February 17, 1999
Adrion: 'It takes more faith to live'
___By Marv Knox
___Editor
___LAKE CITY--Fourteen years ago, doctors thought Henry Adrion was as good as dead. Looking back from recent retirement, he's glad God had other plans.
___In early 1985, Adrion underwent surgery fortrigiminal neuralgia. "It's a nerve competing for space with an artery, right behind the right ear," he explained. "It brings pain like putting a screwdriver to an electrical cord with no insulation."
HENRY ADRION
___The surgery went well, but 24 hours later, Adrion suffered a stroke. Then, he almost died three times.
___"On one occasion, the doctor came out and said to my wife, 'Pat, we're losing Henry,'" he reported. "The doctor had some papers for her to sign to donate my organs.
___"She's not a holier-than-thou person, but she felt I was going to walk out of the hospital the way I walked in. So, she told the doctor, 'I hear you, but you just don't understand who's in charge here.'"
___Mrs. Adrion believed God was in charge, and she called on an array of voices to intercede on her husband's behalf.
___"My wife and kiddoes got on the phone and called churches across this state who had prayer ministries," Adrion said. Participants at the Texas Baptist Evangelism Conference also prayed for God to spare his life. About three months later, he walked out of the hospital. He eventually returned to work, at the time as director of church services for the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
___"There's nothing special about me," Adrion said of his healing. "I don't want anyone to think, 'If you're holy enough, God's going to heal you.' The truth of the matter is it takes more faith to live than to die."
___But Adrion's near-death experience impacted him significantly in a couple of ways.
___First, it drew him close to Texas Baptists, he noted. "The churches and the people of this state will always be very dear to me, because I know of their prayers."
___That's especially significant for Adrion right now. As a leader in the Texas Baptist "reconciliation movement," he's seen how Texas Baptists can set political differences aside to seek God's will. "They didn't ask about my theological beliefs or political connections," he stressed. "They just prayed."
___The experience also erased Adrion's "subjective objectivity," he added.
___"As a pastor, I could care for and love the people, but I could go home and divorce myself for a time from that," he described. "Now, my wife and I--because of what happened to us in 1985--feel more deeply for people than before."
___Thatís a strength and a weakness, he admitted.
___"The pain of people in 1999 is far, far greater" than it was a decade and a half ago, he insisted. "There are more things to be pained about. I'm not a doomsday prophet, but life today is so negative at times. People watch TV and read the newspaper. They see people crying, 'Peace, peace,' but there is no peace.
___"If you're going to be a pastor, you must feel the people. Neither Pat nor I have the ability to be subjectively objective, because we've been there, where people suffer."
___Adrion retired Feb. 1 from First Baptist Church in Texas City, where he had been pastor for five years.
___Before he served the BGCT for 10 years, he was pastor of Elm Grove Baptist Church in Waelder, Muldoon Baptist Church in Muldoon, First Baptist Church in Eagle Lake, Bethel Baptist Church in Houston, Polytechnic Baptist Church in Fort Worth and University Baptist Church in Clear Lake.Frontpage / Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!