Against all odds!
An astounding story!
Mr. Nelson,72, one of our church members, had a stroke two months ago. He has right-sided paralysis & speech difficulty.
This Sunday, his daughter brought him to Church. After services, we had a luncheon for the family. Mitzi, his daughter, tells us her dad is sometimes in tears, frustrated because of his inability to talk & do stuff for himself & he will not take any meds for depression.
Our minister is most perceptive & encouraging. So at the luncheon, The minister tells us the following story. He says it is a true story of hope, prayer & perseverance.
Here is what he revealed to us.
On July 1969, Larry Miller, 21, of Wooster, Ohio, was shot in the head by a friend while target shooting. It was a terrible accident.
It was a twenty-gauge shotgun shell at eight feet distance. It ripped the left side of his head two to three inches deep. Part of his brain spilled out. His cousin pushed the brain matter back into his head & covered his head with a rag, & drove him seven miles to Hillsboro Hospital.
The doctors took off the rag and shook their heads, saying they could not help. So they put him in an ambulance which drove him ninety miles to University Hospital in Columbus, where a team of neurosurgeons operated on Larry for eight hours!
His hospital records noted Larry had no detectable pulse when he got to the hospital, but the team worked on him to bring back a heartbeat.
During the next sixteen days after the surgery, Larry was in & out of consciousness. The right side of his body was paralyzed, and he could not talk.
The doctors told Larry’s parents that he would be a helpless vegetable for the rest of his life; he would never walk or talk again.
Larry heard this news. Later, he stated the information angered him so much that he wanted to cuss, but the words would not come out. That is when he decided nobody would tell him what he could do. God is his resource. He remembered his sports days at Wooster High School. Sports was his world & his ambition.
The power of positive thinking!
Larry vowed he was going to get better. Once he got home, he began physical therapy & speech therapy. It was six weeks since his brain surgery.
He had a metal plate in his head & learned to walk with a cane. Movement on his right side came back gradually.
Larry says he fell millions of times, which discouraged him greatly. In addition, his crying spells made his headaches worse. However, he persevered, and improvement was noticeable after two months.
The quiver in his right arm gradually quit as his muscle tone improved.
One year later, Larry took a battery of tests & started coaching the reserve football team at Wooster High School while he continued with physical therapy.
He took a job in the Goodwill retail store to improve his speech rate.
Two and a half years later, after doctors said Larry Miller would be a helpless vegetable for the rest of his life, he received the Worker of the Year Award at the annual meeting of the Goodwill Industries and Rehabilitation Clinic.
So, this is what Larry Miller said at his award reception celebration,
“I would advise anyone experiencing a traumatic experience not to get discouraged even in the worst situations. Make your own decisions and try to attain what you want in life. I know that prayer played a big part in my healing. I praise God and am happy to be a functioning human.”
Wow! What an incredible story! Big applause followed & we saw Mr. Nelson wipe away a tear.
Then we laid hands on Mr. Nelson and prayed for healing. And Mr. Nelson whispered inaudibly, “Thy will be done.”
Thank you, readers, for your time.
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