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Sermon in surgery
Operating room staff: The startling event lightened heavy hearts

BY ALBERTA LINDSEY
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

Nov 19, 2006

After Dr. Burton Sundin removes a cancerous spot from a patient's face, his operating room team usually chats while they wait for a pathology report.

But not this day. Instead, their sedated patient spoke.

"The Lord has given you many gifts," the Rev. Mark Becton told plastic surgeon Sundin on Aug. 17 in Sundin's offices at St. Mary's Hospital. "They are his gifts to use, and he has plans for you."

Dr. Gail Heppner, the anesthesiologist, thought Becton was waking up, so she gave him more drugs. But Becton, pastor of Grove Avenue Baptist Church, kept talking.

Typically, if patients say anything during surgery, it's usually gibberish that can't be understood, Heppner said. Becton was so sedated that he absolutely shouldn't have been able to speak articulately and with such emotion, she added. Still, the team said Becton's brows furrowed with intensity as he spoke.

Sundin and operating room nurse Carol Miller leaned over Becton, listening intently. The two responded "Amen" to their patient.

As for Becton's surgery, "It was a miracle," Sundin said. "The cancer was gone."

While sedated, Becton -- who didn't know the operating team before his surgery -- addressed some personal burdens the team members were experiencing.

"I know there are Christians in the room in pain. Some feel empty and used up, guilty because they feel they have nothing left to give their Father," Heppner recalled Becton as saying. "He said that God wants us to know him, and that the devil is a liar and wants to deceive us."

Becton assured the team that their prayers were heard and that God had a plan for each of them. "He kept telling us that 'God hears your prayers' and 'He is near,'" Heppner said.

Others in the operating room verified the unusual event. They shared their stories Sept. 10 on the "Victory Hour" program on WWBT-Channel 12. None of the operating room team members is part of Becton's congregation.

Becton said he can't recall much of what he said in the operating room that day, but he remembers seeing a golden door.

"I saw warm, pure gold radiating from behind a gold door. It was as if the door was a shielding point before the radiating gold. It has remained for me as a reminder of how close God is," Becton said. He also said he remembers experiencing a passion to speak and quoting Jeremiah 29:11, which reads:

"For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

When the operating room team members tell their stories, they start with what was happening in their lives the previous week all things Becton would have no way of knowing.

Sundin said his work seemed endless.

"Disease seemed to be winning its battle against me. Patients were unhappy, and my life was in a total turmoil. I was dealing with the day-to-day toil and turmoil of being a young surgeon and trying to get my practice going," Sundin said. "The day before Dr. Becton's surgery, I left late with work on my desk piled to the ceiling. I was broken and I was seeking God even though I've always been a Christian."

Nurses Connie Alphin and Miller had been feeling depressed. Alphin felt she wasn't connecting with God.

"I didn't feel like I was receiving blessings. I thought maybe I wasn't worthy of them," she said. "But when Dr. Becton said . . . 'You are in pain. Your prayers have been heard and they will be answered,' I knew my prayers had been heard and God was going to take care of me."

Miller felt she no longer had anything to offer God. Her husband of 32 years died on Christmas 2001, and her daughter died a year later.

"I was still in so much pain and agony in my heart. I came to work every day and smiled. I went to church and prayed about it. When Dr. Becton started speaking, you could feel the Holy Spirit in that room. Jesus came to work that day to take the burdens from my heart," she said.

The operating room team didn't talk about what had happened right away. They each went somewhere and considered the incident privately.

"Some people will say it was the drugs talking or it just happened," Sundin said. "But it has lifted the heaviness from all of our hearts."

Contact staff writer Alberta Lindsey at alindsey@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6754.

http://www.richmondtimesdispatch.com/se ... 9191774808

[bigsmooth]

wow! an awesome story! God works in unique ways.