Healing Prayer

I was drinking coffee early in the morning before work.  I felt my left arm go numb.  I laid down on the floor and called to my Wife.  I said I need to go to the hospital.  She started praying over me.  I was able to get to my feet and travel to the hospital a short distance away.  An MRI was taken at the hospital and it showed a major stroke had happened.  I felt no ill effects, got up and returned home.  After seven years I still have no physical or mental disabilities from the stroke.  The doctors said I dodged a bullet.  I know better.  My Wife's healing prayer had God intervene on my behalf.

Miracles Come True

In April 2017, my son got sick.  He was running a very high fever and he thought he had a bad case of the flu.  For several days, I asked his two sisters to go by and check on him because he lived in a different state from me.  He continued to run a high fever, but he did not go to the doctor.  For three nights I had dreams about my son and I was still concerned that he was sicker than family and friends thought.  So I called a very good friend of mine to go and take groceries to my son and make sure he was able to eat and check things out for me.  She called me that night and said she thought he should go to the emergency room.  So I told her I was going to pack and start driving to my sons.  It was going to take me 15 hours driving straight through, but I should be there by noon the next day.  I asked her to go back at seven in the morning and check on him again. 
I was already on the road to my sons and my friend called me from his house.  She said he was talking out of his head and I told her to call 911.  When the ambulance arrived, I listened on speaker to the conversation between my son and the ambulance staff.  My son was mentally confused and they decided he needed to go the emergency room and my friend went with my son to the hospital.

I prayed as we drove to the hospital and waited for my friend to call from the emergency room.  I called family, friends, and several churches to start praying immediately for my son. 
Finally, my friend called from the emergency room and the news was alarming.  My son had developed a staph infection that went to his mitral heart valve and damaged it.  His heart was sending infected clots to other parts of this body.  In the course of the last few days, the doctors thought he had at least 3 strokes.  The brain scans also revealed a blood vessel with weakness like an aneurysm.  The doctors could not give my son blood thinners to prevent further strokes because of bleeding in the brain. 
In addition, a piece of infected material had lodged in an artery in his heart and he had a heart attack.  It was a miracle where the blockage occurred.  It went down a few centimeters and caused the tip of the heart to be damaged.  However, if it had gone up only a few centimeters it would have entered the area called "the widow maker".  Almost, no one survives the damage this blockage would have caused.  God was watching over my son before we even knew what was wrong with him in those first few hours. Praise God that He watches over us and our children even when we are unaware that we need protection!

I spent most of that day on the phone with cardiologists, neurologists, and infectious disease doctors.  I finally arrived at the hospital that evening.  The next morning the doctors just kept bringing me bad news. 
The doctors said that my son had very little chance of survival.  The infection had severely damaged the mitral heart valve.  This valve keeps blood from flooding the lungs and can only be repaired with open heart surgery.  My son was not a candidate for surgery for two reasons. First, they had to get my son completely infection free with very strong antibiotics and it would take 12 weeks of those antibiotics to do the job.  Next, my son had an aneurysm in his brain and he could not have the large amount of blood thinners necessary to perform open heart surgery because that would cause a fatal brain bleed.
The only thing the doctors could do was give my son antibiotics and wait.  While we waited my son went into respiratory failure because the damaged mitral heart valve allowed too much blood to flood the lungs.  We had to put my son on a ventilator. 

In a couple of days my son's kidneys also failed and he was put on dialysis.  They tried taking him off of life support and in 8 hours they had to ventilate him again.  They tried a second time to take him off of life support, but in 16 hours he was turning blue and cold as ice.  It was a struggle for him to keep sufficient oxygen levels. 
It was about two o'clock in the morning and I was with my son alone that night.  I was his decision maker and I told the nurse to get the pulmonary doctor on call to come and ventilate him again.  The doctor arrived and ask my son if he wanted to be ventilated again and my son said no and the doctor told me that my son would most likely die on the vent.  I told the doctor that my son would be one of the survivors.  The doctor said he was going to try some other things first, but my son was cold, turning blue, and barely breathing. 
It is times like this that you either believe God and His Word or you believe doctors, medical tests, and statistics.  This is when you decide this is WAR and the devil is either going to destroy you or God is going to deliver you.  This is your moment of truth. 

I did not have the luxury of time to do a Bible study on healing or faith.  I had to fall back on the Word of God that has been planted in my heart since I was a child.  That is when the Holy Spirit reminded me of the Bible story about Jacob and how he wrestled with a heavenly being all night and would not turn the angel loose until God blessed him.  So I determined that I was not going to let my son die without a fight.  I was not going to let go of Jesus and His Word until he healed my son.  I knelt by my son's hospital bed that night and held on to his hand for hours and prayed.  I received the Holy Spirit when I was eight years old with the gift of speaking in tongues.  So I prayed in tongues in addition to praying in normal speech.  I prayed in tongues because then the Holy Spirit is praying for you and the Holy Spirit knows even better than I do in the natural what to pray. The doctor and a whole team of medical staff stayed in his room for hours and kept trying different medicines, oxygen levels and masks.  Finally, Shawn began to have sufficient oxygen levels and did not have to be vented again.  No one can ever tell me that God does not hear and answer prayer.

My son finally came off of dialysis too.  He continued to get IV antibiotics until he was released to go home.
He still had some difficult health challenges ahead of him.  He had to go back to the hospital for several days to pull excess water off his body. He continued to have health issues which included an aneurysm in his brain that he needed brain surgery to fix it before he could get the mitral heart valve surgery.  He returned to his neurosurgeon on and got new MRI's of his brain.  After prayer, the new MRI showed NO aneurysm and he was cleared to have his open heart surgery.  However, surgeons in the state where he lived were not willing to perform the open heart surgery and he was having difficulty with breathing, anxiety, and energy.  We did not want him to end up with permanent damage to his heart, brain, or any part of his body.  We did not want him to get to a point where he was no longer a candidate for surgery.  We did not want him to give up hope.  We continued to pray for God to reveal my son's divine pathway to healing.

I had his medical records sent to the valve clinic in Houston, Texas and they had accepted him as a patient.  So in August, we went and got my son to have his open heart surgery in Houston, but hurricane Harvey hit and we had to go to an emergency room at the Austin Heart Hospital.  He was admitted and received his mitral valve surgery.
The surgeon had discussed all the options before surgery.  The surgeon could try to repair the damaged valve, install a biological replacement valve, or a mechanical valve.  My son requested repair if possible and then a biological valve replacement.

The surgeon did a repair of his own mitral valve.  This way my son does not need to be on blood thinners the rest of his life.  He is only 42 years old.  The choice of repair was important because of his age.   In December, my son started a new job, has put on weight, and says he feels better than he has in 10 years. 
My son is a walking, talking, and breathing Miracle.   Do you need a miracle, a healing, or some other kind of breakthrough today?  Have the doctors told you that there is no hope?  What negative words and reports have experts told you? 

Well today, you have a decision to make.  Who will you believe?  Who are you placing your trust in?  Do you know what God's Word and will says? 
I am telling you that you are at WAR and it is not with cancer, or a virus, or disease.  We are fighting a spiritually wicked supernatural enemy that can only be defeated with God's supernatural power for good.
Also, do not think that I am some kind of saint, because I assure I am not.  I am sinner that has only been forgiven and I have read God's Word and His divine contract with me and I have made a choice to believe the promises made in that divine document, the Bible.  God does not show partiality.  God loves you as much as He loves me or my son and God will save you from your sins and heal your body and mind just like he did for me and my family.