Susan Terry and the Angel

Monday, October 1, 2001, was a remarkable day in the life of the Bachnik family.  The day began early.  At 8:30 am we were waiting in front of a judge’s chambers for my son Terry’s attorney to show up.  She was late.  Court began at 9am and she still wasn’t there.  Terry’s case was called first.  I went to the podium to stand beside my son charged with Violation of Probation and a 2nd DUI. 

Our plan was for Terry to join the Marine Corp and I spoke up, “Your honor, I’m Terry’s dad and I have a file here that I would like to show you”.  He asked my name and he wrote it down.  Then he said if I was not Terry’s attorney to be quiet.  Terry explained to the judge his attorney was late.  The judge said to wait outside until she showed up.  This was not the warm and amiable justice I had in mind.  The judge’s shortness was in fact what I had feared.  We went outside and in a few minutes Terry’s attorney finally showed up. 

We waited our turn.  My son was eventually called forward and the judge sentenced him to 30 days for VOP and another 30 days for the DUI.  We knew this was a possibility but had hoped with all our praying and our strategy that he would avoid actually spending more time in the county jail.  Terry was to turn himself in at the county jail at 7pm.  That was it.

We rushed home late for an appointment at our Vet’s office.  My wife’s best friend has a Labrador that was scheduled for a C-section delivery at 11am.  We had just enough time and we made it.  Talk about a total change of scenery.  Ellie had had a litter several years before and had lost 6 puppies.  With that history it was decided not to take any chances.  They did the math and chose 10/1 as the birth date. 

We assembled a team of friends to assist because with a Caesarian delivery the puppies all come at once so you need a lot of hands.  Kevin Curtin, Linda Kilgore, my wife Susan, Tammy, Ellie’s owner, our Veterinarian Dr. Ed Griffith and his office staff made up the team.  Also because the mother is anesthetized the puppies are more in jeopardy because they are sedated too.  We were “puppy shakers”.  Our job was to remove the birth sack and clear the breathing passages and stimulate the puppies to breath on their own.  We prayed and asked the Lord Jesus to help the puppies and us and to give us wisdom and peace in this unfamiliar setting (for Kevin and I it was very unfamiliar).

The second puppy out was yellow and proved to be troublesome.  Linda worked with it for quite some time and the little thing was not doing well.  She blew in it’s mouth/nose, she messaged, she loved, we prayed.  And at just the right moment the door to the office opened and there stood the head of Seminole County Animal Control, Mary Beth Lake and one of my wife’s very best friends.  The night before I had asked Susan if she could pick anyone on earth to be there who would it be and she named Mary Beth. 

The reason was she had lots and lots of experience with difficult litters.  She had been a vet tech for years and now with animal control she had seen it all.  She was working, in fact doing a routine kennel inspection.  That’s why she showed up just at the right time.  In fact it was totally a God thing.  I said “Hi Mary Beth get in here we need you” and she went right to work on that yellow puppy.  She knew just what to do and he responded very well and we all marveled at the goodness of God providing just the right people. 

Ellie had 8 puppies, 6 black, 2 yellows, 6 females, 2 males and all were doing fine.  Ellie on the other had was not doing fine.  Ed said that if she had tried to deliver naturally all would have died, including Ellie.  Her Uterus was very bad.  So he spayed her following the delivery.  This required and IV on the trip home but everything was fine.  It was serious but all was ok.  We were all blessed by seeing God’s handy work, birth.  What an awesome thing to see new life.  We hugged and parted and helped Ellie, Tammy and the puppies home.  And Susan and I went home as well.

Back to the other world:  Back to an empty house.  Back to the misery of knowing our son was in the county jail.  It was getting dark and my wife went in to Terry’s room.  She was upset and then I heard her sobbing.  She cried out to God “I am angry with You”, she screamed out  “How could You let this happen”, “We prayed, we all prayed”, “We asked You, Lord, to keep Terry out of jail.” And she sobbed and sobbed.  She also cried out about the search for survivors in New York, “Couldn’t You even find one survivor”, “Why are You hiding?” 

If you ever saw the movie Forrest Gump, I instantly was reminded of the scene where Lt. Dan was on the shrimp boat, up on the rigging shouting out to God, that it was time for a confrontation between him and God.  And Forrest said, “Just then God showed up”.  I was thinking that I ought to look out for a hurricane.  It was a remarkable prayer in that it was honest and unreligious.  I knew in my heart that it was a prayer that God would answer.

Tuesday, Ellie did very badly.  Susan and Tammy took her to Dr. Ed’s and transfused her.  She was listless and not eating and they were very worried about her.  We prayed for her and I knew she would be better.  By Wednesday she was a little better so Susan and Tammy agreed that it was time to remove dewclaws.  Those claws halfway up the puppy’s front foreleg.  Typically they are removed at about 3 days.  With all the worry about Ellie they weren’t real concerned with the puppies but when Tammy was getting them ready for Susan one of the black females was doing very badly.  It was totally limp and dieing.  By the time Susan arrived she was dead.  She had convulsed and stiffened and quit breathing. 

Susan arrived shortly thereafter and she said something welled up inside of her, “No, this shall not stand.”  She scooped up the puppy and began to pray.  She prayed for life.  She cursed the devil and death and said, “This puppy shall live and not die in Jesus name”.  The dead puppy was familiar to her since she had lost a flying squirrel a couple of years before.  Susan loved that little flying squirrel; it was so sweet and special to her.  When she found it dead in the yard she prayed and was crushed when God did not raise it back to life. 

You see we believe the Bible.  We have seen countless miracles of divine intervention in animal’s lives and also many healings in people as well.  Years ago Susan prayed for a dead turtle, a dime store turtle that was in fact our first pet.  It got out of its bowl and was lost for a long time.  Susan found it under the bed somewhere and it was all shriveled up dead.  I wasn’t even a believer, but she had been saved and been around miracles with Katherine Kuhlman and others and she just prayed for this little creature in simple faith and it came back to life.  Praise God, and that put something into her that came out all these years later, faith. 

Also, we had been discussing David Hogan just recently.  He’s an American missionary in Mexico whose ministry is responsible for something like 200 people being raised from the dead and countless miracles of provision and healings. I heard him testify about his very first experience, which was with his son who died at the beach while the family was on vacation.  He said he knew this was wrong, that it was not God’s will and something rose up within him to stand against death and pray for life.  Here’s the important part, he said it was 3 and one half hours after they began to pray before the boy took the first breath and it was three days before he woke up and several months before he was back to normal.  In other words this was not a casual prayer issue it required importunity. 

I had just told Susan that story a few weeks before.  I had also had a dream recently where I died.  I was still in this room and there were all kinds of people looking down at my body and I was wishing someone would pray that I would come back and live and finally this young man came and started to pray for me to live and not die.  I was so excited and I started coming back but the young man quit.  He quit too soon and I was so disappointed.  I had just told that dream to my wife.  When she began to pray she said, “God, I know I’ve got to just keep on praying and not give up but I don’t know how to do that so please help me”.  She said that it was then that the puppy began to cry and she felt life go into the dead puppy and she was alive.  One second she was dead and the next she was alive.  Immediately Susan and Tammy agreed she would be called Angel.

Does it seem strange that Susan was screaming at God just two days before and now she was asking Him to raise this puppy from the dead and He did it?  We believe this was God’s answer to her prayer.  His answer expressed in this insignificant little thing, the life of a puppy, was really God saying,   “Susan, I am right here, I haven’t left you.  I haven’t left these circumstances with Terry, I’m right here working in his life, I am in New York as well, just trust me.”  I wasn’t there when the puppy was raised but Susan called me sobbing and very blessed.  I knew God was going to answer her prayer of Monday night and I knew this was that answer.