Power of Prayer - A Testimony

A few weeks ago, as I was getting ready to attend a retreat led by a very gifted priest, I sent out a message on my Facebook account asking friends to make their prayer requests so that I could pray for them. Given I do not have many friends on Facebook, I was still saddened by the response I got for my request - I received three requests. Now, I know for sure that most of my Facebook friends are catholics or at least Christians, and I also believe that they all strive to maintain some kind of relationship with the Living Christ. I don't think I received only three prayer requests because the rest of my friends were living a life with perfect health, satisfying careers, and soothing relationships. It is just that they couldn't bring themselves up to asking God for some of their pressing needs. As I look back at my own life, I can't blame any of them for not approaching God with a prayer request. It took more than a few miracles in my own life to convince me of the power prayer. From my past experiences, here are three main reasons for not asking God in prayer: 1. They think that there is no need to ask God. God knows everything and will give what's needed, when it is needed; 2. They don't think God cares about specific problems of each individual; he is God and has the whole universe to worry about; 3. They don't believe they have problems that couldn't be solved by themselves. 

Finding Faith in a Bedpan

An early morning a nun was driving to a nursing home where she volunteered regularly. She ran out of gasoline in her car on the way, the road was less travelled and she couldn't find anybody to take her to a gas station. So she walked to a gas station some distance away. She explained to the clerk her situation and asked to lend her a gas can. Unfortunately,the station was all out gas cans, so both of them began to look for a container large enough to take some gasoline back to the car. They couldn't find any container big enough. The clerk then remembered about the bedpan he purchased the day before to give to his elderly mother who was bedridden. So he filled up the bedpan with gasoline and gave it to the nun along with a funnel, who took it and walked back to her car. She was really exhausted by the time she returned to the car, so she put the bedpan down and crouched down next to it to catch her breath.

There was a man walking down the street, and he saw the nun putting down the bedpan and crouching down next to it. This man was heading towards the railroad tracks nearby to commit suicide. Life hasn't been good to him, failures followed him all his life, and he was on the brink of losing his home to foreclosure. He tried many times to turn to God, but had a hard time believing. So that morning he decided to end all the madness on the railroad tracks once and for all. As he watched the nun crouching down next to the bedpan, he immediately thought that the nun had "to go", and it made sense because there were no places with restrooms near by. But he was a bit surprised by her decision to relieve herself into a bedpan on the side of the road. He was curious and decided to watch the nun to see what she is doing next. 

A bit later, the nun felt better and she got up and opened the cap to pour the gasoline from the bedpan into the gas tank. She made a sign of cross and prayed that there should be enough gas for her to get back to the gas station. The man couldn't believe his eyes as he watched the nun. He said to himself, "I have heard that Jesus turned water into wine to help a family in distress, but I never believed it. But if He is going to turn urine into gasoline to help this nun, then I will not need no other proof that 'For men this is impossible, but for God all things are possible' (Matthew 19:26)". The nun finished pouring the gasoline from the bedpan, got back in her car and drove off. The man also turned around and walked back home with a firm belief in the almighty, all powerful God for whom nothing is impossible.

An act of Miracle #1

Dr. Crandall lost his 15 year old son to leukemia in 2004. A firm believer in miracles, he prayed over his son's dead body begging God to raise him from the dead, but his son showed no signs of life. Though disappointed, Dr. Crandall continued to bring the Good News into others life. 

It was the morning of September 20, 2006.  Jeff Markin recalls heading for work as usual.  What he doesn’t remember is driving himself to the hospital.

He had called his boss and told him he didn’t feel well. His boss was concerned and convinced Jeff to go to the emergency room.  Somehow Jeff made it.  Once he got there, he collapsed.

Dr. Chauncey Crandall was doing rounds in the intensive care unit that morning. He recalls, "An alert call came over the PA system that someone had arrived at the hospital with a massive deadly heart attack. Then a second call went out over the PA system and specifically asking for me because I was the cardiologist on that day. When I arrived there, it was like a war zone. It was chaos. Everyone there fighting to keep this man alive."

The ER staff worked on Jeff for 40 minutes. They shocked him a dozen times. Despite their efforts, there was no response.

Once Dr. Crandall decided the team had done everything medically possible, he called the time of death. Medically Jeff was dead, but he was still experiencing consciousness.

"I was standing in the back of a funeral home, and at that time, I determined that I had died," Jeff Markin says. "This funeral home was empty and was wondering where all my friends and family were."

While a nurse prepared Jeff’s body for the morgue, Dr. Crandall updated the charts.

"As soon as my note was completed, I walked out through the door to this emergency room and I heard this voice say, 'Turn around and pray for this man.' I wanted to ignore that voice because I said to myself, How can I pray for that man? He’s dead he’s gone. There’s no life in him, so I keep walking. The voice came back again and said, 'Turn around and pray for that man.' I stopped and thought I need to honor the Lord. So I turned around at the doorway, and I walked to the side of the body.

"The nurse was on the other side of the body, and she’s looking at me like, 'What are you doing? Why are you here?' And I stood there next to the corpse and I opened my mouth and these words came out: 'Father God, I cry out for this man’s soul. If he does not know you as his Lord and Savior, Father, raise him from the dead now, in Jesus name.‘"

‘I remember staring at bright lights and they were swirling around," Jeff says. "Out of those bright lights came an image and he told me that he was there to look over me and make sure that everything was going to be fine."

Dr. Crandall continues, "The other doctor walked in the room and I pointed to him and said, 'Shock this man one more time.' He looked at me and said, 'Dr. Crandall, we can’t shock him. He’s dead. There’s no life in him. He’s gone.' I said, 'For me, shock him one more time.' That doctor out of respect and honor for me went over to that body with those defibrillator paddles and put his paddles on that patient and shocked him. Immediately an instant heartbeat came back. Instant perfect, regular, which we’ve never seen before. “A heart that restarts usually beats irregularly before it settles into a normal rhythm,” says Dr. Crandall. The EKG registered a perfect heartbeat. Suddenly this abdomen started moving and starting breathing and then a couple moments later, the fingers started twitching.

They immediately moved Jeff to the intensive care unit. Three days later, Jeff woke up with no evidence of brain or organ damage.

"Once I woke up, my daughter Jillian was there," Jeff says. "That’s when she told me what had happened."

Dr. Crandall says, "When I came in Monday morning, Jeff was sitting up in bed, and I said, 'Where were you that day that I prayed for you in the emergency room?' And he said, 'I was in total darkness and I was so disappointed.' I said, 'Jeff, what were you disappointed about?' He said, 'I was alone for eternity.'"

Jeff recalls, "He asked me at that time if I was willing to accept God into my life and into my heart and I did. I just opened my arms and accepted God. It was just a very emotional time and I remember crying in his arms."

Today Jeff is back at work and gets regular check-ups with Dr. Crandall.

"He still has no heart problems or residual complications from his brush with death," Dr. Crandall says.

"To know what I had gone through and to be fortunate... That’s been part of my daily battle is why me," Jeff ponders. "Why have I been so fortunate to have God shine on me? It’s been tremendous. I’ve been physically reborn. I’ve been spiritually reborn, and I’m just very grateful for that."

"This day that I prayed for Jeff was a day of very little faith. It wasn’t one of my big God days," Dr. Crandall says. " I was so much in a rush with my work, and I didn’t have a lot of faith backing that prayer up that day. But the Lord asked me to do it, so I honored the Lord and prayed. That’s all we need. Just a spark of faith like that mustard seed, and when you cry out to the mighty Holy Spirit, He will take over. Miracles are real, and they’re real today."