Christopher's Miracle Story: Are you going to trust Him or not?

Christopher (16 years old) eats REAL FOOD because God healed him!!!

It was all so amazing. I thought I surely must be dreaming. I had never experienced anything like that in my life. It was surreal. It was all-consuming. It was wonderful! Did that really just happen? A miracle??? Really???

The proof was in the pudding, as they say. Christopher had a pre-season basketball game that evening, so when we he got home he did what he usually did. Out of habit (he'd been doing it for 16 years) he went into the kitchen, got out a couple of cans of formula and some tubing, and started preparing his feeding tube. He was going to need the calories for the big game. As he started to open one of the cans, Mike stopped him and asked the big question...Are you going to trust Him or not?

No pressure, just the most central question of life, that's all. Adults wrestle with it. Life long believers struggle with it. Can I, should I, will I trust Jesus? Mike was asking Christopher if he was going to trust that God had really had healed him or...not.

He is eating REAL FOOD!

Christopher had never eaten in his life. Sure, he had tasted things and spit them out, but Mike was actually suggesting that he just go ahead and EAT! Christopher had already popped the top on the can, so...he drank it, the whole thing!!! Then he opened the second can and drank that one too!

I know you might be thinking...okay, so what's the big deal? He drank a couple of cans of feeding tube formula. That doesn't exactly sound miraculous! BUT...it was!!! Prior to Christopher's healing, he wouldn't have been able to take even a few sips of one of those cans of formula without his stomach going into absolute revolt! The formula would have made him nauseous and sick. He would have had to drain it out of his stomach through his G-tube in order to get relief, but here he was downing two cans of formula all at once. He waited, and he waited. He kept waiting to get sick, but he felt fine.

Normally, it would have taken several hours for all that formula to drip in slowly through his feeding tube over the course of the afternoon. Tube feeding is very slow and steady. The intestines aren't designed to hold large volumes of food all at one time, but for the first time in his life he was able to just drink it normally without getting sick.

Later that day we went to the basketball game to watch him play. During breaks and timeouts he DRANK water from a water bottle just like everyone else. Why was that amazing? It was flat out amazing because normally we had to push water into his J-tube with a huge syringe during those timeouts. Prior to the miracle, drinking the water wouldn't have done him any good because it would have just sat in his stomach. He would have had to give himself water with a syringe into his intestines in order to quench his thirst, but here he was actually DRINKING the water! It was truly amazing, flat out amazing!

After they won the game, we started to go back home. That's when I heard my Christopher, for the very first time in his life, tell me that he THOUGHT he was hungry! I have had heard Michael and Ryan tell me that billions of times, but never Christopher. Because he had been tube fed his whole life he didn't know what the sensation of feeling hungry felt like. He knew what thirsty felt like, but he had never felt hungry before. In fact, he has asked us many times over the years what it felt like to be hungry. We have tried to explain it to him. It's harder than you think. Imagine describing it to someone who had never felt the sensation of hunger, what it feels like to be hungry without using the words "hungry" or "I just feel like I want to eat." Try describing the actual sensation. You might be surprised to find out that it feels differently in different people.

My normal response to the "Mom, I'm hungry!" plea is..."Hang in there, food is coming!" This time was different. No, this time was music to my ears, an answer to prayer! This time my response was different too. It went something like this...Really? You think you feel hungry? What do you want to eat? You can have whatever you want!

Christopher chose Chinese food. Yes, I found that a little curious too, but that's what he wanted, so we were at a Chinese restaurant faster than you can say "Kung Pao Chicken." Christopher had tasted and spit out Chinese food before. He liked some of the flavors, but this was the big test. He had never actually eaten it before.

Still eating...

We told him he could order ANYTHING he wanted! He decided he wanted egg rolls, BBQ pork, and Yakisoba noodles with chicken. He started eating. Then he ate a little more. We kept waiting for him to get sick, to start throwing up, but it didn't happen. He ate some more. The waitress must have thought we were crazy. Here were two grown adults in awe of their 16 year old son eating food. He kept going. He devoured almost everything on his plate. HE DIDN'T GET SICK!!! I capitalized those words because it was absolutely remarkable! Prior to this, sometimes just even the smell of food made him sick, and here he was mowing through egg rolls and noodles. We all just kept looking at each other in stunned amazement.

not hook you up to the stomach drain overnight. Then we can put it on in the morning to see if the food is still there or not. Christopher agreed to the experiment.

Before the miracle, this whole experiment would have been a disaster. He would have never felt hungry in the first place. He may have felt thirsty but not hungry, and normally he would have felt sick if he had tried to eat all that Chinese food. He would have needed to drain his stomach (he probably would have started trying to throw it all up before we could even get the drain on him) in order to get relief. Even if he could have made it home without putting his drain on, he most certainly wouldn't have been able to sleep through the night without be awakened with heart wrenching bouts of nausea. Before the miracle, the food would have still been in his stomach the next morning. That is, if he had been able to keep it down and avoid putting his drain on.

It should have been a sleepless, restless night that night, but it wasn't. The next morning we put on his drain to check to see if there were any egg rolls and noodles in his stomach, and...IT WAS ALL GONE!!! For the first time in his life he was able to eat, keep it down, and digest it! God had healed him, and His gift would just keep on giving because Christopher would keep on eating. Feeding tubes would become a thing of the past.

and eating...Thanks be to God!!!

All thanks to God for the wonderful, compassionate, healing miracle that He did for Christopher! His power is manifested through our weakness. He healed Christopher, and now His glory is evidenced through the miracle of that healing! Thank you, Jesus for healing my baby!

If you have never accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you can pray like this: