Faced with Paralysis and Death, Pastor Encounters the Goodness of God

“Lord, I am 50 years old. I have a family. I don’t want to die and leave them. I want to continue to minister. But thank You for saving me, and for the life You’ve given me for these years. If I die, somehow draw my family closer to You.”

With this prayer, Brian Dube of New Bedford, Massachusetts, closed his eyes. He woke up in an MRI machine, completely paralyzed. The soul-wrenching prayer he prayed just prior to losing consciousness would be far from his last.

ONE IN A MILLION

A married father with a successful IT career, Dube, now 51, also volunteered at church. Yet in 2007, an addiction landed him in the Adult and Teen Challenge (ATC) center in Brockton, Massachusetts. Intending to stay just 30 days, he stayed 14 years. After completing the program in 15 months, Dube was hired as staff, eventually becoming the director of technology for all ATC New England. He then began to preach, a task at which he felt at home in the calling and anointing of God, soon becoming campus pastor.

His life and family (wife Rebecca and children Emelia, Phineas and Jolee) were restored, Dube earned AG ministerial credentials and a master’s degree. He began pastoring in 2009. In 2020 his congregation merged with Christian Fellowship Center (CFC); Dube continued as lead pastor of the congregation, now numbering around 650. By 2023, he was halfway through earning a Doctor of Ministry with Liberty University.

In November of that year, lingering respiratory symptoms and a tingling in his fingertips yielded Dube a trip to the emergency room and a round of antibiotics. But 24 hours later, the left side of Dube’s face was paralyzed and drooping, he was unable to swallow water, and he lost feeling in his left arm. Back at the hospital, a CAT scan ruled out a stroke. Two doctors discharged Dube, saying nothing could be done.

“If you send me home, I’ll die. There is something seriously wrong with me,” Dube told them. He states that had he not spoken up for himself at this moment, he is confident his life would have ended.

Dube was sent to a hospital in Rhode Island. Within 10 minutes of arrival, his situation became dire as, unable to swallow, he began to drown in his own saliva. Doctors told him he did not have much time and asked if he wished to be resuscitated. He said yes, and in those minutes, he prayed his first desperate prayer of surrender.

A battery of tests revealed Dube had contracted a rare strain of Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS), a disease in which the immune system suddenly attacks the nerves. Its rarity is quite literally one in a million of developing.

Dube ultimately spent four months in three hospitals, paralyzed. He was intubated for 12 days, had a collapsing airway, survived waking during a surgery, and had six months of intensive therapy. Today, well on his way to recovery, he is still partially paralyzed in his hands and face.

CONFINED, BUT COMFORTED

“Finding oneself paralyzed is almost beyond what one can take in,” Dube says. “If my head fell to one side, it stayed there until someone moved it. Physically coping was one thing, mentally was another. Jesus said, ‘don’t worry because it doesn’t add knowledge to your life.’ This is very practical. I realized that becoming anxious would not help me.” He felt led to direct his energy and thoughts towards prayer, instead.

In response to the Holy Spirit’s urging, Dube prayed another prayer of surrender, which marked a turning point in his nightmarish experience.

“If You empower and encompass me with Your love, I can do this,” he told the Lord. “If You are not with me, then let me die now.”

Today, with utter surety, Dube testifies that Christ has indeed been unfailingly with him, to such a degree that it would be better for him to remain with his illness with his current sense of Christ’s overwhelming love than to heal and lose that sense.

“In the hospital at night, I was alone, paralyzed in bed, staring at whatever my head was staring at,” he says. “I would pray, and just think about Jesus. I would remember Him washing the disciples’ feet or restoring Peter. I began thinking of Him as a familiar Friend, and my Messiah, Savior and King. I asked Him to pour His mercy, comfort, healing, strength and peace on me. I would be lost in prayer for five or six hours at a time. He comforted me in powerful ways.”

As part of his doctoral studies, Dube had been reading “Evil, Sin, and Christian Theism” by Andrew Ter Ern Loke when his ordeal began. Its pages quickly became real to him, as did Romans 8:32.

“If you have any question of God’s goodness, you must reconcile it right there,” Dube says. “Romans 8:32 clarifies that suffering was taken care of on the cross. I know God is good because of what He did on the cross. The Holy Spirit captured and held me in a place of gratitude, dependence, trust and strength in what I knew to be true — that God is good.”

AN INVITATION

By Sept. 1, 2024, Dube had traveled enough of his journey to resume full-time preaching at CFC. One 80-year-old congregant remarks, “I hate to say it, but I hope he doesn’t get better if it means he quits preaching like this!”

Dube says, “I couldn’t have water for months. I had such thirst, even [if] I never walked again, I would have been ok if I just had one sip of water. I began to want to thirst for Jesus like that. And as He drew me close, I was able to draw my family and congregation close. Our family, church and community have been impacted positively by all this.”

He says that all his other senses were hyper aware during paralysis, causing him to become very sensitive about what it means to truly listen and be alert to others.

“While paralyzed and unable to speak, I learned to listen.”

When his daughter Emelia discovered he could point to letters on a board with his feet, Dube quickly began spelling out sentences, composing sermon notes on topics like humility.

“We look back in awe of how God used my dad’s situation to reach so many people and to draw us all closer to each other and closer to Him,” says Emelia.

CFC associate pastor Sam Bongiorno adds, “We as a church had to pursue Jesus fervently for our pastor and for the health of the church. A picture of Pastor Brian early on in his battle was with a whiteboard and the message, ‘Closer to Jesus than ever.’ With total paralysis except in his foot he spelled out this phrase because of his love for Jesus and the church. Seeing that picture of him felt like the ground was put back under my feet.”

On September 16, Dube was able to preach at the ATC New England and New York spiritual emphasis week, addressing over 1,000 men.

“If God can use this to tell of His goodness and mercy and grace, just like He did with my addiction, I’ll tell this story until the day I die,” says Dube, who plans to author a book.

His wife Rebecca agrees. “From the beginning until today I have seen God draw us and everyone around us closer to Him. I pray that through my husband's story, the goodness of God is on display. He is our source of strength, especially in difficulty, and our hope is that our struggle is an encouragement to others.”

Dube concludes, “When we hear a testimony or read the Bible, we tend to think it is for someone else. Psalm 34:8 invites us to taste and see for ourselves, in our context and in our struggles. Jesus told the weary and heavy laden to come to Him. This is a relational invitation. Ask God to have His way, and He will. Take Jesus up on His invitation to have rest in your soul.”