Wednesday, February 25, 2009

The Man Who Didn't Believe in God

It is now February and so much has happened in our lives and world since my last posting in January, that "catching up" would be not a realistic undertaking.

Had I been blogging and writing on the days that I have NOT been doing these things, I could have made comments about the happenings of the world. Maybe the comments would not have been intelligent or noteworthy or even worth reading, but they would have been timely! Therefore, there's no use trying to comment on President Obama's "State of the Union" speech or the Miracle on the Hudson plane-crash-survival story or the elections in Israel.

I was thrilled however, that Israel will have the leadership of Benjamin Netanyahu as the new Israeli government organizer. As you remember, Netanyahu was at one time, during the 1990's, Prime Minister of Israel. Netanyahu is against giving away the Golan Heights and against a divided Jerusalem. But those are discussions for a day soon to come. I will cover that in a few days, to give you better understanding of how a divided city of Jerusalem and a Syrian controlled Golan Heights would be contrary to the covenant our Father God made with Abraham, 6000 years or so ago!

"Christians United for Israel" (CUFI) is a conference held annually in Washington DC, as organized by John Haggy Ministries. It is a world conference. I was among over 5000 who attended the three day conference in 2007. Benjamin Netanyahu was a keynote speaker via satellite. (Traveling to the US would be too dangerous for him at the time). He was articulate, powerful and even by satellite, his leadership sprang forth into the convention center, as thousands watched his address on huge big-screen TVs. He thanked us for our support of Israel and spoke of his love for his country. I am even more of a supporter of his leadership since the conference.

Now, to the subject ,"The Man Who Didn't Believe in God". There is such a man; a specific man I am writing about, who is a friend of a friend. I have had occasion to meet this man, who was shall call, John.

John's CV: scientist, professor, teacher,educator, researcher, author, father, husband, grandfather, former prescription drug addict (result of pain killer abuse after an operation), alcoholic AND atheist. THESE ARE THE ATTRIBUTES OF HIS LIFE, but not necessarily in that order, as I believe his atheism is pretty much at the top of the list. Oh! I forgot one thing about John. I have to add this, as it is quite important at this time:

JOHN IS IN A PARALYTIC COMA IN AN INTENSIVE CARE UNIT OF ONE OF THIS COUNTRY'S BEST MEDICAL CENTERS.

John's being a wonderful educator, scientist, family man is... hummmmm!...what do they matter now?! I mean right now! These things, right now, mean nothing to anyone who loves John. What matters is that John is about to die and he went into his coma an atheist!

You see, John needed triple by-pass heart surgery. In most cases the procedure is uneventful, the patient is up and walking within hours of the surgery. Not that the patient WANTS to get up and walk, but it is a mandatory step in the healing process after such surgery.

But not so for John. You see, about 9 hours after his surgery, while he was in the ICU, an artery inside John's chest burst and filled his chest cavity with such emergency speed, that the nurses on duty , along with a resident doctor, had to OPEN HIS CHEST AGAIN, BED-SIDE!

Picture this: for half an hour, the nurse in ICU is examining new x-rays of John's lungs and heart. Nothing is showing any abnormalities. John's blood pressure is stable. Yet, John is awake and BEGGING his nurse to, "DO SOMETHING! I AM DYING! I AM HURTING! I CAN'T BREATHE! HELP ME!".....Then, John's blood pressure takes a rapid dive! The nurse alerts a CODE BLUE ; more doctors and nurses and all available staff run to John's bedside.

John is given sodium pentathol IV, his chest is scrubbed w/ betadine for only a few seconds and then, with time running out, John is cut open AGAIN, only this time not in the OR, but in his bed!. His doctor, who is only a resident ( as compared to a a seasoned heart specialist) and a young, night ICU nurse (who has never encountered anything like this before) fight to save him. When his chest finally is pried open for the second time in 12 hours, the view is a chestful of spurting blood! Bright red blood sprays everywhere...on the doctor, the nurse, the bed! To make a long story short, these two wonderful, God-gifted medical personnel, the Resident Doctor and the ICU Nurse, save John's life. They find the bleeding artery, close it off, and while the Resident is working, the Nurse is holding John's heart in her hands, pumping it, to keep blood flowing into his brain and body, keeping him alive, as JOHN IS CAREFULLY TRANSPORTED INTO THE OPERATING ROOM TO COMPLETE THE OPERATION!

Neither the Resident doctor nor the ICU Nurse had ever even seen a procedure done like the one they had to preform on John at bedside. This is something only one sees in the text books and reads about.

As I write this, John is is a drug induced coma. He lies in his bed in ICU, naked with 17 IV lines attached to him, from poles arranged all around his bed. He has a central line that comes out his chest from his heart, up to a bag on another pole. He has a feeding tube in one nostril and a tube for "something" in the other one. The respirator tube fills his mouth, going down his throat into his lungs.

John is on dialysis and complete life-support systems. The sound of the respirator and the accordion cylinder that moves up and down makes a rhythmic eerie whooshing sound through the room. Machines beep and monitors are flashing and continually reflecting the readings of his life support systems. For some reason only known to God, none of his organs are functioning except his heart. None of them are dying, however. The tissue in each organ is normal. The organs just won't cooperate and work as a unit. His kidneys won't produce urine. His liver is not filtering. His lungs are surrounded with fluid and won't work, his bowels are not moving properly...nada! Nothing! And why? The doctors are stumped. John went in for a procedure his world-class doctors preform with near 100% success daily. But not for John.

I have yer to mention the horror all of this has posed for his family. John's family is seeing their father, husband, etc, laying naked in ICU, with tubes coming in and out of every orifice of his body and needles or clamps from every finger and limb. John is looking more like Frankenstein's experiment than a human!

But even worse, if John dies, in all probability, he is going to Hell. JOHN IS PROUD TO BE AN ATHEIST! I had Christmas Dinner with his family about seven years ago and he tried to engage me in a conversation, during the Christmas dinner of which there was no blessing, about how Jesus did not save the world from sin and hell because his contention is there is no hell and there is not God! And there certainly is not a Savior we which we have to cow tow! Whew...I do not have to have anyone tell me John doesn't believe in God, because he has told me so himself!

Maybe John thought he could play around with being a famous scientist and professor, educator and teacher and SOMEDAY give serious thought to seeing is there is a God. I don't have any idea if this might be the scenario or not. but I do know this... John went into his surgery a "man who didn't believe in God". Maybe he will come out of it a Man Who Believes in God.

Everyone who knows John is praying that God will go to him in the coma and talk to him. Maybe we are just trying to believe in all these near-death tales of how God and Jesus "came to me while I was in a coma" type of stories. Whatever the case, I am scared. I just hope I get a big surprise and see John at the Rapture. Because at this point, unless God decides something different, the doctors are going to have pull the life-support systems off John's body at some point . That would mean that for John, there is no hope.

Pray for JOHN! Apply John's circumstances to your life and those in your fmily. Are you ready to go into a coma? That's a pretty gross thing to say or even think, but...are you? If you would go into a coma today, would your family have to worry about your salvation? Would YOU BE HEADING TO HEAVEN OR TO HELL?

God loves you. All you are created for is to love God That's all. Not to cure cancer, invent a better mouse trap..nothing! Nada! JUST LOVE GOD AND FOLLOW HIS COMMANDMENTS AS BEST YOU CAN! It's pretty simple. And you'll live with Him forever! Rapture, here we come!

That's all Father God asks of you. That's all Father God asked of John. But John thought more of himself and his achievements than he ever thought of God. In fact, John always thought God didn't exist. Well, I wonder what John thinks now?

Now...whattaUthink about God?...

2 comments:

  1. Wow! That's some scenario! What I pray for John is that in his coma state, although he is half in this world and half in the next, that being half in the next makes that world visible to him. I pray that in that state of seeing what is on the other side yet out of his reach will open his mind and heart to God's awesomness. I pray the revelation of Romans 10:9-10 in this state and that now he knows who is his creatpor and savior. It says in 1 Corinthians that now we see as throguh a dark glass but then we see all things clearly. I pray he can see all things clearly now. I pray a miracle followed by a testimony! Stay blessed!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for your prayers, Ms. Kathy. Love you, Terri

    ReplyDelete