine remains the same. We suspected that something was wrong with one of Tatum’s eyes; after first dismissing the difference in its appearance as parental paranoia, we took her to a specialist. When we learned that she had a rare but very dangerous form of cancer known as retinoblastoma—a tumor of the retina—it was as if someone had sucked all the air out of the doctor’s office.
After we were told initially that there was little hope of saving Tatum’s eye, we were stunned momentarily and that pit of the stomach sinking feeling could have overwhelmed us. I don’t want to trivialize the situation by comparing my daughter’s dire diagnosis to the game of basketball, because truth to be told thoughts of my career, the Utah Jazz’s prospects for the playoffs and any thoughts of winning a championship were very, very far from my mind. My energies were concentrated on doing whatever I could to help my daughter and support my wife who was understandably upset and fearful. I was experiencing a lot of the same emotions as Candace, but I could sense that this was particularly hard on her. Her maternal instincts were running at their highest level and they had been for some time prior to the diagnosis and prior to her pregnancy. Prior to her getting pregnant with the twins, we’d experienced a miscarriage. Losing that child was a blow to both of us, one that we’d recovered from to a certain degree, but not something we had by any means forgotten about.
In the wake of that sad event, we’d decided to explore other medical options to insure a safe and full term pregnancy. As a result, we’d seen a few fertility specialists, and we’d made the decision to go with what we were told would most likely be a safer alternative—in vitro fertilization. My whole life, I’ve been someone who looks at all the alternatives and choices before making a decision based on a careful risk / reward analysis. If the doctors we were dealing with felt that in vitro fertilization offered us the best chances of having a child, then that’s what we were going to do. I can still remember sitting in that doctor’s office talking about everything that needed to be done. I was able to block out all thoughts that in vitro wasn’t normal or natural and that the procedure would be done in a lab instead of in the privacy of our own home. What mattered was the results. Candace and I both were very eager to have a family together, and so we were going to do whatever it took to make that dream come true.
I do have to admit to trepidation in regards to one part of the procedure. To increase the chances of having a viable fetus develop and to avoid having to go through the painful procedure of harvesting one of Candace’s eggs, we were told that it would be good idea to fertilize and then implant more than one ovum at a time. If they “took,” we could decide if we wanted to bring those ova to full term. Candace and I knew that we would of course not destroy one or more of the eggs, so we had to decide just how much we wanted to increase the odds of our successfully producing a child together. I was cool with the idea of having twins, but when the doctor said that we could go for three if we wanted to, I had to call a time out. I looked at Candace and she looked at me. We each did some elementary school math and came to the same conclusion. There were two of us, and if God willing Candace would get pregnant with twins, we could each handle one of the twins at a time. Two parents, two hands/arms each, two children. That would work. Any number of children above that would make the math, and the amount of work we’d have to do that much harder. If circumstances were different, and we didn’t have any kind of control over the situation and God willed that we would have triplets or even more children, then we’d have accepted that also.
We looked at the doctor and said, “Two, please.”
My career as a basketball player came into play when Tatum was diagnosed and the way I was able to handle the situation. Like many people, I believe that God never puts on our plates more than we can handle, and that everything that happens in our lives fits into a pattern of His creation. When you are faced with challenges like Candace and I were, all the choices and decisions and experiences you have had leading up to the specific moment of having a seriously ill child fall into place. Because I’d dedicated my life to basketball, because I had been in pressure packed situations, and because to succeed in basketball I had to understand the role of focus, tenacious diligence, teamwork, and sacrifice, we were all able to do what it took to secure a successful outcome for Tatum. Ultimately, whether or not Tatum’s eye would be saved was out of our hands and in the hands of God. I truly believe that, but there were a lot of other human beings who made that possible. I do know that looking back at all those choices I made that lead us to those wonderfully skilled individuals who did save her eye, there was ample evidence of the guiding hand of God at work. We asked Him to lead us and were comfortable with knowing that His will would be done, and we put the power of prayer to use.
Let me give you one example of how a choice I made in my life paid unexpected dividends down the line. We were fortunate to have a family friend who worked in a medical school library and was familiar with all kinds of print and electronic resources. When Tatum was diagnosed and we were essentially told that our only option was to have Tatum’s eye removed so that the cancer would not spread, my basketball training and God’s intervention combined to make me realize that I needed to pass the ball off. This was not a shot I could take independent of the team; I needed to turn to forces greater than my own. I really believe that God put this friend in my life to do more than just someone to socialize with. He put her there because with his medical background, she was someone I could turn to to do the kind of research and study to find an alternative to surgically removing my precious daughter’s eye. With her background and training, she was able to quickly sift through much of the medical literature that existed and report back to Candace and me.
We knew that time was running out and the longer it took us to find alternatives, the riskier those procedures might be. Cancer has unflagging energy, and we knew that with each passing day, the tumor was growing. Candace and I could have tried to do all the research on our own, but poring through medical journals to try to understand all the complications and even just the possible approaches to treatment would have cost us precious time. Even developing a basic understanding of the options and then trying to track down doctors who either did those alternative procedures or who might be able to explain better to us what the potential risks were with those procedures was not something we could do either. The clock was winding down, and we knew we needed to rely on someone who could quickly cut through the lingo and technical aspects of the treatment options and feed us the information as quickly as humanly possible. As a point guard, I have always had to assess the situation on court and distribute the ball to those who are the in best position to score. Evaluating time on the clock, the score, the opposition’s strengths and weakness, and a dozen more factors are things I’ve spent nearly a life time doing. I had some idea those skills would transfer to life off the court, but being able to assess circumstances and make decisions quickly under such extreme non-basketball circumstances, put those skills to the test in ways I had never anticipated.
That our friend was able to find out that two doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York had experimented with a radical new treatment, one they’d only performed on fourteen patients and had never published the results of those early clinical trials, is in my mind, nothing short of a miracle. Those doctors had just begun the treatment in 2006—a year before Tatum was diagnosed. Another stroke of good fortune we could add to our score. When Candace and I sat in an office speaking with Dr. David Abramson and Dr. Pierre Gobin, they at first told us that the only real choice we had was to have Tatum’s eye removed. I’m sure that they figured that we were parents doing their due-diligence work, getting a second and third opinion hoping against hope that we could avoid the negative outcome of surgically removing our daughter’s affected eye. Of course, if removal of the eye meant preventing the possible spread of the cancer, and that was truly our only option, we would have agreed with that course of treatment. Something had told us, in the face of all the other opinions that lined up with Dr. Abramson and Dr. Gobin’s initial assessment, that we had to dig deeper. If nothing else, we wanted to hear that dire prognosis from the best doctors in the field, and Dr. Abramson was considered the go to guy in the area of retinoblastoma.
Like most people, I’d heard of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (though I knew it simply as “Sloan-Kettering”) even if I’d been fortunate to that point on not ever having had any firsthand experience with the place for myself or any of my family members and friends. I knew that it was a state of the art cutting edge facility recognized world-wide as one of the most advanced cancer treatment and research facilities out there. What I came to learn as we pursued this option as a potential treatment for Tatum was that the doctors at Sloan-Kettering had a long history of advancing treatment of the rare cancer affecting our baby girl’s eye. In the 1930’s, doctors there had come up with the first treatments that successfully managed the disease. Prior to that, I learned, being diagnosed with retinoblastoma was essentially a literal death sentence. Survival rates for the disease were incredibly low back then. Fortunately, thanks to the work of many doctors and researchers, the odds have increased significantly, though in most cases the patient ends up losing the afflicted eye.
The cancer is rare, only about 350 children in the United States are diagnosed with retinoblastoma each year, but it is the most common type of eye cancer among children. Worldwide, approximately 5,000 children are afflicted with this cancer and about half that number eventually die from it. I say “only” in regard to the number of children in the U.S. with the disease (compared to almost 3,000 kids with leukemia for example) but for every child and every parent of a child diagnosed with the disease, that number is far too large. In most cases, the disease is the result of a randomly occurring mutation in chromosome thirteen. Most often, the affected child is the first in the family to have the disease and it is only about ten percent of the cases that the mutation is inherited from one of the parents. Candace and I weren’t so concerned at that point about the cause of Tatum’s cancer, we were mainly concerned with treatment options. We were fortunate to find Dr. Abramson. He was the Chief of the Ophthalmic Oncology Service at Sloan-Kettering and in the ‘70s had trained under one of the leading experts in the field of eye cancer treatment, Dr. Algernon Reese at Colombian Presbyterian Medical Center. Dr. Reese, an ophthalmologist, and Dr. Hayes Martin, a surgeon had pioneered the use of radiation treatments in eye cancer in the ‘40s and ‘50s. Dr. Abramson and his team continued to advance treatment options including the type of chemoeradication (shrinking the tumor with chemotherapy) technique our friend had learned about.
When I asked them about their experimental treatment, intra-arterial chemotherapy, they seemed surprised. As Doctor Abramson later said in a New York Times interview, “I’m not sure how he knew about . . . . He must have done a lot of homework.” Thanks to Thomas, I had been able to copy someone else’s homework. Spreading the ball around, and trusting that a teammate will execute under pressure proved to be a wise move. Dr. Abramson and Dr. Gobin stepped up for us and agreed that if Candace and I were willing to take the risk, they were willing to do the procedure. We knew that we had to do everything we could to save Tatum’s eye. The decision was in that way easy. Subjecting your infant daughter to anything, even a regularly scheduled immunization is hard. Sitting there in that office, floors above the growl and hum of mid-town Manhattan, we took a deep breath, trusted that the Lord had led us to this place for a good reason, and signed the consent forms and did all the other necessary paperwork.
Obviously, there is never a good time to have anyone in your life become sick, but the circumstances of Tatum’s diagnosis was marked by all kinds of potential pitfalls. We were in the process of moving from the Bay area to Salt Lake City. I had been traded during the off season, but with the kids still infants and lots of loose ends to tie up, it didn’t make sense to move right away that summer. I’m sure a lot of you can relate to idea of moving and having to find new doctors, deal with health insurance companies (we were fortunate to have good coverage) and all the issues of who’s in network, who’s not. Candace had been concerned that something wasn’t quite right with Tatum’s eye, had been assured by our pediatrician that nothing was wrong. Only when we finally settled in Salt Lake City and Candace pursued second and third opinions did Dr. Katy McGelligot confirm my wife’s suspicions. I was at practice when the voice mail message came in telling me that we needed to get to a pediatric ophthalmologist that afternoon. I joined them there and I was glad that we had been persistent and followed Candace’s gut instinct that told her that something was wrong. If we had waited and if we’d let the red tape of insurance companies and all that deter us, I don’t know what the outcome could have been.
Call it a mother’s intuition, call it her keen sense of observation, call it the Lord moving in mysterious ways, but whatever you call it, we were grateful that we had acted on Candace’s suspicions. Neither of us had ever heard the word retinoblastoma before, and to be honest, I’d never even thought that people could have cancer of the eye. In most ways, Tatum was a typical ten-month-old child. Being part of a pair of fraternal twins, Drew and Tatum were going to be subject to a lot of comparisons, maybe more than other siblings. When they were born, Tatum had darker skin than Drew whose coloring was more cocoa. He had a lot more hair than Tatum, though now that isn’t the case, and he was always a lot less patient than her. When Drew was hungry, everyone in the house, and probably the surrounding neighborhood, knew that he was in need of food. He had to nurse or get a bottle immediately and there was nothing we could do to persuade him to just hold on for a minute. Tatum, on the other hand, would wake from a nap and assess the situation, come fully awake and alert, and then she’d eat. Even from her earliest days, she seemed quite playful and mischievous, more capable of demonstrating a bit of an attitude.
What Candace noticed was that sometimes when she looked into Tatum’s eyes, something didn’t seem quite right to her. She couldn’t articulate exactly what was wrong, and each time I looked into my little girl’s eyes, I was so in love that I couldn’t imagine there being anything wrong with her. I felt the same about Drew. They seemed to me to be God’s perfect little creations—even if they did fuss and cry a bit. Candace told me that what got her thinking something might be wrong was that sometimes when light shone in Tatum’s eye, it didn’t seem to reflect back the same way it did from her other one or in the same way it did from Drew’s. I’d learned in the more than ten years that I’d known Candace to trust her instincts. If she thought there was something wrong, then there had to be something wrong.
Candace noticed that in some photographs of Tatum, depending upon the angle one of Tatum’s eyes reflected back a white light. That white light is visible in the pupils of children with retinoblastoma. This is known as leukocoria or the “cat’s eye reflex.” Just as a cat’s pupil appears white in certain lighting, so will a child’s who has retinoblastoma or other eye conditions including Coat’s disease. Not in every case will that white reflection in photographs be a true indication of those serious conditions, but it is definitely worth checking out with a doctor. We learned all of this only after her diagnosis, and our doctors told us that it is a good idea to take a monthly flash photo of an infant and child to check for that tell-tale marker of a potential problem.
After the examination, when the doctor told us that he’d detected some abnormalities and what he suspected was a tumor, I felt like all the air in the room had been sucked out. I remember grasping Candace’s shaking hand, and my mind rushing. The sensation was like what happens when you are driving a standard transmission car and you think you’re in gear but you’re in neutral. You hit the gas and you can hear and feel the vibration of the rapidly racing engine but you don’t increase your actual speed. I had thoughts bouncing all around my head, but I wasn’t making any kind of positive steps toward coherence.
Looking back on it, I now realize how could it have been otherwise? I’m not a real worrier by nature, and despite the difficulty Candace and I had experienced in having lost a child previously, I didn’t overly fixate on the list of possible bad things that could happen to the twins before or after they were born. I had lost some people close to me, usually through a long and protracted illness as was the case with my grandmother. I’d lost a few older relatives, but they had lived what seemed to me then to be long lives. Nothing could prepare me for someone telling me that my daughter had cancer. It was a life-altering moment, a kind of sign being driven into the ground indicating that there was a then and next there was to be a now. Facing the prospect that we could lose her, and not just that she might lose her eye, was unimaginably difficult to process in a short span of time.
In a way, hearing that news was also like I’d instantly done some mental spring cleaning and thrown away anything that wasn’t needed and put everything else neatly into order. As clichéd as it sounds, I knew in that moment that very little besides my daughter’s health and my family’s safety was what mattered. All the little gripes and complaints I might have had about how the season was going—even though things were going well—any nagging pain from overuse or injury, any thoughts about upcoming games, who I’d be matched up against, all that just neatly took their place in line—a long ways behind—one overriding concern: What were we going to do in order to help our daughter?
In the immediate, Tatum was given an MRI examination the next day that confirmed the diagnosis. We had a playoff game that night against Houston and I would suit up. At that point, no one except the Jazz owner Larry Miller and the General Manager Kevin O’Connor knew the specifics of the situation. They told me that I was under no pressure to play that night or at any other point during the playoffs. They agreed that Tatum’s condition and our privacy was mattered the most.
I had been making a mad rush from practice to doctor’s appointments to the hospital for tests that the reality of what was going on with our child hadn’t really sunk in. We’d won the game (details TK) and only when I sat in front of my locker after the game did the truth hit me, and it hit me hard. I sat staring blankly ahead of me, a towel draped over my shoulders. Guys filed past me and music began blaring. A few minutes later, reporters were allowed in, and they were just doing their job, but the last thing I wanted to do was to talk about the game, the series, or anything to do with basketball. All I could think of was what my daughter potentially faced. I didn’t want anyone to see the anguish I was experiencing, so I went into TK Brigg’s office, our trainer, and broke down. In some ways the game had been good for me, a distraction, but it only delayed the inevitable. I was devastated. That private moment of despair was good for me, helped me get it out of my system and refocus on the task at hand—how to overcome the dire diagnosis and what seemed at the time the absolute certainty that Tatum’s eye would have to be surgically removed.
The day after we met with Dr. Gobin and Dr. Abramson, Wednesday May 10th, 2007 Tatum would undergo the procedure at New York Presbyterian Hospital.
Dr. Abramson knew about the playoff game the Jazz had that night against the Golden State Warriors. As a former alternate on the 1960 men’s Olympic swimming team, he knew what an athlete’s life was like. He suggested that we could hold off doing the procedure until after the game. A delay of a just a few hours would have no effect on the outcome of the procedure or the viability of Tatum’s eye following it.
“Absolutely not,” I told him, “Just do what’s best for my child. How many games I miss in the playoffs is totally irrelevant.” I meant every word of that statement, and even when Dr. Abramson suggested some adjustments could be made to the schedule, I remained firm in the commitment I’d made to Candace and to Tatum. There hadn’t been any real need for discussion—Candace and I both knew that as difficult as the circumstances were, the decision about how to approach Tatum’s care was easy—spare no cost, leave no stone unturned, and put basketball where it belonged on my list of priorities. In other words, well below my family and its needs.
Doing the right thing came so easy because of the values that my mother Annette and my father John had instilled in me from the beginning. They made every sacrifice they could to enable me to be where I am today, and they demonstrated every day that you put your family member’s needs above your own. Doctor Abramson was simply trying to accommodate me and my needs, figure my career into the scheme, and I appreciated that, but there was never a question in my mind that we would do the procedure as soon as humanly possible. This was an aggressive and risky treatment, and the two men who pioneered it gave off an air of quiet confidence that I’d always appreciated in teammates. Not that they needed any more motivation, but just to show how the Lord does truly move in mysterious ways, Dr. Gobin, who grew up in France, had lived for a time in Los Angeles while working at the University of California at Los Angeles medical center. He was a die-hard fan of the NBA team there and remembered me from my days with the Lakers. Score another bucket for the home team.
I felt confident in the team we’d assembled. Doctor Gobin and Doctor Abramson were realistic but confident. I liked that about them both. They were as personable as could be without seeming smug or distant. They were clearly brilliant men, but it was their compassion and consideration for us as people and not just as a condition or an opportunity to test a procedure that could make them famous or wealthy or both that really impressed me. They didn’t push us to try something; instead, they only agreed to do it when we brought up the possibility. Their confidence and calm helped to settle our nerves a bit, but nothing could still them completely. Dr. Gobin, who specialized in something called Interventional NeuroRadiology, was another highly respected medical pioneer, primarily known for advanced treatment for stroke victims. In 2001, Dr. Gobin joined the Weill Cornell Medical College as Professor of Radiology and Neurosurgery, and the New York Weill Cornell Hospital as the Director, Division of Interventional Neuroradiology.
I didn’t know this at the time, but there was a third member of the medical team, Dr. Ira Dunkel, a pediatric oncologist who also worked with Dr. Abramson and Dr. Gobin to come up with this treatment option. The procedure would involve injecting a tumor-killing drug through a tiny blood vessel in the eye. The doctors explained that within fifteen seconds, the drug is directly on site in the tumor. It either destroys the tumor entirely and it disappears, or it becomes calcified.
I’ve been anxious before games before, but nothing compared to the jitters I experienced that night. From our hotel room, we could see Central Park spread below us, and I envied the imagined emotional ease with which I saw the runners and cyclists circling that great expanse of green. I’d heard that some people consider Central Park Manhattan’s lungs, a breath of fresh air squeezed from the concrete ribs that surround it. I wished I could exhale, heave a great sigh of relief, but as daylight turned to twilight and then into full on darkness, I found myself drawn to that window and knew that for me there was a very different reason why New York is the city that never sleeps.
In some ways, Tatum’s being an infant was a blessing. We didn’t have to explain to her the risks involved and she didn’t have to deal with the anxiety of knowing that she had cancer or that she faced a surgical procedure the next day. Unfortunately, we had no way to communicate to her that because of the sight-saving procedure she was going to undergo, she couldn’t eat. Normally a very happy and satisfied baby, being forced to go without food had her especially fussy that night and the next morning. For Candace and I, we’d both flipped a switch in our minds the instant we got the diagnosis. We’d been in caregiver and protection mode for weeks, and were in an especially high state of alert that morning. It tore us up to hear Tatum’s wails and to listen to them and to see her in distress was gut wrenching. We made a few calls back to Utah to make sure that Drew and my stepson Marshall were doing okay. A few more phone calls to family members to let them know what was going on gave us something to do once Tatum finally fell asleep. My mother assured me that the prayer circle with the church ladies back home in Little Rock was complete and doing the necessary work. Until that night I’d never really thought of the significance of the name of my hometown. A rock can be a weapon or a refuge, and as Jesus told St. Peter, it was upon that rock He was going to build his church. Home and family have always been my rock, a touchstone, a place on which the foundation of my life was built. I could add that to the list of the many blessings I’d been privileged to receive. Though I didn’t need to hear my mother telling me that those prayers were going out, it was nice to know that we had a whole bunch of folks on the sidelines and in the stands doing their very best to help my family get through this difficult time.
We knew that waiting while Tatum was in surgery was going to be the hardest part, and showing up at 7:00 a.m. for a 10:00 a.m. scheduled start was going to be difficult. When one of the surgical team members was called into a separate emergency and the procedure was delayed, that already protracted period of anxiety went into overtime. Though we weren’t guaranteed results, but had been encouraged by the news of the success rate among the fourteen patients who had previously undergone the treatment, we had a lot of faith in the doctors. Knowing that any kind of invasive procedure was inherently risky, and knowing that with an infant the veins and arteries in such a delicate and fragile part of the anatomy—the eye—required great precision had Candace and I both on edge. We’d read up on the procedure, knew that this was the one best chance we had, but still the thought of having toxins injected into your child’s system to attack a tumor was unsettling at best. I tried to stay focused on the positive, and was grateful that my years in the league had taught me how to fight off distractions. Prayer made that task much easier as well.
By the time we were instructed to put on masks and gowns so that we could escort Tatum into the operating room, a steady diet of adrenaline had begun to take its toll. Tatum too had exhausted herself, and I was grateful that she was asleep when Candace laid her down on the table. We both kissed her and told her that we loved her. I’ve faced some tough assignments in my life, but nothing compared to having to walk out of that room. I trusted the doctors and have faith in God, but leaving your child to face any kind of uncertainty or pain had me feeling like a brick was lodged in my throat. When I turned back to catch one last glimpse of Tatum before the procedure began, I was struck again by how small and vulnerable she looked surrounded by all the adults in the room and the various monitoring devices. Walking out of that operating room was the toughest part of this ordeal yet.
Most days when I have a game, I’m able to take a short nap to rest and restore my energy before heading to the arena. We’d been told that the procedure would take a couple of hours, and I spent nearly every second of that span of time on pins and needles. I was grateful that our friend was there with us; she and I spent most of the time talking about what we imagined the progress was and counting down the minutes until someone came out of the surgical area to give us the promised mid-session report. That report never came, for whatever reason, but when one of the team members came out to report that the procedure had gone well, I was enormously relieved. When we saw Tatum being wheeled past us in a kind of incubator, my heart did skip a beat—seeing her in that device, alone and isolated, had our hearts aching for her as we alongside her to the recovery room.
I was glad in some ways that we had a job to do while Tatum was in recovery. The procedure required that a line be inserted through her femoral artery in her upper thigh. The doctors didn’t want the incision to tear open, so we were given the job of keeping Tatum still. As each minute passed post-surgery and she came out of her anesthesia-induced slumber, she grew more and more active and agitated. The other concern was that she be able to keep down any fluids or food she was fed, so Candace and I worked together to be sure that those two tasks were taken care of. It felt great to have something to do to contribute to Tatum’s well being and comfort. I’m not someone who likes to give up control and the feelings of helplessness that I experienced during the procedure had started to work on me. Just being able to hold Tatum in our arms felt as if we’d been given some powerful medicine to calm us and soothe the aches in our hearts.
With the procedure completed and the early prognosis good, all we really could do was wait—both for Tatum to recover from the anesthesia and for the three weeks to lapse before we would return to see if the chemotherapy had the desired effect. With Tatum’s immediate safety and condition seemingly well in hand, I had a few moments when I could think about all that had happened. Through the weeks we struggled with Tatum’s health concerns, I’d been in close contact with the Utah Jazz organization, and they couldn’t have been more supportive. When Tatum was in recovery and sleeping again, I took the opportunity to call Kevin O’Connor, the team’s general manager to let him know Tatum’s status. I followed up that phone call with one to our coach, Jerry Sloan, simply to let him know how Tatum was doing. No one asked me if I’d be able to make that night’s game, no one pressured me in any way to commit to anything. They both simply were glad to hear that things had gone well for my daughter. That meant a lot to me. Though they were my bosses, work was something fairly far from their minds.
During my phone call with Coach Sloan, I’d let the team know that as much as I wanted to remain on the active roster for that night’s game, I understood that it really wasn’t my decision to make. Basketball, and our series with the Warriors diminished in importance compared to taking care of my family. That said, I still felt a sense of responsibility to my teammates, the organization, and the fans. We were, after all, in the playoffs, and needed to maintain our home court advantage with a win that night in Utah. The Jazz organization and fans had high hopes that we could make a run deep into the playoffs and win an NBA championship that had eluded them.
I had my priorities straight, but knowing that Tatum’s chemo treatment was an outpatient procedure, we had scheduled a return flight for that day regardless of the fact that we had a game back in Salt Lake City that night. The Jazz had helped us out greatly by assisting us in securing a private jet to take us back and forth. The only concern we had about flying so soon after the treatment was Tatum’s leg. We needed to keep her still. The main reasons we wanted to be back in Salt Lake City was to be with our large circle of supporters and to as quickly as possible restore some semblance of normalcy in our lives. Even though Drew was too young to fully understand what was going on, I’m sure he and Tatum both were picking up on the worried vibes that Candace and I were putting out despite our best attempts not to. Marshall, Candace’s son and my step-son, had been affected as well. He was well aware, at age twelve, of everything that was going on, and I knew from conversations that I had with him, he was both worried about his step-sister’s health and his mother’s mental state. He hated seeing her worried and upset, and the sooner we got back home to him and to our life and its routine the better it would be for all of us. I also put a call into the mother of my daughter Chloe. Though she was much younger than Marshall and couldn’t fully comprehend what was going on with her baby sister, I wanted to let her know that things were okay.
Once we got the okay to leave the hospital, we took the opportunity to get back to Salt Lake City as soon as possible. If we had any indication from the doctors that it would have been in our best interest to remain in New York, we would have done it. They assured us there was nothing more to be done except to wait to see if the drugs had the desired effect on Tatum’s tumor. We were also reassured in knowing that our friend was also a former registered nurse, and she could monitor the incision on Tatum’s leg and take all the steps necessary in case something happened. The doctors kept telling us that we were in good hands on the flight and were extraordinarily comfortable in having us leave.
In our minds, the major challenge was over—the procedure was done—the rest was out of our hands. That wasn’t the most comfortable place for either of to be in. We’re both take charge kind of people, but we’d trusted in what our friend had told us and then the doctors. Everything had worked out as well as could be expected to that point. Next, we just had to let go and trust that we’d done the best we could, prepared ourselves and executed the game plan to the best of our abilities. We put our faith in God, comfortable in knowing what a prayer warrior Candace had been throughout this time.
For as many times as I’d played in either New York or New Jersey and having lived in Los Angeles for much of my early adulthood, the drive through the west side of Manhattan to the Lincoln Tunnel didn’t do much to settle our nerves. I couldn’t help but think of Tatum’s delicate physiology and be amazed that these potent drugs had managed to work their way through her veins and arteries. In some ways I wished that when we came out on the New Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel that we’d be on the other side of this crisis. In some ways we were, but just as it felt being in the waiting room prior to the procedure, with little constructive activity we could perform to help Tatum’s cause. More waiting was ahead of us, but something told me that there was more that I could do.
Once we reached our cruising altitude and we made our way west, thoughts of our playoff series crept back in. I’d done the right thing by my family, and I had another job and another group of people I was beholden to. If I could help that second group out, I wanted to. I wasn’t certain if I was capable of shutting out everything that had transpired in the previous few days, but if nothing else, maybe by being there I’d help lend an emotional hand to my teammates. I had placed a second call to the Jazz’s front office personnel to let them know I was heading home. No one asked if I was coming to the arena, and I hadn’t volunteered any information other than that we were on our way back. I appreciated that no one in the Jazz organization put me under any kind of pressure to play that night. I still wasn’t certain as we flew over the darkening fields of the Midwest if I was even on the active roster for that night.
Another “coincidence” played in my favor. Our series was against the Golden State Warriors, a team I had played for from 2004-2006. I’d been traded just that off-season, and while some of the personnel had changed, I was still familiar enough with their tendencies to feel comfortable playing against them. I had missed the first game of the series, a game we pulled out after trailing by three at halftime and by five going into the fourth quarter. The Warriors up-tempo style and the performance of their guards Stephen Jackson and Baron Davis, who combined for 40 points, made me think that I might be needed. Our guards, Dee Brown and Deron Williams, had done a great job in my absence, but playoff pressure was a whole different thing. We needed everyone on the roster to contribute, and I had no idea if I was on the roster or if I could contribute.
The flight home was quiet, each of us lost in private thoughts. Candace and I had made the decision to not reveal any of the details of what was going on in our personal life. While I was upfront with the team, I’d been so busy attending to Tatum’s needs and keeping close family members posted on what was going on that I hadn’t had time to even consider what I might do that night and the furthest thing from my mind was what anyone else outside of that very small circle knew about the situation.
When we saw the great basin and the Great Salt Lake below us as we banked into our final approach, I still had no idea what I would do if the team called on me to perform that night. Everyone wants to feel needed, but that night, I was hoping that the Jazz had the game in hand and my presence wasn’t needed. Once in the terminal, we were all met by my friend and assistant business manager Duran McGregory. He said to me again how he was thrilled to hear that the procedure had gone well. He proceeded to tell me that the Jazz had a message they wanted him to relay. I was on the roster and the team wanted me there if I felt up to it. I discussed things with Candace, and she was all for me heading to the arena. She understood that I had a job to do there as well at home. With my responsibilities taken care of on one front, it was time for me to do my job. Duran would take me to the game, and a car service would take Candace and Tatum home.
I was surprised to learn that an unmarked police car was going to escort Duran and me from the airport, which was about ten minutes from our residence in Salt Lake City, to the arena. I didn’t really sense that there was any kind of urgency, but when we turned on the radio to listen to the game, I got a better sense that the game was going anything like I’d hoped it would. Dee Brown had been hurt and taken to the hospital with a possible neck injury when our own six foot eleven inch Mehmet Okur fell and landed on him. Five minutes into the game and the Jazz was down to only ten players. I said a prayer that Dee was going to be okay. I also learned that Deron Williams had picked up two fouls within a one-minute span in that too eventful first quarter. We were forced to use a forward, Andrei Kirilenko, at the point for a few minutes. When I heard all that, my mind started racing. All of this information was coming at me so fast, and I’m listening to the game instead of being on the court or courtside participating in it, a police car’s mars light is strobing the scene inside and outside the car, and I had that peculiar sensation of both being in the car and outside of it looking in on the situation as it evolved.
To make matters more surreal, when we pulled into the player’s entrance and I got out of the car, teams of cameramen and soundmen and photographers were there. With flashes going off and the guys hustling alongside of me as I strode quickly into the arena and made my way to the locker room, I was doing everything I could to keep my mind focused on what I needed to do. At that point, I wasn’t certain of exactly what that was, but even getting undressed and then dressed in my uniform helped me filter out some of the distractions. I’d put on a game jersey thousands of times in my life, but that night I had to slow myself down and really think about left arm and right arm, right side out and inside out, frontward and backward. I wish that I could say a calm descended on me, but it was more like I was numb, that I relied on muscle memory in order to do even the simplest things like tie my shoes.
I was surprised by the sea of noise that washed over me when I came out of the tunnel and onto the arena’s floor. I knew that there was a timeout and no action going on, so what was all the commotion about? I heard a few people shouting my name, and I looked up and was impressed by the how many fans had worn baby blue to the game.
Anytime you come up out of the tunnel, you see the court fully spot lit and gleaming, but that day I really felt like I was walking toward the light. Making my way toward our bench, I saw a few of our guys on the bench looking at me. On their faces I could see a mixture of concern and a happy-to-see-you look. I glanced up at the clock, three minutes and eighteen seconds remained in the quarter. Carlos Boozer had just been fouled and he was making his way toward the free throw line. I felt as if someone was massaging my tense limbs, easing some of my anxiety. I was much more at home here, stepping out onto the floor of a basketball court than I was sitting in a hospital waiting room or a doctor’s office. New York City literally and figuratively felt a thousand miles away, and yet it felt as if in other ways I was still there.
I said a couple words to Ronnie Brewer, Paul Milsap, and Matt Harping, letting them know that things had gone well. I didn’t have much time to talk, I heard assistant coach TK call my name, letting me know that I was going in for Andrei Kirilenko. Boozer hit both his free throws to extend our lead to 84-80. I walked toward the scorer’s table, and I could hear and feel vibrating in my chest the outpouring of affection that came from the Utah fans. In the days to come, I would learn more about the amazingly supportive fans and how they embraced my family and me with their show of faith and support. Salt Lake City is a place where family and faith come together in a unique way all the time, but this was different and special, and I can never repay the people of that remarkable place for all they did for us. A thank you can never really sufficient, but I want them all to know how deeply grateful I am to them and what a cherished place in my heart they hold.
New York and doctor’s offices and waiting rooms and the fans were out of sight and out of mind as soon as I stepped across the sideline. I immediately went into game mode. On our first possession after the free throw, Carlos Boozer captured an offensive rebound, and the ball was kicked back to me. I fed Carlos for a bucket, and was feeling pretty good even though everything seemed to be happening in a blur of motion and emotion. I tried to focus on just merging with the flow of the game. The Warriors made a basket and then we turned the ball over. They converted to pull within a point at 86-85.
I threw a bad pass a few seconds later; fortunately, my former Golden State teammate Jason Richardson, rimmed out a three pointer at the other end, and we ended up leading at the end of the third quarter 90-89. Jason had gone out of his way to let me know that he was thinking of me and rooting for my family, but like any true competitor, he would have put the proverbial dagger through our collective hearts if he could by hitting those long-range jumpers of his. This was a case of give no quarter and ask for no quarter as it always was, especially in the playoffs. Stephen Jackson and Baron Davis expressed similar sentiments and only later could I fully appreciate how much those words meant to me.
Despite how numbed I was by the events of the day, the extensive air travel and very far out of my routine journey to the arena, I felt the electricity in the air. Not all the buzz in the building was a result of my being there under those circumstances. This was a definite playoff atmosphere, and it was like it soaked in through our pores and fed our adrenal glands. The game was definitely on.
Those three plus minutes went by in a flash, but when I sat on the bench during the quarter break, I once again marveled at Jerry Sloan’s game management skills. Getting me in there immediately wasn’t just an act of desperation. He knew that if I had time to sit on the bench, I had time to think. While it’s important to be aware and alert on the court, it’s often more important to react to what you observe while in the flow of the game than it is to ponder things. If I had sat on the bench, my mind might have wandered a bit—I’m only human. By being forced into the action immediately, it was as if my body was jumpstarted, and my brain instantly switched to basketball mode immediately as a kind of reflex action. No pre-meditation, just action.
I was back on the bench at the start of the fourth quarter, and at that point, I was better able to focus on the ebb and flow of the game instead of wondering about whether or not I could play and actually contribute. With that question answered, my mind focused more on how to slow down Golden State’s offense. With our guards in foul trouble, the Warrior’s Baron Davis and Jason Richardson were taking it to us with a mix of threes and dribble penetration. With just under eight minutes left in the fourth quarter, we were ahead 99-96. Right before the TV time out, Baron Davis had converted a lay up for this thirty third point of the night. When one player has a little more than a third of his team’s total output, you know he’s having a night. We had to figure out a way to put the clamps on the guy.
Following that time out, we went on a bit of a run. At the 4:52 mark, our forward Mehmet Okfur hit a three to put us up 106-100. Things were looking good, but with the way Golden State was hoisting up and hitting three, it was still really just a two-possession game. Just as I suspected, Stephen Jackson hit a trey. Next, Jason Richardson fired up a three, was fouled and hit two of three free throws. He followed that up by hitting a three, to put Golden State up by a point 108-107 with just a little more than two minutes to play.
I went to our assistant coach, Tyrone Corbin, and said, “I can play defense.” He nodded. The competitor in me came to the surface at that moment. I wanted in there, feeling like I could do what we needed to turn the tide. Tatum and my family were in my heart, but the game was on my mind. With 1:13 remaining in the game, Coach Sloan had me re-enter. We were down 110-107. A few moments later, the Warriors scored again, and we trailed by five with less than a minute to go. On our next possession, Deron made a great pass to Carlos Boozer for a jam. We put the Warriors on the line, and we were fortunate they missed a couple of free throws. With two seconds left, Deron made a runner to tie the game at 113. Overtime.
The rest, as they say, is history. We jumped out quickly to a lead, but the Warriors scrambled back into it. In the fourth quarter, I forced Baron Davis into a critical turnover just when we needed a stop. With just over a minute to play, we were up by three when Deron Williams found me open in the corner. I got the ball in rhythm, got in good bent knee position, and rose up with my eyes locked on the rim. The shot felt good leaving my hand, but I’d had that feeling before and been disappointed, but this time my faith in myself proved good—as did the shot. We were up by six, and I followed up that shot with a pair of free throws in the waning seconds, and we pulled out the ‘W.’
I did something a bit uncharacteristic for me following that three pointer. As I headed back up court during a time after that shot, I pointed to the sky. My faith in God is something personal to me, but at that moment I had to acknowledge that I didn’t make that shot on my own. A higher power, God, had helped me make that shot. Jesus Christ was there for me in that moment in ways that allowed me to find within myself the strength to do my job and do it well. I did another atypical thing for me. After the game, TNT’s Pam Oliver wanted me to do the post game interview. Normally, they go to the star of the game, the guy who had the most points or hit the game winner. Instead, they came to me because of the situation with Tatum. Candace and I had agreed to keep things within the family, but when Ms. Oliver asked me about the situation, my gut told me that I needed to open up.
With tears in my eyes and an enormous sense of relief spilling out of my mouth I told her, “It was very, very serious. My daughter’s life was in jeopardy. She has a form of eye cancer called retinoblastoma. And the only reason I’m saying this now is because there are kids out there that are suffering from this disease, and people can’t really identify it. It’s a very rare disease. And I want people out there to take their kids to the ophthalmologist, make sure they get their eyes checked and make sure everything’s okay, because we could have lost my little girl had we waited any longer.”
I knew at that moment that I had a message to deliver. I had to do the right thing, and if feeling a little uncomfortable sharing a personal slice of a sometimes too public life meant having to bare a bit of our collective soul, then I was glad to do it.
This book is in a lot of ways, a product of those experiences. I don’t know that if it wasn’t for what we went through and the enormous level of support locally and nationally my family received if I would have wanted to write a book. I’ve never felt particularly special just because I was a basketball player, am more reserved than most people, and truly felt like what I did in those days dealing with Tatum’s health situation and in the days and weeks following when I asked to be released from my contract so that I could work someplace where Tatum could receive the kind of follow-up care she needed, I was simply doing what any father, any parent, would do for a child or other family member. I was somewhat taken aback by all the attention the things I did or the choices we made as a family received. I was, and continue to be, enormously grateful for the outpouring of affection and am humbled by the media attention and people’s view of me. On many levels then, this book is an act of pay back. Not only do I want people to know about retinoblastoma (Candace and I have started a foundation to promote education about the disease and possible treatments) but I want them to know that what took place in those few weeks was the product of an upbringing, an environment, a long list of influential people, and an agency with capabilities far beyond what we humans can muster.
As I stated before, I realize that everything that came before the moment when Tatum was diagnosed, was preparing me to deal with Tatum’s health crisis. And as uncomfortable as it can sometimes be to have a light shone on me, I feel its my duty and my privilege to share with you more of those moments that lead to our victory on and off the court. I don’t feel that my life has been in any way extraordinary, but I do believe that I have something to contribute, and giving back in this way is one form of giving thanks for the many blessing my family and I have received. In the pages that follow, I’m going to share with you some of the many lessons I’ve learned that have enabled me to succeed and stay sane in this sometimes crazy game of basketball. I didn’t get here alone, and I’ glad to have you along with me on the journey.
I also know that in the most rational sense, my having spent thirteen years in the league is in a very real way less a product of anything that I’ve done than it is a product of some large plan laid out for me. In the chapters that follow, I’m going to share with you some of the fundamental lessons I learned on the court and off the court that have enabled me to succeed beyond what most people who saw me play the game ever could have expected. I’ve always had a quiet confidence in myself and my abilities as a basketball player. I’m also realistic enough, analytical enough to know that confidence alone wasn’t what got me here in the NBA and kept me here. I also know that I’ve been blessed beyond all measure—the success of Tatum’s procedure is just one small example of that. I’ve been provided with opportunities and the ability to recognize them when they present themselves and the skills and faith to seize those opportunities.
I don’t know that I go out of my way to be a nice guy, it’s just a part of who I am because of how I was raised and because of all the reinforcement I’ve gotten for sticking with some of the fundamental truths about how to live my life—whether that’s been the Golden Rule of doing unto others as I would want them to do unto me—or understanding the fundamental truths of how the triangle office should be run. It took me some time, but I’ve come to understand that the two selves, the basketball player and the man, husband, father, friend, brother that I sometimes felt like I had to keep separate actually work together as a team. Any separation between who I am, what I do, and how I conduct myself are all bound together in ways that I’ve only lately begun to understand. Just as there’s no sound reason why a guy who is six feet one and not the fleetest of foot can play in this league and contribute to the degree that I have, there’s no logical reason why, now at the age of thirty-four, I should be enjoying one of my best seasons ever as a professional. I should be on the down side of my career, but as I see it, things have never looked brighter, my future never more certain, my love for my family such a source of contentment and pleasure. In no way am I ready to hang them up, but this seems like a good point at which to stop and take stock of where I’ve been and how I got to this point. I love playing this game, I love my family and the life I’m privileged to lead. In my mind, my NBA career is only going to lead me to half-time in my life. What’s to follow will likely be as fulfilling and rewarding, mainly because of what I’ve learned about myself and the world during this thrilling ride.
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BOOK CLUB CORNER 2009
BOOK CLUB MEETING SCHEDULE 2009
JANARY SELECTION
LOVE STARTS WITH ELLE by RACHEL HAUCK
Monday Book Club
January 26th 7-9p.m.
Tuesday Book Club
January 27th 7-9p.m.
BOOKSIGNING AT THE MALL OF GA LIFE WAY CHRISTIAN STORE
January 27th 3-5p.m.
Life Way Mall of GA store.
FEBRUARY SELECTION
ILLUMINATED by MATT BRONLEEWE
BOOKSIGNING AT THE MALL OF GA LIFE WAY CHRISTIAN STORE
February 23rd 2-4p.m.
Life Way Mall of GA Store
Combined Book Club Meeting
Monday February 23rd 7-9p.m.
FIRST MARCH SELECTION
HAVAH by TOSCA LEE
BOOK SIGNING AT THE MALL OF GA LIFE WAY CHRISTIAN STORE
Monday - March 2nd 2-4p.m.
Combined Book Club meeting
Monday March 2nd 7-9p.m.
SECOND MARCH SELECTION
SHADOW OF LIONS by GINGER GARRETT
BOOK SIGNING MARCH 24th 12-2p.m. AT THE MALL OF GA LIFE WAY CHRISTIAN STORE
FIRST BOOK CLUB "Themed" DINNER: At Angie's house
Thursday March 19th Time to be announced
Book Club Meeting - Ginger Garrett
Monday Book Club
March 23rd 7-9p.m.
Tuesday Book Club
March 24th 7-9p.m.
APRIL SELECTION
ORIGINAL SIN
by BRANDT DODSON
BRANDT DODSON'S BOOK SIGNING AT THE MALL OF GA LIFE WAY CHRISTIAN STORE
Monday APRIL 27th 2-4p.m.
Combined Book Club Meeting
Monday April 27th 7-9p.m.
MAY SELECTION
ANATHEMA by COLLEEN COBLE
Monday Book Club
May 18th 7-9p.m.
Tuesday Book Club
May 19th 7-9p.m.
JUNE SELECTION
A Passion Most Pure by JULIE LESSMAN
MONDAY BOOK CLUB Combined Meeting
June 22rd 7-9p.m.
LIFE WAY CHRISTIAN STORE - MALL OF GA AREA
TUESDAY BOOK SIGNING
June 23th 12-2p.m.
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June 29th COMBINED Book Club Meeting
BEFORE THE SEASON ENDS
by Linore Rose Burkard
BOOK SIGNING
Monday
June 29th 4-6p.m.
COMBINED BOOK CLUB MEETING
June 29th 7-9p.m.
JULY SELECTION
WHEN CRIKETS CRY by Charles Martin
Monday Book Club Combined meeting
June 28th 7-9p.m.
SUNDAY AT BORDERS - SPECIAL EVENT
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THE NOTE a film based on the book by Angela Hunt
JULY 27th 7-9p.m. come a little early - enjoy snacks and fellowship.
AUGUST SELCTION
BREACH OF TRUST by DIANN MILLS
Monday Book Club - Meeting
August 31th 7-9 p.m.
Tuesday Book Club - Meeting
August 25th 7-9p.m.
(Diann Mills will speak to us by speaker Phone)
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LIFE SUPPORT by ROBERT WHITLOW
Monday Book Club - Combined Meeting
Sept. 28th
Robert to speak on the Phone
OCTOBER SELECTION
STORM WARRIORS by Jon Nappa
Monday night - COMBINED MEETING
October 26th 7-9p.m.
Speaking "Live" at Group Meeting
BOOK SIGNING AT LIFE MALL OF GA STORE
JON NAPPA
TUESDAY October 26th 4-6 p.m.
NOVEMBER SELECTION
DARK PURSUIT by BRANDILYN COLLINS
MONDAY NIGHT COMBINED MEETING
Nov. 16th 7-9p.m.
Speaking to book club on phone
DECEMBER SELECTION
THE HOPE OF REFUGE
by CINDY WOODSMALL
COMBINED Book Club Meeting Monday Night
December 14th 6:30p.m.-9p.m. @ Angie's house.
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- CHRISTMAS RECIPIES FROM KATHY CARLTON COMMUNICATIO...
- 12 PEARLS OF CHRISTMAS - INSPIRING STORY
- TURNING BACK THE PAGES WITH THE ANGEL OF BASTOGNE
- 12 PEARLS OF CHRISTMAS STORIES
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- CHARACTER DRIVEN - FIRST CHAPTER
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- RAISING RAIN by DEBBIE FULLER THOMAS
- BOOK CLUB ENCOUNTERS - FEATURING AUTHOR ALISON STR...
- ESSIE IN PROGRESS by MARJORIE PRESTEN - FIRST CHAP...
- The Christmas Glass by Marci Alborghetti
- THE UNFINISHED GIFT by DAN WALSH - REVIEWED
- ONE SIMPLE ACT by DEBBIE MACOMBER - FIRST CHAPTER
- FINDING CHRISTMAS by JAMES CALVIN SCHAPP - BOOK EX...
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Nov 2009
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- CHRISTMAS DOG by MELODY CARLSON- REVIEWED
- GIVE AWAY - NORA INTERVIEWS KATHLEEN Y'BARBO
- BOOK CLUB ENCOUNTERS - FEATURING AUTHOR TOSCA LEE'...
- BO'S CAFE - FIRST CHAPTER
- BO'S CAFE by JOHN LYNCH, BILL THRALL, & BRUCE McNI...
- WHAT AN HONOR TO WIN THE SCRAP AWARD
- PEARL GIRLS by MARGARET McSWEENEY - FIRST CHAPTER
- THE BRIDE BACKFIRE - FIRST CHAPTER
- BOOK CLUB ENCOUNTERS - FEATURING AUTHOR ANGELA HUN...
- LOVE FINDS YOU IN LONESOME PRAIRIE MONTANA - FIRST...
- EMBRACE THE STRUGGLE by ZIG ZIGLAR - FIRST CHAPTER...
- GIVE AWAY (2) Copies- NORA INTERVIEWS MARLO SCHALE...
- THE SWISS COURIER by TRICIA GOYER & MIKE YORKEY
- THE SWISS COURIER - REVIEWED
- ETERNITY FALLS by KIRK OUTERBRIDGE
- ETERNITY FALLS - by KIRK OUTERBRIDGE - REVIEWED
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Dec 2009
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About Me
- Nora St. Laurent
- I run two book clubs that meet at a Christian book store. It's always fascinating what the women share in my groups.I have learned so much.Their sharing really adds to the book club experience. One of the many reasons I LOVE book clubs. (This Blog is in no way associated or approved by Life Way Christian Stores -This is a personal book club and personal blog)
Nora Reviews Books
NORA STLAURENT CONTRIBUTOR TO NOVEL REVIEWS
www.novelreviews.blogspot.com
HERE'S WHAT I'VE BEEN READING