Mom Begs Holy Spirit

Mom Begs the Holy Spirit to Bring Her Son Back After He Was Submerged in Icy Waters for Nearly 15 Minutes By Bill Hallowell, Senior Editor, CBN News

One mom learned the power of prayer in the most incredible of ways after her teenage son accidentally fell through some ice at a Missouri lake, was submerged for nearly 15 minutes — and was subsequently declared clinically dead.

But Joyce Smith refused to give up hope, as she let out a heartfelt prayer for healing inside of her 14-year-old son John’s hospital room. Suddenly, his heart started beating again, as the stunning miracle shocked friends, family and physicians, alike.

Smith, who recounts the harrowing ordeal in her new book, “The Impossible,” recently told Faithwire all about the January morning in 2015 when John fell through the ice and nearly died. She recalled how she spoke on the phone with John about the family’s plans for the day just before he walked out onto the ice.

Minutes later, Smith said she was reading her devotions when the phone rang and a friend delivered the heartbreaking news that no mother ever wants to hear.

“She said, ‘The boys were out walking on the lake in the ice and John fell through and they’ve just pulled him out of the water and he doesn’t have a heart beat,” Smith said. “It was that telephone call you never wanna get.”

Smith quickly rushed out of her house in a panic, calling and texting her husband, friends and family as she sped to the hospital. In the midst of her pain and uncertainty, she turned to God for help.

“All of a sudden I just started praying … I was having a very loud conversation with the Lord,” she said. “John’s adopted from Guatemala. And I said, ‘This is the child we prayed for 17 years well you can’t take him away from me, please Lord.'”

Smith said that her church was doing a Bible study at the time called “Believing God” by Beth Moore. With that in mind, she started fixating on the truths embraced by that study, including the fact that “God is who he says he is” and “I can do all things through God and through Jesus Christ.”

Those messages sustained her, as she became resolute that her son would survive the horrific circumstances.

“I [didn’t] care that he didn’t have a heart beat, that didn’t matter to me,” she said. “I just had an assurance that God was not going to take John away from me.”

Looking back, Smith’s unwavering faith in light of the circumstances at hand is pretty remarkable, as police reports indicate that John was without a heartbeat for nearly an hour.

In fact, doctors had been waiting to call a time of death before Smith arrived at the hospital. Rather than give up on CPR, though, the doctor decided to keep working until she arrived. What followed, she said, was a “tapestry of miracles.”

“I walked [in] and sat down in the room at the end of the bed and I could see [the doctor] phasing back and forth and he finally came over and sat down next to me … and goes, ‘Joyce, you can go up to the end of the bed and talk to John,'” she recalled. “Which I thought was very strange, again not knowing they’re wanting to call time of death. And there was a very large young man who had been doing CPR on John for a long time and he was soaked in sweat. You could tell he’d just been really working on John.”

Then, she took a closer look at John and realized just how dire the situation had become.

“I walked up to the end of the bed and I got a hold of his feet and they were cold and they were grey and I just knew that was that moment that I had to get a hold of God,” Smith said. “So, I reached over a hold of his feet and I just prayed and I thought I was praying very quietly, but everyone in the emergency room could hear me and I prayed, ‘Holy spirit, please come and bring back my son.”

That prayer changed everything. Seconds later, Smith heard someone say, “I got a pulse,” as everyone in the room stood in shock.

Here was a mother who had appealed to God for what seemed to be the impossible and, seconds later, her wish was apparently granted. Smith was thankful to God, but doctors were still skeptical that recovery was possible, as John had been without a heartbeat for so long.

Smith recalled being frustrated when another doctor who specializes in hypothermia and drowning delivered a dire prognosis. She simply wasn’t willing to embrace it.

“He angered me because to me I felt like God had already answered my prayers and John was going to be okay and he just needed to get on board with this.” she said. “And I just got up from my chair and I told him, ‘Here’s the deal. I said, ‘I hear you’re the best so I just want you to do your job and do it to the best of your abilities and my God will do the rest.'”

Again, Smith wouldn’t give up. Even when negative information came along, she, her friends, family and church community chose to believe that John would be healed. And her defiance was warranted, as John woke up on the third day and, from then out out, experienced a miraculous recovery. In fact, John is now living as a normal teen.

“God has just totally restored him,” she said. “There is nothing that has been left over from the accident … God has totally restored and healed John and brought him back. And he’s an amazing young man.”

Smith said the experience was so transformative that John is now looking to go into ministry as a result of all that unfolded. And she’s hoping that the family’s story as told through her book “The Impossible” and a movie slated to come next year will inspire the masses to believe in the power of hope — and miracles.

“God is still the same yesterday, today and forever,” Smith said. “He is still the God of miracles. There is still nothing that is impossible with him.”