September 22, 2025 • 20 mins
Sometimes miracles happen in the quiet moments at the end of life. In this powerful episode of The Miracle Files, we sit down with hospice chaplain Don Mulford—a Stanford graduate, former California attorney, Presbyterian pastor, cancer survivor, and author of Matchbooks in the Tunnel. Don shares deeply moving stories from his years as a hospice chaplain, where he has witnessed angels in the room, loved ones appearing to patients, and the unmistakable presence of God as people step from this life into the next. He also recounts his own miraculous 10-year battle with lymphoma and the healing that even doctors called a miracle.
✨ Topics we cover:
The hidden miracles that often surround end-of-life experiences
How hospice care reveals God’s presence in intimate and profound ways
Don’s miraculous healing from cancer
Why he believes miracles happen every day, not just in extraordinary moments
His book Matchbooks in the Tunnel and the lessons it offers
If you’ve ever wondered about the spiritual side of death, what it means to experience God’s presence in life’s hardest moments, or how miracles may look different than we expect—this episode will leave you encouraged and filled with hope.
🙏 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more true miracle stories.
📖 Find Don Mulford’s book here: https://a.co/d/itJKAQw
🎧 Listen to The Miracle Files Podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or TheMiracleFiles.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------If you're a fan of true crime but crave a dose of inspiration instead of tales of darkness, The Miracle Files is your perfect alternative. With the same storytelling intensity as true crime podcasts, The Miracle Files delves into the details of each miraculous story, exploring the people and circumstances that turned these moments into something unforgettable. Whether you believe in divine intervention or human perseverance, this podcast will leave you feeling uplifted and amazed. Website: www.themiraclefiles.com
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✨ Topics we cover:
The hidden miracles that often surround end-of-life experiences
How hospice care reveals God’s presence in intimate and profound ways
Don’s miraculous healing from cancer
Why he believes miracles happen every day, not just in extraordinary moments
His book Matchbooks in the Tunnel and the lessons it offers
If you’ve ever wondered about the spiritual side of death, what it means to experience God’s presence in life’s hardest moments, or how miracles may look different than we expect—this episode will leave you encouraged and filled with hope.
🙏 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more true miracle stories.
📖 Find Don Mulford’s book here: https://a.co/d/itJKAQw
🎧 Listen to The Miracle Files Podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or TheMiracleFiles.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------If you're a fan of true crime but crave a dose of inspiration instead of tales of darkness, The Miracle Files is your perfect alternative. With the same storytelling intensity as true crime podcasts, The Miracle Files delves into the details of each miraculous story, exploring the people and circumstances that turned these moments into something unforgettable. Whether you believe in divine intervention or human perseverance, this podcast will leave you feeling uplifted and amazed. Website: www.themiraclefiles.com
Podcast/RSS: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-miracle-files/id1714203488
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_miracle_files_podcast
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.phpid=100093613416005&mibextid=LQQJ4d
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the.miracle.files?_t=8rB5ooQd482&_r=1
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
As we've interviewed people, we've discovered something incredible. Miracles transcend boundaries,
in fact, no matter someone's background or religious beliefs. A
Newsweek poll found that eighty four percent of Americans believe
in miracles.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
But here's the thing. We are not priests, we're not
pastors or religious scholars. We're just two sisters who love
God and love miracles. So we thought it would be
fascinating if we sat down with different religious leaders to
see what they teach about miracles.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Welcome back to the Miracle files.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
You know, people when they think about miracles, will often
think of something that's really grand, you know, like a
sudden healing. But miracles can come acquieter ways too, especially
when it comes to end of life, you know, when
someone is preparing to.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Leave this life.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yes, our guest today is a hospice chaplain who is
seeing countless end of life miracles firsthand. His name is
Don Mulford. He attended Stanford University. He was a California attorney,
and he also became a Presbyterian ordained minister who served
as senior pastor. And he is a cancer survivor who
(01:13):
is the author of the book Matchbooks in the Tunnel
where he describes his ten year miraculous journey with lymphoma. Welcome,
DONI yes, I'm welcome.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
So excited to talk to you. And one of the
things I really want to know about is how you
became a hospice chaplain.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Well, I was leading this little Bible study and one
of the women, there's a nurse in hospice, and so
she said, hey, we need a chaplain in our agency.
And so when he applied, so I did and I
got the jobs. That's what got me in the hospice
chaplain Just its kind of a guide thing.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
And how long have you been doing that.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
Off and on for since twenty eleven, so fourteen years.
What I like about it is it's it is a
noble thing, but any minister is a noble thing. What
is meaningful for me is I like the intimate questions
they go deep into person, in the person's soul about
(02:11):
how are they doing with God? How are they doing
on the spiritual journey? So you really feel the presence
of God in it. And even if you're with somebody
who's getting in tooyed their last breath, so you're not
really talking, you feel the presence of God. So it's
very much of a spiritual experience that's very powerful.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Imagine it's more like one on one ministry versus just
speaking to a congregation of people. You really get to
know someone intimately alone. One question I would have, like,
since we are a podcast about miracles, is how has
working with hospice, working with patients as they near the
end of their life. How has that kind of defined
(02:50):
the word miracle for you? Like, how has that changed
the way you think of miracles?
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Well, the meaning of miracle is a moving target. I mean,
nobody truly tend to find it. Well, I mean you
your podcast gives you the opportunity to hear all these
different versions of it, which you should write a book
about it eventually with what you've learned, because because you
know more about the polls than the great and the
(03:14):
vast majority of people do just by talking to the
people about So. I have a friend who's a great
scholar and he's written a lot of books, a Christian leader,
and he wrote a book about miracles, and he believes
miracles are very rare. You know, it's some big dynamic
bolt of lightning thing. And I'm on the other side
(03:36):
of the coin where I think miracles happen all the time.
Miracles are I think the involvement of God in our life,
and that happens moment by moment. Yeah, So I initially,
when I was sick, you know, wanted a miracle. You know,
I wanted to get well. So I it was clear
what the miracle was. I wanted my cancer, which was
(03:58):
not supposed to get well, to get well. So if
it did, and it did, then that's a miracle. But
a lot of times miracles, those kinds of miracles don't happen.
You know, you're praying for healing, and we got a
bunch of people praying, and you've seen other people get healed,
and this person you loved is I get healed and
no miracle? And so what do you do with that?
(04:21):
And I realized that it's more in the context of
the relationship with God that Jesus came to bring the
Kingdom of God here. The Kingdom of God is at hand,
So in other words, he's bringing himself here where he is.
Miracles are because he does. You know, anything is possible
for God. So therefore, in hospice work, when I'm there,
(04:43):
we're not talking, but you're in this spiritual place. Angels
are in the room. You know, God's in the room.
Jesus in John fourteen says I come personally to take
you know, Jesus. And clearly that's a miracle, but you
can't point at it, but you just know it.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
So if you could go more into the experiences you've
had with people on hospice where you fell angels or
maybe they're loved ones, maybe relatives in the room, how
has that been because.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Of the nature of the work, Because we're around it
all the time, you have that heightened sense of spiritual presence.
Whatever the people's faith is that you get used to
it all the time, and the nature of hospice work,
and also there's a depressive side to it. People you know,
are dying and die. Yeah, yeah, So when you're there
(05:39):
at the scene, you feel the presence and you just know.
In fact, you know, I've actually called churches to pray
for us during one of those times, and they say,
you know, we're praying somewhere else over here, but we
feel angels are in the rooms. I've been told that
(06:02):
by somebody who's not there but consens it, you know,
who's more prophetic and has that gift. So it's sort
of a heaviness. There's just a lot going on. You know,
it's not light. It it's intense, and.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
There's a lot of Yeah, we have a cousin actually
died of brain cancer, and I remember when she was
like really close to the end. I remember she told
her mom that there were all these people and well,
she said she thought they were doctors and nurses all
in the room because she said there were all these
people in the room wearing white, and back then, you know,
(06:38):
doctors and nurses were white, and her mom realized that
they were just surrounded by angels, by heavenly beings, you know.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Yeah, that's happened often where the patient will be talking
to somebody that you can't see. My mother kind of
talk at the end, but she was pointing toward the
corner where nobody was, saying look over there, and my
dad had gone before. I think it was my dad.
I talked with the doctor who worked at the place
(07:12):
where my mom was, in the facility she was in.
She said it happened all the time that there. You
typically the wife survived the husband, so the wife would
turned to some corner of the room where nobody had
start talking to her husband casually and she said, Bob,
(07:32):
you know, I'll be along. Relax, And it was the
sets of instead of heaven and the other life being
far away that you're going to this, it's more like
it's right here and you're sort of just stepping into it.
It's close. It's close, so it can be angels, or
it could be other family members who've gone on before.
(07:54):
I've I've had experiences of family members who've gone before,
you know, communicate with me.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Does it feel like they're just coming to take them home?
Is that kind of the impression you get?
Speaker 4 (08:07):
Well, it says John fourteen six fourteen Winter six. Jesus says,
I go to a place for you, and then I will,
I personal will come and take you to be with
me where I am. So that's a big deal because
it's not the touch by an angel TV show where
the angel comes the it's Jesus himself comes and so
(08:30):
you know that you're in really good hands. It's he's there.
But it's a complete game changer. You know, death, death
is is a loser. It's over, it's the doorway. Forget
about it. You're going into too perfect life. Everything, this
(08:50):
life is a warm up. And so Devin is a
lot like this life. It's just that all the stuff
a value that's lousy is gone. And so you know,
you're born in this wonderful body and you grow into
that well that's in heaven, you know, and all the
stuff that brings it down doesn't affect you. And so
you have all these people, they're all great. So it's like,
(09:13):
you know, you have the you two are.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Sisters, right, yes, yes.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Yes, so you have the perfect sibling relationship. You know,
no more that my two sisters. And they grew up
in the same room.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
No bickering.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Well yeah there was no. I wasn't a lad in
the room.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
You know, we never never.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
No.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
My friend actually passed away of cancer and he had
an experience right before he died where he was just
sitting in a chair and he looked up and saw
his dad sitting in the room with him, and he
just his dad didn't say anything, and it was just
he just saw him sitting there. And I just kind
of tend to think that that is just a little
gift that God gave him to know, like, you know
that you're not just going to disintegrate into the ground.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
And that's the end exactly. And I've been around it
so much now that I talk about it casually, but
I'm trying to say to affirm people because normally you
have like one event in your life where that kind
of happened, you think, well, mayby is my meditation or something,
and it's not. Yeah, my wife's mother was surrounded. She
(10:15):
had this big bedroom when it was packed with people.
She's talking to all these people and the round.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And it's amazing that you have had this experience to
be with all of these various people as they're going
through these experiences. I imagine you would have a better
you know, grasp on what it's like to leave this
earth than most people would.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
So yeah, it's like anything, it's just familiarity. Yeah. The
the ultimate takeaway from me after being around all this
for a long time and losing people I love as well,
is God is always with us. He truly loves us.
Life is hard and bad things happen, Yeah, but the
(10:57):
ultimate thing we're looking for is the relationship. It's just
the experience of his presence. That's that's that's the ballgame.
Then anything else kind of works off with that.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
So you want true miracle.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
That's the true miracle. Sale time a miracle. So you
have a big problem with whatever you know, and then yeah,
bring it to God. You know he loves you. And
Jesus' favorite parable was the prodigal Sin, and the whole
essence of the prodigal sin is the Father come into
both sense, going out to both sends and saying you
have opposite lifestyles. You both got a problem. I don't care.
(11:31):
Just come home. You know, we're good. And then you know,
you know the rest of your lives here. It's not
going to be perfect. That's okay. You don't have to
be perfect doing work in the fields, and you don't
have to be perfect not do anything wrong.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Do you see like any common themes in what people
say or feel right before they pass? No, really, all
different kind of different.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Different people ask off and you know, why doesn't God
take her? Because she's suffering so and you know, when
they're just lying there for six months and he's like,
why doesn't God take your wool? God's doing things in
the depths of their soul. The deepest part of us
is not our soul, it's our spirit, and God is spirit.
We have spirit. That's where we know him, so he's
(12:17):
working with us and providing his presence and doing things
to grow us and to enhance our relationship that we
know nothing about. We barely know for ourselves, but we
certainly don't know for somebody else. So that's why that
kind of stuff can happen. And it's okay because he's there,
(12:39):
and he's taken there to paradise and they're gonna be fine.
It's just a complete game changing.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
So do you feel like as people are passing away
that they're maybe a little closer to God, maybe a
little bit more humble. Do you see situations where families
maybe have more forgiveness, some reconciliations, some kind of really
positive turnaround moments as they're like leaving.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
Yeah. Sometimes, Yeah, all of those things happen. Every family
is different. Yeah. Of course, the more that the family
can get together, as difficult as it may be, the
better because it's a very unifying thing. So I just
love each other there and it enhances the experience of
(13:26):
the presence of God and giving you peace during this
difficult time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
I have another friend that passed away from pulmonary fibrosis,
and her basic last words were, it's all about love.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Yes, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
So how would you answer somebody then who says, why
didn't we receive the miracle that we prayed for? You
know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (13:50):
The key to life isn't getting miracles answered. If you
got all the miracles, you'd have a perfect life, you know. Yeah,
you're not going to get all the miracles. Like in
The Chosen where these guys are just you know, tripping along.
And there's that great scene in the show with the
guy with the lamp. Little James comes to Jesus, why
(14:11):
won't you heal me? And he says, because I have
a purpose for you not being healed. Yeah, And so
that's the it's not in any way guilt or it's
not in any way to shame us or to make
us feel lesser than something, or we shouldn't ask or anything.
It's just part of the relationship. Yeah. When I was
(14:34):
growing up, I wanted a bike. My friends had bikes,
and so we can't afford a bike, and so they
got this really crummy bike and my sisters painted it
up and tried to make it look good, but it
was lousy. So I didn't get the bike. Two years later,
I got the bike, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Kind of like with the prodigal son, He's gonna make
it right exactly. So before you mentioned that you had
experienced your own miracle with your battle with cancer, will
you give us just a little bit of in the
miracle that you experienced.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
Yeah, I had changed careers and so I had to
start all over and had my career in place. Finally
it was on my way, and then I got diagnosed
completely out of the blue, which is a story in
itself with non Hodgkin's lip foma, which typically last eleven
or twelve years and then it's terminal. You do not
(15:28):
escape it. And I had the years before. Just preceding that,
for a couple of years, I had been living in
Los Angeles and was going to this little church and
there was a minister named John or not who was
the pastor at Toronto Vineyard. I don't know if you've
heard of that church, which is by the Toronto airport
in the nineties, and they had massive miracles going on there.
(15:50):
And so he was speaking at this little church and
there's only two hundred of us there, and he gives
us little talk about Jesus and then he said, okay,
let's do healings. Anybody has bad heels, you know, who
prays for heels. And so two people come up, and
one was this woman in her forties and she had
these big, heavy boots on and she was in tremendous pain.
(16:13):
She had been a climbing accent s master heels. So
she stops up and he just no big thing at
all is this. It was like he was shaking hands
with her. He puts his hand on her head, says,
in Jesus, nay be healed, and she just starts leaping
out the room. It's like, what is going on? You know,
I've never seen this ever, And so I looked at
(16:35):
the people she came with to see if she was
just sort of this prop which I thought it would
be pretty stupid, but the people she was with were amazed,
you know. And so she was healed, and so I
knew that healing happened. So I get diagnosed. I go
to the doctor for the first time, and he says,
this is what you have. You'll live eleven or twelve years.
(16:58):
And I thought, you know, it's really prints aptuous, and
you don't know how long I'm going to live. You're
not good. And so I know the medicine, says they.
And from then on I started to sort of go
for finding healing. And for the next ten years, which
it took that long, I had these several events that
were miror miraculous. I would see guys prayer were audiences
(17:23):
and thirty rows of people were pushed back and they
kind of get up, and so I thought, I want that.
I know this is real. I know God can do anything.
So finally I got better. I wasn't supposed to. The
doctors kind of believe it, and they basically basically the
first doctor had said it was a miracle. She kind
(17:46):
of believe this is at Stanford.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
And so your scans just came back completely clear. Is
that what happened?
Speaker 4 (17:53):
Yeah, it was just gone and it's been gone ever
since I was twenty ten at that end.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
So you're a walking miracle, walking miracle. Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
So what made you want to write a book?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Then?
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Is it was that what caused you to write a book?
Speaker 4 (18:10):
Yeah? I thought that it should be told. Some people
told me. I read it and it's a really nice
chronology of all these things where clearly got intervened. Here
did something change something? So that was the time of
God doing stuff dramatically in my life, and then when
(18:32):
it was all over, God moved me into hospice work.
I thought I was going to go out and be
this big speaker, you know, and they got healed, and
I know these people would be surprised. Instead, I'm in
hospice work where you don't unlet's say, ask, You can't
tell them about your faith background. So I had to
live out God's presence quietly instead of dramatically.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Equally as important. So yeah, I'm sure that you have
been a great blessing in and thank you for sharing
your miracle with us. Will you tell us what the
name of your book is and where we can find it?
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Sure, it's just a self published book on Amazon. It's
called match Books in the Tunnel. How God solved my
impossible problem. You see the boy walking into the tunnel
with a light. And when I was at eight, my
dad was in politics and he had Back then you
had matchbooks as every smoked. So I would take a
(19:32):
bunch of these matchboks and there's a tunnel that ran
under our proper streets and I would light up a
matchbook and could you know, so all the matches would
light at once, and I could see for a while,
and then it would flicker and go out, and then
I'm in the dark. So I'd let another one. I
could see again. I keep going. And that was what
the experience was like. The I would have these times
(19:54):
of revelation of God's going to do something. I did
something his other times or his darkness. I mean, it
wasn't happen.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Love that. I love that too.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
That was a really cool analogy.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Well, don thank you so much for sharing your thoughts
on you know, your experiences with the hospice as well
as your you know thoughts on miracles instead.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Our own experience. And yeah, it's been great, So.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Thank you, thank you. Well, God bless you too.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Well, thank you guys, pleasing you guys, Oh, thank you
so much. And truly we do believe that Jesus is
the miracles, so absolutely we appreciate you sharing that. Thank
you for joining us. If you have a miracle to share,
contact us at the Miracle files dot com or find
us on Facebook.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
We're now releasing multiple episodes each month, so subscribe on
your favorite podcast platform and YouTube for amazing video content
as well.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Join us next time as we discover more of God's miracles,
and don't forget to look for his light in your
own lives.
As we've interviewed people, we've discovered something incredible. Miracles transcend boundaries,
in fact, no matter someone's background or religious beliefs. A
Newsweek poll found that eighty four percent of Americans believe
in miracles.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
But here's the thing. We are not priests, we're not
pastors or religious scholars. We're just two sisters who love
God and love miracles. So we thought it would be
fascinating if we sat down with different religious leaders to
see what they teach about miracles.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Welcome back to the Miracle files.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
You know, people when they think about miracles, will often
think of something that's really grand, you know, like a
sudden healing. But miracles can come acquieter ways too, especially
when it comes to end of life, you know, when
someone is preparing to.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Leave this life.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yes, our guest today is a hospice chaplain who is
seeing countless end of life miracles firsthand. His name is
Don Mulford. He attended Stanford University. He was a California attorney,
and he also became a Presbyterian ordained minister who served
as senior pastor. And he is a cancer survivor who
(01:13):
is the author of the book Matchbooks in the Tunnel
where he describes his ten year miraculous journey with lymphoma. Welcome,
DONI yes, I'm welcome.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
So excited to talk to you. And one of the
things I really want to know about is how you
became a hospice chaplain.
Speaker 4 (01:31):
Well, I was leading this little Bible study and one
of the women, there's a nurse in hospice, and so
she said, hey, we need a chaplain in our agency.
And so when he applied, so I did and I
got the jobs. That's what got me in the hospice
chaplain Just its kind of a guide thing.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
And how long have you been doing that.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
Off and on for since twenty eleven, so fourteen years.
What I like about it is it's it is a
noble thing, but any minister is a noble thing. What
is meaningful for me is I like the intimate questions
they go deep into person, in the person's soul about
(02:11):
how are they doing with God? How are they doing
on the spiritual journey? So you really feel the presence
of God in it. And even if you're with somebody
who's getting in tooyed their last breath, so you're not
really talking, you feel the presence of God. So it's
very much of a spiritual experience that's very powerful.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
Imagine it's more like one on one ministry versus just
speaking to a congregation of people. You really get to
know someone intimately alone. One question I would have, like,
since we are a podcast about miracles, is how has
working with hospice, working with patients as they near the
end of their life. How has that kind of defined
(02:50):
the word miracle for you? Like, how has that changed
the way you think of miracles?
Speaker 4 (02:54):
Well, the meaning of miracle is a moving target. I mean,
nobody truly tend to find it. Well, I mean you
your podcast gives you the opportunity to hear all these
different versions of it, which you should write a book
about it eventually with what you've learned, because because you
know more about the polls than the great and the
(03:14):
vast majority of people do just by talking to the
people about So. I have a friend who's a great
scholar and he's written a lot of books, a Christian leader,
and he wrote a book about miracles, and he believes
miracles are very rare. You know, it's some big dynamic
bolt of lightning thing. And I'm on the other side
(03:36):
of the coin where I think miracles happen all the time.
Miracles are I think the involvement of God in our life,
and that happens moment by moment. Yeah, So I initially,
when I was sick, you know, wanted a miracle. You know,
I wanted to get well. So I it was clear
what the miracle was. I wanted my cancer, which was
(03:58):
not supposed to get well, to get well. So if
it did, and it did, then that's a miracle. But
a lot of times miracles, those kinds of miracles don't happen.
You know, you're praying for healing, and we got a
bunch of people praying, and you've seen other people get healed,
and this person you loved is I get healed and
no miracle? And so what do you do with that?
(04:21):
And I realized that it's more in the context of
the relationship with God that Jesus came to bring the
Kingdom of God here. The Kingdom of God is at hand,
So in other words, he's bringing himself here where he is.
Miracles are because he does. You know, anything is possible
for God. So therefore, in hospice work, when I'm there,
(04:43):
we're not talking, but you're in this spiritual place. Angels
are in the room. You know, God's in the room.
Jesus in John fourteen says I come personally to take
you know, Jesus. And clearly that's a miracle, but you
can't point at it, but you just know it.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
So if you could go more into the experiences you've
had with people on hospice where you fell angels or
maybe they're loved ones, maybe relatives in the room, how
has that been because.
Speaker 4 (05:16):
Of the nature of the work, Because we're around it
all the time, you have that heightened sense of spiritual presence.
Whatever the people's faith is that you get used to
it all the time, and the nature of hospice work,
and also there's a depressive side to it. People you know,
are dying and die. Yeah, yeah, So when you're there
(05:39):
at the scene, you feel the presence and you just know.
In fact, you know, I've actually called churches to pray
for us during one of those times, and they say,
you know, we're praying somewhere else over here, but we
feel angels are in the rooms. I've been told that
(06:02):
by somebody who's not there but consens it, you know,
who's more prophetic and has that gift. So it's sort
of a heaviness. There's just a lot going on. You know,
it's not light. It it's intense, and.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
There's a lot of Yeah, we have a cousin actually
died of brain cancer, and I remember when she was
like really close to the end. I remember she told
her mom that there were all these people and well,
she said she thought they were doctors and nurses all
in the room because she said there were all these
people in the room wearing white, and back then, you know,
(06:38):
doctors and nurses were white, and her mom realized that
they were just surrounded by angels, by heavenly beings, you know.
Speaker 4 (06:47):
Yeah, that's happened often where the patient will be talking
to somebody that you can't see. My mother kind of
talk at the end, but she was pointing toward the
corner where nobody was, saying look over there, and my
dad had gone before. I think it was my dad.
I talked with the doctor who worked at the place
(07:12):
where my mom was, in the facility she was in.
She said it happened all the time that there. You
typically the wife survived the husband, so the wife would
turned to some corner of the room where nobody had
start talking to her husband casually and she said, Bob,
(07:32):
you know, I'll be along. Relax, And it was the
sets of instead of heaven and the other life being
far away that you're going to this, it's more like
it's right here and you're sort of just stepping into it.
It's close. It's close, so it can be angels, or
it could be other family members who've gone on before.
(07:54):
I've I've had experiences of family members who've gone before,
you know, communicate with me.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
Does it feel like they're just coming to take them home?
Is that kind of the impression you get?
Speaker 4 (08:07):
Well, it says John fourteen six fourteen Winter six. Jesus says,
I go to a place for you, and then I will,
I personal will come and take you to be with
me where I am. So that's a big deal because
it's not the touch by an angel TV show where
the angel comes the it's Jesus himself comes and so
(08:30):
you know that you're in really good hands. It's he's there.
But it's a complete game changer. You know, death, death
is is a loser. It's over, it's the doorway. Forget
about it. You're going into too perfect life. Everything, this
(08:50):
life is a warm up. And so Devin is a
lot like this life. It's just that all the stuff
a value that's lousy is gone. And so you know,
you're born in this wonderful body and you grow into
that well that's in heaven, you know, and all the
stuff that brings it down doesn't affect you. And so
you have all these people, they're all great. So it's like,
(09:13):
you know, you have the you two are.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Sisters, right, yes, yes.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
Yes, so you have the perfect sibling relationship. You know,
no more that my two sisters. And they grew up
in the same room.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
No bickering.
Speaker 4 (09:25):
Well yeah there was no. I wasn't a lad in
the room.
Speaker 1 (09:27):
You know, we never never.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
No.
Speaker 1 (09:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
My friend actually passed away of cancer and he had
an experience right before he died where he was just
sitting in a chair and he looked up and saw
his dad sitting in the room with him, and he
just his dad didn't say anything, and it was just
he just saw him sitting there. And I just kind
of tend to think that that is just a little
gift that God gave him to know, like, you know
that you're not just going to disintegrate into the ground.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
And that's the end exactly. And I've been around it
so much now that I talk about it casually, but
I'm trying to say to affirm people because normally you
have like one event in your life where that kind
of happened, you think, well, mayby is my meditation or something,
and it's not. Yeah, my wife's mother was surrounded. She
(10:15):
had this big bedroom when it was packed with people.
She's talking to all these people and the round.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
And it's amazing that you have had this experience to
be with all of these various people as they're going
through these experiences. I imagine you would have a better
you know, grasp on what it's like to leave this
earth than most people would.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
So yeah, it's like anything, it's just familiarity. Yeah. The
the ultimate takeaway from me after being around all this
for a long time and losing people I love as well,
is God is always with us. He truly loves us.
Life is hard and bad things happen, Yeah, but the
(10:57):
ultimate thing we're looking for is the relationship. It's just
the experience of his presence. That's that's that's the ballgame.
Then anything else kind of works off with that.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
So you want true miracle.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
That's the true miracle. Sale time a miracle. So you
have a big problem with whatever you know, and then yeah,
bring it to God. You know he loves you. And
Jesus' favorite parable was the prodigal Sin, and the whole
essence of the prodigal sin is the Father come into
both sense, going out to both sends and saying you
have opposite lifestyles. You both got a problem. I don't care.
(11:31):
Just come home. You know, we're good. And then you know,
you know the rest of your lives here. It's not
going to be perfect. That's okay. You don't have to
be perfect doing work in the fields, and you don't
have to be perfect not do anything wrong.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Do you see like any common themes in what people
say or feel right before they pass? No, really, all
different kind of different.
Speaker 4 (11:54):
Different people ask off and you know, why doesn't God
take her? Because she's suffering so and you know, when
they're just lying there for six months and he's like,
why doesn't God take your wool? God's doing things in
the depths of their soul. The deepest part of us
is not our soul, it's our spirit, and God is spirit.
We have spirit. That's where we know him, so he's
(12:17):
working with us and providing his presence and doing things
to grow us and to enhance our relationship that we
know nothing about. We barely know for ourselves, but we
certainly don't know for somebody else. So that's why that
kind of stuff can happen. And it's okay because he's there,
(12:39):
and he's taken there to paradise and they're gonna be fine.
It's just a complete game changing.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
So do you feel like as people are passing away
that they're maybe a little closer to God, maybe a
little bit more humble. Do you see situations where families
maybe have more forgiveness, some reconciliations, some kind of really
positive turnaround moments as they're like leaving.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
Yeah. Sometimes, Yeah, all of those things happen. Every family
is different. Yeah. Of course, the more that the family
can get together, as difficult as it may be, the
better because it's a very unifying thing. So I just
love each other there and it enhances the experience of
(13:26):
the presence of God and giving you peace during this
difficult time. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
I have another friend that passed away from pulmonary fibrosis,
and her basic last words were, it's all about love.
Speaker 4 (13:40):
Yes, exactly, exactly.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
So how would you answer somebody then who says, why
didn't we receive the miracle that we prayed for? You
know what I mean?
Speaker 4 (13:50):
The key to life isn't getting miracles answered. If you
got all the miracles, you'd have a perfect life, you know. Yeah,
you're not going to get all the miracles. Like in
The Chosen where these guys are just you know, tripping along.
And there's that great scene in the show with the
guy with the lamp. Little James comes to Jesus, why
(14:11):
won't you heal me? And he says, because I have
a purpose for you not being healed. Yeah, And so
that's the it's not in any way guilt or it's
not in any way to shame us or to make
us feel lesser than something, or we shouldn't ask or anything.
It's just part of the relationship. Yeah. When I was
(14:34):
growing up, I wanted a bike. My friends had bikes,
and so we can't afford a bike, and so they
got this really crummy bike and my sisters painted it
up and tried to make it look good, but it
was lousy. So I didn't get the bike. Two years later,
I got the bike, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:50):
Kind of like with the prodigal son, He's gonna make
it right exactly. So before you mentioned that you had
experienced your own miracle with your battle with cancer, will
you give us just a little bit of in the
miracle that you experienced.
Speaker 4 (15:06):
Yeah, I had changed careers and so I had to
start all over and had my career in place. Finally
it was on my way, and then I got diagnosed
completely out of the blue, which is a story in
itself with non Hodgkin's lip foma, which typically last eleven
or twelve years and then it's terminal. You do not
(15:28):
escape it. And I had the years before. Just preceding that,
for a couple of years, I had been living in
Los Angeles and was going to this little church and
there was a minister named John or not who was
the pastor at Toronto Vineyard. I don't know if you've
heard of that church, which is by the Toronto airport
in the nineties, and they had massive miracles going on there.
(15:50):
And so he was speaking at this little church and
there's only two hundred of us there, and he gives
us little talk about Jesus and then he said, okay,
let's do healings. Anybody has bad heels, you know, who
prays for heels. And so two people come up, and
one was this woman in her forties and she had
these big, heavy boots on and she was in tremendous pain.
(16:13):
She had been a climbing accent s master heels. So
she stops up and he just no big thing at
all is this. It was like he was shaking hands
with her. He puts his hand on her head, says,
in Jesus, nay be healed, and she just starts leaping
out the room. It's like, what is going on? You know,
I've never seen this ever, And so I looked at
(16:35):
the people she came with to see if she was
just sort of this prop which I thought it would
be pretty stupid, but the people she was with were amazed,
you know. And so she was healed, and so I
knew that healing happened. So I get diagnosed. I go
to the doctor for the first time, and he says,
this is what you have. You'll live eleven or twelve years.
(16:58):
And I thought, you know, it's really prints aptuous, and
you don't know how long I'm going to live. You're
not good. And so I know the medicine, says they.
And from then on I started to sort of go
for finding healing. And for the next ten years, which
it took that long, I had these several events that
were miror miraculous. I would see guys prayer were audiences
(17:23):
and thirty rows of people were pushed back and they
kind of get up, and so I thought, I want that.
I know this is real. I know God can do anything.
So finally I got better. I wasn't supposed to. The
doctors kind of believe it, and they basically basically the
first doctor had said it was a miracle. She kind
(17:46):
of believe this is at Stanford.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
And so your scans just came back completely clear. Is
that what happened?
Speaker 4 (17:53):
Yeah, it was just gone and it's been gone ever
since I was twenty ten at that end.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
So you're a walking miracle, walking miracle. Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
So what made you want to write a book?
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Then?
Speaker 1 (18:07):
Is it was that what caused you to write a book?
Speaker 4 (18:10):
Yeah? I thought that it should be told. Some people
told me. I read it and it's a really nice
chronology of all these things where clearly got intervened. Here
did something change something? So that was the time of
God doing stuff dramatically in my life, and then when
(18:32):
it was all over, God moved me into hospice work.
I thought I was going to go out and be
this big speaker, you know, and they got healed, and
I know these people would be surprised. Instead, I'm in
hospice work where you don't unlet's say, ask, You can't
tell them about your faith background. So I had to
live out God's presence quietly instead of dramatically.
Speaker 2 (18:57):
Equally as important. So yeah, I'm sure that you have
been a great blessing in and thank you for sharing
your miracle with us. Will you tell us what the
name of your book is and where we can find it?
Speaker 4 (19:09):
Sure, it's just a self published book on Amazon. It's
called match Books in the Tunnel. How God solved my
impossible problem. You see the boy walking into the tunnel
with a light. And when I was at eight, my
dad was in politics and he had Back then you
had matchbooks as every smoked. So I would take a
(19:32):
bunch of these matchboks and there's a tunnel that ran
under our proper streets and I would light up a
matchbook and could you know, so all the matches would
light at once, and I could see for a while,
and then it would flicker and go out, and then
I'm in the dark. So I'd let another one. I
could see again. I keep going. And that was what
the experience was like. The I would have these times
(19:54):
of revelation of God's going to do something. I did
something his other times or his darkness. I mean, it
wasn't happen.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
Love that. I love that too.
Speaker 2 (20:03):
That was a really cool analogy.
Speaker 4 (20:05):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
Well, don thank you so much for sharing your thoughts
on you know, your experiences with the hospice as well
as your you know thoughts on miracles instead.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Our own experience. And yeah, it's been great, So.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
Thank you, thank you. Well, God bless you too.
Speaker 1 (20:20):
Well, thank you guys, pleasing you guys, Oh, thank you
so much. And truly we do believe that Jesus is
the miracles, so absolutely we appreciate you sharing that. Thank
you for joining us. If you have a miracle to share,
contact us at the Miracle files dot com or find
us on Facebook.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
We're now releasing multiple episodes each month, so subscribe on
your favorite podcast platform and YouTube for amazing video content
as well.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
Join us next time as we discover more of God's miracles,
and don't forget to look for his light in your
own lives.
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