Participants:
Series Code: UBR
Program Code: UBR000250A
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00:01 Have you ever seen a walking miracle?
00:03 Well, stay tuned to hear the story of a woman 00:05 who was delivered from the grip of death. 00:08 My name is Yvonne Lewis-Shelton, 00:10 and you're watching Urban Report. 00:36 Hello and welcome to Urban Report. 00:39 My guest today is Loretta Spivey, 00:41 and her testimony is powerful. 00:44 Welcome to Urban Report, Loretta. 00:46 Hi. Thank you. 00:47 So glad that you're here. I heard... 00:49 Because you're already on the 3ABN Today program, 00:53 and I heard that your testimony is so powerful. 00:56 And so always when we have a guest on the Today program 01:02 that has a powerful testimony, 01:03 we try to get you on Urban Report too 01:05 'cause our viewers want to watch, and hear, 01:08 and be blessed by it as well. 01:10 So thank you so much 01:11 for consenting to be on this program. 01:13 It's my pleasure. 01:14 I believe that's why God gave me the testimony 01:16 because he knew that I'd share it. 01:19 Yes, and that's so important because when something happens, 01:23 if you don't share it, 01:24 then how the people know how God has blessed you. 01:28 Absolutely. 01:29 So let's hear about what God has done. 01:31 Well, I'll start at the beginning 01:32 and say that before I was sick, I had never been sick. 01:36 Other than having babies, I had not been in the hospital. 01:39 How many babies you have? 01:41 Well, I have two by birth 01:42 and three by love, so I have five. 01:44 Okay. 01:45 I mean, not very many of them are babies anymore 01:47 but we will get to that. 01:48 And so I was the mother of five, four at home. 01:52 And they were doing piano, and soccer, 01:54 and one was about to graduate from high school, 01:56 and one was in first grade, 01:58 again that's a story for another program 02:00 how that happened. 02:02 But we were just doing life. 02:03 I was a runner, 10Ks, half marathons. 02:08 I did mission trips, I did church activities. 02:12 And so, I think I would say 02:15 that my life was relatively normal, 02:17 except for, let's show that first baptism picture. 02:21 And while they're getting that up, 02:23 let me just ask you, so was your diet good even... 02:27 You had the exercise but how was your diet? 02:30 Funny, you would ask that question. 02:31 My diet was excellent. 02:33 Okay. 02:34 My diet was really, really solid. 02:36 And so, I have no reason to know why I got sick 02:40 but something about diet, 02:42 I hope that you'll remember to ask me that a little later. 02:45 Okay. 02:46 But yeah, the diet, the diet was really 02:48 in very, very good shape. 02:49 So you had a baptism photo... 02:51 So, yeah, but it's... There we go. 02:53 And so that's in Ecuador, 02:55 and the quick mission trip story there is that, 02:58 I promised I'd never get in that river. 03:00 Where was this? That's in Ecuador. 03:02 Ecuador! And we camped near the river. 03:05 And the kids, it was ultimate workout 03:07 and so we worked hard. 03:10 The trip was for 14 to 18-year-olds. 03:12 And so after work, they wanted to go and play in the river, 03:15 and I said, "I will gladly be your chaperone from the bank." 03:19 Right. 03:21 I swim but I just didn't want to go in that river. 03:22 Right. 03:24 I don't know what was in that river. 03:25 Right. 03:26 But a young lady decided that she wanted to get baptized. 03:29 At first, I thought it was a trick 03:30 just to get me in the river, 03:32 but she really wanted to give her heart to the Lord, 03:34 and so I got in the river. 03:36 So this is what I call "my normal life" 03:39 before I got sick. 03:42 So the sickness crept up on me because... 03:46 How many mothers aren't tired? 03:48 Right. 03:49 All mothers are tired. 03:51 So the fact that I was tired 03:52 didn't alarm me so much at first. 03:56 Was it an intense fatigue 03:58 or just kind of creeping upon you? 04:02 Well, it was creeping up 04:03 but it got so intense 04:04 that the stairs that I normally ran up, 04:07 I had to rest half way through. 04:09 And I thought, "I'm resting half way through 04:12 my regular flight of stairs, something is wrong." 04:15 My hands started feeling tingly 04:18 but I have a little, 04:20 as the old folk used to say touch of carpal tunnel. 04:24 And so I started doing my B vitamins, 04:26 trying to make sure but it didn't help. 04:29 Then my feet felt tingly. 04:31 So I said to my best friend, 04:33 "Listen, if I am still feeling weakish and poorly tomorrow, 04:38 I'm going to the doctor." 04:40 When I woke up tomorrow, my feet were tingly, 04:44 my hands were tingly 04:46 but what made me call the doctor 04:47 was that my tongue was tingly. 04:50 Through the course of this interview, 04:51 you'll learn that I like to talk. 04:53 So I could have dealt with the hands, 04:54 and I could have dealt with the feet 04:56 but we're gonna take care of this tongue and make sure... 04:58 Make sure that you can still talk. 05:00 Make sure that I can talk, 05:01 and I thought that's so strange so. 05:03 Now were you having any difficulty swallowing or...? 05:06 No difficulty swallowing, no difficulty talking. 05:09 I had tingly feet, tongue, and hands, and no energy. 05:12 Okay. That's all I had. 05:17 'Cause my mind is kind of... 05:18 I'm a naturopathic doctor, so my mind is kind of, 05:21 you know, I'm thinking of potential diagnosis 05:23 but go ahead. 05:24 Okay. So this will be good. 05:25 Ask me about some health things later on. 05:27 So I go to the doctor, 05:28 and miracle number one takes place. 05:30 I won't tell you the name of it yet, 05:31 but it's extremely hard to diagnose. 05:34 This doctor nailed it in 15 minutes, 15 minutes. 05:38 Wow. 05:40 He nailed the diagnosis, now that was the first miracle. 05:42 Without any tests. 05:44 Without any official tests. 05:45 He tested, and he talked, he asked me a lot of questions, 05:47 he gave me the neurological tests. 05:49 Okay. And he diagnosed it. 05:52 And so I did what anybody would do in 2011. 05:54 I picked up my phone, and I typed it in. 05:57 And then I said, 05:58 "Okay, I should probably put this down," 06:00 because the diagnosis was Guillain-Barre syndrome, 06:04 which is very, very rare. 06:05 And the first words that jumped out at me were intubation, 06:11 paralysis, and death. 06:13 So I said, "Oh, yeah, I probably... 06:15 Let's not, let's not..." 06:17 Let's not go there. 06:18 "Let's not go there, let's just..." 06:20 So I was there, I was in the hospital, 06:22 they were grateful they caught it in time. 06:24 Because a lot of times, 06:26 people will end up tripping and falling, 06:27 and you know, really hurting themselves, 06:29 or having other symptoms, 06:31 or just not being able to breath, 06:33 and so they felt like they caught it early. 06:35 I did treatment for a week. 06:37 I did physical therapy for another week, 06:40 and they sent me home with a walker and said, 06:42 "Only use this as you have to, as you feel like you need to." 06:45 Now that had to, kind of, blow you away too 06:48 because here you are a runner, an athlete, 06:53 you know, just doing what you normally do, 06:57 and now you're coming back home with a walker. 07:01 But, you know, I'm a little crazy. 07:02 And so even though I was coming home with a walker, 07:05 from the beginning, I was saying, 07:06 "This is going to be an amazing testimony, 07:08 and this is going to be a good story." 07:10 I was really saying that in my mind. 07:11 Okay. Okay, okay. 07:12 And after two weeks, you know, "Hey, okay, 07:14 I'll go home with a walker." 07:15 That's what they told me to convince me to take it home 07:17 'cause I was like, "I don't need a walker, 07:18 I'm fine. I'm fine." 07:20 They said, "No, just take it, you know, 07:21 if you're tired or whatever the case maybe," so I took it. 07:25 Now here's when the problem really kicks in. 07:29 The nature, the personality, I like to say, 07:32 of this syndrome is that you go low 07:34 and then you climb consistently till you get better, right? 07:39 So... 07:41 So you start out at your worst... 07:43 You start out, correct. 07:44 And it incrementally gets better. 07:47 Yeah, right. 07:49 You incrementally get better and better and better. 07:51 And so that's what I went home expecting. 07:54 So instead of that happening, I started going the other way 07:59 and getting worse. 08:00 So the day I got home, I told you I was bragging, 08:02 "I don't need this walker." 08:03 Well, two days later, I needed the walker 08:06 just to get to my bathroom. 08:08 Two days later? Two days later. 08:11 It only took four days. 08:12 By day four, you know, 08:14 how you teach an infant, not an infant, 08:16 a toddler to slide down the stairs 08:18 on their behind so they don't fall, 08:19 that's how I had to go down the stairs, 08:21 I couldn't walk down the stairs. 08:23 I slid down the stairs on my behind. 08:26 When I got to the bottom, my husband picked me up, 08:28 and put me in the car, 08:29 and took me back to the emergency room. 08:32 They immediately admitted me, 08:34 and started doing tests all over again, 08:37 and they came to the same diagnosis. 08:41 Although it took them lots of blood 08:44 and lots of other tests to get there, 08:46 they said, "Yes, it is Guillain-Barre 08:48 but we're gonna do something little differently this time." 08:52 While they were figuring out what they were going to do, 08:55 I went from 08:59 not being able to go down the stairs, 09:00 as I mentioned, 09:02 needing the walker to get to the bathroom 09:04 to not being able to take two steps 09:06 to get to the little portable potty 09:09 that they had in my room. 09:11 Were you so weak 09:12 that you couldn't hold yourself up or...? 09:16 Yes. 09:17 I was just that weak. 09:19 My! 09:20 I was just that weak. 09:21 And so the decision was made 09:25 that I needed to go to the bigger hospital. 09:29 I lived in a little suburban town, 09:31 and so we were using little small hospital. 09:34 And they said, "We need to go to the big, main hospital." 09:38 Well, by the time they did the paperwork, and of course, 09:40 checked the insurance, 09:42 and I got to the main hospital, 09:45 I walk in, and the doctor says, "Loretta, good to meet you," 09:50 you know, "give me a thumbs-up." 09:54 And literally, I literally could not do that, literally. 10:00 So I'm just kind of there, kind of, you know, 10:03 like I'm trying to start a fire but not even that much, 10:05 I couldn't give him a thumbs-up. 10:07 This is on both sides, both hands, you could not... 10:10 Both hands, both sides, everything was... 10:12 That's the other personality, it's not one sided 10:15 like a stroke or something, it's all together. 10:18 And so that was happening from the neck down. 10:22 So the neck down, I have no control, 10:25 I can't scratch my head, I can't feed myself. 10:28 So this is similar to ALS, isn't it? 10:31 I'm not sure if it's in that family but... 10:33 In a sense that you have no control over your muscles. 10:37 Correct. Correct. You can't walk, you can't... 10:40 Don't say I can't talk. Praise God. 10:43 Praise Him. That's right. 10:45 That's right. 10:46 I mean, I keep saying that but this was seriously 10:48 a blessing for a number of reasons, 10:50 and one of them was that 10:52 I believe that we never have an excuse 10:57 to be mean and nasty. 10:59 And if we profess to be Christians, 11:01 then, not that we have to be fake, 11:04 but we have to be who we are all the time. 11:07 And so, again at this point, though it's early, 11:10 and I'm still thinking, "Oh, God, you know, 11:11 you're really making this a good story. 11:13 I had no idea it was going to be this good 11:14 but, okay, let's go with it." 11:16 And so I'm there, and I told the doctor, 11:21 not even gesturing like this because I couldn't, like this, 11:25 "I'm going to run a marathon." 11:27 Now I had never run a marathon 11:29 but I know the man thinks I'm crazy 11:31 because I can't even give him a thumbs-up 11:32 but I'm telling him I'm going to run a marathon. 11:35 What did they say is the cause? 11:37 They couldn't find the cause for me. 11:39 Some of the causes they say are... 11:43 Well, let me say it this way, if you listen to the warnings 11:47 after the flu shot commercial, 11:49 they'll say that Guillain-Barre is a possibility. 11:54 The other thing they say is stomach, 11:57 like people generally get some kind of a bug, 12:00 and it's often a stomach virus, 12:03 and I suppose, since it's autoimmune, 12:04 I suppose that your autoimmune system 12:06 starts to fight that bug and then kind of goes haywire. 12:10 And turns on itself. 12:11 And turns on, in my case, it's peripheral nervous system. 12:15 And so they didn't really, they could never figure it out. 12:17 People thought, "Oh, it's all those mission trips, 12:18 you know, she's always in another country, it's that." 12:21 But being infectious disease, doctors took all of my blood, 12:24 all of it. 12:27 And they said, 12:28 "No, it didn't have anything to do with the mission trips." 12:30 So for me, I don't know, I do know people 12:33 who can point to a vaccine, 12:36 or a flu shot, or a bug that happened before, 12:40 but for me, I never knew anything 12:43 except that I was tingly, and I was tired. 12:45 And funny, now I say that I was paralyzed 12:48 but when it happened, I never used that word, never. 12:52 What did you call it? 12:53 I didn't call it anything, I just couldn't move. 12:57 And I want to say here that 12:59 even though I was calm 13:04 and I was in my testimony mode, at night, 13:07 I would forget 'that I was paralyzed. 13:10 So in the daytime, right, I knew like, 13:11 I know I need somebody to feed me, 13:13 I know I need somebody to scratch my head 13:15 and comb my hair, I know that 13:17 because I'm conscious, it's daylight. 13:19 At nighttime, you know, you're not paying attention. 13:21 And so I would be there at night 13:23 in neuro-ICU which I never even knew. 13:26 The only NICU I knew of was for babies 13:29 but here I am in neuro-ICU, 13:31 and you know, 2 o'clock in the morning, 13:33 I'd go just to shift, just not a big thing, 13:37 just to shift a little bit, 13:39 and I'd realized, I can't do that, 13:43 or just to scratch my leg, or scratch, 13:45 and I couldn't do it. 13:47 And I'm telling you, full blown panic attack. 13:49 Yes. 13:50 I've never had a panic, I'm not given to panic attacks, 13:52 I'm not. 13:54 I've never had a panic attack in my life 13:55 but I'm talking full blown, 13:57 hyperventilating, feeling like I can't breathe, 13:59 feeling like I'm going to die, feeling like... 14:01 Now if you know anything about hospitals in ICU, 14:06 you're in that room by yourself, 14:08 they don't let your family spend the night with you. 14:10 Right. It's like 15-minute slots. 14:13 Fifteen-minute slots. 14:15 So now if I have to go to the bathroom 14:18 and I'm in ICU, what happens? 14:22 You just go. 14:23 I can't push the button. 14:24 They give you that button to push... 14:26 You can't even summon a nurse. 14:27 I can't even summon a nurse. 14:29 So I lay in the bed and I say, "Jesus, 14:32 I need somebody to come in this room, 14:34 and I can't call them." 14:36 So I'm going to need you to send somebody in this room, 14:39 and somebody will come in the room. 14:42 That really happened. Yes. 14:44 Also though, they were willing to break the rule 14:48 because I could not press the button. 14:49 They started allowing my husband 14:51 to come and spend the night in ICU 14:53 which, as you well know, doesn't happen. 14:56 So now this poor guy is now there 14:59 to help manage these panic attacks. 15:02 So he would just play music, and pray, and rub my head, 15:06 and whatever the case may be but in the daytime 15:09 because I was aware, "Okay, I'm sick. 15:12 God is doing something. 15:13 It's going to be a testimony." 15:14 But at night I would just wake up and just absolutely, 15:17 absolutely just crazily freak out. 15:20 It's understandable 15:21 because you have no control over anything. 15:26 Nothing. 15:27 So you can't, it's kind of like being buried alive in a sense 15:31 because the only thing you had was, 15:34 you were able to speak and look, 15:37 and that kind of thing 15:38 but you weren't able to move anything. 15:41 That would send anybody into a panic attack. 15:45 Right. Right. 15:47 It's just unfathomable. 15:49 So what would... 15:51 So your husband would come, and he would play music, 15:54 and rub your head, and just try to, 15:56 kind of calm you down during those panic attacks. 16:00 Exactly. 16:02 And I, even then I felt sorry for him 16:05 because he didn't know what to do, 16:07 he's a corporate trainer. 16:09 He doesn't know about these things. 16:12 I'd never been in the hospital before, 16:13 he had never been in the hospital before. 16:17 We just didn't have experience in that and so... 16:22 And it came from nowhere. 16:23 It came from nowhere, nowhere. 16:25 It's not like you were sick, 16:28 you had a protracted illness and then it came to this. 16:32 Correct. No. It was four days. Bam! 16:35 It was days. It was days. 16:36 By the time I was paralyzed, it was, so let's say, 16:39 two weeks in the hospital, three or four days home, 16:42 another two days in another hospital 16:44 so that's three weeks. 16:46 In three weeks, I was from driving my kids to school 16:50 to not being able to give a doctor a thumbs-up, 16:53 in three weeks time. 16:54 What was going on in your head at this point? 16:57 This is going to be an amazing testimony. 16:59 Still? Still. 17:00 You're still there. Still. 17:02 Okay. I was still there. 17:03 And I just want to say that that has nothing to do with me 17:05 being awesome, 17:07 that has nothing to do with me having a positive attitude, 17:09 that doesn't even have anything to do with me 17:11 trying to be a witness. 17:12 That is the thing that God did... 17:14 One of the things that God did for me. 17:16 Throughout the entire journey, He protected my mind. 17:21 It was almost as if, I don't compare myself to Job 17:23 but for purposes of this conversation, God said, 17:26 "You can have her body but not her mind." 17:30 So I can point to literally two or three times 17:33 during that journey that I was really down, 17:35 and I'm talking just a day or two 17:38 but He really protected my mind. 17:40 And so I don't want anyone to think, "Oh, yeah, Loretta, 17:45 you know, she just had that great relationship, 17:47 and she was so strong." 17:49 No, that is just one of the things 17:51 that God did for me, protected my mind. 17:53 That's beautiful. 17:54 Three months in, three months in, 17:57 we actually had a party in the hospital. 17:58 It was "Loretta's been in the hospital 18:00 for three months, 18:02 and she hasn't lost her mind party." 18:05 Seriously. 18:06 And my friends brought food, and we laughed, and talked, 18:09 and testified to the goodness of the Lord, 18:11 and we had a little slide show as... 18:14 And you were still incapacitated. 18:16 At that point, I was in a wheelchair, 18:18 and I could talk, 18:19 and I could use my hands a little bit, 18:21 I was in a power wheelchair so I had a little joystick 18:23 and I could talk always, praise the Lord. 18:27 And so, yeah, I remember, 18:32 it took me all day to get dressed for it. 18:33 Literally, it took me all day. 18:35 And if you saw, I don't have a picture of that, 18:37 but if you saw a picture, you'd say 18:38 "It really took you all day to do that? 18:40 It really took you all day to do that?" 18:42 But it was good to just have 18:44 everyone around at the same time 18:45 and just have not hospital food 18:47 and celebrate the goodness of God. 18:50 And I think we have a video of you in that wheelchair. 18:55 We have a few videos. 18:56 We have a hospital picture which would be great to show 18:59 because the hospital picture looks so way different than... 19:05 yeah. 19:07 Way, way different than what we're dealing with now. 19:10 So let's go on. 19:12 So we have this in the hospital, 19:13 and that was right around the paralyzed time, 19:16 somebody actually put my arm up there for me 19:18 so I could rest. 19:21 So I'm in the hospital, and they do this treatment, 19:23 and they sent me to rehab. 19:25 And I'm telling you, I use this word all the time, 19:28 I went to rehab like Rambo. 19:30 Whatever, literally, while they were wheeling me, 19:32 and I was talking to them saying, 19:34 "I'm going to be your star patient. 19:36 I'm going to... 19:38 You tell me to do five, I'm going to do seven." 19:40 I said, "I'm going to be so amazing, 19:42 they will put my picture on the wall." 19:44 That's how I went into rehab because remember, 19:47 this is going to be a great story. 19:49 And so now it's a month, about a month then, 19:52 I'm in a rehab, 19:54 and I'm doing exactly what I said. 19:57 The guy says, "Do five," I squeeze out seven. 20:00 You know, the guy says, "Go this high," 20:01 I squeeze out a little higher. 20:02 I mean, I'm pushing this thing. 20:05 And then I start feeling weak again, 20:09 and I say to them, "Something's wrong. 20:10 I'm feeling weak again." 20:12 And they say, 20:14 "Oh, let's give a little bit of time." 20:16 Well, that little bit of time 20:19 landed me almost paralyzed again. 20:21 So now we go back to the hospital, 20:23 and they say, "Okay, we got this. 20:25 We're gonna just tweak the treatment." 20:27 And that cycle happened four times. 20:32 Where you would get treatment, 20:38 you get better, 20:39 but then you'd hit a different place 20:41 in the treatment and go backwards. 20:44 Correct. 20:45 You regressed. Correct. 20:46 And then you get some more treatment, 20:49 build up a little bit, and then regress again, 20:53 and that happened four times. 20:54 That happened four times. Wow. 20:56 So now, now my mind is saying, "You know what, 21:00 you have to do two things, Loretta. 21:03 You have to work, like, it's all on you, 21:08 and you have to pray like it's all on God." 21:11 Right. 21:12 So this is my mind now like, "No one's going to say, 21:17 this didn't work out 21:19 because Loretta didn't work hard enough." 21:22 You know, I was in the physical therapy, 21:23 and I would hear people 21:24 who didn't want to go to therapy, 21:26 and you know, the therapist would try to coax them, 21:28 or they would say, "I don't know 21:29 what we're going to do with such and such 21:30 because they're just, they won't go." 21:32 And I just said it in my mind like, 21:33 "I don't know what's going to happen, 21:35 but it's not going to be because I didn't do the work." 21:38 And so, there's a picture of me doing a wheelchair workout 21:42 like I couldn't even at that point stand up. 21:45 I think they have it. 21:47 And I was doing, you know, these arm exercises, 21:50 and there it is in the wheelchair. 21:52 And you can't hear the audio 21:54 but you'll see me laugh in a minute 21:55 because that's like number three 21:57 right there, right? 21:58 And number four, like, you see me when I smile. 22:00 My husband started counting number one at that time. 22:02 Oh! Oh, my dude, I already did four. 22:05 You can't leave out anything. Yeah. 22:07 Don't... 22:08 'Cause I'm trying to do extra now, you're already. 22:10 Yeah, right. Yeah. 22:11 And so, that was my theory like, 22:13 "I'm going to work like no one else has any control over this, 22:16 and I'm going to pray, 22:18 and I need you guys to pray 22:19 like only God can do something." 22:21 And so that's really the way that 22:23 I approached the whole thing. 22:26 But now, we just said this cycle happened four times. 22:29 Right. 22:31 So I'm reading your mind, and you're saying, 22:33 "What on earth were you thinking now?" 22:36 I'm glad you asked. 22:39 So what I was thinking was, "Okay..." 22:43 Oh, I left something out really, really important. 22:46 When I was home for those four days, God spoke to me, 22:50 as clearly as I'm talking to you, 22:52 and He said, "Loretta, this is not over 22:56 but you're going to be okay." 22:59 He told me that. Okay. 23:01 Loretta, how did you react when... 23:04 But there are times when we know 23:06 that God is speaking to us. 23:08 There're other times were, you know, is it me, is it Him? 23:10 But there are times when you know that it is He, 23:15 what did you... 23:17 how did you react? 23:18 Did you cry? 23:20 How did you react when He told you that? 23:22 I was really feeling terribly at the time. 23:25 It was really close to that fourth day, 23:26 and it might have even been that fourth day, 23:28 and I was on my behind going down the stairs. 23:30 So I remember being a little startled at first. 23:35 Honestly, a little disappointed at first 23:38 because I'm thinking like, 23:39 "Okay, two weeks in the hospital, 23:41 that's the story." 23:43 So when He said that, at the end of the day, 23:45 I was happy for the info 23:50 and a little relieved because I could tell 23:52 we were going into something that was pretty serious. 23:55 So I was relieved to know. Okay. Good. 23:57 It's not over but it's going to be okay. 24:00 Right. 24:01 But now honestly, by cycle four, 24:05 I'm starting to wonder what is okay mean, 24:09 because you know, 24:11 God's words, and timing, 24:13 and calendars aren't the same as ours. 24:15 Right. 24:16 So now I'm starting to say, "Well, what exact... 24:18 Maybe I misunderstood... Now I'm back. 24:20 Well, was it me? Was it who? 24:22 What did I really understand." 24:24 So I start asking God questions. 24:26 I started saying to God, "Okay, what is okay mean?" 24:29 Because I thought okay meant I was back to myself. 24:32 Right. 24:33 And now sometime during the course of this thing, 24:35 I've decided that I don't want to just get back to myself, 24:37 I want to get better than I was before. 24:39 Okay. 24:40 And so I'm thinking, 24:42 "Well, what is okay really mean?" 24:43 Do you know who Joni Eareckson Tada is? 24:45 I do. 24:46 Okay, so I am thinking, "Well, Joni's okay." 24:48 Well, tell our viewers who she is. 24:49 Okay, so Joni Eareckson Tada was the young lady 24:52 who was in a diving accident as a teenager 24:56 and ended up paralyzed. 24:59 Quadriplegic. 25:00 As a quadriplegic for the rest of her life 25:02 when she started just as a teenager. 25:05 And so I thought, "Joni's okay." 25:07 And she has a tremendous ministry too... 25:09 She has a tremendous ministry. The disabled. 25:11 And honestly, I even started to think... 25:15 'Cause I'm always going to say a word for the Lord, 25:16 let's get that. 25:18 So I'm like, "When I go to speak places, 25:20 am I going to have to ask them, 25:21 like to send somebody strong enough 25:23 to deal with my wheelchair? 25:24 Am I going to have to ask them, 25:26 "Is their church handicapped accessible?" 25:28 Like, what exactly does okay mean? 25:31 And honestly, when people die, 25:35 we say, "They're resting." 25:37 We say, "They're out of pain. 25:40 They're okay." They're okay. 25:42 So I'm just starting to question now exactly, 25:45 let's just go back here. 25:47 God, what do you mean by okay? 25:50 And, you know, what's so great, Loretta, is that, 25:52 we can talk to God like that, 25:55 that we can approach Him with those kinds of questions 25:59 because He's our Father. 26:01 If your Father is trying to tell you something, 26:04 "Dad, what do you mean? 26:05 I'm not sure I understand what you're saying?" 26:08 So He loves. 26:09 I think He loves 26:10 when we ask Him questions like that 26:12 or ask Him to clarify something, you know. 26:15 So you were saying, "Lord, 26:16 what do you mean, what do you mean okay?" 26:19 Right. And so... 26:24 In pure God-fashion, 26:27 He says, "Now, I have a question for you." 26:30 And I got little scared 26:33 because Job is one of my favorite books. 26:36 And, you know, God had way more than a question for Job 26:41 and I was just like, "Oh, man. 26:43 I'm in trouble now." 26:44 But He only had one question for me, 26:47 and that question was, "Do you trust Me?" 26:52 Wow! 26:55 Yeah. 26:56 It might well have been 12 questions 26:58 'cause it was just hard as 12 questions. 27:00 It just all came only in one question. 27:04 And so I would like to tell you 27:07 because I have told you that I did mission trips, 27:10 and I told you that I was active in church, 27:13 and I told you that 27:14 I knew this is going to be a testimony. 27:17 So this part in the story, 27:18 I would really like to tell you 27:19 that I said, "Yes, God, absolutely. 27:22 I trust You." 27:25 And I think we all generally trust God 27:30 but in this case, 27:33 I was getting a sense of what the alternatives were. 27:38 See, when you're in church or somewhere 27:41 and someone asks a general question, 27:42 "Do you trust God?" 27:45 You say yes because in your mind, 27:47 you're not thinking of the alternatives. 27:50 Right? 27:52 But I was thinking, "What is trust mean? 27:55 What is okay mean? 27:56 For me, this was supposed to end 27:59 with this great testimony, right? 28:03 So when God said, "Do you trust Me," 28:05 my mind was thinking, 28:07 "Well, I want to trust You to do what I want You to do." 28:15 Now over that... 28:16 Now you know, that's a good point. 28:19 I want to... that's why I trust You. 28:21 That is a good point. 28:25 We often trust God the way to do what we want Him to do. 28:31 Correct, in our time. Yeah, on our schedule. 28:33 On our schedule, in our way. 28:35 And so that is what I was trusting. 28:39 I didn't want to just do that. 28:42 So it took me about two weeks to pray, 28:46 to talk to certain people who could handle this kind of talk. 28:51 Yes. Yes. 28:54 To think, to really search myself, 28:58 to cry a little, and to really... 29:01 'Cause, I mean, God knows your heart. 29:03 Absolutely. 29:04 I didn't want to say, "Oh, yes, God, 29:06 I trust You knowing full well." 29:08 I didn't. 29:09 And so after about two weeks, I said, "Yes, God, I do. 29:16 I trust You." Okay. 29:19 Now, there is a picture of my daughter 29:25 who was getting ready to get married, 29:28 and me sitting down. 29:34 And if we could... Yeah. 29:37 All of my thoughts, all of my healing like... 29:41 I know you have a son, do you only have... 29:43 I have two sons. Okay. 29:44 So like a mother... 29:48 I have a daughter now too. Okay. 29:50 A mother and a daughter's wedding... 29:52 Two daughters. Okay. 29:55 And I'm lying up in the hospital. 29:58 So when I said, "God, I trust You. 30:01 Like I'm thinking, I trust You 30:03 but I need You to get me up to be at this wedding." 30:06 Right. 30:08 And because I am who I am, 30:10 I don't want to be just be there, 30:11 I want to walk down the aisle. 30:12 Right. Right. 30:14 So all of this physical therapy, 30:15 all of this, "Okay. 30:17 So yes, God, I trust You." 30:18 How far away was the wedding to this question, 30:23 from the question? 30:24 To the question, from the question, 30:25 I'm going to say the question was February 30:27 and the wedding was May. 30:28 Okay. Okay. 30:30 So all the preparation is, you know, things are happening. 30:33 Right. Absolutely. 30:34 So I said, "Yes, God, I trust You." 30:37 In a little true confession, there was a part of me 30:42 that felt like this story was a lifetime movie. 30:46 And really, sometime I would wake up saying, okay, 30:48 I'd look around like, "Okay, I'm just expecting the director 30:50 any moment to say, 'Cut. 30:52 Go to commercial.'" 30:53 You know, we come back, 30:55 and I'll be my regular healthy self again. 30:56 Yeah. 30:57 So when I said, "Yes, God, I trust You." 31:00 There was a part of me that believed 31:03 that God wanted full surrender, it's Abraham. 31:05 I'm going through all the people in the Bible, 31:07 now I'm Abraham, right? 31:09 And, you know, Abraham was willing, 31:11 and God, you know, said, "Don't do it," 31:15 and the story ended fantastic. 31:17 So there was really a part of me that felt, 31:19 even though I struggled, 31:20 I didn't say it haphazardly or flippantly, 31:23 even though I struggled, 31:25 and I feel like I really surrendered, 31:27 what was supposed to happen then 31:30 was, I was supposed to be healed, right? 31:33 "Yes, God, I trust You. I give You my all. 31:35 In Jesus' name, amen." 31:37 Take up your bed and walk, like, 31:38 that's the way it was supposed to happen, 31:40 but that's not what happened. 31:42 What happened was that all the doctors came in the room. 31:45 Now, you know when they all come. 31:47 Yeah. 31:49 It's either bad news or great news. 31:51 No. They never all come when it's good news. 31:52 Well, the reason why I said that is 31:54 because, you know, like you have the professor, teachers, 31:58 if it's a teaching hospital. 31:59 It was. 32:00 And they come to say, "Look at what's happened." 32:04 So it can be but... Okay. 32:07 But in this case, it was not. 32:08 My experience is, they didn't have anything good to say. 32:12 So they came in, 32:13 and my reward for surrendering 32:20 and submitting fully 32:21 and telling God that I trusted Him 32:23 was that they had a new diagnosis. 32:26 And the name of the doing diagnosis, 32:29 nobody knows what it is, it's so rare, 32:31 but the first word is chronic. 32:36 Which that, in and of itself... 32:40 I think you'd probably get stuck right there. 32:43 The first word was chronic. First word, yeah. 32:45 And I didn't know what 32:46 chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, 32:49 so I didn't know... 32:51 You know, even once they said it, 32:52 I had no idea what it meant. 32:53 Yeah, yeah. 32:55 But, because the first word was chronic, 32:56 I knew that it wasn't a good situation. 33:01 While they were there, they thought to tell me 33:03 that we should take this time now 33:06 to go ahead and start getting you 33:07 prepared for... 33:10 living in this state. 33:15 So, "We have some people 33:16 that we want you to talk with about getting your home set up 33:21 so you can have ramps 33:23 and whatever else you need to be handicap-accessible. 33:28 And we have someone else that you can talk to about your car, 33:32 and we have this," this part is funny. 33:35 There was a psychiatrist there who was in a wheelchair, 33:39 who really had an amazing life. 33:40 I mean, he played basketball, 33:42 he drove this little sports car. 33:43 I'm not sure if he was married or not 33:45 but he was really like a cool guy. 33:47 I avoided this guy like the plague 33:50 because honestly, I did not want him explaining to me 33:55 how to live well like he was living well. 33:58 I did not. 34:00 'Cause you didn't want to live like that. 34:02 And the only way I was willing to live like that 34:04 is if God Himself... 34:06 I said, "God, You're gonna have to tell me 34:07 'cause these people think I'm crazy." 34:09 They really. 34:11 And the more I ignored him, 34:13 and the more I wouldn't talk to the people, 34:14 and the more I wouldn't read the pamphlets, 34:16 they just kept piling up, I threw them away once. 34:21 The more they thought, "This woman's in denial. 34:22 We really need to get her some counseling." 34:24 So I say to my husband, 34:25 "Listen, you're going to have to talk to them. 34:27 I can't do it." 34:29 And when I say, "I can't do it," 34:30 I don't mean like, there's a saying now like, 34:32 "I can't. I just can't." I didn't mean like that. 34:33 I mean, I literally could not. 34:36 I, thought of mine, have very black and white thinking. 34:40 So I couldn't figure out 34:41 how to be believing God for healing over here 34:45 and preparing myself to not be healed over here. 34:50 So it felt like a contradiction of faith. 34:52 It was a contradiction for me. 34:54 Because how can I say, "Lord, I trust You," 34:58 and then I'm preparing to be paralyzed rest of my life. 35:01 I got you. 35:03 So I literally, I tried to do it 35:06 because I tried most of the time 35:08 to be a good patient. 35:09 And so I really tried, and it gave me a headache. 35:14 I could not figure out how to be over here saying, 35:17 "I'm praying. 35:18 I believe in God is going to heal me. 35:20 I believe this is going to be a great story. 35:21 Oh, let me get ready to get my house ready 35:23 to be handicapped forever." 35:26 God bless the person who could do that. 35:28 This brain... 35:30 So I said to my husband, 35:32 "You're going to have to talk to them." 35:33 And he was like, "No, I am not talking." 35:36 He was like, "I'm with you." 35:38 You know, if this is what we're doing, 35:40 then we're doing it. 35:41 And so, now I have my husband 35:42 and myself not talking to these people, 35:46 not paying attention, not taught, 35:48 not reading the pamphlets... 35:50 Just not investing yourself on any level in that area. 35:52 On any level. 35:55 Here, there is a special meeting, 35:56 we have the people coming in, and everybody is wheeling, 36:00 and I'm like, "I'm not going down there." 36:04 Why I'm not going down there? 36:05 And so it was really a problem for the medical people 36:08 but it wasn't a problem for me at all. 36:09 I felt a sense of relief once I just said, 36:12 "I can't do both of these things, 36:14 and this is the one 36:15 I'm choosing to focus on right now." 36:17 And so that's what I did. 36:19 What kind of support did you have? 36:21 Did you have support from your pastor, your church, 36:23 your church members during this time? 36:26 Let me tell you something. 36:28 When people ask me why I didn't go crazy, 36:29 there are two reasons I didn't go crazy. 36:31 One of them, I told you, 36:32 is because God just protected my mind, 36:34 but the other thing is, I had unbelievable support. 36:39 Now, you know, people stop visiting... 36:41 You know, when you're in the hospital like, 36:42 people stop... 36:44 two or three weeks and that's it. 36:45 Yeah. Six months. 36:47 Six months, I was in somebody's facility. 36:51 For six months? Six months. 36:53 Now, you know, they put... 36:55 You have brain surgery, 36:56 and they send you home in three days nowadays. 36:57 It's true. That's true. 36:59 They switch you open and cut your heart 37:00 and, you know, they send you home. 37:02 So six months, I was in somebody's facility. 37:05 And the support was so amazing like, one time, 37:10 one of my down days, I sent a poem to a friend of mine. 37:14 And the poem, I don't remember the name of it 37:17 but the line was, "I want to let go but I won't let go." 37:22 It had that refrain a lot. 37:23 And I sent that poem, I'm not gonna make it up, 37:25 I say at 1 o'clock. 37:27 At 3 o'clock, her husband, 37:28 the pastor was sitting in my room. 37:31 I mean, I had so much... 37:33 My husband... 37:35 And talk about being a silent witness because... 37:40 My husband's an elder, he's been first elder, 37:42 I was an elder 37:43 and so, and we just kind of tell our kids things. 37:47 So they go to the hospital, 37:50 my kids spent the night in the hospital, literally. 37:53 I can't tell you how many times 37:54 I had to watch Chronicles of Narnia 37:56 because they brought a projector 37:58 and projected it on the wall, and they spent the night. 38:03 And my friends, I guess they called it being normal 38:07 but my friends took my food, 38:09 like I finally get some French fries, 38:11 and, you know, you don't get French fries in the hospital, 38:12 and I turned around, 38:14 and like they'd be eating my food. 38:15 "Yes, you know who you are." 38:18 But I really had... 38:19 My best friend was working, 38:21 living in one state and working in California, 38:24 and I looked up, and she was there. 38:28 My oldest daughter who was getting ready to get married, 38:30 as I've said, stopped her life and came down, 38:34 you know, 500, 600 miles 38:36 and, you know, managed her siblings, 38:38 and took everybody to school and work. 38:39 My sister and my other sister-in-law, 38:42 my mother-in-law, so I really had... 38:44 And the hospital noticed. 38:46 They said, "You have amazing support," 38:48 and then they would tell me stories of husbands 38:50 who would leave, wife would get in a terrible car accident, 38:52 and she's gonna be paralyzed for life, 38:54 or she's going to be handicapped. 38:55 And husband would come to the rehab 38:56 or call her in the rehab, and say, "I'm done. 38:58 I can't do it." 39:00 And so for them to see, you know, my family there, 39:03 my husband set up camp. I mean, he's got a computer, 39:05 he's got papers all over the place. 39:07 You know, I'm like, "Can I get space of that, 39:08 a little spot of that for my meal?" 39:11 I mean, and so I had amazing... 39:15 I mean, God just really surrounded me with people 39:17 that were just positive. 39:19 One lady from my church would just... 39:20 You know, I had lentils and rice 39:22 and, you know, good food. 39:23 Yes. 39:24 I was really, really blessed. 39:26 I have pictures of my kids sleeping in my bed, 39:27 and I'm in the wheelchair. 39:29 Yeah. Yeah. 39:30 So really, really blessed in that sense. 39:32 Praise the Lord. Yeah, very blessed. 39:33 So at this point now, 39:38 you're not investing yourself in any of the, 39:42 'I'm going to be paralyzed the rest of my life, rhetoric.' 39:47 No. 39:49 That's out. Way out. 39:50 So what turned things around? 39:53 How did God turn this around? 40:00 So before I get exactly to that, 40:04 there's just one little gap we have to fill in. 40:06 Okay. I started getting better. 40:10 And I was well enough and stable enough. 40:14 This is a quiz question for you, 40:16 to not be in the hospital 40:18 but not well enough to be at home, 40:20 so what happens? 40:22 Rehab or something. 40:23 One of those interim places. 40:25 Well, you can call it an interim place, 40:27 it was a nursing home. 40:28 Oh, wow. Oh, wow. 40:32 So now let's recap. 40:34 I have five children, I'm healthy, 40:37 I'm doing mission trips. I'm a runner. 40:40 In my mind, this is not where I fit. 40:43 Right. 40:44 Right, I don't fit here. 40:46 Right. 40:47 But I couldn't go home. 40:50 I was not ready to be at home, 40:52 and so they sent me to this place. 40:55 And, you know, everybody kind of says, 40:59 you know, you don't get the best rehab and those. 41:00 I mean, I was in the top rehab place. 41:02 I was in a place 41:03 that people come from all over the United States. 41:05 There were even people there from England, and Germany, 41:07 and top rehab place. 41:09 And so now I'm going to a nursing home, 41:11 and everybody's thinking, "Oh, this is terrible. 41:14 You know, she's not going to... 41:15 If she couldn't walk there, what's going to happen?" 41:19 But somebody forgot to tell, 41:20 one of my main physical therapist was Mary. 41:23 Somebody forgot to tell her 41:25 that rehab in her place wasn't good. 41:28 She didn't get the memo. 41:30 And so she said, "I know about that place where you were." 41:34 She said, "They have all the bells..." 41:35 And she said, "Let me tell you something. 41:36 There's no bells and there's no whistles. 41:38 You're going to walk 41:39 because we are going to get you strong enough 41:40 to walk just like a baby on your knees." 41:44 And I couldn't even balance on all fours, 41:46 like that's how I couldn't even balance on. 41:48 So a physical therapy session 41:49 would be me trying to balance on all fours. 41:52 Right. 41:54 Now this is deep into this, this is deep now. 41:56 I mean, now we're getting ready to, 41:58 if you want to call it, a walk. 42:01 And, you know, you'll see that all of the pressure 42:05 is on my arms but... 42:11 You actually had to learn to walk again. 42:14 No. I actually had to learn to walk five times. 42:17 Every time back and forth, I learned to walk, 42:20 and then went back, and then learn to walk, 42:22 and then went back. 42:23 So this is... 42:25 No, this is time number, 42:27 I guess we'll call it number four of learning to walk. 42:33 Did you ever reach a point where you said, 42:38 "I just can't do this anymore. 42:40 This is just too much for me"? 42:42 Did you ever reached that place of just deep, 42:46 deep discouragement? 42:48 I got tired, and I got frustrated 42:52 but it was always going to be a story, you know. 42:56 And remember, the bigger thing is, 42:59 I told you, if God said you're not going to walk, 43:02 then you're not going to walk. 43:04 But I wasn't listening to anyone. 43:05 I mean, I was like a kid. 43:07 I mean, I was really not listening to anyone else. 43:10 And I told you, 43:11 no one's going to say it didn't happen because of me. 43:14 So I was focused on doing what I needed to do. 43:18 I was focused on doing my exercises, 43:20 I was focused on doing that walk, I was focused on, 43:23 it's hard to eat well in the hospital, 43:25 but at one point, 43:26 like my husband was making me beet juice, and spinach juice, 43:28 and carrot juice, and bring it in. 43:30 I convinced one of my occupational therapist 43:33 to let me make smoothies 43:35 as part of my occupational therapy. 43:37 So we brought in my vitamix, seriously, 43:39 put it in the cabinet, and she would... 43:42 We'd go down the hall, 43:43 and we go into a little kitchen area, 43:45 and my therapy would be going into the freezer, 43:47 taken out the fruit. 43:50 Right. 43:51 Going to the refrigerator, taking out the juice and stuff, 43:54 putting it in the vitamix. 43:55 You know, it's... Yeah. 43:56 That's good. Yeah. 43:58 Putting in the vitamix, closing it up, 43:59 they allowed that to be my therapy. 44:01 It got to the point where the nurses would say, 44:02 "Hey, can you make a little extra? 44:06 Can you make some extra?" 44:08 And so there were times like that, I want to let go. 44:12 There were times that I couldn't pray. 44:14 I wasn't mad, I just didn't know what to say, 44:17 like I'm out of words like... 44:20 Prayer ministry is so important. 44:24 I just literally could not pray for myself. 44:28 I had said it all. 44:29 I just didn't know what to say. 44:31 I wasn't mad at God. I wasn't upset. 44:34 I just didn't know what else to... 44:36 It had all been said. 44:39 So I was so grateful that there were people. 44:42 I mean, storming the gates of heaven in my behalf. 44:46 They are still stars to me. 44:48 They are, like, every time I see them, 44:51 I just hug them big, 44:53 and I mean, if I could give them a million dollars... 44:56 because I couldn't pray for myself, 44:58 and they stood in the gap and made sure that. 45:00 So, yeah, I had amazing support, 45:02 and that's probably another reason 45:03 that my mind never went to the depths of discouragement 45:07 that it could. 45:08 But again, I want to be clear, this is not about me, God, 45:11 that's the one area that God just protected. 45:14 So now, I'm in the nursing home, 45:16 and good news, bad news, I go home, 45:20 in a wheelchair, not able to walk. 45:24 This is definitely not... 45:25 Now my daughter is about to graduate from high school. 45:30 So now, you have the wedding coming up and the graduation. 45:32 I had the wedding coming up, 45:34 I have the graduation coming up. 45:35 My little one is just finishing up first grade. 45:38 Everybody has something big. 45:39 And I'm just like, 45:41 "God, I am going home to be a burden on my family." 45:44 You know, it's the woman thing now, right? 45:46 Yeah, yeah. 45:47 I'm not being productive, I'm not being a good wife, 45:48 I'm not being a good mother, I'm not being a good anything. 45:52 And now, at least, I was neutral in the hospital 45:55 but now I'm going to negative 45:58 because they're gonna have to take care of me. 45:59 Yes. Yes. 46:00 They're gonna have to help me. 46:02 And so it was really bitter-sweet going home 46:05 but I went home. 46:07 And... 46:12 I had a hospital room in my office. 46:16 I couldn't go up stairs, 46:17 so I had a hospital room in my office. 46:20 And that's how I lived. 46:23 You know what, by that time, I was able to transfer myself, 46:27 you know, using the strength of my arms. 46:28 I could get from the wheelchair 46:32 to the couch or to the toilet. 46:36 I should say that when they diagnosed me, 46:39 the one thing that I did allow them to do 46:41 was order me the super, duper wheelchair. 46:44 And I did that because we had the best insurance 46:47 that we have ever had. 46:49 My husband worked for an insurance company. 46:54 Because of what I'm going to say, 46:55 I'm not going to say which one it was, 46:56 it was his worst job ever, and the worst boss ever 47:01 but I can say that 47:02 'cause I'm not going to tell you the company. 47:03 Right. Okay. 47:05 So the wheelchair was a price of a car 47:09 because it did everything. 47:11 It had all the bells and all the whistles, 47:12 it raised up, it swiveled, it was all terrain, 47:15 all terrain wheels so that you could, 47:17 you know, go to the beach if you wanted to, 47:18 and you could go in the concrete... 47:20 I mean, it was an amazing thing. 47:23 And it came in 18 colors, let's not forget that. 47:27 This is the one time I had attitude. 47:30 The guy's telling you about this chair, 47:31 and really, if I could, I'm not prone to drama 47:33 but if I could have, I would have jumped up, 47:35 run out screaming, and crying and, you know. 47:38 But I couldn't do, I couldn't even wipe my tears 47:40 so I was like, "Okay, just stay here. 47:41 Be calm." 47:43 Well, I didn't tell myself to stay there, 47:44 I had to stay there. 47:45 But so they measured me, 47:47 and they're measuring me for the best of the best. 47:48 I mean, I got all the features 47:49 because the worse you are the more features you get. 47:52 Finally, I couldn't help myself, 47:54 and he is just telling me all about it. 47:55 And I said, "Sir, I'm really happy you like your job. 47:58 You seem like you really like your job." 48:00 I was also feeling bad 48:01 because there were people right in my same rehab 48:03 who couldn't get a chair 48:04 because they didn't have good insurance. 48:06 But I said, "Sir, it comes in 18 colors, 48:08 it does this, it does that." 48:10 I said, "But do you realize at the end of the day, 48:13 no matter what it does, it's a wheelchair." 48:18 I can't get excited about this, like, 48:19 I really cannot get excited because... 48:21 He was trying to get you all hyped up about that. 48:24 He was trying to get me excited. 48:25 I mean, to his credit, he loved what he did. 48:30 And probably, everybody in the place except for me 48:31 would have been happy to be getting that chair 48:34 but I just couldn't, again, it was the same thing, 48:36 I couldn't succumb to the joy of all those features thinking, 48:40 I'm not going to need them. 48:42 So my deal with God was, "God, look, 48:44 I'm gonna let them measure me for this chair 48:46 but I'm gonna need you to help me not to need that." 48:48 Because it was special ordered, 48:50 we didn't just go to the store and get it. 48:52 It sounds like, the deal is by the time the chair comes, 48:56 I don't want to need the chair, 48:57 so that's the only way 48:58 I'm letting them measure me for the chair 49:00 'cause I'm trusting by faith that by that time, 49:02 you're going to get on my time, 49:04 and I'm not going to need this chair. 49:06 So I go home now. 49:09 And what happens is this, 49:11 I get a call from Pastor George Williams, 49:13 never seen Pastor George Williams in my life 49:15 but he knew my best friend who was a wreck 49:18 because her friend was a wreck. 49:20 And he called me, 49:21 and every time he would call me and pray for me, 49:22 three or four times during the course of my illness, 49:24 something little would happen. 49:26 I remember, one time, he called and after he called, 49:27 I was able to open a water bottle. 49:29 Let me tell you, I was dry, call people up, 49:31 "Hey, I just opened a water bottle." 49:32 They were like, "Okay, good." 49:35 He called, and he said, "You should walk around your house 49:37 and give God praise." 49:38 I said, "Dude, I can't walk around my house 49:40 but I'm giving God praise." 49:42 The next day, I wake up, 49:44 and I feel this strange sensation in my body. 49:46 It's not good or it's not bad, it's just different. 49:50 I notice it. 49:51 I check it like, nope, nothing bad's happening, 49:53 I'm going about my business. 49:55 The next day, I wake up and I know that I can walk. 50:01 And you haven't walked for six months. 50:03 No. Oh, no, longer than that. 50:04 October, November, December, January, February, March, 50:06 April, May, June, and I know that I can walk. 50:12 I want to be clear, 50:13 God didn't tell me I could walk. 50:15 Holy Spirit didn't whisper you could walk. 50:16 I knew, I just knew that I could walk. 50:20 And so what's the goal to do? 50:22 Get up and walk. Get up and walk. 50:24 So I was in my office, the hospital room, 50:29 and nobody was home, and I was always careful 50:31 like I didn't want to add an injury. 50:32 Right. 50:34 But I was like, "I know I can do this." 50:35 So I pushed the wheelchair, the walker, and all that stuff, 50:39 and I got up, okay, and I walked the circle. 50:45 And I sat back down in my bed and I was like, "I love it." 50:49 So I did it again. 50:52 Then my husband came home, and I was like, 50:54 "I need to talk to you", and I told him. 50:56 And that's the video right there. 50:57 So that's the third walk because he was like, 51:00 "You have to let me video, 51:02 we have to send this to everyone." 51:04 And you can see, it's like, real suspect like... 51:07 Yeah, but you're walking. 51:09 And every day from that point... 51:11 You could walk. Every day from... 51:13 First of all, I never stopped walking after that, 51:16 that was it. 51:18 But more than that, every day, something happened, 51:21 like when that happen, I still can drive when that happened. 51:25 By July, the day my husband 51:27 started a new job in a new state, 51:29 the day I needed to drive, I drove. 51:34 Look at God. Next, I could drive to Walmart. 51:37 I could get the little cart 51:39 and wheel around to get my groceries 51:42 but somebody had to put them in the car for me, 51:44 and I couldn't take them out of the car when I get home. 51:46 Next time, I can push the cart around at Walmart 51:50 but I still can't carry the groceries. 51:52 Right. 51:53 Next time, I can push the cart, 51:54 I can carry one bag of groceries 51:56 because we lived in an apartment at that time 51:58 because we're in the process of moving. 52:00 Next time, I can carry two bags, 52:02 and every day, more and more and more happens. 52:05 Every day more happens. 52:08 I told you my prayer was not to get to be as good as I was 52:11 but to get better. 52:12 Better. 52:14 And so, and I told you, I told the doctor, 52:17 when I was paralyzed, 52:19 that I was going to do, what, quiz question. 52:20 Run a full marathon. 52:24 Three years to the day, three years to the day, 52:29 I ran the Marine Corps Marathon, 26.2 miles. 52:34 What? 52:35 26.2 miles, did the Marine Corps Marathon. 52:39 I had never done a marathon before. 52:41 But I only did it 52:43 because I wanted to do something that I hadn't done. 52:45 I wanted to do something to say, 52:46 "No, God is not just taking me to do what I could do before, 52:50 He's taking me to do more." 52:52 Now a little twist 'cause you're the naturopath. 52:57 When I was at about 65 or 75%, God said to me, 53:02 "The doctors have done all they can do, 53:04 and you're good to be where you are." 53:06 People don't get back to this point 53:07 when they have the chronic version, 53:10 "You are 65 or 75%, you have a decision to make." 53:12 He said, "This is not a command. 53:14 You can follow My eight laws of health 53:17 and that will take you to where you were and beyond. 53:22 You can do what you want to do and stay at 65 or 75%. 53:25 The choice is yours." 53:28 And so now, that was five years ago 53:32 that He said that to me. 53:33 To this day, this is my story. 53:38 As long as I do what I'm supposed to do, 53:40 I feel fantabulous. 53:43 And the second... 53:44 Oh, I cannot get rest for two days, 53:47 day three, I'm done. 53:51 I mean, I don't eat perfect 53:52 but I can slack up a day or two. 53:56 After that, I literally feel it. 53:59 I can be stressed for a day but long term stress, 54:02 I literally feel it. 54:04 So this business of new start, 54:07 this business of creation health, 54:10 this business of us living the way that 54:13 this book says we are to live, it is keeping me alive. 54:18 And I'm not that person that, you know, when I go to eat, 54:21 I don't look at what's on your plate, 54:24 maybe I should care more 54:26 but that's not what God said to you. 54:28 I just know what He said to me. 54:30 Now people are concerned about my plate 54:32 because I'm walking around carrying them salads 54:34 and, you know, carrying them little green juices 54:36 and all of that, 54:37 but I do more mission trips now than I did before I got sick. 54:42 I am at three or four trips a year. 54:44 I just got back from India two weeks ago, 54:48 and in June I'm going to Kenya, in July I'm going to Bolivia. 54:55 That's three big international trips in one year. 54:58 It's huge. 55:00 But that's the blessing of what God can do, 55:03 that's the blessing of... 55:05 Okay, yeah. 55:06 Some medicine got you this far, some doctors got you this far, 55:09 but if you really want to do this thing, 55:11 you want to do three four trips a year, you want to go... 55:13 I registered again 55:15 for the Marine Corps marathon this morning. 55:18 Another 26.2 miles I have in front of me, why? 55:22 My girlfriend made a sign for me once 55:24 when I ran because I can't. 55:27 Honestly, at this point, 55:29 I didn't really love running like that. 55:31 But because I can't put one foot 55:32 in front of the other, 55:34 I'm gonna do it for all the people who cannot. 55:36 All the people who cannot. 55:37 I wish I can wear their names on my back 55:39 and on my front and all over. 55:41 This is so amazing 55:43 because it just shows how God can take a situation 55:47 that looks to everybody else as hopeless and turn it around. 55:52 What would you say has been the greatest lessons 55:56 that you learned from this experience? 56:03 There's no such thing as hopeless. 56:06 One of my favorite text is, "'You are My witness, 56:09 says the Lord." 56:10 I want people to look at me and know that there is a God. 56:13 Yes. I do. I... 56:15 They don't have to know all the rules and regulations, 56:17 but I want them to see me and know there is a God. 56:19 So one of the lessons is no matter what's going on, 56:22 you can always be a witness, that's one of them. 56:24 Another one is we have a great health message, 56:28 use it, follow it. 56:31 And if you don't know what it is, what should they do? 56:36 I use Genesis 1:29. 56:38 I mean, it just tells you what to eat, fruit and vegetables. 56:41 Now, there's so much information everywhere 56:44 that it's hard to say, "You don't know." 56:47 But some people, you know, some people watching 56:49 might not be familiar with healthy living. 56:53 And also, we're saying fruits, vegetables, 56:55 nuts, seeds, and grains. 56:57 And grains. Absolutely, and lots of water. 56:59 Lots of water. 57:01 Another lesson that I've learned 57:03 is support matters, pray for people, 57:07 visit people in the hospital, send them cards, 57:09 it really does make a difference. 57:12 Family is everything. 57:14 And God is all that, 57:16 I shouldn't say He's all that in bag of chips 57:18 'cause we just said, "You should eat healthy", right? 57:20 So I would say God is absolutely, positively, 57:24 awesomely, amazing. 57:25 Awesomely amazing. 57:27 And it's fun to serve Him. 57:28 It is fun to serve Him 57:30 because He is there, He's always there, 57:32 He will never leave us nor forsake us, 57:35 and He loves us so much. 57:37 He's got us, He's got our back. 57:38 Thank you so much for being with us. 57:41 My pleasure. 57:42 What a blessing to have you 57:44 and just to hear what God has brought you 57:47 and to see what He is continuing to do in your life. 57:50 Thank you for sharing that. 57:52 We hope that you were blessed today. 57:54 What a powerful testimony Loretta shared with us. 57:58 We hope that you'll tune in next time 57:59 because you know what? 58:01 It just wouldn't be the same without you. |
Revised 2018-04-23