A local pastor shares his compelling story of perseverance, faith and healing

ALBANY — Imagine preaching in the schoolyard about God’s grace, mercy and healing power when you are only 10 year’s old with braces on your legs, a crooked spine and multiple health issues.

Imagine doctors saying there is no cure for what you have and your chances of walking, playing sports or doing all the normal things that young boys do would never come to pass. Imagine not always having the level of support you needed from family and friends.

Now, imagine having a faith so strong that nothing and no one can convince you that the healing you hoped for and believed in wasn’t going to happen.

Q.S. Caldwell is the modern-day definition of a walking miracle. He certainly is a survivor who endured multiple surgeries and all sorts of issues and ailments stemming from a rare muscular disorder discovered during childhood.

“I was severely bow-legged,” he said.

Caldwell said he was taken to several doctors but was always told he would “grow out of it.” The older he got, the worse his condition became.

“In the early 1960s, they called it rickets,” Caldwell said. “They also thought I had a vitamin D deficiency, but they eventually ruled that out.”

When he was about 8 years old, an orthopedic doctor in Albany wanted to send a piece of his bone to Washington, D.C., to have it analyzed. But Caldwell said his parents were against that idea.

“My grandmother was afraid my bone would get lost,” he said.

At that time, Caldwell said he was just wanting medical personnel to do whatever was needed so he could live a normal life.

“I was as good as crippled,” he said. “Some days I could not walk. Some days I went to school, and some days I didn’t.”

As a boy, Caldwell attended Lincoln Heights in South Albany. He lived with his great-grandmother who, he says, always spoke positive words and encouraged him through his struggle.

“She taught me God’s word about healing,” he said.

Caldwell said he also recalls a teacher, Birnelle Williams, who played an instrumental role in his childhood years.

“These women told me I should not allow my condition to be my conclusion — and I believed them,” he said.

Caldwell said he was about 9 years old when he began to see a local doctor, Dr. Charles Gillespie.

“That’s when I had to wear braces on both legs,” Caldwell said. “I remember my ninth birthday was a big event with a whole room full of people to celebrate. I got up and fell right down to the floor. My condition just kept getting worse.”

Caldwell said he had an underdeveloped right hip, and his back was angled at 45 degrees when the proper alignment should be at 90 degrees.

“According to the doctors, I needed major back surgery and a hip replacement,” he said.

He did not have that surgery. Instead he took his health issues to a higher power.

“At age 13, they took another x-ray and discovered that I had grown a new hip bone,” Caldwell said. “I give all praise to God because that ligament that was grown was supposed to have been there at birth.”

Caldwell says he attributes his bone growth and his healing to the Lord.

“I believed in God’s Word. I rehearsed healing scriptures and recited them on a day-to-day basis,” he said.

While medical professionals and some family and friends spoke negatively about his condition, Caldwell said he grew closer to the Lord and relied on Bible verses to carry him through.

“I was told I would have to live with my parents forever,” he said. “I was told I would never drive a car or play sports. But because my will was so strong, I played Little League baseball and I marched in the Dougherty High School band.”

Caldwell said he played second-chair saxophone in the school band. He also obtained his driver’s license while in high school.

“I took my driver’s test in a wheelchair,” he said.

Caldwell said his recovery was due, in part, to the miraculous bone growth and to surgery on both of his legs.

“In 1985, I had major surgery on both legs,” he said. “I was the second person in the United States to have the type of surgery I had.”

Caldwell said Gillespie did the surgery at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital.

In a phone interview, Gillespie said he recalls doing the surgery but not many of the details. Gillespie said he retired from his medical profession about 20 years ago.

Caldwell said he recalls lying flat on his back and having a cast from his hip down to his toes following the surgery.

“Dr. Gillespie said he could only promise me a 50-50 chance that I would ever walk,” Caldwell said.

He was confined to a wheelchair and initially had less than 5 percent usage of his legs. Caldwell said there was at least one time he can recall getting so depressed he did not want to live.

“I asked God why He would not just take me,” the pastor said. “Why did I have to go through all the pain? Late that night I heard the front door rattle and I looked down the hall and I saw a dark shadow come closer and closer. As the image got closer, I heard an audible voice saying this is death.

“I had the choice to live or to die. That’s when I cried out to God and said if He would be with me I wanted to live. I heard God say He would be with me, and that’s when the dark shadow disappeared.”

Caldwell paused for a moment and added, “Death does not turn around, it backs up.”

After that, his bout with depression ended. He said he continued to pray and trust God for his healing.

“Prayer and therapy is how I eventually recovered,” he said.

Caldwell said he recalls filling his sock with “50 to 100 pennies” and pulling himself up to the doorpost in his room. Eventually, he was able to stand up. When doctors said he would not stand up for months and might never walk again, Caldwell defied the odds and was up and ready to remove his leg braces in about six weeks. What should have taken 10 weeks of therapy, he said, was accomplished in less than a month.

“It was because of the faith and healing my grandmother had put in me,” Caldwell said. “One day I was able to stand up because I prayed and called on Jesus. Soon after that, the strength and action came back into my legs. Dr. Gillespie saw me walking in the mall one day and he knew it was a healing done through faith.”

Caldwell said he knew he had been “called” into ministry at the age of 9.

“God called me into ministry,” he said. “One day I heard Him call my name out loud. It sounded just like the voice of my biological mother. It was a Saturday morning when I heard this, so I ran to my mother and asked if she had called me but she had not.”

He went back to playing, he said, and heard the voice a second time. Again he went to his mother and asked if she had called him. The answer again was no. He heard that voice a third time before the morning was over.

“The third time, my mother told me to go read the story of Samuel and Eli in the Bible,” Caldwell said. “She said if I heard the voice again to ask the Lord to speak. Later that night, I heard it and I had a dream and I saw myself at a church. From that time on I began to preach.

“I preached on the playground at recess. I preached to all my neighbors until finally God gave me a platform to minister. When I started preaching in churches, I was so short they had to give me a chair to stand on.”

Caldwell said most of his classmates were supportive and many came to know Jesus because of the sermons he preached in the schoolyard.

Although Caldwell spent most of his high school years homebound, he did graduate and went on to study computer science in Columbus. Caldwell received a bachelor’s degree in Religious Arts and Biblical Studies and a Master’s Degree in Theology from the Jacksonville Theological Seminary in Jacksonville, Fla.

He later received a doctorate of Theology from Guadalupe Theological Seminary in San Antonio, Texas. In February 2013, Caldwell received a Doctorate of Divinity Degree in Pastoral Administration from Living Faith School of Ministries in Champaign, Ill.

Caldwell has been involved ministry since May 1977.

“I have been preaching the Gospel for 41 years,” he said. “I started Celebration of Praise Ministries 28 years ago.”

Caldwell is the full-time pastor of Greater Joy Cathedral Celebration of Praise Ministries, located at 2405 Lily Pond Road in Albany, and Greater Joy Cathedral Celebration of Praise Ministries in Lenox. As an evangelist and motivational speaker, he also travels extensively throughout the United States conducting revivals, crusades, and workshops.