Two months removed from a catastrophic day, Renae Loy can calmly recount what happened on the weekend of March 7 when her world fell apart, but her faith in God remained strong.

She got a call from her husband, Del. He was home alone and had felt a sharp, shooting pain in his stomach.

“It was sudden and serious,” Del said. “It was like my midsection was on fire. I knew I was in bad shape.”

He instantly called Renae’s cell phone.

“I told her, ‘You’ve got to come get me; I’m about to pass out from the pain.’

“I got in the car doubled over; honestly it’s really fuzzy what happened right after that,” Del said.

“It was horrifying,” Renae said. “We didn’t know what to think. The doctors were baffled as he got sicker and sicker.”

“All we could do is wait and pray,” she said.

Del stayed at Natchez Regional Medical Center the remainder of Saturday and Sunday. By midway on Monday doctors found the source of his ailment.

“They were looking for a hernia at first,” Del said. “There was a visiting doctor there, and he asked for another CT scan.”

When the physicians pinpointed the problem, they rushed to find a specialist in the region who could help.

“What I had was basically a blood clot … an artery in my intestine had exploded or unraveled,” Del said. “It was like a heart attack, but in my intestine.”

Within the hour, Del was on an ambulance rushing to Oschner Medical Center in New Orleans, where vascular surgeon Dr. Taylor Smith was waiting.

“I remember every mile of that ride, because I was suffering,” Del said.

For Renae, though at the time the future remained uncertain something changed when the ambulance door closed and she and Del headed south.

“There was a peace that came over me as we were driving down. I was near exhaustion,” she said. “I had kind of an image of an angel that was escorting us down the interstate. I was thinking of old hymns that were going through my mind. Once we started South, I thought, ‘It’s going to be OK.’”

For both Del and Renae, the whole experience served to test and ultimately reaffirm their faith in God.

“I was surround by faithful people the whole time,” Del said.

His father, Harley, who is in his 80s, was in the emergency room Saturday and stayed near his son throughout the ordeal.

Del and Renae’s son Jeremy, who lives in Brookhaven, happened to be visiting Walt Disney World in Florida with his family when his father fell ill. He flew home to be with his Dad.

Their daughter, Amy Samson, flew back from a trip to California to be with her parents.

“That was really a big relief when I had them on either side of me,” Renae said.

The surgery to repair the blood vessel took five hours, but proved successful.

“I found out later that a large percentage of people don’t make it through that surgery,” Del said. “The doctors would come in every morning, and they’d peek around the corner, and they’d be thrilled when I was able to speak to them and show them I was alive.”

After weeks of slow recovery, Del said his life is getting back to normal a bit, but he’ll forever be grateful for the many prayers provided to him.

“A lot of people had prayed for me, from California, Brookhaven, Jackson, many who I didn’t really know,” Del said. “I consider it not just a matter of luck, but of prayer that got through this.

“Being a pastor in the past and being a part of our church, we often pray for people who are sick or hurting,” he said. “It’s an overwhelming sense of affirmation when you find out so many people are praying for you.”

Renae said she, too, is thankful for the many prayers. Two months later, however, her mind turns to people who don’t have such a strong faith-based support around them.

“I think about people that don’t have the community that we have, the community of faith, the believers, that don’t have something more than themselves to hold on to in dark and shadowy times,” she said. “It’s the reason, that faith goes into practice when you have hard times like that. Like I said, I’m blessed.

“I’m a blessed woman.”

Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.