Saved from Hell by a Prayer of Intercession

My sister suffered a cardiac arrest on a Friday morning. She was intubated and airlifted to the hospital and remained in a coma for six days, and on the sixth day she woke up.

Her medical team didn’t expect her to live, let alone come out of the coma without brain damage from lack of oxygen and they told us as much. But God was in this, He was after hearts. I cannot speak for anyone else, but he was surely dealing with mine.

Each time we would tell an attending nurse something that we thought demonstrated a response from our sister, they would just look at us, often saying, “Yes, but it wasn’t a purposeful movement, it’s just reflex, she doesn’t respond to our commands to move her feet, or squeeze our fingers.”  

I was somewhat comforted by a conversation I had with my sister months earlier when I had asked her, “If you die, where will you go?” She immediately responded by saying, “To be with Jesus.” I believed I had committed her to God.

The first Tuesday (following her admission to the hospital) late in the evening, I saw her eyes open when they turned her, something she hadn’t done since the first day she arrived there. When the nurses weren’t in the room and sometimes when they were, I would stand beside her bed and speak to her, preach the gospel to her—I would tell her to call on the name of Jesus; I would tell her to think the name of Jesus in her heart, if she couldn’t say it. I talked to her every day like she could hear me; we all did. A friend had encouraged me with a message that I could still minister to her spirit.

And that night (Tuesday), I got right in front of her face and said, “Look at me, look at me! I know you are in there! Look at me!” Two times she opened her eyes and I know I saw her actually look at me for a brief instant. The night nurses said she continued to open them during the night. Wednesday morning, her respiratory team came in and told me they were going to try to switch her ventilator to C-Pap and see if it was possible to get her off the ventilator. She breathed on her own for about two hours, but was still not responding to their commands with purposeful movements, so they switched her back on ventilator to let the machine breath for her.

I had informed Doyle (president and founder of Water of Life Ministries) the morning she was airlifted and had kept him somewhat apprised of the situation. On Wednesday morning I sent a message:

“She started opening her eyes last night. This morning seems like she recognized my voice when I talked to her. They changed the ventilator to C-Pap and she is breathing on her own, if that goes smooth today, possibility of taking her off the ventilator soon if she begins responding to commands.”

I received a message back from Kathie:

I read this to Doyle. Yesterday morning while we were getting ready he was praying and said, “Jesus, intervene in this situation" (your sister). Keep preaching girl.

It was Tuesday morning that Doyle prayed that prayer. I knew in my heart God had given him that prayer and it was a prayer of faith.

We had been taking turns staying with her at the hospital, day and night, and Wednesday afternoon, I was getting ready to go home and I went to tell my sister goodbye. Her nurse was at her computer, just outside my sister’s room and said, “Come here, I want to show you something.” She placed two fingers inside my sister’s hand and said her name and told her to “squeeze my fingers” and she did, I saw it. “Now you do it” she told me. I was on the other side of the bed and slid my fingers inside her hand and said, “Squeeze my fingers” and I felt the slightest pressure from her hand. The nurse seemed barely able to contain her excitement as she told me she had commanded her to do it a number of times to be certain before she told the doctor and before she told us.  My sister had begun to wake up.

The next morning (Thursday) the night nurse described her as “alert and rambunctious.” Her ventilator tube was removed and replaced with an oxygen mask. After that she graduated to the nasal cannula and was able to receive ice chips, and then water and then was actually eating jello!

We knew we were witness to the power of God being demonstrated right before our eyes and her entire medical team.

But the most important part of this testimony is this:

Thursday, the family member staying with her that day called me and put me on speaker so I could talk to my sister and one of the first things I asked her was, “Where have you been?” I was not prepared for her answer.

She said, “Well first, I went to hell, and then I came back to my family.”

I did not expect that—and I didn’t want to believe her. I didn’t ask anything else; we talked a bit more and then hung up.

The next morning, when I got to the hospital, I hugged her and sat down beside her bed and she began to talk. She said, “I was in this really dark place, a dark, wooded place and I couldn’t get out. Finally I started praying and said, “Lord you have to help me get out of this dark place and back to my family.”

I knew heaven wasn’t dark, and I knew what Jesus said about hell—it was dark. As we continued to talk, I told her,

“I can’t do this for you; Doyle can’t do this for you. This is between you and the Lord. You must get before the Lord and talk to him. Romans 10 says, “…if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that he was raised from the dead, you shall be saved. You are going to have get before the Lord and talk to Him; this is between you and Jesus.”

The next morning, I was awake early and was just quietly praying the name of Jesus and she said, “I’ve been doing that too.

I said, “Doing what?”

“Talking to the Lord,” she said.

A day or two later during another conversation I asked her, “What did you ask the Lord?”

“I asked him to save me,” she said.

There were many, many people praying for her and we are so very grateful; but I believe God gave Doyle that  simple prayer; it was a prayer of intercession, prayed in faith. Without that prayer, I believe my sister would have gone to hell for all eternity. God saved her…I had NOTHING to do with it! He gave a prayer to His servant and that prayer accomplished the will of God, it brought eternal salvation.

I had ministered the gospel to her many times, she told me she was "going to live with Jesus” if she died. I thought I knew, but—I didn’t know anything.

I am convinced—convinced, we cannot do anything. It is God that saves and it is never too late!

These days my sister is sharing with many people, nurses, doctors, etc., that Jesus saved her, saved her life..she is confessing Jesus before men.

The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, NOT WILLING THAT ANY SHOULD PERISH, but that all should come to repentance.”
2 Peter 3:9

Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that THE GOODNESS OF GOD LEADETH THEE TO REPENTANCE? Romans 2:4

I am humbled...humbled, at the goodness of God.

God Bless,
Kathy