My granny grew worse and worse with cancer.   I was preaching in her church, and I baptized some of the people there.   It was so hard watching my granny die.   "Granny, oh Granny, please don't leave me."   I begged, "God, please don't take my granny now."   I thought I needed her so.

One morning I was staying with her.   Taking care of her was my happy privilege.   She said, "Darling, would you wash my face?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Will you help me to the living room, to my recliner?"

"Yes ma'am."

She took my hand.   "Sweetheart, I'm not going to get out of this recliner.   The Lord let me know, so you'll be prepared."

She didn't look sick, although she was eaten up with cancer.

"I'm not going to get up.   Don't take me to the hospital.   Don't let them put me on a machine. Don't let them lay me down.   I do not want to be lying down when I die.   I've trusted God forty-nine years with my body.  He's going to heal me one way or the other.   I don't want to die lying down, so God is going to take me sitting in the chair.   Now darling, I want you to go in the shower and clean up.   Don't put on any cologne or deodorant.   It aggravates my throat.   When you come back, I've got some things I need to tell you."   I hurried back to her and knelt down by her chair.

She said, "I had a vision last night, and I saw a wheel.   In the center of that wheel, I saw the Pillar of Fire, the Anointing of Jesus Christ.   I saw the spokes on that wheel.   In the Spirit, God carried me out one of the spokes of that wheel and showed me the conditions of the earth.   I saw men dying with dreaded diseases.   I saw fighting in the streets.   I saw awful things.   But every time it looked hopeless, He brought me back down the spoke of the wheel.   At the hub of the wheel was Jesus."

"I don't know everything you're going to face.   I know they're going to lie about you, and they're going to talk about you.   Many will leave you.   But remember!   At the hub of it all is Jesus.   He won't let you down.  Be faithful.   Now I know the Lord has spoken to you.   He told you something."

I said, "Yes ma'am."

"Tell me, son, what was it?"

"He told me that I should come back to Columbus and preach."

"That's exactly right.   Remember, they'll everyone leave you, but God will search through this place.   He'll find castaways that nobody else wants.   He'll let you be their shepherd, and they'll stand with you when you need them.   When I die, I want you to stand right up straight and tall. Try not to cry.   Tell my family that God is the Healer.   I don't want anybody here to think that God didn't heal me.   They'll probably mock us because of the way we lived, and now we die like this. You stand up and tell the Truth.   I'll go into a coma for a few hours, and then I'll quit breathing. When that happens, stand tall and proud and sing 'Only Believe.'   I'm getting ready to cross over and soon I'll be seeing the Lord Jesus, that prophet, and my friends and loved ones who have crossed over."

Later that afternoon she said, "Darling, please do me a favor.   I'm suffering real badly.   I want you to go out in that garage, lay your face on the ground and ask God to take me.   I just hurt, and I don't believe it's God's will for me to hurt the rest of the day.   Just go on."

"Granny, I can't do that.   I can't ask God to take you away from me."

"If you love me, you will."

I went out and did just like she said.   Then I heard a noise.   My aunt had come in.   "Steve, mother has all of a sudden taken a turn for the worse.   I've called the hospice (a support group to aid terminally ill patients and their families).

The nurse came in, looked me in the face and said, "It's almost over."

"Why, she looks well," I said.

"I woke up this morning, and I knew that today would be the day.   I just felt it in my heart."

She went in and told my granny, "Now, Sister Shelley, just ask the Lord for a sweet release.   It's just going to be a moment."

Sometimes in the night, when granny was hurting so badly, she would express fear of the unknown, which she called the "Sting of Death."   Earlier that morning after prayer, I said to her, "Granny, don't you understand what the Lord has said in His Word?   We've missed something here.   He said, 'The sting of death is sin,' and Jesus came to take away the very sting of death.   You won't even feel a thing.   You'll breathe one breath over here and the next breath over there."

It happened just that way, just that easy.   She told us all that she loved us and slipped into a coma, as I held her head up.   Early the next morningI felt her take one last breath over here, and the next one I couldn't hear.   It was over there.

All the church family came.   Brother and Sister Cleveland came all the way from South Carolina to bring my mother to be with me.   (They stood with me when nobody else did.)

I stood right up and said, "Now, I want to tell you something.   Granny said to tell all of you, 'Don't you go out of here and doubt one time that He is Jehovah Rapha.   He is the Lord God that healeth the diseases of the afflicted.'   I'm going to sing Only Believe."

Somebody said, "Do you have to?"

"I sure do.   I made my granny a promise."

I went into the pulpit Sunday morning and Sunday night and preached this "Message."   When it came time to bury her, Pentecostal officials from all over the country came.   I said, "I want to tell you something.   My granny trusted in dogmas, creeds and denominational ideas most of her life, but right at the end she heard the 'Eagle's scream'.   She heard the cry, ‘Come up higher.   Soar into the heights of His Word.’   And that is what she did. ”

I shouted, spoke in tongues and praised the Lord all the way through it.   I stood there until the last little bit of dirt covered the grave.   I said, "Granny, it's all over with now.   I've seen you as far as I can see you in this life.   I stood with you when you needed me.   I walked down this journey with you, and here in this spot, I leave this little house of clay you used to live in.   The next time I see the real you will be on the other side."