Solid Rock pastor’s husband fought COVID-19: ‘We have been in the storm of our life'

After testing positive for the coronavirus and not eating for two weeks, the husband of Darlene Bishop Driscoll, pastor of Solid Rock Church, has recovered and plans to attend church tonight she told the congregation Sunday morning.

“This has been the hardest two weeks of my life,” she told the congregation during an emotional 45-minute sermon on Sunday. “We have been in the storm of our life.”

Driscoll said her husband of two years, Phil Driscoll, 72, an accomplished musician who often plays at the church, walked up the 18 steps to their bedroom and said he didn’t require oxygen that night.

Credit: MIDDLETOWN JOURNAL

Credit: MIDDLETOWN JOURNAL

She said her husband is quarantining at home and plans to be at Solid Rock for its service tonight.

“With bells on,” she said of her husband.

She said her husband thought he had kidney stones until he tested positive for COVID-19. She said he was in “such a weak state” that he was hospitalized. The congregation held a prayer service for him on Aug. 10.

Two days later, she said, doctors called from the hospital and asked, “Can you come get him out?”

On Sunday, her husband was home watching the sermon live on Facebook and was “starting to get fat again,” she said with a smile.

“Storms don’t last,” she told the congregation. “But we all have to go through storms. I never thought in my lifetime I’d face a storm like I just went through.”

Throughout the pandemic, Solid Rock has been criticized for holding in-person services while other churches either closed or held virtual services. Solid Rock leaders have said religious services have always been exempt from state orders prohibiting mass gatherings.

Monroe’s mayor asked Solid Rock to stop in-person services, and when the church continued, it faced heavy criticism on social media while others supported the church’s actions.

“We are hated by some, but we are loved by more,” Bishop Driscoll told the congregation. “We are not leaving church.”


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