This article was originally published in GO! Christian Magazine, Summer 2017 issue. www.gochristianmagazine.com
It was late summer of 2013. The days were getting shorter, although it was still plenty hot in the Panhandle of Florida. School had started back up, and Linda Fox was feeling under the weather. She went to see her doctor and came away with medication for a sinus infection. No big deal.
She had no idea what was to come over the next few short weeks.
Linda, her husband Ernie, and their children headed north to spend time with family over Labor Day, and while they were there, Linda’s condition grew worse. She couldn’t shake the sinus infection, and she began to feel very lethargic.
When they returned home, she made another appointment to see her doctor. He took one look at her and told Ernie, “Either drive her to the hospital right now, or I’m calling an ambulance.”
Things quickly progressed from worse to life-threatening. Her sinus infection led to a urinary tract infection, which turned into double pneumonia. Linda’s entire body was septic. She was so dehydrated, the pneumonia wasn’t showing up on any X-rays.
She was admitted to Sacred Heart in Sandestin, where nurses began replacing her fluids, which made her lungs fill up. Linda found it difficult to breathe.
Ernie stood at his wife’s bedside in shock. A few weeks ago, it was just a sinus infection. How could it have gotten this bad?
The doctors at Sacred Heart were not optimistic. She wasn’t responding to medication or emergency dialysis. Linda was sinking lower and lower.
The last thing she remembers was being put on a ventilator.
For the next 18 days, Linda remained in a coma, while Ernie, their children, and her mother stood watch.
Their pastor came to visit and pray, and other members of their church family, including their small group stopped by as well. But Linda wasn’t getting better. Her kidneys and liver shut down, and her spleen doubled in size.
Then, when the outlook was bleak indeed, two things happened simultaneously – although nobody knew about it until later.
While in her coma, Linda had a vision. In the vision, she was lying on a table in a white room. A bearded, scruffy looking man walked in, announced himself as Simon Peter, then asked, “Will you allow me to anoint you with oil?” Linda replied, “Yes.” The man anointed her with oil and walked out of the room.
Around the same time, Linda’s doctor told Ernie to call in the family because Linda wasn’t going to last through the night. Ernie was devastated and emotional. He sought refuge in one of the bathrooms to pray.
“I’m not angry, Lord,” Ernie prayed, with a catch in his throat, “and I’ll serve you no matter what happens. But in Your Word You said You’d give us the desires of our heart, and my heart’s desire is to grow old with my wife.”
He dried his tears, left the bathroom and bumped into Jim Old, a friend from church who walked down the hospital hall as if he were on a mission. Much like Simon Peter in Linda’s vision, Jim told Ernie he was instructed to come and anoint Linda with oil.
The doctors, nurses, and Linda’s family all remained in her room where they joined hands and prayed while Jim climbed on the bed, anointed Linda with oil, and prayed over her.
Afterwards, Ernie walked Jim to his car, and returned to Linda’s room where he found her nurse clearly agitated, accusingly asking Linda’s mother, “Did you touch any of these machines?”
“Of course not!” she replied. The machines monitoring Linda’s vitals had begun to beep unexpectedly, confusing the nurse on duty, causing her to conclude that someone must have tampered with them.
Very shortly, and contrary to everything her doctor had predicted Linda began to wake up from her coma to the intense joy of her family and friends.
That was the beginning of Linda’s journey back from the brink of death. Her blood pressure began to climb. Her liver and kidneys began functioning again. Her pneumonia went away, and, after a three-week stint in rehab, she went home. And then back to work.
“Before all of this happened, I had gotten pretty disillusioned with serving at church. But my near death experience changed all that,” Linda said with deep conviction. “God changed my thought processes about both serving and sharing my faith. God is there, and He is listening, and you’re in His hands. He showed everybody that at the hospital.”
Now, both Linda and Ernie are always ready and willing to serve others in whatever capacity is needed. Serving not just at their church, but in their community as well, meeting the needs of others with their hearts and resources.
