Marysville family finds miracles at edge of crises

  • Reader Column / Reader Column
  • Tuesday, November 27, 2001 9:00pm
  • Local News

BY DEBBIE ROCK

God said he would never give us more than we could handle.

Well, believe me when I say only God knows how much we can take.

I would have never thought I could come out smiling. But I choose to live life on the edge of a miracle, not on the edge of a crisis.

I look back four years to Halloween night when I found my daughter, Katie, and grandson, Austin, in a flooded river after they had plummeted over a 200-foot cliff.

Thank God for a mother’s intuition, or gut feeling, or a message from above. I just knew it. A crisis turned into a miracle.

Then one sunny July morning 16 months ago, my son Josh was in a wreck and airlifted to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

Doctors informed us he was brain dead and probably wouldn’t make it through the night. I was in shock.

We gathered in a circle prayer, and let me tell you — things haven’t been the same since.

We were on the edge of another miracle! We were about to hear a soon-to-be familiar phrase doctors would repeat throughout the next three months.

"We don’t know what’s going on. We can’t explain it. We’ve never seen anything like it."

Hallelujah for the power of prayer! Josh had just responded to doctors and was headed for the intensive care unit, where each crisis quickly spread into a chain reaction of God’s awesome miracles.

Calls started coming in from people giving us identical messages they claimed were from God. It was spooky but exciting at the same time.

As doctors kept delivering bad news, I refused to let fear get in the way of my faith.

When neurosurgeons said a miracle was the only thing that could save Josh now, I snapped back quickly, "That’s exactly what you’re going to see, because we’re the miracle family! You’re going to see the biggest miracle you’ve ever seen in this hospital."

Josh is a walking miracle today. Although he is blind and deaf, God told me not to panic.

Doctors say his optical nerves are dead. He will never see any light. No surgery is available. His skull fractured through his ears, leaving him permanently deaf.

Josh has seen specialists at Harborview and the University of Washington.

But the miracle family knows that with God all things are possible.

We spell on Josh’s forehead, chest or leg for communication. More than a thousand words a day.

He can read inside out, mirror image at that. He can hardly believe half his skull was in the freezer, was paralyzed, wore diapers and ate through feeding tubes for the first nine months after the accident.

He didn’t know his own family for more than 10 months. He thought my name was "Mo" for a few days because he couldn’t remember more than two letters at a time.

We tell him of the five huge miracles God has already given and to expect six and seven for the return of his eyes and ears.

His speech is perfect as he tells people of his visions and dreams of Jesus smiling. He talks of being on a stage with a bright light shining on a crowd of people as he sees Jesus coming through the clouds.

We will be attending a healing service in Bothell Sunday night. We can’t predict God’s timing, but we’ll hold steadfast to our faith.

Thank you, Lord, for giving us your one and only son and giving me back mine.

Debbie Rock lives in Marysville and is writing a book titled "The Miracle Family." She says anyone with prayers or wishes of goodwill can email her at: themiraclefamily@aol.com

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