November 13, 1998
A miracle
of hope
Barbara Mingo's journey has taken her
to a truth: God looks upon the heart
By REBECCA COOK
Staff Writer
LANCASTER, S.C. -- It had been with her ever since Barbara Mingo could
remember, this hard small lump inside her left nostril, something not quite
flesh
and not quite bone.
It stayed there, no bigger than a freckle, as she graduated from Lancaster
High
School, sang in the church choir, worked at Springs Industries and raised
a baby
boy.
Then one day, the lump began to grow.
It would grow and grow, until it took over her face. It would push her
nose to the
side, attack her eyes, swell her cheeks, smother her mouth.
She would pray for healing, even as she questioned what kind of God would
let this happen.
In time, God would answer her questions. And in the end, God would answer
her prayer.
Paying for past sins?
She was 40 when it started, in January 1991. Barbara sat in a Charlotte
doctor's office, feeling nervous. Her nose was swollen, and she had a strange
sore on the roof of her mouth.
Her doctor in Lancaster had referred her to an oral surgeon, who'd sent
her
to Dr. David Matthews, one of the most respected plastic surgeons in the
region. He told her the lump was a bony tumor. It was benign, but she
needed surgery to remove it.
Barbara froze. Surgery terrified her. Why was this happening?
Looking for answers, Barbara found only one: You reap what you sow.
Like all of Sallie Mingo's 10 children, Barbara was raised Baptist. She
was a
choir member, an usher, a Sunday school teacher. She thought she was doing
everything right to go to heaven. But this tumor made her wonder.
Maybe she hadn't taken the Bible to heart enough. Maybe God was
remembering those times back in her 20s when she'd sat in church on Sunday
fighting sleep after a night of partying. And while she did her best to
raise her
son Corey right, she'd never married his father.
``You're just paying for your past sins,'' she thought. ``Have surgery,
and go
on with your life.''
So she did. Matthews removed the tumor through the roof of her mouth.
Afterward, she looked like she'd been beaten up. Bandages wrapped around
her bruised head like a helmet.
Soon she was back working long hours at the Springs customer service
department, where she programmed computers to handle information about
big customers such as J.C. Penney and Sears.
She and Corey moved into her dream house -- three bedrooms, a deck, and
a
nice yard with big trees. It even had bay windows. All her life she'd wanted
bay windows.
``It all worked out. God just worked it out for me,'' she says.
In return, Barbara made some changes. Praying in church on Sunday after
spending an occasional Saturday night at the club wouldn't cut it with
God
anymore, she realized.
``I wasn't living a totally committed life,'' she says.
Nightclubs, pop music, premarital sex -- anything that wasn't about God,
she
threw it out of her life. And she praised the Lord for seeing her safely
through surgery.
Cancer, and a crisis of spirit
Then in 1992, the tumor came back.
More scans, more tests. The diagnosis: cancer.
She couldn't understand it -- what more did God want from her? ``I've given
up everything,'' she thought. ``What's going on?''
While doctors searched for clues to her cancer, Barbara hungered for
answers of her own. She started going to other churches, juggling
Wednesday night services with her normal Sunday attendance at her home
church.
She didn't tell her family that she was struggling spiritually -- or that
the tumor
had turned malignant.
Barbara's family had always called her ``Carol Burnett.'' She was the one
who made them laugh when times got tough. She liked to take care of people,
not the other way around.
When Barbara visited Matthews' office in March 1993, a roomful of doctors
waited. They studied her X-rays and MRIs and said things like,
``Fascinating.''
``This ain't fascinating to me,'' Barbara thought.
The solution, Matthews decided, was radical surgery and facial
reconstruction. From 1993 to 1995, she had seven operations.
Barbara began to find her own answer in the spring of 1994. A group from
the Greater New Hope Christian Association visited her church, and they
were just on fire for the Lord. When Pastor Ronnie Cunningham preached,
he grabbed Barbara's attention and didn't let go.
She went to Cunningham's Bible study at the Ellen Dean Motor Hotel, a
run-down motel in Lancaster. The church members would try to distract
Barbara when roaches scurried across the floor. In the winter, everyone
froze; in summer, they boiled.
Barbara couldn't help but compare it to her climate-controlled church,
with its
plush seats and carpet. But in the drafty room of the Ellen Dean Motor
Hotel,
Barbara felt the presence of God.
As she studied the Bible between surgeries, she started to see God in a
new
light.
Maybe, she thought, the tumor wasn't punishment.
``I had never had a personal relationship with the Lord before,'' she says.
``I
could actually feel his Holy Spirit.
``This sickness was coming from Satan.''
Faith that God will heal
In November 1995, she underwent one last skin graft. ``Thank you Lord,''
Barbara thought. ``It's over, it's over.''
Two months later, she felt a bump, almost like a pimple, on the right side
of
her face. Then came the familiar swelling, something not quite flesh and
not
quite bone.
This can't be happening, she thought.
The cancer was back.
Matthews gave her two options: repeat, on the right side of her face, every
surgery and reconstruction he had done on the left. Or wait a month and
see
how the tumor acted.
She would wait.
She officially joined the Greater New Hope Christian Association in January.
Her pastor assembled a prayer team that met in her house weekly to pray
for
her healing.
Barbara turned to Isaiah 53:5: ``He was wounded for our transgressions,
he
was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon
him,
and with his stripes we are healed.''
She wrote it on index cards and stuck them on her mirrors. Barbara believed:
God would heal her.
In February 1996, Matthews showed her the latest scan. While she had
prayed, the tumor had grown. And it had changed into a more aggressive
type of cancer, headed for her eyes and her brain.
At church, Pastor Cunningham anointed her forehead with oil. In God's
name, he ordered the demon tumor to evacuate Barbara's body. He cursed
it
at the root.
Barbara remembered that. Sometimes she'd shout at the tumor as she paced
through her house. ``You are cursed at the root!''
Reluctantly, she scheduled surgery for April 11. She sought second opinions,
alternative-medicine healers. They all told her the same thing: Have the
surgery. Now.
On April 10, she talked to Matthews on the phone. The tumor had spread
farther, he told her. Surgery would take her right eye.
``You mean, take it out and put it back?'' Barbara asked.
``No,'' Matthews replied -- take the eye out, forever.
She handed the phone to her friend and started to cry. They drove to the
hospital, and Matthews told her more. If he operated, he thought he could
get
all the tumor, but he'd have to take her nose and most of the right side
of her
face with it.
With his stripes, I am healed, she thought.
No surgery, she said: My odds are better with Jesus.
A decision against surgery
That night, she told her family that the tumor was back and it was malignant.
In her soft, cool voice, she told them: ``I'm going to stand on my faith.''
Barbara went to bed around midnight and fell asleep easily.
She woke at 4 a.m. to the shrill voice of doubt. What if God doesn't cure
you? What if you need that surgery? What if you die?
The questions drowned out her prayers. She was alone.
Finally, she sat up in bed and threw out her arms.
``NO!'' she shouted. ``I just want to see you, Jesus!'' She prayed until
she
drifted off to sleep.
She dreamed she was in a big gray room, lit only by a glow from the other
end, where a man in a white robe stooped over something on the floor.
When he stood up, Barbara saw he was Jesus. She had been lying on the
floor, and he had scooped her up in his arms.
He didn't speak, just started walking. She looked up at his face, then
looked
for the bright light, expecting to see her dead relatives welcoming her
into
heaven. But she didn't see any light, and Jesus just kept on walking.
Finally, Barbara understood. She laid her head against Jesus' chest, felt
the
rhythm of his footsteps. He wasn't taking her home, not yet. She would
keep
living with this cancer. But she wouldn't be alone. Jesus was carrying
her.
Barbara awoke the next morning to the phone ringing. It was Matthews,
giving her one last chance to change her mind.
Do you want the surgery, she remembers him asking.
No.
Are you sure, he asked.
Yes.
Ready for release, in heaven
She had no idea how much worse things would get.
In October 1996, Barbara lifted her tongue to where her pretty white teeth
used to be, and felt three smooth, hard bumps. Instead of growing back
toward her brain, killing her, the tumor had decided to grow down, through
her gums.
At first, she rejoiced. God had sent Pastor Cunningham a vision of Barbara's
tumor slithering like a snake out of her mouth, leaving her face radiant
and
whole.
But the tumor didn't slide out. It grew out of her mouth and hung there,
a pink
lump the size of a softball. The edge of the tumor turned black, while
its roots
twisted and bulged. It smelled like something rotten. It bled.
Some days, she would wake up believing Jesus had taken the tumor away,
until she raised her hand to her face.
Some days, she would pray to die.
She'd sit at her kitchen table, next to the bay window, and she would picture
heaven. It was a quiet, sunny place, and she could hear a creek somewhere.
In the center was a bright, white cloud. She couldn't see inside, but she
knew
Jesus was in there.
She would beg to stay.
``I told God that I wanted to be with him right then! Right then!'' Barbara
wrote in her journal on Oct. 4, 1997.
She pressed the black pen hard into the paper.
``I'm ready to do YOUR WORK or Come Home -- NOW!!! NOW!!!
LORD!!!''
But every time Barbara cried out to be released, she heard the low, strong
voice of God: Not yet.
No need to bear it alone
She spent many nights alone leaning over the sink, pressing a towel to
the
tumor with one hand to stop the bleeding, holding the Bible open with the
other hand and praying aloud.
One night, when the bleeding wouldn't stop, Barbara called her sisters.
When
they arrived, they were scared at all the blood, and they were even more
scared when Barbara started crying.
``Y'all just don't know,'' she sobbed. `Y'all just don't know how many
times
I've done this alone.''
Her sisters had suspected as much. As they comforted her, she could feel
God lifting a burden off her heart.
She wouldn't be alone any more.
She began to understand why she got cancer on her face, instead of
something unseen in her lungs or bones.
``I was such a private person,'' she says. ``I could have suffered with
the
cancer by myself. . . . I think God knew. With people seeing it, I had
no
choice but to share.''
This spring, Barbara received radiation treatments, which may have slowed
the tumor's growth.
Matthews didn't expect her to live this long. Eventually, the tumor is
expected
to grow back into her brain and kill her.
It's been ten months since Matthews last removed the tumor from her mouth.
Now it lies under her skin, a fist-sized lump. It makes her right eye bulge,
giving her a continual expression of surprise.
A Christian on the inside
At Ryan's restaurant after church one day, she pushes her food around her
plate as she explains why God didn't heal her back in 1996, or 1992, or
1991.
``There was so much God had to show me,'' she says. ``There was so much
I
had to go through so I could see in myself what God saw in me.''
Barbara has a little trick she plays when she's out in public. When she
sees
children fussing at their parents, she stares at them. They get real quiet
and
cling to their mamas. Works every time.
She doesn't do it to little babies, though. Babies cry when they see her.
Church is different. There, children smile and kiss Barbara's face. She
usually goes five days a week. Her two Bibles are highlighted with about
five
colors and thickened with Post-it notes.
Sometimes Pastor Cunningham seems as if he's preaching right to her.
``You're gonna have to stop looking like a Christian on the outside and
start
being a Christian, sure 'nough, on the inside!'' He roars, pacing the floor.
His words draw Barbara to her feet. She clutches her Bible to her chest.
``Tell your neighbor,'' he commands. A hundred voices, including Barbara's,
echo his:
``Heaven, Lord, Jesus -- keep on sending me my season!''
Barbara high-fives the woman standing beside her.
``Neighbor -- look at me.''
Barbara points to herself.
``Makes no difference how bad I look. If I stay in Jesus, it's subject
to
change!''
When the choir starts singing about Jesus' love and Pastor Cunningham really
gets to preaching, Barbara's face lights up with a smile so pure, so sweet,
that for a moment everyone in this little church can see what Jesus sees:
She's beautiful.
``It's amazing to me that God loves me this much,'' Barbara says, her eyes
shining. ``I feel he is building a miracle in me.''
