Podcast: Play in new window | Download
I have been late to get a podcast out to you…for a pretty important reason.
My brother was found on the side of the road without a pulse. I raced to the hospital several states away and arrived when the doctors told us he may be brain dead—we found out they were considering putting him on life-support. No one knew how long he was without blood pumping through his body.
But God. My family reached out to loved ones, Christians, churches, friends, friends of friends all asking for prayer in faith for healing. Standing on the word–by His stripes we are healed, the prayer of faith shall heal you, lay hands on the sick and they shall recover… Standing on His promises of Jesus’ healing. All asking for God’s miraculous intervention.
The story of Lazarus came up OVER and OVER again–my sister was in a play, her paster and my pastor in different states preached on it, a Lazarus song came up 2x, and 2 dreams about Lazarus. We prayed that my brother would be raised like Lazarus.
It’s pretty incredible what happened next. I hope this story blesses you and brings you closer to Jesus and gives you greater faith in His amazing hand in your life. I believe that is what this story is to do. I believe my job is to spread the good news of the miracle-working power of the gospel. I hope you share this story to bring God glory.
But I also pray that if your life looks more like John the Baptist (when you hear the podcast you’ll understand what I mean) I want to give you hope as well. God has not forgotten you, your situation, your loved ones, your name. He has purposes and they are far greater than we can imagine. Your life has purpose even if it looks different than others. He is the Messiah, He does love you, He has purpose and POWER for you and YOUR life.
Love and God bless you.
Belah
transcript
0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. This show where you hear from amazing and inspiring wives sharing their struggles, triumphs, and advice for this journey called marriage. Here’s your host, belah rose.
0:20
Hey there and welcome. This is belah rose. I’m so grateful that you’re joining me today. So what I wanted to talk to you about is something that happened in my family this past week. And I think it just is meant to glorify God, over and over and over again, with everyone that hears it. And I think it is absolutely my privilege and opportunity to share this with you. So I’m going to actually share a story with you. My brother, who’s younger than me, has a heart situation, it’s called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, which means his heart, his heart grows as a muscle, larger than it should. And it grows so much when he exercises that it cuts off the blood inside his heart. So the blood can’t go through in order to pump through the rest. And this happens sometimes to athletes, but no one knows about it until they actually die on the court or on the, you know, field running. And so by God’s grace, when he was just about to start wrestling competitively at high school, you know, he’s getting really good at wrestling, he was about to start the season. And he was doing just a normal physical. And they found that his heartbeat was a little strange. And so they flew him up to children’s children’s hospital immediately to check this thing out, just in case, you know that it was something more. And by God’s grace, they found this issue. And so since then, he hasn’t been allowed to exercise. And he’s been on medication. So anyway, what happened this past week is he just graduated from college, you know, he and his very longtime girlfriend, have just started their lives together. And he got his full time at his job now. And kind of his whole life is ahead of him. And he’s very responsible, young man, just a very bright future, very young. So
2:41
he was running. And I think he had set up a routine for himself to run about a mile every morning. And interestingly enough, he had, like a very specific time that he’d be running. It was like 530 to 545, something like that. And his girlfriend was about to leave for work, and she’s a nurse. And she noticed that he didn’t come home, the time that he usually does before she leaves for work. So she’s just like, Okay, well, maybe he decided to run a little farther than he usually does. And so she got, you know, in her car ready to go, start intended to work. And she noticed there were some ambulances coming her direction. She thought, oh, no, there’s, you know, must be a motorcycle accident or something in our area. My brother was found on the ground, in, you know, on the side of the street, but he was found by a nurse who actually works with my brother’s fiancee. And so the nurse performed CPR. But the nurse found him without a pulse. He didn’t have blood running in his system. And they didn’t know how long he didn’t have blood running through his system, which means oxygen wasn’t getting to all of the places that needed to be, especially, most importantly, the brain. And so when blood doesn’t get to the brain, that concern is what that does to the brains damage. And so when the ambulance came, they also they used those paddles, you know, those electric paddles because it was cardiac arrest. So they use those paddles to then go, and then they put the paddles on his chest and goes clear. And then it, you know, does a huge electric shock to his system. They had to do that four times before his before his heart responded and start to have a beat again. So he ended up being intubated, which means that the tubes were stuck down his throat into his lungs. He was just hooked up to a bunch of other machines. And after arriving in the hospital, they decided he was in such a critical position he needed to go to a much larger hospital, by God’s grace had happened to be the best hospital for his condition in the country, which is then also the world. And so he arrived there. And my mom said, when he was at that first hospital, he wasn’t doing any sort of movement, nothing, his eyes were closed, he, he was cold, there was no science of my brother there at all.
5:31
And someone told my mom that he was sedated. And that was why, but then she found out he wasn’t sedated, he was not sedated and sedated means that medicine is given, so you fall asleep, so that your body can kind of repair itself. And slowly once the body has repaired, then the mind can slowly come back out of sedation, to then check on the brain. But the brain is basically the last thing they are working on in terms of consciousness, just to kind of let the body do the healing it needs to do. So when he did get to the larger hospital, we got a report that he had turned his head a bit and opened his eyes. So that was a huge win for God, because we had no idea. But again, with the with the understanding that he may have been on the ground for minutes, half an hour an hour, we didn’t know how long he had been on the ground without, without a pulse. So when he got to the larger hospital, by God’s grace, a lot of family members were able to, you know, fly in or, you know, I was able to come in as well. And he then was sedated very heavily. And so when I saw him, they actually had him, his body was extremely low temperature, because they wanted him to, I guess that’s a, what they do for the brain is they, in order to preserve it, when they’re concerned about severe brain damage, they make the body really cold. And so he had like a cooling blanket underneath of him and a cooling blanket on top of him that made him so cold. He was in that state with a lot of machines. And, and again, what the doctor told us when I got there, the doctor had just told everyone that he may need months to recover, he may need a year to recover, or he may not recover, which essentially says he may be brain dead. And that was what the family was really facing. By God’s grace. Everyone was reaching out to Christians, churches, people that they knew, asking for prayer, asking for prayers of faith, by God’s grace, I was able to reach out to many friends, my church, asking people to pray for my brother.
8:15
And I just felt this real sense of faith. You know, that God gave me faith, to believe for my brothers complete healing. So I was able to come in immediately and just be that faith, giving my mom’s strength to know that it doesn’t matter what the doctor said, our brothers coming back, your sons coming back, God’s doing this, it’s going to be a miracle, seeing my brother completely lifeless on the bed there and saying, No, God’s got this. And then in the coming hours, we heard that there’s fluid in the lungs, a lot of fluid in the lungs. They’re very concerned about the heart. There might be blockages in the heart. They were concerned about the his kidneys not functioning. At one point they needed to put him on dialysis. And then they were concerned about obviously his brain. And at one point, they were also concerned about his liver as well. So we just continue to pray. And his fiance was able to find an app on his phone. It was bizarre, but he she found an app on his phone that essentially tracked his run. And so the run that he usually takes is part of it goes around a construction zone where there are no people that pass. So it’s a there’s no street so no one would have seen him if he had fallen. And then the fact that he was running next to a street, but it was 530 or 545. In the morning. It was dark. When his fiancee left for work. It was dark. So the fact that anyone found him and found him quickly, was insane. And then And the fact that the person that found him was a nurse and could perform CPR on him, was also just absolutely an act of God. And then my mom, who’s a teacher was actually about to have an interview that morning. And so she wasn’t at her work that would have been an hour away from the hospital that my brother was first transferred to. So she was able to go straight to the hospital right away. She didn’t miss anything. Also, my sister who lives in the same area, her boss, who really isn’t usually a very nice guy was like, Yeah, take off as long as you want. My other sister who’s a teacher, who actually was on a trip far away with her students, but the school actually went ahead and paid for her flight all the way to the hospital. Right there. My brother was, and spring break is the the coming week. So she had completely off my mom had off for the following week, no problem because of spring break as well. My dad easily got off work by God’s grace, I was able to easily be able to share as a family emergency with with all of my clients and with dy M and, and then had essentially everyone, do you I am praying, thank God. So God just made sure Oh, and then my cousin who’s also a strong believer, drove up for hours away to the larger hospital. And she’s a mother. And she has two children of her own, but they were fostering for children. And because of some actually really difficult circumstances, but they had to end the fostering of the two children based on some challenges with social services, sadly, but it must have been God’s plan because she was only had the two children, she was able to find babysitting care for them. So she was able to come up for my brother in the hospital and she is such a gift. You know, I don’t know if if this happens in your family or not. But sadly, in my family, there’s often tension when the whole group comes together, especially if it’s a stressful situation. My parents are divorced. So there’s not harmony in that. So it just makes it very difficult. A lot of times and for my cousin to be there is just a kind, gentle buffer. It was just so important, so helpful in the fact that she was able to be not only present but also such a prayerful force and someone who was able to hold faith for my brother. The whole time was incredible as well. He and She and I could pray together. Not everyone, my family are believers.
12:48
So another thing that was incredible was my sister who lives close to my brother, she is in a play. That is about Lazarus. And her pastor had preached about Lazarus the last two Sundays. And my pastor had preached about Lazarus the previous Sunday. And so I had looked up a childhood song that I used to love by Carmen so in the song Lazarus is talking on testimony nights with the other guys in the Old Testament who have since passed because he’s in heaven talking about what his experience with Jesus was.
13:36
I remember littlest things the things most folks would forget like the simple loving wages call money up with the gravestone rolled away without how voice Jesus started to say it just seemed like yesterday I can hear that man stay in effect is like today I don’t use the weather now what changes. Sickness
14:49
come in So I had actually been dancing to that song in my kitchen on Wednesday. And the whole thing with my brother happened early, early Thursday morning. And so this whole connection about Lazarus caused us to be praying prayers about Lazarus. And then come to find out my aunt’s, this is this is very unusual. And no one told her about the Lazarus connections come to find out Thursday night, and Friday night, my aunt had dreams about Lazarus. So the fact that then she was dreaming about Lazarus was absolutely incredible. I think I started to say that there was an app on his phone that my brother’s fiancee was able to track and figure out exactly what time he fell, and exactly what time he stopped running. Because it stopped moving. Geographically, it stopped moving. And it turned out, they were able to identify that it looks like there was only several minutes that he didn’t have oxygen to him of when, what time the ambulance was called, what time the nurse found him. And really, actually, they can’t figure out who called the ambulance, it seems like there might have been the first person who found him, there was the nurse that was able to perform CPR, at some point very early on, the police found him and also performed CPR, or the police was there something along those lines, and that’s when, you know, the ambulance came. And incredibly, there was a ambulance, I guess, dispatcher or unit or something like that, only five minutes away from where they lived, especially to get those shocks, the ambulance arrived just within six minutes or something like that of being called. So still, I don’t think we know who called the ambulance. But we became aware that the timeframe was much shorter than we had originally thought so incredibly, as God would be so kind, there were different times that my brother, as we’re all there, you know, praying and, and believing for a miracle, there were different moments that his eyes would flicker open. And, you know, I would just talk to Him in faith and just tell him stories. When I first got there, I just told him a bunch of stories and just talk to him and talk to him and talk to him. At that point, he was heavily sedated. So there was no way for him to be able to respond, but he just to share these stories and share that we’re all praying for him. And, you know, I know God’s gonna heal every part of his body. But throughout these, you know, moments as like, slowly, his eyes would flicker open, maybe at one point, all the doctors came in, and we asked a lot of questions and, and then they left and he had a doctor for basically every part of his body that was at issue, and I just listed them off. So we had a doctor for each one specialist by God’s grace. So then I went over to my brother and I was like, the doctor say, you’re doing great, I’m so proud of you. Thank you so much for what you’re doing. You’re, you’re doing awesome. And he looked at me and with his eyes. I could tell he was and just barely, he was able to maybe shift his mouth a bit. But I could tell he said thank you, you know, with his eyes, you know, when someone’s gonna say that. And though that was that was a huge gift to see that, that he had done that later in the days that followed I maybe it was the following day, he opened his eyes and, and started looking around the room and was able to see the different faces of the people that were there. And at one point, his boss actually came to visit and and that was I think the second day he was there, I think and his boss and a really low voice just came over to start talking to him and my brother’s eyes, like flashed open right away. And you could tell he he knew who he’s talking to. It was like, Oh my gosh, my boss is here. Like, oh, darn it, you know that kind of face. And then he another time my brother, you know, but this is like between all this stuff in my brother’s mouth like tubes and tubes. You know, one going down his nose for his to make sure he was getting sustenance in his belly. There was a tube in his neck that I saw them. It’s like it was like a
20:02
half a foot long at least. But it went straight from his neck right into his heart, I guess to monitor things. Anyway, he went for a procedure, but we’re right before this procedure, my mom said some things, kissed him on the, like, kissed her hand and put her hand on his forehead. And then he looked up to her at her right in the eyes, and winked. And it was just like, Yes, he is in there, by God’s grace, He is in there. And so they went, and they, you know, wheeled him to the procedure to check for blockages in his heart. Now, since he was, I don’t know, 16, when they found this condition, he had been told he should probably get a shunt in there, which essentially is this thing that goes in kind of like a tube, almost like a straw, and it expands to keep the heart open. So that they don’t have to be concerned that the heart is gonna stop, block the flow. But the problem with shunts is sometimes they collapse. So it’s actually can be dangerous. And you know, those doctors reviewed his whole heart and everything that was going on. And they decided that he didn’t even need a shunt. So they decided to retract that suggestion, he didn’t need it. So they didn’t put anything in it. So God has been incredibly, incredibly gracious, so much of his body wasn’t working. And over the course of 80 hours, he was able to get off every single tube. And within one single week of going into the hospital, where he was found on the side of the road without a pulse. One week later, he walked out of the hospital, fully with all of his long term memory, all of his short term memory, no single hindrance, not even one. He has a defibrillator now in his side that makes sure that if ever his heart were to stop again, it would shock automatically, so his heart would start again. But that’s the only thing. So right now he’s at home, getting strength back and the soreness in his chest. He didn’t even have any broken ribs from the 13 minutes that CPR was going on. God has been absolutely incredible, that my son wanted to say something
22:39
I begged for.
22:47
So I actually have recorded this podcast in two parts, because I had a meeting directly after I was recording the first part. So it’s kind of, well, it’s actually incredibly amazing that since then, I actually randomly opened my Bible this morning. And the first thing my eyes landed on, was Luke 711. And it’s the story of Jesus raising a widow’s son, I’m going to read it to you. Soon afterward, he went to a town called Nain. And his disciples and a great cloud crowd went with him. As he drew near to the gate of town, behold, a man who had died, was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, Do not weep. Then he came up and touched the beat, bear, and the bears stood still. And he said, Young man, I say to you, arise. And the dead man sat up, and began to speak. And Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear sees them all. And they glorified God, saying, A great prophet has risen among us, and God has visited his people. And this report about Him spread through the whole of Judea, and all their surrounding country.
24:34
So I feel as though this story needs to spread, and that’s why I’m sharing it with you because I believe that God wanted you to hear it. I don’t know what you need faith for. I don’t know if it’s for yourself. I don’t know if it’s for your family. I don’t know if it’s for a friend. But I believe that God wants you to have greater faith today. Jesus walked on this earth, and He cared about human bodies. He cared about the health of human beings, bodies, and that matters. But he also says even the sparrow doesn’t fall from the tree without him knowing it. How much more does he know and care about you? You know, when I was talking to my mom, and during all of this happening, she was almost warning me because of some relatives who were also at the hospital with all of us, who had lost someone recently, within the last couple years, and she was almost warning me to be careful around, you know, my prayers, because they, you know, they’ve lost someone. And, you know, I was like, Mom, I went to a funeral four weeks ago. And this was for a man whose wife’s whose wife I love dearly. And we prayed for him together in Jesus name. And God had coincidences all around that like, for example, when I went to a San Diego, a conference in San Diego, I met a woman who was from Hawaii. And when she found out I was from New York, she said, Oh, my husband’s actually in New York right now. But it’s kind of sad, because he’s visiting a friend with cancer. And I said, Oh, it’s just, and we kept going with the conversation. But I was like, I’m sorry, this is just on my my heart right now. But I’m curious what the name is of your friend that he’s visiting. And he said, the name of the man who was married to my friend. And it was just so shocking to hear that God made sure that we were in that spot together. And she’s kind of a relapsed Christian, or I don’t know if that’s the right word, like she grew up in a Methodist church, but she hasn’t gone in years. And her husband is definitely not a believer. And you know, I took the risk of asking her to pray. And we prayed together in faith, believing for his healing. And you know what God decided this wasn’t, this wasn’t what happened. He didn’t. He wasn’t healed. And he left a grieving wife and two daughters, two young girls, five and seven, I think, behind and heartbreaking really, really heartbreaking. But let me tell you something I continued on in this Bible passage this morning. And it says that directly after Jesus heals someone from the dead, the disciples of John reported all these things to John, and John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the Lord saying, Are you the one who is to come? Or shall we look for another? And when the men had come to him, they said, John the Baptist has sent us to you, saying, Are you the one who is to come? Or shall we look for another? And in that hour, he healed many people of diseases, and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind, he bestowed sight. And He answered them, go and tell John, what you have seen and heard, the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up and the poor have good news preached to them. And bless it is He is the One who is not offended by me.
29:01
When John’s messengers had gone, Jesus began to speak to the crowds concerning John, what did you go out into the wilderness to see A reed shaken by the wind? What then, did you go out to see a man dressed in soft clothing? Behold, those who are dressed in splendid clothing, and live in luxury, or in Keene kings courts? What then did you go out to see a profit? Yes, I tell you and more than a prophet. This is He Who of whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you. I tell you, among those born of women, none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declare To God, just having been baptized with the baptism of John, but the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected the purpose of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him. To What then shall I compare the people of this generation? And what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, we played the flute for you, and you did not dance, we sang a dirge and you did not weep. For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine. And you say he has a demon. And the Son of Man has come eating and drinking and you say, look at him a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. Yes, wisdom is justified by all her children. So here’s what stuck out to me in that passage. what stuck out to me is that Jesus healed a man, He raised Him from the dead, he’s giving people sight. He’s He’s causing people to, to have healing in their bodies, and the good news to be preached to the poor. And he’s doing all of this. And yet John, who has been in the desert who has been doing God’s will, is in jail. And John, is wondering, is this the right one? Did I preach? And was this was this accurate? And yet, you know what? John was beheaded. John died. He didn’t see the fruition in his own life. And Jesus said, bless it is he who is not offended by me. So you might be hearing the story and say, I believed for my son, I believed for for my friend, and yet they died. I believe for my own healing, but I’m knocking on death’s door. And I want to just say for some reason, God said, it is better for you not to be offended by me. Look what John the Baptist accomplished. He was greatest in the kingdom of heaven. That’s what he said, is greater above all the prophets. And yet he didn’t get out of jail, he died. And so do not despair. There is purpose behind that suffering, there is purpose to that person’s death, and that person not being raised. And yet, the fact that someone was raised from the dead went throughout all of Judea. And many, many people believed. John the Baptist had purpose. And it was different than what the purpose of the the man who was raised at the dead was just like John the Baptist, fasted, and yet Jesus drank and ate. And people thought both of them were wrong. And yet God said, yet wisdom is justified by all her children. So don’t not think because your story has been different than, than that of my brothers, or your story was more along my friends, husbands. Do not think that God does not have purpose for what has happened to you. And yet, do not be offended by God, still believe his words, still walk in the promises of faith? Still do what He asks you to do. Because he said, he knows when a sparrow falls off the tree. How much more does he care about you? He cared about John the Baptist. He loved John the Baptist, that was his friend he mourned. He wept when he found out about John the Baptist.
33:51
God cares about you. He cares about you, there is purpose to that pain and that suffering. And yet, the faith heals. And yet our faith is is what God asks us to do is to keep knocking to keep knocking. If we ask for bread, will our father give us a stone? No, he won’t. So when you think that your life has more looked like John the Baptist, was it a stone that John the Baptist was given? Or is there something incredible in eternity that John the Baptist gets to experience that we won’t even see on this side of eternity? Is their purpose in the story of John the Baptist? That that many, many, many people have have have been able to walk through and walk in because of who John the Baptist was? So I want you to challenge your own heart. That have you been hard And because of that suffering, have you been offended at Jesus, because your life looks more like John the Baptist than the story of the son that was raised from the dead, because Jesus had compassion on his mother who was weeping. Do not be offended, and yet, receive faith from the story of my brother. And yet receive that faith, but to not be offended, because God is bigger than us. Because God is higher than us because God knows more than us.
35:41
Thanks for listening. If you’ve been blessed by this, why not share it? Until next time, live with love, wisdom and passion.
36:06
God says that God heals all the people who are sick, and that he healed them really strong enough. So that is not great. You’re doing great. So have a drink and that they be strong. Amen.
36:23
Amen. Thank you