Back from the dead

On the morning of Sept. 20, 2006, Jeff Markin recalls heading to work as usual. What he doesn’t remember is driving himself to the Palm Beach Gardens Hospital emergency room and collapsing from a massive heart attack.
The emergency medical workers and cardiologist Dr. Chauncey Crandall followed standard procedure using defibrillator pads more than a dozen times trying to shock Jeff’s heart back to working order. After working feverishly for 40 minutes trying to bring Jeff’s heart out of a flatline they had to finally call the time of death and walk away from the corpse.
As Dr. Crandall was walking away after filling out some paperwork, he sensed a voice saying that he should pray for the now officially dead heart attack victim. He tried to ignore the voice, rationalizing, “How can I pray for that man? He’s dead.”
The voice came back again, “Turn around and pray for that man.” Sensing a spiritual nudging, Dr. Crandall turned around and walked to the side of the body and started praying, even though it made little sense to him and drew strange looks from the nurse who was preparing the body for the morgue.
Another doctor walked in and Dr. Crandall persuaded him to once again apply the defibrillators and see if the body could be shocked back to life. Despite the utter hopelessness of the situation the protesting doctor did as he was asked out of respect to his colleague. Miraculously, Jeff’s heart responded with a steady heartbeat and Jeff began breathing again. Three days later, Jeff woke up with no evidence of brain or organ damage.
Jeff was sitting up in bed when Dr. Crandall checked on him. He asked Jeff if he remembered anything about his death experience. Jeff shared that he was in total darkness with a feeling of deep disappointment. When asked what the disappointment was about, Jeff responded, “I was alone for eternity.”
Jeff recalls, "Dr. Crandall asked me at that time if I was willing to accept God into my life and into my heart, and I did. It was a very emotional time and I remember crying in his arms."
Dr. Crandall shared that the day he prayed for Jeff didn’t start out as one of his big God days. “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."
We all encounter or know people who have experienced or are experiencing total darkness, deep disappointment, and/or eternal loneliness. We can all make an eternal difference in the life of these people by being God’s instrument in helping to bring them back to life from these death-like experiences through the power, promise, and nudging by the Holy Spirit that resides in each Christ follower.
Let us all ask the Lord to help us share with people how they might find whatever they need through the Spirit’s power and a relationship with our Lord.