The Walking Miracle

By Tyuan Rice

In 2013, Tyuan Rice is diagnosed with a condition known as Cardiomyopathy. Despite a death sentence from his doctors and rapidly declining health, this modern-day Job holds on to God's promise of healing and breakthrough. This is his story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tyuan Rice
• Release date: Apr 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9781370431205

Tyuan Rice

Tyuan Rice is a modern-day Job. He has 25+ years as a facilities engineer, primarily with a leading health organization. Mr. Rice has also served as a volunteer fireman and a member of the Prince George’s County Citizens’ Police Association. A devoted husband and father, he lives and works in Maryland. The Walking Miracle is his first book.

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The Walking Miracle

By Tyuan Rice

Maryland 2018

THIS BOOK IS

PUBLISHED BY CHRISTIAN CULTURE PUBLISHING

A DIVISION OF CHRISTIAN CULTURE ENTERTAINMENT, LLC

Copyright 2018 by Tyuan Rice

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, photographic, recording or other means, nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted or otherwise be copied for public or private use—other than for fair use as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews—without prior written permission of the publisher.

Smashwords Edition

Published in the United States by Christian Culture Entertainment, LLC, Maryland

www.christianculturepub.com

This is a work of nonfiction.

To my mom and dad, Guinevere and Ronald Rice. Your love and support gave me confidence and made me a man of faith…

But his flesh upon him shall have pain, and his soul within him shall mourn. (Job 14:22)

And the Lord turned the captivity of Job (Job 42:10)

Prologue

May 2013

It was almost dawn. A pronounced stillness gripped the atmosphere. The sky was pitch black. But light from the muted TV cast a silver haze over the bedroom. The TV always stayed on while we slept. My wife didn’t like the dark. The outline of her sleeping form looked peaceful. Inviting. I reached for her beneath the covers. She stirred and pressed against me. A signal.

I brought her closer. As close as I could get. The only sound was intense breathing. Our breathing. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t realize it at first as we gasped for air in each other’s arms in the afterglow. But as I lay there, regaining my composure. it hit me sharply that I couldn’t catch my breath.

Instant alarm filled me. My chest felt tight. My heart was pounding as if it might explode. I suddenly felt nauseous like I was about to throw up. Light headed. My wife knew something was off when I abruptly rolled away, sat up on the side of the bed and bowed my head to get my bearings.

She asked if I was okay. I was fighting for air. Laboring for every breath. Closing my eyes, I managed a weak nod. She pushed herself into a sitting position, folding her legs under her slim frame and grabbed my shoulder. Her face was etched with concern.

Thankfully the moment passed as fast as it had come. My heart rate slowed. My head cleared. The nausea eased. I gulped fresh air. It felt so good to breathe I leaned back against my wife with a new appreciation for my lungs. I sucked in air like it was my best friend. Over and over, my chest expanding and contracting, I took in as much air as I could handle. I could breathe, and I relaxed as my fears subsided. But little did I know that the fight of my life had just begun.

Chapter 1

I wanted to be a policeman. It was my dream from the time I was a kid. God put something in me that automatically responds when people need help. I’m calm in chaos and I instinctively know how to diffuse heightened situations. It wasn’t, one of those, ‘one week I wanted to be an astronaut, the next week I wanted to be a cowboy’ kind of things.

I was fascinated by policework early on and it stayed that way—solving crimes, catching the bad guys, saving lives. Growing up, I watched every cop show there was. It was a constant yearning in me to do good in my community. It was a path I was sure I was going to take, but then I met my wife.

Patty and I were high school sweethearts. Just teenagers. Before long, we were parents and in 1986, as the man of our little family, I needed a plan that would make me real money to take care of my fiancé and daughter. So, I considered going into the military. By joining the Marines, my family and I would have income, housing, insurance, and an opportunity for education. Another plus was that I could work toward becoming part of the military police. At that time, my father had a powerful influence on me, and he was dead set against my plans.

My dad was drafted to serve in Viet Nam in his early twenties. He’d seen things he rarely mentioned. Like friends being shot down and other soldiers who’d had a leg or arm blown off. People died all around him every day during the war, and although he came back safe, he was angry. I didn’t understand then that his gruffness and angry outbursts had a lot to do with PTSD. His view of the government and how the military treated soldiers was very negative, and when I brought up joining the military, he put his foot down.

No son of his was going into the military. What if a war broke out? How could I be there for my fiancé and daughter if I was shipped off somewhere? It wasn’t safe. If he didn’t want me risking my life as a police officer, he definitely didn’t want me to risk it in the Marine Corps. He believed that at any moment, I could be hurt, shot, or killed in the line of duty. He then began pushing me to go to a vocational school. He worked with sheet metal, and he thought I should learn a steady, dependable trade. I went along with the idea like I was all for it and enrolled at Lincoln Technical Institute to learn air conditioning and refrigeration. I was miserable.

I lasted in my classes for a solid month, then secretly stopped going to school. I would leave my house every evening, pretending to go to my night classes. I instead hung out at my fiancé’s house or went to a friend’s house in the neighborhood until class let out. Eventually, my father discovered that I was cutting class when the school notified him. He was furious when he found out, but he re-enrolled me right back in school. This time, I committed myself to learning my trade.

In 1989, Patty and I got married. As the years went by, I worked full-time as a building engineer, but my dream of becoming an officer was always there. I binge watched the television show, Cops. I became a volunteer fireman just to fulfill my desire to