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Near Death

In several of my earlier posts, I have referred to my spiritual death and resurrection. This post, however, refers to literal, physical death. I have been so close to death many times and I am only 34 years old. I know God has a purpose for me because Satan has tried his best to snuff me out!

As a young child, I was sickly. I was never really diagnosed with anything particular, but I was just not healthy. A very weak and sensitive stomach caused many sleepless nights for me and my parents. I was pale and puny I suppose you'd say. My aunt had become so disturbed at one point that she began to interecede on my behalf. She had a dream in which an angel appeared to her and told her I would be okay. From then on, I was. I am. Even in my teens, I became ill with what the doctor described as "the beginnings of a stomach ulcer." That rocked on for a while because I was in a stressful situation, much of which I brought on myself through foolish decisions and actions. Sin, mostly.


I've been in three automobile accidents. Two of which I was driving and totaled both vehicles. The last car accident happened in Atlanta, at 5:15 in the evening. I was on my way home from work. It was beginning to get dark and a car cut me off, forcing me up an embankment off of I-75. The officer told my husband I was fortunate to be alive. He said the angle in which I hit the embankment could have caused my car to flip. In addition, the drive back down the embankment could have landed me directly in the line of oncoming, rush-hour traffic facing the opposite direction. My car did not, however, land in the middle of the interstate, but landed on the side of the road, in the grass, facing the right way with no car in sight! Amy Grant sings a song,Angels Watching Over Me in which she describes, "near misses all around me, accidents unknown, though I've never seen with human eyes the hands that lead me home."

Many drunken nights, I was spared. One particular night, after consuming an entire magnum (yep, the big bottle) of cabernet, I took a bottle of xanx so I could go to sleep. I remember crying as I drifted off, "God, please don't let me die." I never told anyone this story. Only God could have spared me. I should have died that night, but God had mercy. Another night, my husband and I had decided to spend a night in Chattanooga. We went to several bars, had dinner with more alcohol, and back to our room for champagne. I, of course, was annihilated! After being thrown out of room at the hotel, for being drunk and disorderly as you can imagine, we drove to somewhere outside of the city. I tried to jump out of the car, while my husband was driving 80 miles per hour down the interstate. God wouldn't let me. I just couldn't bring myself to commit suicide. The very real fear of hell pulled me back into the car and shut the door.

Then, God in His wonderful, higher ways gave me two beautiful children. After giving birth to Carlisle, I lost 3 pints of blood and went into shock. Emergency surgery revealed a uterine polyp the size of my new born's head! You would think that would be enough, but no, there is more.

When I returned home from Atlanta, separated from my husband, I moved in with my mother and took a job in a nearby town. The commute was about 30 minutes. One beautiful summer morning, on my way to work, I began to feel nauseated, but attributed the nausea to my weak tummy. As the day progressed, I had that feeling you get when you have an elevated level of stomach acid. I couldn't eat my lunch and by 1:00 pm I was in severe pain. I left work, drove 30 minutes home stopping along the way to try to throw up. I made it home and my family doctor called in something for the pain which by now had moved from the top of my stomach to my lower abdomen. I followed up and decided against the CT of the abdomen because of a very high deductible. Two weeks later, I still had some residual lower abdominal pain and went for the CT. My appendix had ruptured! For two weeks, I went to work, ate and drank, took care of two kids, and could have dropped dead at any moment or even as I slept. In the following weeks, I had to have my gall bladder removed, as well. In the end, I was diagnosed with a very low vitamin D level. The normal range is 30 - 100, but mine was 8.

Now, all is well and I am alive in the natural and spiritually! I have truly "walked through the valley of the shadow of death." God was with me every step and He will lead me on!

"For You have delivered my life from death, yes and my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of life and of the living." Psalm 56:13 Amplified

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