During our recent Sozo Basic Training, Tami and Gary were there with Salome, a friend who was visiting from out-of-town. Following the conference, they all returned to their home where their son, Calen, daughter-in-law, Kristi, 3-year-old granddaughter, Karese, and 18-month-old grandson, Cade, were staying.
The baby had woken from his afternoon nap with a high fever, so when Gary and Tami got home, Gary and Calen left to buy some children’s Motrin.
I heard Kristi screaming at the top of her lungs, “MOM! MOM! MOMMMMMMMMMM! I came running towards the stairs to the sound of her screams and three year old, Karese’s horrid high pitched wailing. Eight months pregnant Kristi had little Cade in her arms while terrified Karese was clinging so hard to her legs that none of them could manuver the stairs very well. Kristi finally managed to tear herself away from Karese’s grip and run down the stairs just as I got to the bottom of them. Cade was having a long seizure brought on from the fever and it wasn’t letting up. I tried to help Kristi get Cade in a comfortable position until the seizure could stop. When it finally did he was motionless, blue, and not breathing. Kristi threw him in my arms and ran back to get Karese and her cell phone to call 911.
I tried to remember my CPR training from my Senior Lifesaving Course more than 35 years ago. I decided that I had more faith in my Jesus than I did in my long rusted CPR skills and began to loudly rebuke the fever, seizure, spirit of infirmity, and the spirit of death…all the while telling myself, “You can do this, you can do this!” and with the next breath yelled out loud for Salome. She joined me, alternately praying in the spirit and trying to coax me to lay the motionless and blue baby down flat (later telling me that she had several years of rust on her CPR skills, but the Lord had begun to bring it back to her mind quickly in the moment.) By this time, I was so entrenched in the spiritual battle going on over his precious little life that nothing could have pried him out of my arms as I bound and broke off the powers of darkness. Beginning to see him turn from blue-grey to blue-white, I gained confidence that God was at work and began to speak in a softer voice, my mouth close to his pale face. I said, “Cade, this is Grami-Tam. I need you to come back to me and BREATHE! Breathe, baby …and keep breathing!” He began to seize faintly and then go motionless again…The battle continued with more prayers of authority, more soft commands to breathe, and more faint seizures of fluttering signs of life. Cade’s color was more white than blue now and his breathing more regular, although very shallow and labored. The dispatch operator had dispatched the EMTs and told us to lay Cade flat on the floor and tilt his head back until they arrived.
Gary and Calen got home moments after the EMTs had arrived. They went to work to stabilize him and then took him to the local Children’s Hospital to get help in reducing the fever quickly so that he didn’t suffer another seizure.
AT one point when we had Cade lying on the floor, Salome asked Father God to “present Jesus”. She saw Him holding Cade’s head back and asked Karese if she could see Him, too. Karese said, “Yes, I see Him holding his neck.” Later while I was comforting Karese in another fit of fearful fretting at bedtime, as I lay down beside her stroking the back of her neck, I “edited out the harm of the painful memory” from earlier in the evening, she began to calm and relax into peace. I’m SO THANKFUL that we have the testimony of Jesus and praise His miraculous and powerful goodness!