49 YEARS:

By Cordell Hastings, Detroit, Michigan, USA

My name is Cordell Hastings.  I’m a member of the Detroit Church (https://www.detroitchurch.org).  We moved to Detroit, Michigan in 1992.  Prior to that, I was a member of the Indianapolis Church (https://www.riseindiana.church/), where I was baptized around 40 years ago.

 I’m so honored to be able to share my story of God’s unconditional love!  I pray that it will bring a spirit of hope, perseverance, and faith to all who hear it.

I married the love of my life, Joe Hastings, on June 15, 1974. We were blessed to have three beautiful children, two boys, and a girl – Joe Joe, Tyrus, and Alicia.  As we were raising our kids, I wanted us to go to church as a family.  I soon realized, my husband was not as much interested in worshiping God as I was.  So, I made the decision very early on that I would take the kids to church and do my best to bring them up in the Lord – even if Joe didn’t come with me.

Year after year went by, kids grew up, went to college, and became responsible adults with families of their own.

Fast forward to 2022:

Our unbelievable journey started around March of 2022 when we discovered a serious mold issue in our home, which needed remediation.  Walls had to be torn down and replaced.  Of course, this was quite costly.  In light of all this, Joe and I decided it was time to move.  This was the last straw since we had invested tons of money into our home over the years.   Once the difficult decision was made that we would look for a new home, I literally felt like I was on a freight train.  Everything went into high gear.  Suddenly, there was such an urgency to get us moved.  What was so puzzling was that everyone, my husband, the contractor fixing the house, and the realtor were all on the same page about needing to rush and get us into a new home.

 I was doing the bulk of the work, the packing, the cleaning, the purging, looking for another place, etc. so it was pretty emotional and hard.  I didn’t understand what the urgency was.  I thought we should take our time to find a place.   But I decided I would follow my husband’s lead, and trust God, despite my reservations. 

We finished the repairs, sold the house, and were able to find a place in the area we wanted near our daughter, Alicia, at the price we wanted to pay.  God totally blessed us! 

While we were preparing to move, I noticed that my husband was losing a lot of weight and had less and less energy.  We made an appointment with his doctor, who immediately sent us to an oncologist.  The diagnosis was lung cancer, which had already spread to his bone.

Now, Let’s step back for a minute. 

Remember when I said everybody was rushing me?  There was such an urgency with everyone that I did not understand.  Now, I understood.  God knew what was coming, and he put everyone in high gear to get us moving quickly.  I was so glad I didn’t fight, what I didn’t understand!  Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding…

Let's look at the timeline.  We got moved.  Our first day in our new place was June 24, 2022.  Joe’s first chemo treatment was one month later, on July 25^th, 2022.  Look at what God did by moving us along.  We could now focus primarily on his health.

Joe started chemotherapy.  He did several rounds of chemo until it stopped working.

Throughout all the months that he was doing chemo, I continued to pray and fast for God to save my husband.  I didn’t know what to do except to trust God.  I saw my husband deteriorating, but I kept praying and fasting and looking for a miracle. 

So many other people were praying for Joe as well.

In my desperation, I asked God to please send someone who could talk about spiritual matters to Joe.  I did not know who that could be, because he had previously declined attempts from members of our church who had reached out and offered to spend time with him.

One day, my dear friend Donna Dunlap, who formerly attended the Detroit Church and now lives in Texas, called me and asked if she could have someone call Joe and pray with him.  I asked him and he said yes.  Around 10:00 pm that night, my phone rang, it was one of the members from the Church in Texas.  I gave the phone to Joe.  They must have talked for an hour.  After they hung up, I could tell something was different.    He wouldn’t let me leave the room.  He started to share some things he had done at age 18, long before I met him.  His heart was changing right before my eyes.

 I shared with my daughter about the dramatic change I saw in him. She told her husband, who told Mark Kang, our minister, who then called me.  He asked if someone could come over to talk with Joe.  I asked Joe, and he said yes.  Clifton Brent, one of our deacons, was the one who came. He went into the bedroom where Joe was, studied the Bible with him and ministered to him for about four hours.  He said that Joe had shared openly with him, cried a bit, fought a little, and then surrendered to the word of God.  When Cliff came out, he said Joe was ready to be baptized.  He said he would do one more Bible study with him before baptism.  Within a few days, he came back and did the study.

Joe was baptized on May 5, 2023.  Myself, my daughter Alicia, and her husband Nick baptized him in our bathtub.  After 49 years of marriage, my dream had come true, by God’s mercy and grace. God allowed him to live about one month as a baptized disciple before He took him home on June 2, 2023. 

 Cordell and Joe

I gained some great insights during my 49 years of marriage, many of which weren’t clear until the last year of my husband’s life.  I learned that while we’re waiting and praying and unable to see change, that doesn’t mean that God is not working.  God was ministering to my husband the entire time we were married.  All the while, helping him to stand through all the traumas he experienced in childhood, adulthood, and the Vietnam War.  As wives, we don’t often see or understand the internal demons that our husbands battle, and many times, they are unwilling or unable to verbalize what they are experiencing.  Our ultimate weapon is in the power of prayer and trusting God. We don’t know what work God is doing while we’re WAITING.  II Cor. 5:7 – We live by faith, not by sight.   We keep praying and TRUSTING God while being careful not to be an obstacle ourselves by our own ungodly behavior.

I’ve come to understand that while my husband was on his journey, I too was on a journey. It wasn’t until the other side of the storm that I could see clearly the faithfulness of God.  While my husband was battling his lung cancer, God was quietly ministering to him.  While I was taking care of him, God was ministering to me.  Ps. 46:1 – God is our refuge and strength, and ever-present help in trouble.  Ps. 46:10 – “Be still and know that I am God.”  The only thing that I could do was to keep praying and TRUSTING God.

After my husband was baptized, it was a time of celebration and unimaginable gratitude!  God’s faithfulness was so clear to me.  Isa. 30:18 – “Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore, he will rise up to show you compassion, For the Lord is a God of justice.  Blessed are all who WAIT for him.” (emphasis added)

I was also reminded through the Scriptures that we don’t have the mind of God.  Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, declares the Lord.  As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” 

Many of us are going through tremendous challenges in life, some with family members, and some with personal challenges.  Know this: God sees you and he hears you.  Put your prayers before him and trust him. Prov. 3:3-5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  Ps. 71:14 – As for me, I will always have hope, I will praise you more and more.

Cordell Hastings retired in 2016 after a long career in medicine as a Registered Nurse. She received her nursing degree from the University of Indianapolis in 1990. She spent the bulk of her career in Cardiology at Providence Hospital, Michigan. Cordell is listed as one of the authors in a research publication on electromagnetic interference in implantable heart rhythm devices (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21605137/), written by Dr. Christian Machado, “one of the brightest minds in Electrophysiology,” she says. Cordell served as a Service Excellence Advisor on the Executive Council at Providence and served on the Philosophy of Service Committee. She has done volunteer work with the American Red Cross, and the Hope Worldwide Chapter at the Detroit Church of Christ (https://www.detroitchurch.org) where she has been a member for 32 years. Cordell loves being with the grandkids and exercising.

Cordell and Sons

 Cordell’s daughter Alicia and granddaughter