Authors: Kevin Malarkey; Alex Malarkey
For about an hour, the two of us petitioned God, talked quietly together for an interval, prayed a bit more, then talked some more. By a quarter after ten that night, Alex was all right again, and we slept peacefully together at the hospital.
The following morning, the phone began to ring.
“Hello, Kevin, this is Jay. I have a question. Was there another satanic attack against Alex?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” I said. “How did you know?”
He said, “Did it end at 10:15?”
“That’s exactly when it was over,” I answered. “Tell me what’s going on. How did you know all this?”
“After Alex and I prayed over the phone,” he said, “I felt that I needed to keep praying. I was down on the floor, on my face, talking to the Lord. I was lifting up Alex and praying against Satan for at least an hour. In my spirit, I looked up and saw the feet of God before me. I looked up farther and saw that God was seated on the throne, holding a scepter. Then I heard His voice say, ‘It is finished.’ At that point I stopped praying and went to bed. It was 10:15.”
Later I thought through all the events of that day, from church in the morning to the intensity of the spiritual warfare I encountered in my son’s hospital room. What if I had ignored that still, small voice telling me that Alex would be healed and that I should go to the altar and call the church to pray on this matter? What if our friend Mary Lou hadn’t suggested we pray against Satan? As a result, we had the power of the church’s prayer working for us when the satanic attack came. When Jay, Alex, and I all prayed for that hour, God finally said, “It is finished.” And it was—for that day, anyway.
What if I had just slept late that day? What if any of us had simply ignored the urgings inside us? What if our minds had been elsewhere or we had refused to acknowledge what was clearly God’s voice? Would it have gone worse for my son? I don’t know the answer to this question, but that day persuaded me how important it is to listen and obey when God calls.
Going Off Road
Even when we arrived home, our needs were lovingly met, day by day, and there’s no better example than the way they helped us strengthen our “fortress”—our home base.
Getting Alex in or out of the house was problematic. There were four steps to the front door and three to the garage. Moving Alex about, as light as he was, involved lifting both him and his chair about three feet off the ground.
A ramp was the obvious solution, but we couldn’t figure out where to put it or how to design it in accordance with our home’s layout. We were also a little uncomfortable with giving in to a permanently installed ramp—it felt like surrender, a resignation that God would never heal Alex. We said okay to the ramp, but we called it a “bike ramp.” After all, there was no doubt that our kids would use it that way.
That’s where our friend Wayne came in.
Wayne had a creative vision. He figured out an angle from the house to the driveway, just to the left of a large tree. For safe use with the wheelchair, the ramp would have to decline one inch per foot. The total drop, we knew, would come out to thirty-nine inches. When we measured, the length of Wayne’s proposed ramp was
exactly
thirty-nine feet—just as if God had intervened in the original building of our house thirty years ago to make a perfect place for it. I think He probably did.
Alex could get in and out now without the heavy lifting. The next thing we needed was to be able to get him down to the lower level of our house. The problem was that our only access to that floor was by a spiral staircase. Since we have a walkout basement, it made sense to build a sidewalk that would connect to the ramp at the driveway.
We were able to have some fun with the sidewalk, because there are few limitations in how you can build it in a rural setting. We scrawled our kids’ names and the date in the wet cement. Then, as a final touch, Beth wrote, “With God all things are possible.”
We believe that, by the way. We believe that one day Alex will step right over that verse as he walks along the pavement.
Yet the problems continued. A friend of ours checked the plumbing and was appalled by what he found. The pipes were a mess, and there was no water filtration system. He wouldn’t fix the plumbing without a water-conditioning system, which would cost about five thousand dollars.
I sighed heavily at the thought of another huge expense. Apparently I hadn’t learned my lesson. The friend shoved a piece of paper into my hand. “Here, call this number and pick out the system you want,” he said. “Don’t worry about the price.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, I’ve prayed about this thing,” he said. “I feel that God is asking for my credit card on this expenditure. The full amount.” He expressed his confidence that God would supply the money by the time the credit card bill came due.
It was another beautiful gift, one that was entirely essential to our needs due to the decrepit condition of the plumbing in the house.
We met with the company and chose the most basic model. Our friend, however, would not accept that. He upgraded the order to the more expensive model, one with extra features. He was confident about what God wanted him to do. And sure enough, it turned out that a customer returned the exact model two days after purchase, unused, and we received the returned unit at a huge discount.
A few weeks later, I was sitting in a church service. Two of the three morning announcements concerned Alex. The first of these was a simple update on his progress and a request for people to keep praying for our family and ministering to us. The second was an in-depth story about our plumbing. It’s humbling to hear every challenge of your family life shared before a congregation. One of the best proofs of God’s existence is the love we see among His people.
The speaker said, “As you know, the Malarkeys are having a system installed for softening the water. A Columbus friend put $4,200 on his credit card and trusted God for the funding within thirty days. This past Friday the bill came due, and on Monday we had only collected $1,300. We didn’t announce this, but simply trusted God to supply the need.
“On Friday, the total we had collected was $5,200. The company was paid in full, and as for the balance—Kevin, if you’re present today, please see the pastor after the service. He has a check for your family in the amount of $1,000.”
Naturally, that money was another gift from God, used to pay bills and buy equipment that Alex needed. We also were finally able to get a power wheelchair that would allow Alex to drive himself around using a control he operated with his chin. Once we were able to get it, Alex gained a sense of autonomy in moving around without having to be dependent upon others. If he wanted to go to the next room, he could do it. If he wanted to move to the end of our driveway, he could.
As long as we were all careful, this new freedom was a wonderful thing for Alex.
Let’s Roll!
God met every one of our needs and so much more. One of the most basic needs, transportation for our family, however, continued to be a juggling act. The pattern of our family life and our unique challenges made going to church difficult, at best. As much as we desired to be able to go places as a family, we simply couldn’t.
When another Easter Sunday came and we were unable to go to church as a family, I was very discouraged. Easter is my favorite day on the calendar, but we had no way to transport Alex to church. His power wheelchair, great as it is, requires a van with sufficient space and special equipment to secure it while driving.
As I sat at home on Easter feeling unhappy, the phone rang. Beth picked it up and I heard her say, “Hi, Suzanne.”
Suzanne, a speech therapist, had done a swallow test for Alex several months earlier. At that point, it had been a year since Alex had eaten on his own. The doctors had told us he would never be able to do so again, due to his inability to swallow. So this was another goal, another area for God to speak in and to drown out the doctors’ declarations of the impossible.
Alex, Beth, and I made an elaborate list of the first fifty things Alex would eat when he could, the first of them being Mr. Sullivan’s gravy. He was a friend who had made a dish for us with wonderful gravy. I put a dab of it on Alex’s tongue and then wiped it away. It was a swallow test, one he passed, and it made Suzanne a hero in our family.
As Beth continued to speak with Suzanne, tears began to flow down her cheeks. What was going on? Beth was crying about a swallow test? After Beth hung up, she explained.
Suzanne had told her pastor at Christ Our King Church, Robin Ricks, that she knew a family who needed a van. That very morning, before the Easter service started, Pastor Ricks had stood on the platform and said, “Friends, the Lord spoke to me this morning while I was praying. Would you like to hear what He has laid upon my heart? It’s about a little boy whom I’ve never met. His name is Alex Malarkey, and he was severely injured in an automobile accident. This boy loves the Lord, but he can’t go to church without the kind of van that will accommodate his wheelchair. He has other places he needs to go too.
“As I prayed this morning, I saw a picture in my mind of Alex looking out the window of a van, on his way to worship God. I also felt a strong impression that, even though I drove here this morning, I would not look out the windshield of my own car again until I promised to see that the money is raised for that little boy and his family to have a van. It’s very clear to me what God wants us to do this morning as an act of obedience. Let’s buy that family the van it needs.”
He explained that this special collection would not preempt the church’s regular offering—that would be at the normal time, and folks would give their tithes and offerings as usual. Donations for Alex would be separate. The giving for the van started, and within five minutes, a group of fewer than four hundred people had raised eighteen thousand dollars. Not a single one of them had met Alex . . . as far as I knew.
Examples of sacrificial giving were everywhere in evidence that day. One young man, fifteen-year-old Eric, had been working for friends of his parents but hadn’t yet received his wages. After hearing what Pastor Ricks said, he found the woman he had worked for in the lobby of the church and asked her to write the check, making the entire amount payable to the van fund. There were many other stories of giving from the heart. When that money arrived, we were absolutely stunned, and we’re still thanking God.
Reenlisting
It was fun to look out the window and see the new van parked in our driveway. What an amazing gift from God, through His people. Beth and I were eager to meet the pastor who had said he had heard from God on our behalf. Accepting our invitation for a visit, he came to the house. Over the course of getting to know each other, I asked a typical question: “Where’s your church located?”
“It’s at the intersection of Route 47 and Route 9.”
Pastor Robin Ricks, Christ Our King Church
My heart skipped a beat. “That’s where the accident was, Pastor.”
His eyes were large. Maybe he thought this was an awkward development, something that might bring us pain. But it wasn’t, of course. We don’t curse that location, but see it as a place where God’s destiny took an amazing turn in our lives—one filled with pain and uphill struggles, but one destined to glorify His name and ultimately bless our family.
Pastor Ricks spoke to Alex for some time, and the two of them hit it off. I was fascinated, and (to be honest) just a little bit awed by the way the two of them talked about the unseen world—the realm of angels and demons and spiritual warfare. It was clear that these two were kindred spirits, who had both notched some experience in that world.
We felt an amazing bond with this man. Before he left, he asked if he could pray with us. That’s the normal way to finish a pastoral visit. But there was nothing normal about this prayer. Pastor Ricks spoke to God with an incredible intimacy, reflecting the relationship he clearly had with the Lord. His words reflected authority and humility at the same time. It was one of the most amazing moments of spiritual communion with God that I’ve ever experienced.
We were delighted to have a new friend in Christ, especially someone who could stand beside us in the trenches of spiritual warfare. We didn’t see Pastor Ricks again until two years later, when we visited Christ Our King Church for a Saturday afternoon children’s activity. The moment we walked into the church, we felt the presence of God’s Spirit in a palpable way. Immediately we wanted to be a part of it, and before we left that afternoon, I looked at Beth and said, “Are we going to . . . ?”
“Yes!” she said quickly, with a big smile.
The next morning we attended worship at Christ Our King Church and have been regular attendees ever since. We’ve stayed close to our “old” church family—those wonderful folks will be our friends for life—but God was moving us onward, reenlisting us in a new unit, if you will. Over time, God puts us in different settings with different groups of people. I think the dynamic of Christ Our King Church was exactly what He knew would minister to us at this point in our lives, when we had so many needs. And of course, we hope we can minister to these people in return.