Imagine being thirty-two years old and being told the sore on the back of your tongue is malignant. Surgery, to be performed at once, would involve removing most, if not all, of your tongue. Afterward, you might never be able to swallow on your own, nor speak intelligibly.
Hearing that would devastate anyone, but especially a pastor who spends his life speaking, preaching and teaching. Especially the doting father of a two-year old little girl.
Scott Schmieding, a Lutheran pastor then in Baton Rouge, LA, survived the eleven-hour surgery in 1995. Surgeons in Houston opened his neck from ear to ear and removed his tongue through his throat. Then they removed a muscle from his abdomen and reconstructed the cavity in his mouth. Intense radiation followed, which caused mouth blisters. For eight months he breathed through a hole in his neck and ate through a feeding tube. Radiation also eliminated Schmieding's sense of taste and ability to swallow. So he learned a new way to swallow–a quick toss of his head backwards, to move the food to the back of his throat, where gravity took over.
From the moment of his diagnosis one question dogged him. If he lived, how would he talk without a tongue? How could he communicate the Good News of Jesus Christ? That passion drove him to doggedly persevere in speech therapy sessions. With the help of a special retainer which acts somewhat like a megaphone, he learned to pronounce consonants. To make the "T" sound, for example, he shoots air at his retainer.
Finally Scott Schmieding was ready to return to his life as a parish pastor, wondering always what would happen if parishioners couldn't understand his slightly impaired speech. His first Sunday back he baptized his newborn son, there in the Baton Rouge congregation which had loved and prayed for him and his family throughout their long ordeal.
Schmieding says he never asked God, "Why?" Rather, he prayed to understand the purpose of his ordeal. During the past thirteen years he arrived at an answer. Noting that he and his family also lived through five major hurricanes in Louisiana, he says, "I have become an expert at adversity. I know what people are feeling when they face trials and tragedy."
That's why Scott Schmieding has become a sought-after speaker. His message of hope and perseverance comes through loud and clear. In March, 2010, he became pastor of Immanuel Lutheran Church in St. Charles, MO. Members soon found they didn't notice any speech irregularities because they were so caught up in their new pastor's joy in Jesus.
When asked how he got through it, he points to the Apostle Paul, who faced his own set of daunting challenges. In 2 Corinthians 12:9, Paul repeats the words of Christ to him:
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
Scott Schmieding knows the truth of those words first-hand. He believes he reaches more people without a tongue than he would have if he'd never had cancer. That doesn't strike him as remarkable. "The history of the Bible is the story of God using imperfect people for his perfect purposes," he says. "I'm just one in a very long line of imperfect people being used by God."
I learned of Pastor Schmieding when our daughter in the St. Louis area clipped an article by Tim Townsend in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the basis for this blog post. I've never met him, but his story lifts my heart. I pray it will do the same for you. If you wonder how he sounds, here's a link to a short clip with sound: http://interact.stltoday.com/mds/projects/html/2428
(If you have trouble with the link, copy and paste it to your search engine.)
Each of us will draw our own lessons from this story of one man's life–and of course, his family's life, too. As I think about the miracle of his healing and the surgery that enables him to talk, it reminds me of one of my favorite Bible verses, Jeremiah 32:27:
"I am the LORD, the God of all mankind. Is anything too hard for me?"
God brought Scott Schmieding his long period of suffering and in the midst of it, gave him joy. Despite what looked like the worst kind of loss, he gained not only life through that surgery, but also a deeper understanding of what it feels like to be fearful and in pain. When he ministers to hurting people, they know he's been there and truly understands their emotions and their sometimes doubts.
This story says to me, Live. Live today. Live fully. Live in faith. Don't be too quick to label something "a disaster." Our lives are in God's hands and He often works through human hands.
What about you? What do you draw from this story? Maybe you have a story to share or are living out a hard time. If you tell the rest of us, we can pray for you.
Whatever you're facing, keep on trusting. God is faithful and He can be trusted.
His peace and blessings,
Lenore
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