The Most Difficult Decision I Ever Made

By John Bullock, D.O. M.D. F.A.C.S.

"Lord, are you trying to tell me something? What do I do now?"

These thoughts ran through my mind when I received a phone call from my 76-year-old mother telling me that her left arm had suddenly become numb. As a physician I knew instantly that she had had a stroke. My family lived in rented quarters, having sold our home in preparation for going to the Far East as missionaries. All our efforts and attention were directed to visiting churches and raising support.

The call to missions had seemed so clear to my wife, Hortense, and me. Now what were we to do? As my mother's only son, should I go on to the Far East, or should I abandon that plan, return to orthopedic practice, buy a house large enough for her and us and wait until she no longer needed us before going to the mission field?

My mother recovered from her stroke, but was unable to live alone. How long would she live? Would she have additional strokes and become paralyzed? These were questions for which I had no answer.

Many verses in the Bible refer to the responsibility a child has to his father and mother. Some verses show where a believer in Christ's true priorities should lie:

"He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me" (Matthew 10:37).

"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26).

" And everyone that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life" (Matthew 19:29).

Commentaries on these verses agree that when the Lord calls someone to follow Him, that person should be willing to forsake even human duty toward his family.

By the time our full support was committed and we were ready to leave, my mother lived in a good assisted-care retirement center. A cousin agreed to oversee her finances and other needs. Having made these arrangements, we felt we could go to the Far East without feeling we were abandoning my mother.

Four weeks after our arrival in the Far East, we received a telegram telling us my mother had died suddenly, apparently from a massive stroke. There was no paralysis, no lingering. God called her home in the way she would have wanted. We did not get the telegram until after she had already been buried.

I felt then, and still do feel, that I made the correct decision.