An incredible story.

Chuckels has commented here in the past and is a regular reader of Brutally Honest (and I am honored).  He is a pastor and it is in that role that he shares the following.  I think it incredibly moving:

A few years ago we had a young lady loosely associated with our church, in her twenties, who bled to death due to a physical complication. She was actually in her home alone at the time. She managed to make a phone call in her weakening state. An ambulance came and rushed her to an area emergency room. She had no heartbeat; she literally had no blood left in her system.

A Christian OB doctor was in the hospital and learned about the young lady and rushed to the emergency room to find the lifeless young lady and decided that he would try to put blood back into her system against all odds. It was now over 30 minutes since she had had a heart beat. Somehow he was able to get a pulse again and the young woman was put on life support. The good doctor faced a good bit of criticism for after 30+ minutes with no heartbeat and no blood the young woman’s brain was obviously damaged beyond any hope of recovery. She was in a Persistent Vegetative State.

I had never met this young woman but visited her in spite of her vegetative state because of her families grieving. Seeing Terri S. reminded me so much of this ladies condition. The drifting eyes, no control of her arms and legs. On more than one occasion I had some of the hospital staff remind me that she was not really there. Non the less I would tell her who I was, read some scripture to her, pray with her while holding her lifeless hand, and tell her about Jesus and his love for her. She was not a believer.

I will never forget the day when a ministry friend and I went to see her. I explained to my friend her pitiful condition and what to expect when we entered the room, but were we in for a surprise! When we walked into the room there she was sitting up in the bed fully alert! After getting over my initial surprise I introduced myself to her and her response was that she knew who I was! I asked her how she knew and she shared that she remembered me visiting with her and praying with her! I was just a little dumbfounded.

After several minutes of visiting my surprise turned to an immense internal joy at seeing what God had done. I asked her if she remembered me telling her how much Jesus loved her and she did. I then asked her if she wanted to pray and ask Jesus into her heart and she was more than willing. I will never forget how sweet and tender her heart was before our precious Lord.

She actually was able to go home and live a very normal life for about six weeks then suddenly her weakened heart gave out and she went home to be with our Lord.

I guess I wanted to share this with this group because of the Terri S. tragedy. We never really know how aware a person really is in a ‘vegetative state’. Someday you may likely face similar circumstances. You may be the only person between a person trapped inside a very sick body slipping off into eternity without Christ or hearing the simple good news of God’s love. I thank God for our medical community and hospitals, but sometimes they simply don’t have the final word.

A verse I love to share with folks in desperate physical situations: Rom 8:11 The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as he raised Christ from the dead, he will give life to your mortal body by this same Spirit living within you.
NLT

God Bless,

chuckels

Comments

[Jeff H]

Powerful stuff, Rick.

After reading my own post about my dad and how his death from Parkinson's Disease somewhat related to Terri's situation, I realized that there is an intentionality to life that is not based on cognition. My post, if you care to read it, is here:

http://thinksink.blogspot.com/2005/03/terri-schiavo-end-of-life-decisions.html

I have come to know--not just believe--that my father willed his body to shut down, even though at the time there were no signs that would lead anyone to believe he was still "there". No other explanation for his very rapid decline into unresponsiveness and resultant death. My family basically allowed dad to decide when to die, and in ways that are only now, with the passing of 6 1/2 years, becoming obvious, we knew that's what we were doing. We made sure his body had what it needed to sustain life--nutrition in the form of IV fluids--but he'd had enough and shut himself down.

That's where everybody seems to have missed it on Terri--the fact of her 15 years in PVS/not-PVS/whatever, shows that her intention was to stay alive.

[Miss O'Hara]

What an amazing letter. That whole story...well, it sounds like a God Thing to me. Thanks for sharing.