He Had Flatlined!
June 11, 2023 3:07 PM
His Humble Servant
Mathew 22:36-40 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all they heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
A few years back, a Veteran man had bought the 80 Acres that sits behind our Property here.
My wife and I eventually introduced ourselves, letting them know if they ever needed anything, just give us a call.
This man had a lot of demons from his days in the military and being in war. He had been an alcoholic for many many years and it had taken a toll on his health. A few months later he had taken ill and needed to go to the hospital which I was happy to take him. On those long drives I would get an opportunity to talk about the healing mercy of our savior Jesus.
That one trip turned into many trips over a years time and he even had me listed as his caregiver at the VA hospital where I would take him for medical treatment. Over that time span, I had many talks with him about Jesus, the Bible and how he could be delivered from his drinking problems. But even with his bad health conditions, he just couldn’t give up the alcohol.
One day he told me that his girlfriend was going to be taking over all his health care and driving him to the VA hospital and thanked me for my help over the years time.
After that point, things were just quiet and I didn’t really hear from him anymore but I would see him still drive by everyday to go to the liquor store in town.
Fast forward 3 years later to last November morning time, when my wife and I heard an ambulance coming which is not a noise we are use to hearing out in the country. We just knew it was coming for him, seen it drive by our house and immediately started to pray. The ambulance was back there about 40 minutes, when we finally seen it go back by our house and just as it had passed by, the ambulance stopped. We knew then that it was really bad and started to pray again right away for him.
About 10 minutes later, the ambulance then put on its lights and continued down the road. We didn’t see any activity for the the next 6 weeks and didn’t know what had happened to him. When we finally seen him drive down the road months later, he seemed sober to us but we still didn’t know anything.
Recently, as I was driving home down our dirt road, I seen him sitting on his 4 wheeler waving me over. I pulled over where he was and got out of my truck. He started walking towards me with his hand extended out to shake my hand with tears in his eyes. As he shook my hand, he began to sob asking for my forgiveness for how he had treated me and my wife after all we had done to help him. That he pushed us away cuz of the conviction he would feel being around us with his drinking.
He began to tell me that when the ambulance stopped that day on our road for those 10 minutes, he had flatlined! He said, during those 10 minutes he was dead, he could hear me and my wife praying for him the whole time. That he knew it was our prayers God had heard that brought him back.
God had saved him to give him another chance to turn his life around. He’s been sober since that day and hasn’t touched alcohol since. He grabbed me up, bear hugged me and thanked me for not giving up on him.
Love thy neighbor has a whole new meaning for me and my wife now.
Amen! Praise God! He hears our prayers! 🙏
Photos courtesy Depositphotos
