Prestonsburg—Pastor’s wife, pianist and ladies’ ministry leader at Prestonsburg’s First Baptist Church, Pam Workman, was diagnosed with severe in stage biventricular heart failure on Aug. 18, 2014. After having stints put in, various operations and medications for nearly a year, she was told that the only way she would survive was to have a transplant.

“My doctor told me we were going to have to do something now. My heart just wasn’t getting any better. I was close to dying,” Workman said.

“All in all, I knew that God was in control of the whole thing. My church started praying. Everybody was spreading the word to pray for me,” she continued.

“One of the things that really impressed me about it is how God has worked even in our church. It’s had such a positive effect on the church and people just coming together and praying,” Jerry, her husband, shared.

The doctor explained to her husband that she “had to make up her own mind because she was the one who had to go through the whole thing.”

“My goal is eventually to be a grandmother. And I thought, how can I be a grandmother if I’m not even here? So I had to rethink everything and put it in perspective,” Workman said.

She continued, “I wanted to be the best pastor’s wife I could be; I wanted to be able to work in my church. I had to give up the women’s ministry; I had to give up playing the piano. I knew I wanted to get back involved in everything.

“I just poured out my heart and asked God to help me with this. I said, ‘You’re in control. If this is it, I need to accept it,'” she recounted.

“That night I slept so well and I woke up with the best peace that I have ever had in my life. It’s as if you’re really cold and you walk out to this warm sunshine, and it just bathes over you,” she said. “That was the most wonderful feeling that I’ve ever had, and I knew this was the right thing to do.”

She shared her thoughts with her husband, and soon after a week of tests, she was on the list for a new heart. They were told that it would be six months to a year before she would receive one.

But a week later, Jerry received a call that they had a heart ready for her.

“My first thought was I’m not ready. But God knew I was ready, and I knew He was ready because it was His timing,” Workman said. “We were excited because it was like I was going to get my life back.

“I remember, when I was laying on the table and they were going to put me to sleep, telling God this was just me and Him,” she shared. “It’s like He was standing right there beside me. I felt so at peace with Him,” she continued.

Her family rallied around her at the hospital. The surgery took place in the early hours of July 28. Within hours she was breathing on her own, her body had accepted the heart and she was worrying about whether her family had eaten or not.

Her road to recovery will be a process, but on Oct. 11, she played the piano at church for the first time.

“I felt like I had come home again. My husband said ‘I think you’re back.’ I agreed. I’m back,” Workman reminisced.

“Personally, I was being brought to the point where I just totally had to lean on God beyond anything else,” Jerry added.

“I can’t get enough of the good things of God now. I feel like He has just brought me so far. I feel so close to Him with joy now. I want everybody to feel what I’m feeling,” Workman said. (WR)