Personal Story: Mandy- The Brevity of Life

You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com. Now, The Devil's Nightmare. Welcome back to another episode of It's Time to Man Up.

Welcome back to It's Time to Man Up with Nikita Kolov. There is not a soul on God's green earth that does not have a burden he or she doesn't understand. On today's show, I'll share with you, not an interview, but a personal tragedy. Now, this may be challenging, even difficult for some of you to listen to, but it's relating to the brevity of life.

Stay tuned. How about if we just talk heart to heart and no interview, just some more of my story. As many of you have either emailed or messaged me on social media, how much you're enjoying the show, enjoying the broadcast, enjoying the podcast, today I want to talk to you about a subject that will relate to each and every one of us at some point in life. Because I want to talk to you about the brevity of life and just how short life can be. I'm reminded of a scripture in the Bible, Psalm 90, verse 10, that says this, The days of our lives are seventy years, and if by some reason of strength they are eighty years.

Now, let that settle in just for a moment. Seventy years or if by some reason of strength, eighty years. Now, I realize looking back, some of you have mentioned the story I shared about my dad who actually even stretched it beyond that.

He lived to be 92, my mom lived to be 93, and so we can even, I guess you would say, take it a step beyond that. But there's no guarantee of tomorrow, right? Clearly the Bible illustrates that. There is no guarantee of tomorrow, there is no promise of tomorrow, hence the importance of taking care of our life today, having our heart in the right place, because we just don't know honestly, if we're honest with ourselves, from day to day, what tomorrow even holds. In fact, I was reading a devotion this morning and it was referencing worry. How many of us worry?

Well, every one of us has or does, right? And again, I was saying, why are you worried about tomorrow? Today has enough challenges of its own, essentially the Bible is saying. And yet, even though my mom lived to be 93, my dad lived to be 92, I've had other family members that have lived into their 70s, grandma and grandpa's, some into their 80s, friends of mine. In fact, not long ago, some of you avid wrestling fans might remember the passing of Road Warrior Animal. The interesting thing about that for me is his wife had just reached out to me just about 10 days prior and said, hey, his 60th birthday is coming up, the big 6-0.

I really want to do something special for him. Would you do a video wishing him a happy birthday? Of course, if you know the story about me and Animal, we go way back, we go back to 1978 because I recruited him out of high school, Irondale High School in New Brighton, Minnesota to play college football with me. We became the best of friends. In fact, his mom and dad adopted me as a sense of prodigal son. And I remember one Christmas where I had more presents under the tree than him and his two brothers and they were not happy about that. But that's just how much Lorna loved me and I just loved Lorna and his dad, Joe, Joe Sr. And so I did this video for his 60th birthday.

By the way, again, if you know the story, turnabout is fair play, right? So I recruit him out of high school to play college football. He recruits me from college football upon graduating, headed for a pro football tryout into professional wrestling.

Road Warrior Animal gets the credit for that call. And of course, I had the career that many of you know that I had. But all that to say, fast forward, I make this video for his 60th birthday. Little knowing that only 10 days past his 60th birthday and on his anniversary day, him and his wife were in the Ozarks celebrating an anniversary, that he'd have a massive heart attack and die. Who knew? The brevity of life.

So Joe had 60 years. Some are not as fortunate. What I want to share on a personal level with you today is a late wife of mine, Mandy.

Now, some of you know some of this story. I mean, back when it was happening, back in my wrestling days, in the height of my career, back in the late 80s, main event wrestling. I mean, I'm stepping into the ring every night with the nature boy Ric Flair. I'm wrestling the Road Warriors. I'm wrestling Lex Luger. I'm wrestling Sting.

I mean, just go down the list. Ravishing Ric Rude, Ricky the Dragon, Steamboat. I mean, the who's who of wrestling I'm stepping into the ring with.

And in the midst of the height of that, at the peak of my career, main event wrestling, I'm in Las Vegas. And I get a call from Mandy, who at the time was just my girlfriend and for transparency. This was before the days of, this was what I call BC, before Christ, before Jesus in my life. And so, yes, like many others, I led a very heathen life and had actually moved Mandy in with me.

And so we were living together and doing all the things that are contrary to what the Bible says, just as part of a testimony and transparency for you today. And I get this phone call that she had been diagnosed with cancer, the big C, right? Cancer, the call that nobody wants to get. And she's 24 years old.

So she's 24. And unbeknownst to me, she had been experiencing certain symptoms and different things that she was not sharing with me. She didn't want to, she just didn't want me to be, I guess, concerned or didn't want me to be worried. And so it had reached a point where she could no longer hide it or keep it from me because it was getting worse.

Her symptoms were getting worse. And I can remember that phone call that night, and I was just, in a sense, just kind of speechless on the other end of the phone. And this is not in the days of cell phones, so you can kind of picture in your mind's eye, I'm standing at a really, I think, a pay phone in the arena, if I can, full recollection. It's one of those like, hey, Nikita, there's a call for you.

You're at the arena and you're a call for me at the arena. What? And she shares that news with me. And so I had some decisions to make. And of course, upon flying back home, her and I discussed some of the different options. And back in those days, as is still today, some of the options were chemotherapy, radiation. We met with the doctors. They're going over this whole regiment of treatments and what she might be facing or what she might be looking at or considering in order to get this cancer into remission. And so we go ahead and we talk it through and put together what she was comfortable with, what she felt was a strategy, if you will, on how to eradicate this cancer in her body.

She begins to go through a series of chemotherapy treatments and it was just eye-opening for me on a personal level. Now, keep in mind, I'm not a believer. I'm not a Jesus follower. I'm not an atheist. I'm not an agnostic.

I'm just not a Jesus follower. I'm living for me. It's my world. You're just living in it. I'm having this incredible wrestling career, world champion numerous times already, wrestling in the pinnacle of wrestling against a guy named Nature Boy, Ric Flair, and just, in a sense, living the high life, traveling around the world.

At this point, I think I've already wrestled in the Middle East and wrestled three or four times in, two or three times, I think, in Japan and Puerto Rico and Canada and some just on this path of success, right? And then this news hits, kind of rocks your world. Some of you maybe have been there.

Maybe you're there right now. Maybe you're in the midst of this yourself. Maybe you've been diagnosed with cancer or one of your loved ones has been diagnosed and you're wondering for yourself, what do we do with this? How do we handle this?

How do we move forward with this? So she begins these treatments of chemotherapy and as you might picture, I mean, just a gorgeous, gorgeous girl, gorgeous gal, 24 years old, flowing, beautiful, sandy brown, blonde hair. And as she goes through this regimen of treatments, little by little, her hair starts falling out. Now, keep in mind at this point, I know when all the scheduled treatments and all of that are, so I'm there for her, supporting her, walking with her through that, while at the same time, still on the road at this point.

Again, we talked about it. It was agreed that I would continue my career while at the same time supporting her on the days that she needed these treatments and she had some good friends around her, some good girlfriends around her. And so she's walking through this whole process of treatments that eventually, eventually, through all the series of chemotherapy, and then they convinced her to then take the radiation in addition to that. But through that whole process, she loses all of her hair. I mean, all of her hair. I mean, she's as bald as I am, realistically. And I can remember, I can think back and just how devastating it was to her as a woman, as it would be for anyone, but just losing in her eyes, in her mind, her beauty, by losing all her hair, it certainly changed her whole look. And so did everything I could on my part. And so we found a wig company that took photos.

We took photos in and so they matched up, I can recall. I forget how many now. I don't know, maybe two, three, four wigs that we had made up for her that just give her just a slightly different look, but just to try to restore some of the beauty that she felt in her mind that she had lost. A copy of his newly updated life story, A Tale of the Ring and Redemption. Go to www.colof.net and donate today. The Man Up Show is honored to have Dr. Johnny Gaten as one of our longest running supportive sponsors. Dr. Gaten is regarded as one of the world's leading elite eye surgeons. He is motivated by his faith in doing all things heartily as unto the Lord. His desire to do his best has contributed to success in his eye care practice, performing over 70,000 eye surgeries. In addition, he's a world-renowned speaker, writer, and author.

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Let's do this whole process. It does get to a point where it reaches remission. And so, you know, how grateful are we? How thankful are we as it reaches that point?

We're ecstatic, right? It reaches the point of remission. There's still a series of radiation treatments that they wanted her to follow up with. But if you had been there holding her hand, walking through that whole process, and, you know, I can remember sitting in the room and they would give her the IV drips of chemotherapy, and just the minute that stuff would hit her vein, the vomiting, and that would continue for the entire treatment time until it stopped, and then even beyond the end of the treatment for a while, and how weak it made her, and just her complexion, and just the whole thing. And so when she got the news that it was in remission by her own decision, and again, I'm thinking and having conversations that it is her life, and I'm there to support her in whatever decision she makes, because it's her life, right? And I said, honey, I'll support you in whatever decision you make. And so she makes the decision.

She does not want to finish up with the radiation treatments, just because of how sick it made her through that whole entire process of months and months of treatments. And so I supported her in that decision. And it was during that time that I thought, what can I do to try to, in the midst of this crisis, bring some joy to her, into her life? And so it was during that time that I made a decision, you know what, let's get married.

Let's get married, and let's lock that in. And so she agreed to that. She wanted to do that. I wanted to do that. And so we went down to Florida. We rented a small boat. We had a few friends there that were a part of that.

In fact, Lex Luger was there in that very small, quaint group that we had to celebrate that wedding and bring some joy into her life. And so there was a period of months there where she's in remission. We're really enjoying the marriage at this point, and then we get more news. And the more news was that the cancer was back and really in more full force than it was even initially. And so they were talking about alternative treatments, you know, the chemo, radiation.

Ah, we don't know that that's the right path. And really, it was an eye-opener for me in terms of medicine and what there was to offer, because what they were offering was a bone marrow transplant. It was like stage four, and they're like, bone marrow transplant. And the caveat to that, though, was as a wrestler, I was in a sense uninsurable, right? They said you're like about a high risk as the high trapeze artist, you know, high risk. And in those days, you know, wrestlers were responsible for their own medical bills, and insurance was just way off the charts. So you really didn't even consider insurance. You just took a chance, rolled the dice, if you will, to think, well, if I get injured, I'll just, you know, hopefully I got the money to pay it out of pocket.

And that's what we did. And so in this particular case, there's no insurance involved here. And so I remember the bone marrow transplant, the doctor sitting in Charlotte, North Carolina, said you'll have to write a $250,000 check for her to get on the list to be considered for bone marrow. Well, we didn't have $250,000 cash just laying around.

So that wasn't an option, and we looked for alternatives at this point, and we found a doctor in Greece, Dr. Alivasatos, and had heard reports of what kind of success he was having with cancer patients. And so some friends helped us, some Greek friends we knew helped us fly over to Greece, helped us, put us up at their relative's house in Greece. We were there for three weeks.

We got a lot of, it actually was fun to tour the Parthenon and different things in Athens, and got to experience some joy in the latter part of her life, and went through the treatments, and although they helped some, they just, she was so far gone in terms of the stage she was at that it didn't resolve the whole entire issue. We fly back home, and we're only home like a day or two, and she goes, can I go back to Alabama? I'd like to see my family, and she does. And within two days, she's in the intensive care room in Huntsville, Alabama, and I end up spending the last six weeks of her life, because she never leaves the ICU.

It's obvious, it's evident. She's not leaving there. In fact, you could just see the progression of her health declining. And so I spend the last six weeks of her life sleeping on an egg crate next to her bed in Huntsville, Alabama. And I'm not a believer, but I remember going down to the little chapel there in the hospital, and just praying to the Lord, praying to God. God, why does this young woman have to suffer through this?

And then I have to witness this, right? You know, the big why question. I don't think there's anything wrong with asking God why I think He's big enough to handle it. I mean, Jesus on the cross, right? Why have you forsaken me?

You know, why is today's modern world more of what I would call a Greek mindset versus a Hebrew mindset, which, what is the Hebrew mindset, right? Meaning, okay, I'm going through this. God, what do you want me to learn from this? This trial, this tragedy, this tribulation, whatever it is. A phone call, because so-and-so had a car wreck, and as a pastor just did recently, a 17, 18-year-old grandson and son-in-law got sandwiched between two 18-wheelers, because there's no promise of tomorrow.

That just happened just recently with a pastor that I know. No promise of tomorrow. And so we can ask the why question, and that's what I was doing at that point in time.

Why, God, this young woman, beautiful young woman, has to go through this? And sometimes we get an answer and sometimes we don't. But for me, what it taught me personally, not a believer, as I witnessed this whole journey of Mandy's, was the brevity of life, just how short life can be, that there are no promises of tomorrow. There are no guarantees. Hence the importance of having your heart right with Jesus today.

Today. I mean, if you're listening to this today, and you've had, maybe you've never experienced this with any loved ones or any family members or friends of yours, but whether you have or you haven't, if you don't have a relationship with Jesus, there's no promise of tomorrow. Hence the importance of surrendering your heart today. It's as simple as ABC. Accept the fact that Jesus lived, died, and rose again.

Believe that in your heart of hearts and then just confess with your mouth and invite Him in to live inside of you. And so no matter what tragedy you might face, whether it's cancer or COVID or anything else, that's the new C word, right? COVID. I think it's trumped, no pun intended, cancer at this point, right? It's COVID or whatever it might be. Whatever you're facing, whatever health issue, whatever life issue, Jesus is the answer.

He's the answer. So I'm in that chapel, I watch, and I'm there the day that it's obvious she doesn't have much life left. And I'm there to witness and watch the monitor as the heart rate drops, consistently drops, till it flatlines and she's gone.

She's gone. And that experience changed me. Now I will tell you this, I didn't come to Christ that day, I didn't come to Jesus the next day or the day after, but it was an experience for me on my journey that led me to the foot of the cross.

That eventually led me to the foot of the cross. I would take some time off from wrestling, for those of you who remember my career, and to process all of that, and eventually I would go back and wrestle for a few more years. It was never the same. It was never the same, it was different.

The company had changed hands, it went from Jim Crockett Promotions to Corporate America, Ted Turner stepping in and buying it, changing the transition from the NWA to World Championship Wrestling, and things were just different. But I look back with a heart of gratitude on that experience, as painful as it was at the time, to watch her go through that, this beautiful young woman walk through that challenge of life, and eventually lose her life at the age of 26. She battled it for two years, diagnosed at 24, and passed away at age 26. But it just taught me this, that life is short, life is brief. In fact, scripture goes on to say, life's like a hand breath, it's like a morning fog.

I mean, you ever stepped out of your house and saw a fog out in the field, and it seems like it's there, and then all of a sudden, poof, the fog is gone? That's the brevity of life. That's the brevity of life. And so I don't know where you're at today, as you're listening to this story, as you're learning a little bit about my story. I guess more than anything, I just want to emphasize to you, if you don't have a personal relationship, I'm not talking about you, a regular church attender, you grew up in a Christian home, you grew up in a Christian family, and I'm talking about you, like Nicodemus, when Jesus said, Nicodemus, you must be born again. Man, this learned man had trouble wrapping his head, this Pharisee had trouble wrapping his head around that, right?

What do you mean? Do I go back to my mother's womb? No, no, no, born of the flesh, yes, but also born of the Spirit. Born of the Spirit. So if you haven't experienced that today, that's really, in my heart of hearts, if you take anything away from today, take that away, that if you don't have a personal relationship, make that decision today. And if you do, praise God that you've already made that decision.

And let me just encourage you with this as I begin to close this show. Death is not a period, it's a comma. If you've got Jesus in your heart of hearts, then there's no fear of death because Jesus defeated death on the cross. And so death is just a doorway, a threshold into eternal life. And so there's no fear of death. There's no fear of a virus. There's no fear of cancer. You don't have to be fearful of any other health issue. You can just have peace and confidence and trust in knowing that Jesus defeated death and Paul said to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. And so that's the message to you today. Make sure you have your heart right with Jesus. You've given your life to him. There is no fear of death.

You don't have to have a fear of death because you have eternal life looking at you and your future just waiting for you. Thank you for tuning in and dialing in. Let me share a little bit of my personal story with you today and it's time to man up. This podcast is made possible by the grace of God and your faithful prayers, support, and generous gifts. May God bless you for your continual contributions. Go to Kolob.net and donate today. If you are enjoying the Man Up show, would you help us spread the word? Tell your family, tell your friends, tell your neighbors to download, subscribe, and leave a comment. Hi, Nikita Kolob. Be sure to check out the Man Up show, now available on television, broadcast, and podcast. Go to MorningStarTV.com or the Truth Radio Network. Check out your local listings or better yet, download the Truth Network app today.

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