Back in 2006, I left a church I was raised in because I had a calling & burning desire to minister, and there wasn't room for growth in my calling there. My family & I, visited several different churches that were spiritually dry compared to what we were accustomed to, except for 2 churches. One of the 2 was very loving & spiritual, but Hispanic without a translator & still we got more ministry from there than any of the other dry churches we visited. The other church was English-speaking & spiritual, but of the 4 weeks we were visiting, 2 weeks services were cancelled. So we decided to take a break from trying out churches & meanwhile I'd lead a home Bible Study.. This is when God showed up!

A few of my family mentioned to others that we were taking a pause from visiting churches & that I was going to lead home Bible Study a few weeks. A couple of people asked if they could join us, then a couple more. Before we knew it, we had so many inquiring about it that we decided to confirm a count of those planning to attend because it was seeming like the group would possibly be too large to host in our home. There were a minimum of 14 firm on attending so our family discussed potential alternative locations & settled on a small hotel conference room. There were 21 people in attendance the first gathering & by the end of the year more than 100 regular attenders and growing, thus a church was born.

Although I was the Pastor, as appointed by the church, I worked full-time selling life insurance as well. I decided to purchase a policy on myself & the insurance company ordered a blood-draw at a lab due to the large dollar amount of coverage I was applying for. A week later I received a mail from the insurance stating I was denied a policy based on findings in my blood-work. I was completely stunned, knowing I was about 20 lbs. over average weight, but otherwise healthy my entire life. I called the insurance company but they said they couldn't offer further info on why I was denied over the phone. This extremely troubled me, because I'd written policies that approved for cardiac patients, cancer patients, and the insurance premium would be rated & raised, but not denied. In my experience, only people that the insurance company deemed fatal diagnosis imminent, were denied.

I setup an appointment with my doctor to have blood-work & at the appointment my doctor told me he received a letter from the insurance company explaining my liver panel results showed the AHT as average but the ALT (measure of dead liver cells) was 290 while the range should be 0 to 40, 40 being high enough to be concerning. But my doctor calmed my nerves for a moment when he explained that if the ALT 290 was accurate, I'd likely be bed-ridden or worse & he suspected the lab didn't spin the blood properly before testing & it can skew the results like this, so he did fresh blood-work. When he came back into the room with my results, he said "yep, their results were not accurate," I sighed in relief and then he finished, saying.. "they're much worse, ALT is 485" (12x's the high-end of average).

My doctor's expression concerned me even more as he called a specialist, right there on his mobile to ask a favor & get me seen that day. It was a little drive to the town of this specialist so as I drove, I cried out to God in prayer.. "God, I thank you for helping me stumble upon whatever is going on with my liver, and I believe you made me aware of it so I would know how to pray.. YOU are my healer, Jesus!"

Once I arrived at the specialist & signed in, with a packed waiting room, the receptionist saw my name on the sign-in sheet & asked me to wait there.. seconds later the door to the examination rooms hall opened & she asked me to come back. I went into an exam room & met the specialist.. he palpated my abdomen near the liver, took my hand & pressed it in so I could feel multiple lumps on the liver. He sat down & asked my history with alcohol and I was not a drinker & had never even tried alcohol my whole life, except possibly in some cold medicine a time or two. He did his own blood-work to confirm & a CT. He brought the image scan in of my liver to show me multiple, golfball-size lumps with tissue patterns indicating these were scars AKA sclerosis. I was confused because I'd always heard that sclerosis is scarring that alcoholics sometimes get but he said sclerosis is also caused by NAFLD (Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease). He explained that just like some people can drink alcohol liberally all of their life & still have a normal liver while others drinking the same amount have liver failure.. Some people can be 150 lbs. obese with a normal liver while others who are only 10 to 20% of those extra lbs. have severely damaged livers. Further explaining, some livers just don't process fat cells as well as other livers and unfortunately that's the case with you. He proceeded to say that often people with NAFLD are instructed to lose the extra weight & change diet then follow-up and often the blood-work drops closer in range but because my liver was already scarred & the liver panel so high, there was no chance of reversing the damage.

The specialist offered 2 options: 1) put you on a liver-friendly diet & get the weight to ideal range with regular checkups and you have a decent chance of preventing your liver from hepatic failure thru a good old age OR 2) we do all of the first option plus seek placement on a transplant list & if/when approved it's a very risky surgery but almost eliminates concern of eventual liver failure.
I chose option one & prayer. Four months later I reached my ideal weight just before going on a church trip to a North Georgia Conference, and while in the restroom there, I noticed I had cola-colored urine. While washing my hands, I looked up into the mirror and my eyes were yellow (jaundiced). My strong faith wanted to slip into fear because I realized I was in the early stages of liver failure. Riding home from the conference with the group from church, everyone was so quiet and distant, because our church had taken this faith journey together regarding my healing but suddenly it seemed to let all the air out of our "faith high." Silently I prayed to myself, asking God why he would finally place me in my calling and raise up a wonderful church with supernatural momentum out of nothing, yet allow this health tragedy to possibly deprive me of continuing in my calling.

The day after we returned home, I went back to the specialist and he did tests and confirmed I had entered hepatic failure but due to my young age, common blood type, and healthy weight with no history of alcohol/drugs, he felt he could make a call to a contact of his & get me on the transplant list fairly soon. Within a couple weeks I received a call from Emory in Atlanta, they had already placed me on the list and I was 10th in line so they recommended I be prepared at a moments notice to get to Atlanta, as they will contact me when I'm 2nd in line which could be day or night.

When Sunday came, I went to preach at our church, still extremely weak & jaundiced.. my plans were first to tell the church the good news about the transplant. Everything within me was trying to keep me seated on that front row as I was so nauseous and weak, concerned I might collapse.. but when the singing ended, I heard the Lord say to me "rise up." I sprang to my feet, still weak, but standing in the pulpit I was about to give the news about the transplant but when I opened my mouth I said "I am on the transplant list now, but I don't need one. God gave me a new heart when he saved me and now he has given me a new liver." Immediately after, I removed my hands off the podium I was using to keep me standing & lifted them in praise to God, a surge of power hit me and I cried with joy. So much strength & vitality filled me, I KNEW that God had really healed me. The church erupted in praise to the Lord, even seeing my yellow eyes had become a pristine, snowy white.

The following week my phone ringed, it was Emory in Atlanta, calling to tell me to come get my transplant. I told the lady thank you, but I no longer need the transplant. She said, may I ask why? I replied, I already received a liver transplant by another doctor.. His name is Jesus, the Great Physician! She didn't comment but stated she was removing me from the list. Labs at my next check-up with the Specialist confirmed PERFECT liver panel results and he was unable to find the lumps. He was so bewildered that he insisted there must be an explanation.. thinking aloud, he said, perhaps we had THE CAUSE wrong.. Those lumps could have been cancerous tumors and if the cancer has metastasized since then, it could explain why I'm not finding the lumps and why your liver results are temporarily within range. I need to schedule a biopsy to confirm.

Most people in my situation would probably refuse a biopsy at this point but I preached a sermon one Sunday, inspired of God, and it was about letting the outcome of a situation, be your testimony. As one example I even said, don't fear medical tests.. you can have a medical test and still stand on faith.. let your test results testify for you! So, I consented to the biopsy where they stick a metal probe in your abdomen, in one side of the liver and out of the other side, with the thickness of a pencil which serves also as a tube that gets a long slender strip of the liver & pulls it back into the tube to remove and evaluate. The specialist wanted to show me the biopsy after he examined under the microscope because he said this liver is as perfect as perfect gets.. looked like a brand new liver and I told him, IT IS!

15 years later, my doctor still includes a liver panel in my annual blood-work and every time it's perfect. God is truly a miracle worker! NOTHING, NO THING, is impossible with God!!!

Keep your head up & your faith strong!
-Pastor Kenny