A Sleeping Beauty Miracle, Part 1

My best friends, Mike and Coni, moved out to the Western United States many years ago. I flew out to visit them two or three times a year, and they kept asking when I was going to follow their example. I kept telling them, “Pretty soon.” I did try to sell my home but soon learned the housing industry was stagnant in Michigan, and it just did not work out.

Eventually, I discovered deed-in-lieu and applied for it.

My bank approved it, and I was on my way to Fallbrook, California, to join my friends! I left behind a lifetime of friends who all thought I was crazy to make this long-distance move when I was seventy-seven years old. I immediately joined the Fallbrook Seventh-day Adventist Church. Mike and Coni and I had met at church in Michigan about thirty-five years ago and now were back together again. We went to church, shopping, and out to eat, and we enjoyed each other’s company. Life was good, and I certainly had no regrets about my move.

Then Coni collapsed with a brain aneurysm.

That first night in the emergency room was awful.

Coni was given a 5 to 10 percent chance of survival.

The emotional upheaval was unbelievable.

We contacted all our prayer warriors, and soon people everywhere were praying for Coni. She was put into an induced coma in the intensive care unit for a month.

When it was my turn to stay with Coni, I read to her from the Psalms.

I had never realized how many of them are about music.

When Coni “woke up,” her first words were my name.

But she did not open her eyes for months after that.

She next spent a hundred days in a rehab hospital in Poway, California, where she had physical therapy. Her improvements were very small, but we remained optimistic.

Finally, she came home with a tracheostomy in her neck and a feeding tube in her stomach. She was on a nebulizer to assist her breathing.

Mike hired Maria to care for Coni in the mornings and a couple of other caregivers to help in the afternoons. For three years, it was discouraging to observe the lack of major improvement. Mike never gave up, but my faith was like the mustard seed.

Perhaps your faith feels as big as a mustard seed today. Keep trusting God, my friend! A mustard seed of faith is all that is necessary for our miracle-working God to work on our behalf.

Patricia Hook Rhyndress Bodi