In August of last year, Diane Rivas, a good friend of our community, passed away at the age of 60. Seven years earlier, she had contracted meningitis, suffered debilitating seizures and had become incapacitated and bedridden. Her husband Carlos took amazing care of her, and she lived longer than the doctors expected. We held vigil at her bedside as she was dying, and her husband shared a story with me that I had not heard before. He had been reminiscing on how good God had been to them, and shared this healing that had happened many years before in his wife when she was much younger.
Diane had been in a lot of pain, and they discovered a tumor in her abdomen when they did an ultrasound. I was in Houston at the racetrack there [Carlos was a jockey for many years], and she called me crying, telling me they had found that it was cancer. I left and came home right away to be there for the scheduled operation.
We went to see Father Thomas to ask him to pray for her. He anointed her, put his hand on her head, and prayed for Diane. We were both scared but felt very consoled by the prayer he said for her.
The next day we went to the lab so they could do blood work, and then over to the next building for another ultrasound that the doctor wanted before the operation. I was with her the whole time.
The night before surgery, Diane was busy cleaning the entire house. She told me, “If I’m going to die, at least I’m going to leave the house clean.” She was scared, and I don’t blame her – I was scared, too. It was a scary time.
At that point, the phone rang. It was her doctor calling. He said he was canceling the surgery because there was no tumor. It was completely gone! He didn’t have an explanation, but he wasn’t going to operate because there was no sign at all of a tumor.
Thanks be to God, through the intercession of Father Thomas, Jesus performed a miracle!
Carlos said the cancer never returned. Diane never had another tumor again. God called this faithful servant of His home many years later from another illness, but her husband was so grateful to God for the years he did have with his wife.
God bless you!