Along with little three-year-old Levi, I was beginning to get unnerved. We took an entire trip around the entire facility looking for Judah. He was nowhere to be seen. Red flags are going up everywhere in my mind and emotions. I’m now hollering for my son, “Judah, Judah. Where are you?” There was no answer, and still, I couldn’t find him. I went into the restroom to see if he was there. He was not in the rest area. By this time about three or four minutes had passed. It seemed like and eternity.
I found a parking attendant who saw that I was unnerved. She asks how she can help. I tell her I can’t find my son. I tell her that I’m going to search other pools in the water park. I don’t know if someone has taken him, and by this time I’m frantic. I feel like I’m going out of my mind because I’ve lost my son.
After about five minutes had passed I headed over to search other pools. As I am going I see a man pulling my son from the bottom of the pool. Judah is completely blue with no life whatsoever in him. As soon as I see him I say, “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! Oh God! I rush to him. We look at his eyes. He has no pulse, no breath. From all indications my son is dead. With five minutes having passed we have to something or it’s too late. Sometimes five minutes is way too late for a drowning victim.
A woman rushes over. We check his eyes again. We check his vital signs. He’s just not there. He’s dead. I won’t accept it. I turned to the people trying to help and say, “No! You’re not going to console me. I will not accept it. God is going to raise my son right here, right now. He’s going to touch him. The woman who had come over began performing CPR. Little did I know that she was a CPR Certified Pediatric Respiratory Therapist but she had never done it on a live person. Two minutes pass. Seven minutes pass. By this time textbooks say the victim is gone. It’s irreversible. Nothing is going to happen at this point. She’s looking at me shaking her head as if it’s not working, but she’s still doing CPR.
At this point I’m praying for my son, pleading the blood of Jesus Christ over him. I’m asking God to touch my son. I realize that a group with a look of horror on their faces has gathered. First responders there on vacation were shaking their heads, believing this had gone too far for any chance of survival. I looked at all of them and shouted, “If you’re looking at me you better be calling on the name of Jesus right now because Jesus is the one who’s going to raise my son, right here, right now.” Everyone was kind of taken back by what I said. “Jesus is going to touch my son.” I just kept praying for him. Suddenly, Judah began spitting up water but there was still no heartbeat, still no breath.
My son was promised to us. It took us ten years to have him. So we named him Judah, which means praise. I know that sometimes the enemy will try to take away what God has given us. I knew that if God gave my son, he gave me praise, I was not about to just give up my praise. I was not about to give up on my son. I was going to pray until I couldn’t pray anymore. I continued to pray as the Respiratory Therapist continued doing CPR. I again looked at the stunned crowd and said, “If you’re looking at me you better be calling on the name of Jesus because it’s going to be Jesus that touches my son.” I continued to pray and plead the blood of Jesus Christ over him. Another Spirit filled woman came up and laid her hands on him and began to pray. Again he spits up some water. This time, he took a shallow breath and starts to fight for his breath. Still frantic, I know God is doing something because Judah, my praise, took a breath. Every time I pleaded, “In the name of Jesus” something happened. I prayed for him again. He spits up more water, still somewhat unresponsive, but fighting for his breath.
I had my wife on the phone and told her, “He’s trying to respond. He’s trying to breathe.” She’s praying. The one word I kept saying was, “No! No! No! In the name of Jesus, I said No! This is not going to happen.” Why? Because I know there’s an authority when Jesus Christ is in our heart and life. The times he responded was when I said, “In the name of Jesus I said No!” The moment my wife joined me in saying, “In the name of Jesus, No” I saw life come back into his eyes. Seven or eight minutes had passed. He began to look around and by this time when the paramedics put him in the ambulance he still had a lot of water in his lungs. On the way to the emergency room, my wife was praying, “No. We’re not going to accept anything but complete healing and restoration.” He then sat up in the ambulance and spit up the all the remaining water in his lungs.
At the hospital, the doctors were saying, “He might be on a respirator for a week or so. We need to assess what kind of brain damage he will have. With the amount of time he was without oxygen there’s going to be brain damage.” By the time he arrived at the emergency room he was alert. He was looking around. He knew exactly who he was, who everybody was. After about eighteen to twenty hours in the hospital, all the tests and chest X-rays he was not intubated once. He was breathing fine on his own. The doctors were taken back by this, saying, “He couldn’t have been without oxygen for that long if he’s doing this well.” I know God touched my son and raised him from the dead. He was dead for at least seven to eight minutes. And there’s no indication of any brain damage. He’s at the top of his class right now. No ill effects, nothing.
We gave my son a choice to go home or stay on vacation. He said, “I want to stay on vacation.” The whole time we were there people walked up to us saying, “I didn’t realize I would come on vacation and see a miracle. When you prayed in the name of Jesus I saw with my own two eyes what God did.”
Nothing is impossible for Jesus. Nothing!
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