THERE I WAS, SITTING IN THE CAR, NO ONE ELSE IN SIGHT. My husband Jim was in the church, practicing the organ for the service to follow. Son Lee was running off bulletins and preparing to preach and lead worship music with his daughters. A big morning for us all.
Except…chest pains there in the car. Had had minor ones before, the kind that go away after a few minutes. This didn’t. Got worse.
Son Lee
Am I having a heart attack? Didn’t know, never having had one before. Tried getting out to walk toward the church building. Three steps; not good. Back in the car to ponder. Dig out cell phone and stare at it. 9-1-1, maybe? The pain was getting worse. What to do? I mentally play out the ramifications. Imagine the stir an ambulance would create! Would probably wreck the entire morning service—to say nothing of putting husband, son, and granddaughters in a terrible state of mind.
Okay—what are my resources? A vitamin C in my pocket (my first recourse for any malady) and a baby aspirin and mild tranquilizer in a reachable bag. Prayer, of course, as I didn’t think the Lord was looking to upset the indoor applecart to that degree.
Cell phone open, finger poised over 9.
But then…but THEN…the pain faded away in less than a minute!
Okay, let’s test this out, as in walk to the side door. No problem. Go upstairs, start talking with people as they come in. Fine service, good conversations.
Then to Lee’s house for a celebration of Fathers’ Day, birthday, anniversary—you name it. Between the scrumptious meal and dessert, we played croquet, using a blend of widely diverse rules. I did not win but came out on top of the poison ending of the game.
A GOOD day. Was it the super-fast-acting pill assortment, or was it God’s hand? I consider it the closest thing to a miracle that I’m ever likely to experience. HOWEVER, a sudden trip to Glory might have made it even better!
Have you had any near miracles? Are you afraid to die? Tell me about one of your Pretty Good Days.
Praise the Lord
Thanks much, Renee! Yes, it was a God event, for sure. : )
Hi Ellie – Yes I had a close call when I ingested a nut and rushed myself to the hospital. On the table, unable to move or see through my swollen eyes, I was SO excited: Am I going to see Jesus TODAY? Then (equally happy) I realized I didn’t have to cook dinner for company that night! As you know, I made it to see another day in the kitchen. But I’ve never doubted where my heart is.
MJ
Hey Elle,
I did recently have one of those experiences. I was going down I85 South to Charlotte, NC with my 14 year old granddaughter in the car with me. I was going to my son’s home to help him and his wife clean on the house they had just moved in to a couple of days before. Traffic was moving along at the usual fast interstate clip. I was traveling in a section where there was road construction so we had narrowed down to two lanes. There was a concrete barrier to my left and traffic in the lane to my right. Suddenly I came upon a car stopped in the left lane. My immediate reaction was to go to the right. Miraculously the car to my right went to his right. There was no barrier on his right. I made it around the stopped car but when I look back on the incident, I have no doubt that God was at work in saving my life and the life of my granddaughter, as well as, the lives of the people in that car. I keep trying to figure out how we were able to avoid slamming right into that car. Avoiding the accident went far too smoothly for it to have been anything but a miracle from God. But I am becoming more and more aware of God’s miracles the longer that I live. No I am not afraid to die but I would like to hang around a few more years so I can continue to help out my family. I am so happy that you are okay. I know you are ready to go but I would like for you to put out at least one more novel for me to read before you go. I find your miracle to be very inspiring! Love, Kathy
I’ve been blessed with several. Here’s one. Several years ago, I did have a heart attack — the real thing. Sitting in my office at 9:00 a.m. on a Friday, I got an odd sensation of pressure in my chest, as if someone were tightening a a belt around me. It got worse over the next few minutes, and then a deep interior pain started to spread down my left arm. I had read enough to recognize that symptom. And my own father had suffered a massive heart attack while still in his thirties. So I told my wife what was going on. We prayed, and we called 9-1-1, in that order. At the ER, they confirmed a heart attack by measuring an enzyme called troponin. Normal levels are less than 0.01. Mine was above 5.0. Hospital said it would keep rising, and the level in my blood would tell them how much heart muscle had died. They’d monitor once per hour for next 24 hours. Then a strange thing happened: my levels plummeted straight back down to normal levels over the next 24 hours. While other scans confirmed coronary artery blockage, and I ended up getting a stent, doctors concluded that my heart attack stunned my heart muscle without actually killing any of it. I was weak and easily fatigued for a while during recovery, but I did fully recover, and the cardiologist pronounced my heart as fit as when I was eighteen years old. A classic heart attack with no heart muscle death? The first thing we’d done that Friday morning was pray.. And that, I believe, made all the difference.
We have a God who not only loves us but cares for us meticulously. That’s a great story, John. May you live long to keep writing about our extraordinary God.