Hey Jen,

You might have heard this story before but I'll mention it again for the 
newbees on list:.

I've got a  fishing pal of mine that is known as the miracle of St. John's 
Hospital here in the Twin Cities.  This happened long before I met him and 
hopefully they have had other miracles occur since then to drown out the 
title but nonetheless his miracle, was nothing short of, well? Miraculous. 
His name is Chris, and at the time was a police officer in a small town 
outside of the Twin Cities. His dad and step mom were children's pastor of 
a church which was a full spirit, charismatic, Pentecostal or whatever 
label you want to put on it, but they believed in the power of healing. 
Chris was fairly newly married and I believe had a little one too at this 
time. Chris had a beat partner who served in Desert Storm, sort of the 
appetizer of the current war we are drowning… umm, that we are engaged in 
now.  Chris started not feeling well, growing steadily worse, I'm not sure 
of all the symptoms but they couldn't figure out what in the heck was wrong 
with him. Finally he'd gotten so bad he was hospitalized. The nearest they 
figure is the partner had brought bad a virus from the Middle East and 
Chris caught it from him and it was  affecting him terrible. He had gotten 
so bad they had him on life support and oxygen and everything and things 
did not look good for Chris because the doctors were doing all they knew to 
do to help him, but they didn't know what they were dealing with so 
treatment was poke and hope and the clock was ticking down. His wife was 
not a Christian at the time, or her family, but Chris's dad and step-mom 
like I said were and they darn well were not letting their son check out 
without doing all they could. Chris's dad at one critical point I believed 
laid hands on him and prayed despite staff not wanting him there, in fact 
all he could grasp was his toes.  One night sleeping on the couch his dad 
had a dream/vision and saw what he believed to be a vision that said his 
son will be OK. It's been a while since I heard what his vision was so I 
don't recall it but it was a strange kind of dream in need of 
interpretation which he claimed he had, and also claimed that his son would 
be OK. His dad had gathered all the believers he knew who could come and 
lay hands on and pray for Chris, Chris's wife not being a Christian was 
like appalled, a gasp at the thought of it, and refused they do this thing. 
Well they laid hands on him and prayed nonetheless. Chris at this point was 
all the worse and they did not expect him to make it. His lungs were crisp 
or permanently damaged due to the length and strength of oxygen he was on 
to try to keep him alive and even with that his muscles and body began to 
atrophy. Soon the doctors had to make a choice; they could not leave him on 
life support any longer because it was beginning to do more damage than 
potential good. Family and friends continued to pray. The doctors finally 
began to remove the life support off of him and prepared the family for 
what was inevitable. Much to everyone's surprise however, the more he was 
removed from oxygen, the better he did, the more life support that was 
removed, the better he did. The day after he was removed from life support 
Chris walked a bouquet of flowers to the nurse's station in thanks for 
their support. He went from just a few turns of medical equipment 
nobs  toward death to walking in a matter of a day or two. The doctor who 
cared and treated Chris for the entire time he was under his care, which I 
think was told me near $100,000, forgone his fee  as he told them he did 
nothing to save the man and it was clearly a true miracle and he could not 
take any payment for that.

Chris is in perfect health today, probably a decade and a half later. His 
wife is a good Christian woman. And please if you have read this far, 
please  pray for these two as  due to varying circumstances are struggling 
through a foreclosure and financial troubles as well some challenges with 
their teenage boys. They are just good folks and a reminder of "There for 
the grace of God go I".

Brad