While I was in Ireland March 2011 I met Carla who has an incredible story to tell. Here is her story.
Blessings Christine
I woke up at some stage during Good Friday night 2010. My nineteen year old son Yann hadn’t returned yet from the party he had gone to, and I had learned long ago not to lie awake and wait for him since there was no way of knowing whether he would come home at all or stay the night somewhere. When at around 5am a car pulled up outside our house I decided it must be a taxi. When the engine was switched off I thought, for God’s sake, don’t tell me he came driving home. When I finally looked out of the window I saw a policeman and -woman getting out, and my heart jumped into my throat. Opening the door to them, it was beating so hard I could barely breathe.
I was told very gently that my son had been involved in a bit of a car accident and was in hospital, nothing too serious, possibly just a broken leg. Seeing that I was in no condition to drive I was given a lift in the policecar where I heard that indeed Yann had been the driver and that he had drink taken. My shock gave way to anger about this idiot son of mine who had had already several brushes with the law, all stupid things he had done when drunk.
When I arrived I heard him being addressed as Fred. For some reason he had decided to give them a false name, and the nurses, already tested by his loud drunken cursing and pleading for water, weren’t too pleased that all the bloodsamples had been sent off with the wrong label on them. I was impressed by their patience and good temperedness despite my son’s bad behaviour.
In the cubicle next to Yann lay Darren, who had been in the passenger seat of the car. He wasn’t shouting, as I think he was unconscious a lot of the time. He had been very badly injured, with many fractures, actual bones sticking out of his limbs, as I was told by the third lad, who had been in the backseat and amazingly, was uninjured and able to go home.
I was grateful just to sit there with my son who was gradually sobering up and reassuring him that once his leg was operated he would be allowed some water. Thoughts about the legal consequences to all of this began crossing both our minds.
The fractures were going to be dealt with in another hospital, and I guess we were waiting for the transport there, when both boys’ complaints about pain in their abdomens led to the decision to give them x-rays. After an eternity of sitting with Darren’s parents in the waiting room I was called into a small room and asked by the consultant to sit down. He then told me he was very sorry to say that my son had a life threatening injury to his aorta, the main bloodsupply vessel from the heart, that eight out of ten people would have died on the spot with such an injury and that Yann would need to have a stent put into his aorta which was so badly torn that only a few threads were holding it together. The good news was that there was an excellent surgeon in Dublin who was specializing in just this kind of operation, and that’s where my son would go.
This is where the battle began. Yann and the doctors were doing their part in the fight for Yann’s life, and for me it was time to rise to the spiritual battle that was raging unseen behind the scenes. The opportunity to put to practice everything I had learned since I joined my church two years ago. A church that wasn’t called Victory Christian Centre for nothing.
It was in this church that I met two passionate African women, so powerful in their prayers and so fierce in how they were coming against satan, that it left me openmouthed. – I realize this may not go down well with anyone who doesn’t believe in the existence of a devil in the first place. I can only speak for myself and say I’m aware that there is an enemy intent on getting into my mind and destroying my life from the inside out every single day from the moment I open my eyes in the morning. It helps me greatly to know that I can rise against him, and win! Not in my own strength but through Christ in me. This makes me a more powerful person than I was when I didn’t really believe in the existence of a devil but felt hopeless and scared all the time nonetheless.
It was my pastors whom I rang first, and the support I received through prayers, texts and calls over the next hours gave me great strength. To know that all these people were speaking, declaring, proclaiming, confessing God’s Word over Yann’s life was powerful.
Pastor Frank arrived in the hospital and “in the Name of Jesus” broke any dark assignment over Yann’s life, spoke healing over his injuries, prayed Psalm 91, and the two of us agreed that Yann would live. – The use of the name of Jesus, as well as commanding a spirit of sickness to leave and a prayer of agreement between two or more people, and -most exciting- declaring God’s Word, such as Psalm 91, all these must seem strange to say the least, yet they are spiritual tools, weapons in fact, that we are called to use.
We’re not meant to sit there and say, oh God, look how terrible this is, please do something. He wants us to use the authority He has given us through Christ. If the doctors say, we don’t know if your son will make it, yet Scripture says, “I’m confident in this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in Yann will also complete it”, then if mixed with a sufficient amount of faith, God’s truth will override the medical facts.
I was not unfamiliar with the idea that “you get what you expect” and had come to the frustrating conclusion that my own negative beliefs and expectations were holding me back and keeping me stuck in life. But lately I had begun to see how I could make this principle work in my favour. The Bible said, I could say to this “mountain” of Yann’s life-threating injuries “be thou removed and cast into the sea”, and if I believed it in my heart it would be done. Scripture also says we are given dominion over all circumstances by the power of Christ in us.
If this was true, why shouldn’t it include my son’s situation? The key was, not to doubt. But stand in faith and “aggressively claim” those scriptures that were relevant to Yann’s recovery.
I was allowed to go along in the ambulance, and I noticed the driver’s and the other medics serenity and lack of panic and understood you can’t get too emotional everytime you try to save someone’s life. I was told how extremely lucky the two lads had been to have got out of that wreck alive. It was fascinating to travel so fast and see the cars in front of us scuttle out of the way. All the while I was muttering under my breath all the scriptures I knew, thanking God that “all things work together for good” and doing my best to fully believe what I was saying.
The long hours of waiting in the Mater Hospital that followed were way worse for my husband and our two daughters and their boyfriends than for me. I could see the awful fear, worry and tears in their eyes. All they had were the consultant’s words who said that Yann’s chances of surviving the operation were 50/50, and the kindness of the nurse popping in and out of the High Dependency Unit explaining why they’re not operating yet and through her whole demeanor saying, look, don’t hope too much.
Believe it or not, I had one of the most powerful and positive days of my life. That day I learned what faith is, and when mine grew weak and I was hit by fear and the desire to fall apart, I could lean on the faith of those in my church. I’ll never forget Pastor Miriam’s words on the phone, “Have no fear.” – it was as if I suddenly understood these words in my spirit, and I got it.
Or another wonderful textmessage saying that on Good Friday Jesus took all the injuries and bruising and mangling that Yann and Darren went through. He already died for them. And it struck me, there’s absolutely no point in them dying, suffering a death that Jesus had already suffered for them. Jesus died so that Yann and Darren should have life. And that they should “have it more abundantly” (scripture again), not less abundantly, confined to a wheelchair or sth. No, a more abundant life than they had before all this happened.
Supposing it is true that Jesus died so that we would never have to be defeated again by the afflictions of this world. If I had said, well I’m sorry, Jesus, for the agony you had to suffer and I appreciate your good intentions, but I’m afraid it doesn’t do anything for me. This situation is far too serious and terrible. You heard what the doctors said. I can’t see how something you did 2000 years ago could have any impact on my or my family’s life. I could have decided to try and make bargains with God, like, if You save him I promise I will give up the fags, or something. This would have been equivalent to saying that Jesus died in vain, pointlessly. Instead, I made the effort to claim what he died for us to have.
When the good news came that the operation had gone well I shouted, see, I knew it!, before finally collapsing into a chair. On the way home we felt great, like we had just won the worldcup. My husband sent me a text saying thankyou for being so poitive and strong, on
The weeks and months to follow were not easy, and required a different kind of faith, a more sustained one. The adrenalin rush of that Easter Saturday was gone, and it was getting to me to see Yann looking worse every time we came to see him, puffed up after all his operations, feverish, and then very depressed when they weaned him off his morphine drip. Along with that, worries about the legal and financial implications yet to be faced. A few great scares as well when at least twice it looked like Darren was not going to survive. Once he had fluid in his lungs and had to be rushed to yet another hospital, once it was bone marrow in his lungs. Another time we received news that his brain had been damaged (due to the high speed impact) and once he was out of his induced coma he would have to spend a long time in a rehab clinic relearning the use of his limbs. In the end it looked like he would not be able to use one of his hands.
Today, both lads are fully recovered, their bodies fully intact, you would never guess they had been in the mangled car we had to go see in the srcapyard. With Darren’s cut up jumper still in it, as they had to cut him out of his clothes to get him out.
I am telling you all this because the whole story is a long string of miracles we received by God’s grace, and I still haven’t praised Him enough or made it clear enough to all the world that He deserves all the honour and the glory.
