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| Ed Dobson preaching at Mars Hill, Grand Rapids, MI | 2011 |
Pastor Ed Dobson says survival with ALS is mixed blessing;
he's sustained by faith and hope
Charley Honey | The Grand Rapids Press
Email: honeycharlesm@gmail.com; blog: soulmailing.com
Posted: 12/11/2012 4:38 PM
Ed Dobson is on the podium, preaching the gospel as only he can.
Dressed in a gray cardigan and loafers, he’s preaching to Mars Hill Bible Church on the first Sunday of Advent. His son, Kent, Mars Hill’s pastor, listens as his father speaks of the comfort that Scripture, his wife and family give him in times of despair.
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| Kent Dobson preaching with his father Ed |
Then he takes a seat in an easy chair at the corner of the stage. He tells Kent, “I’m going to sit down and go to sleep. So if you want me to say something, wake me up.”
Without missing a beat, Kent replies, “Well, I went to sleep in many of your sermons.”
The Mars Hills crowd roars with laughter. This Abbott-and-Costello bit comes amid a father-son preaching lesson at the church where Kent this fall was named pastor. They make a great tag team, Kent preaching with the biblical insight and restless energy his dad displayed in his 18 years at Calvary Church, Ed interjecting plain-spoken wisdom.
But the comic moment doesn’t disguise the hard reality that everyone in the room realizes: Ed Dobson has ALS, and one day it will take his life.
It has been a dozen years since Dobson was diagnosed with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, which generally claims people within two to five years. Why Dobson has survived so much longer is as much a mystery as why he got it in the first place.
But his survival is a mixed blessing. As he tells the Mars Hill crowd, his arms don’t work well. His wife, Lorna, helps feed and dress him. His breath is shorter and he speaks more slowly than he used to.
That may be so, but what I hear from Dobson this morning reflects the strength and unwavering faith he’s exemplified from the day I met him nearly 20 years ago. Picking up on Kent’s Advent theme of hopeful expectation, Ed admits that silently waiting on God is a struggle for him.
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| Ed Dobson with son Kent |
“But this one thing I know: God has brought me this far,” he says, his voice quavering slightly. “The God who brought me this far will deal with today and tomorrow. So I can rest in his coming into my life to rearrange my furniture.”
He sits back in his easy chair, and the congregation sings “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus.”
A few days later, he’s sitting on the couch of his and Lorna’s Kentwood condominium. Out the window they admire three deer grazing around the ravine of Plaster Creek. Their airy two-level is filled with photos of their grandchildren, framed biblical quotes and the aroma of Lorna’s baking shortbread.
Always wiry, Ed’s frame has been thinned by ALS. He was a star soccer player growing up in Northern Ireland. A coach at Liberty University, where Dobson was an administrator, once told him he could have turned pro.
As a man of deep faith, Ed Dobson believes God could heal him of ALS. So, I ask, why do you think God hasn’t done that?
“There is no good answer, so I’ve never asked it,” he replies. Adds Lorna, “If you’re always obsessed about having to have answers, you can’t really live.”
But Dobson grapples with the question in his new book, “Seeing Through the Fog: Hope When Your World Falls Apart” (David C. Cook). In its 145 pages, which he dictated by voice to his computer, he recounts his journey with ALS from the moment he first felt a twitching in his eyelid on his 50th birthday. Nearly a year later, just before Thanksgiving 2000, a University of Michigan doctor told him he had probable ALS.
Always wiry, Ed’s frame has been thinned by ALS. He was a star soccer player growing up in Northern Ireland. A coach at Liberty University, where Dobson was an administrator, once told him he could have turned pro.
As a man of deep faith, Ed Dobson believes God could heal him of ALS. So, I ask, why do you think God hasn’t done that?
“There is no good answer, so I’ve never asked it,” he replies. Adds Lorna, “If you’re always obsessed about having to have answers, you can’t really live.”
But Dobson grapples with the question in his new book, “Seeing Through the Fog: Hope When Your World Falls Apart” (David C. Cook). In its 145 pages, which he dictated by voice to his computer, he recounts his journey with ALS from the moment he first felt a twitching in his eyelid on his 50th birthday. Nearly a year later, just before Thanksgiving 2000, a University of Michigan doctor told him he had probable ALS.
As Lorna drove him back to Grand Rapids, he writes, “I felt like my life was over. I felt like I had been buried alive.”With such unstinting detail, Dobson traces the painful path he’s walked since, as well as scenes from his life before ALS. Through it all, with Lorna ever at his side, he’s held fast to faith and “a hope that comes with strength: the strength to keep living life, despite its challenges, and to continually give thanks for the blessings we have, even in the darkest of times.”
It’s easy to lose hope when he thinks about his future, Dobson says. So he thinks about today, counsels other ALS patients and watches “The Three Stooges” to make sure he laughs. When he gets down, he repeats God’s assurance from Hebrews: “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
Most of all, he gives thanks for the many blessings he still has -- especially Lorna, their children Kent, Daniel and Heather, and their six grandchildren. Soon they all will gather for the holidays.
After he was diagnosed 12 years ago, Dobson thought that Christmas would be his last. This year, he looks forward to another one – and hopes for many more.
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