Raised from the Dead

Is healing for us today? I believe it is. There are some who believe that the power to heal went out with the days of the apostles. I have seen too many instances of God’s miraculous power to accept this. Allow me to tell you about one of them.

After church one Sunday I went with my brother John and his family to the beach in Gulfport, Ms. When we got to the beach the tide was out so we decided to wade out as far as we could. We were at a place called Moses Pier. At that place you can go out quite a distance from shore during low tide. Once the tide started to come in we had to hurry to beat it back to the shore.

As we neared the beach someone began to yell, “There is a man in the water.” My brother and another man hurried back to see. There was a man unconscious in the water near the end of the pier. The man, whom I will refer to as Jack Smith, had dove off of the pier into three feet of water. They began to pull him back to shore with John asking if anyone knew CPR. The man who was helping John pull Jack out of the water was yelling the whole time, “don’t bother, this man is dead”. They got him to the beach and someone began to do CPR. It was evident after a few moments that CPR was not working. There were two nurses at the scene who also said he was dead.

John knelt down and put his hand on the man’s chest and began to pray saying, “Not now Jesus. Please don’t let this man go into eternity”. In a few minutes he felt the man’s heart beat one time. Then it began to beat more steadily. When the ambulance crew got there the man was still unconscious but he was alive.

When the beach patrol showed up, one of the policemen  identified the man as Jack Smith and said he was an alcoholic. He implied that we should have left him in the water to drown. My brother looked at him and said, “Man you don’t know what I was before God changed my life.” No one is beyond the reach of God’s love.

Later John was able to visit Jack in the hospital. He was paralyzed from the neck down but conscious and able to talk. He thanked John for praying for him and helping to get him out of the water. I don’t know where Jack is today but this event will be forever imprinted on my mind as a testimony to the miraculous power of our God. I can honestly say I have seen someone raised from the dead.