“If Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.” – 1 Cor. 15:14 /faith/: a strong, unshakable belief in something.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” – 1 Peter 1:3 /hope/: to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence, to believe, desire or trust.
“You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples.” – Psalm 77:14 /miracles/: an extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or naturalpowers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.
About 3 years ago my life changed momentarily. The one moment I was celebrating my upcoming 21st birthday on the farm with friends, the next I’ve found myself so weak that I couldn’t get out of bed to get pain medication, or even drive myself to the doctor. After lying in the emergency room for a while, I finally got an open bed. Can you imagine being happy and thankful for an open bed in a hospital. Well that’s what it was, a relief.
After spending my 21st birthday in a hospital bed, looking around me, seeing sick people, I realized what a blessing to be not so sick. And then a catastrophe happened. My fever went up and up and… There it was, in a coma on my way to ICU. From here on forward reality became something in the very far distance. The only glimpse of reality that was left, was the mask they put on me to try to open my lungs so that I can breath. The last words I can remembered was “Just try to breath normal”. From that moment, nothing was normal anymore. I guess in situations like this, called trauma or shock, the brain needs to make a decision for the body. Face the danger and fight, or run away from it. In this case my brain decided to run away from it. But there was a little bit left in my body that wanted to fight. The shock was still there and that is the thing that keeps us fighting, that saves us. But when the shock is fading away, when the body accept the trauma is happening – that moment is the moment of vulnerability, of drifting away. They say it’s a scary moment but I would like to call it a magical moment, because that moment is the moment that saved me.
There is a quote about running a marathon that say: “First you feel like dying then you feel reborn.” While my body and brain was fighting over this shock, I felt like dying. Tired of running this marathon. My body was shaking, my legs felt like jelly. And then that magical moment took over, my brain won the fight and my trophy was two big Hands sweeping me of from the ground, picking me up to go somewhere bigger. Somewhere greater. People call it heaven. At that moment Jesus picked me up – death didn’t even cross my mind – and if for some reason it did, i definitely wasn’t scared of it. I got to have a sneak peak on the after life, on heaven. Seeing my Daddy, who at that time passed away about 3 years ago, was one of the most incredible moments. No- I couldn’t hear him, but I could have gave him a hug and that was good enough. Everything up there was good. Am I crazy? – I don’t know. Was I scared to tell people my story? – Yes. Did everybody belief me? – No. But that’s got something to do with their faith.
People from all over South Africa prayed for me. After a few days I was awake, not knowing anything – it was my body fighting back with some fighting spirit that only the Holy spirit could have gave me. There was strangers praying in languages, people who came and read the Bible for me, people who anointed my body with oil, and friends and family being by my side the whole time, praying without stopping. These prayers were answered and I’ve been taken to a single room in a normal ward with a big window, because that’s what I missed the most – being able to stare at the creations of God, my savior.
That is the good part, the part I can remember and luckily want to remember. The medical part, the part friends and family went through, is a whole other story. My body was fighting against it self. My immune system was over active and I didn’t accept the antibiotics. Only with the last try of antibiotics, my body reacted. I went into a respiratory distress. That lead up to fluid in my alveoli which prevents oxygen from getting to my lungs and my bloodstream. The fluid was making my lungs heavy and prevented me from breathing, which is the one essential of living. But with the help of a ventilator oxygen could have flown to my lungs, even though the levels was low. There was signs of possible brain damage. My arterial blood gas figures needed to rise quickly. According to the experts, only one third of people with this respiratory distress will survive and then they may have problematic lungs or memory loss due to brain damage. It can also lead to failure of other organ systems like the heart and kidneys. Luckily mine was just the lungs and I had healthy lungs before all this.
It was a rollercoaster of emotions when I was taken off most of the sedatives. The morning my figures were up, and then a few hours later, it was critically down again. With the complete white x-rays of my lungs, which means my lungs was filled with water, it looked like there was no hope. But in this special time of the resurrection, how can we live without hope. Jesus has risen from the dead and that same Man is answering our prayers. James 5:15 says ” And the prayer of faith will save him who is sick…” And that is exactly what happened.
After 15 days between 4 walls, 2 specialized doctors, 2 physio sessions a day, heaps of nurses, hundred tests a day and needles and pipes all over my body – I walked out of the hospital by myself, as a miracle (The exact words from my doctors), without any medication but normal vitamins. With my 3 months check up – my lungs were clean as if nothing ever happened. I gained so much in life during this time. The only thing I’e lost was my power to laugh due to the ventilator, but after 6 months and a few cries, it came back 6 months later.
I can’t explain everything. The whole is greater than the sum of all its parts. And in this case 1+1 equals a million because miracles do happen if you have faith and if you have hope.
