Rarely do we get to see demonstrations of physical healings that defy science, but God has shown me that love can heal anything. There are no limits, regardless of what the doctors say. Twice, doctors told me my son, David, would die and twice he regained perfect health. During that time, I died and came back, seeing life, death and healing in a totally new way.
Part I: Challenging Faith
Shortly after I got married, still in my 20’s, I attended a ladies circle meeting with my mother-in-law at our church. That week, the new minister visited the ladies meeting and led a discussion on saving non-Christians. He told us non-Christians were going to hell, because no one could reach God except through Jesus.
What he was saying didn’t sound very loving to me, so I spoke up and said,“My best friend is Jewish, and I can’t believe that a loving God would condemn her to hell. Even if she doesn’t believe in Jesus, she has a very deep faith in God. That has to count for something.”
Everyone appeared to be quite upset by my attitude. The minister told me, “It is your duty as a Christian to save your friend and bring her to Jesus.”
This didn’t feel right to me, so I replied, “If I brought her to Jesus, I would first have to destroy what she believes in, and I’m not sure I have anything better to replace it with, because her faith is even stronger than mine.”
Several mouths fell open in shock. The minister’s wife said, “In other words, you’re not a Christian!”
I freely admitted, “By your definition, I guess I’m not.” I didn’t even want to be a Christian if it meant condemning people to hell.
My name and the names of everyone in my husband’s family were quietly removed from the church registry, even though his parents had helped found the church and were elders and deacons there. I had been silently condemned for my attitude on non-Christians, and my husband’s entire family had been condemned along with me.
We quickly found another Presbyterian church with a more loving minister, but I had no enthusiasm for it. My experience had made me wonder if I really was a Christian or not, or if I even wanted to be one. How could I participate in a religion that condemned people for experiencing God in a different way? Although everyone blamed my experience on an over zealous minister, I couldn’t forget that Jesus himself had said, “No man cometh unto the Father but by me.” That is a pretty strong “I am the only way” statement, and I couldn’t accept it.
Shortly after we joined the new church, my five month old baby, David, was hospitalized for exploratory surgery on his urinary tract. He had been born with a birth defect that caused the urine in his bladder to back up into his kidneys, which were constantly infected. He was losing one kidney and would eventually lose them both if the doctors couldn’t find a way to correct the problem. They needed to enter his urinary tract to see exactly what was happening before they could decide on a course of action.
David also had a blood protein deficiency, which made him highly susceptible to diseases of any kind. We wore masks and gowns even at home to keep him free of infection. He had to be healthy for one full week before the doctors could do the exploratory operation. When he was five months old, we finally succeeded in keeping him healthy for one week and brought him to the hospital, infection free.
The first day we were there, the minister from our new church came to visit us. The minister looked like Clark Gable, so he had my attention. He listened non-judgmentally as I shared my misgivings about Christianity. Then he blurted, “Let’s be honest with each other and put all the cards on the table. Not only do you not believe in Jesus, you don’t believe in God.”
His statement shocked me, but after giving it some thought, I decided he might be right. I wasn’t sure what I believed anymore. I certainly didn’t believe in a God that condemned people. So I went along with him and said, “Okay. I don’t believe in God.” I was surprised that I felt relieved just to be able to say that. This was such a taboo statement in our culture. I had been taught I could be condemned to hell just for thinking it.
Instead of condemning me, the minister said, “Great! Now we have a place to begin. A clean slate, so to speak.”
He went on to say, “Let’s face it, whatever God is, He is so vast that He is unimaginable. Even the concept of God goes beyond our ability to comprehend. How can we believe in something we can’t even begin to imagine, let alone understand? God knows that. So, God sent us stepping stones, limited forms and expressions of His vastness. He knows we need to experience the reality of His stepping stones to bridge this gap of understanding.”
“So to the Jews, God sent the covenant as a stepping stone to Him. He told the Jews if they couldn’t understand the covenant, they couldn’t even begin to understand Him. To the Moslems, He sent Mohammed. To the Buddhists, He sent Buddha. And to you and I, Kalie, He sent Jesus Christ. God knows, if we can’t understand Jesus and his teachings, we can’t even begin to understand God. Now tell me, Kalie, what’s wrong with the statement, ‘Only through me shall you see the Kingdom of Heaven’
“Put that way, not one thing,” I replied. He had given me a bigger picture of this statement, one which gave it a totally different meaning, a meaning that heals. When the purpose for the statement is understood, it can’t be used to condemn.
This understanding also taught me the absolute necessity for believing in Jesus or some other stepping stone and for accepting Jesus’ help to reach God. It helped to heal my relationship with Jesus. It had been hard for me to feel good about someone that I perceived as causing others to be condemned.
Part II: The Long Dark Night
Right after the minister left, we discovered that David had picked up an infection in the hospital. He had diarrhea and a low-grade fever. In spite of David’s condition, the Urologist wanted to proceed with the exploratory surgery. He didn’t believe there was anything to be concerned about.
Guided by my intuition, I refused to give the doctor permission to operate. “There is no way I will I let you cut on my baby while he has signs of infection,” It was extremely difficult for me to challenge the doctor’s opinion, because I was only twenty-two years old.
The Urologist was the doctor in charge, because David’s pediatrician was out of town. To make matters worse, I discovered that I couldn’t get another doctor to treat David for his infection unless I fired the Urologist first. Doctors were still considered infallible in 1965, so firing a doctor was unheard of back then. Never-the-less, I summoned all the courage I had and fired his doctor.
Even though I told the new doctor that my baby was really sick, the doctor didn’t show up until late that night. After he examined David, he said, “The Urologist told me there was no hurry to see the baby. He said you were just an hysterical mother. The problem is, I believed him. Now that I see just how sick your baby really is, I am deeply sorry for not coming sooner.”
David’s condition got much worse. All through the night, I knew my baby was dying. I felt helpless and unable to do anything but just sit by his bed. I seemed to go into some kind of a trance-like state in which I was unable to move. The world felt like a dream with nurses drifting in and out of my awareness. Looking back on that night, I believe my energy was being used to keep David alive.
By morning, David’s body was severely dehydrated. His veins had collapsed and he had gone into deep shock. The doctor cut all the way around his leg, just trying to find a place to insert a needle to give him fluids.
The doctor’s face was white as he told me, “Your baby is going to die. The shock is killing him, and there is nothing we can do to save him.” The doctor explained that David couldn’t pull out of shock unless his body’s immune system began working to take him out of shock. Since his temperature was 104°, his white cells should have gone up to fight the infection. Instead, they had dropped to half of normal. The doctor told me that only an increase in white cells could bring him out of shock, and they couldn’t inject him with white blood cells. White cells could only be produced by David’s body itself. “He has nothing to fight with. He may be gone with the hour,” the doctor concluded as he wheeled David’s lifeless body into the intensive care unit.
While I had known all night that David was dying, it was different when I heard the doctor say it. Something inside of me screamed, “No! He’s not going to die.” After the doctor left, I walked up to the front desk and told the head nurse,“Keep our room. We’re coming back.” She only looked at me and shook her head sadly. I knew she didn’t believe me, but that really didn’t matter. I believed it.
I went to the chapel to pray. It was a Catholic hospital, so the chapel had statues in it. Since I was protestant, I had been raised to believe that praying to statues was a pagan practice, something to be avoided at all costs. Normally, I would have just sat quietly in a pew and prayed, enjoying the peace and serenity I had always experienced in Catholic churches. But on this day, I went right up to the statue of Jesus and knelt down before it. Jesus was my stepping stone to God, and I needed to reach God quickly. I desperately needed God’s help, and I was willing to reach Him any way I could.
I don’t know how much time went by as I prayed. I was sobbing uncontrollably, kneeling at the statue’s feet. Suddenly the room turned white. Even the statue itself began to grow dim. Then Jesus stepped out of the statue and came to where I knelt. Jesus told me, “Your baby will live. He has work to do to help the future spiritual leader of the world, who shall come from the East.” I didn’t understand his prophecy. The only thing I cared about was that my baby was going to live.
I went directly to the intensive care unit, and sat down to wait on the bench outside the door. To my surprise, as I looked up at the wall of the intensive care unit, I could see through it and into the room where my baby lay dying. I saw the Hand of God, holding my baby in total safety. I was at peace as I continued to wait for several hours.
Then three amazed doctors emerged from the intensive care unit, saying, “It’s a miracle! It’s a miracle!” My doctor exclaimed as he walked over to me. “David is out of shock! He is going to live. Remember I told you that his white count going up was the only thing that could save him. Well, it didn’t. It dropped even more; down to one fourth of normal. But he still pulled out of shock. Scientifically speaking, this is not possible! But it happened. So I really mean it when I say, it’s a miracle. He still has a long way to go. But he’s going to live.”
After he was healthy, they did the exploratory operation that was originally planned. They determined that the tube connecting his bladder and kidney was defective and would have to be replaced with an artificial tube. However, he was so tiny, that the scar tissue from the operation might cause more blockage than he already had. So we had to try and keep him alive until he was older for the operation.
One month later, a chiropractor from our church came to our home to play Bridge. He asked if he could see David. I laid David on his stomach across my lap for the examination. He showed me where David’s back was out of alignment. He made a minor adjustment, using only two fingers on my baby’s small back. David’s next diaper was so strong with the smell of infected urine that we couldn’t stand to be in the same room with it. We took the diaper outside and threw it into the trash barrel.
Overnight, David became totally healthy. The doctors didn’t believe this was possible, so they ran more tests. But to their amazement, they couldn’t find anything wrong with him. He was in perfect health. David was truly a miracle baby! He was healed in the Hands of God.
Part III: Crossing Over
When David was five years old, he became violently ill again. I stayed awake taking care of him for five days and nights before the doctor decided to hospitalize him. That’s when we learned that David had contracted aplastic anemia, a fatal disease of the immune system.
I was relieved he was being taken care of in the hospital, because I was exhausted. While I was upset by the diagnosis, I was too tired even to think about it. Like Scarlet O’Hara in Gone with the Wind, I decided to think about it tomorrow. My husband, Art, wanted to escape the pain by going to a drive-in movie. I went alonge with him, knowing I could sleep at the drive in.
We went to see a horrible movie, “Blood Island,” and parked on the front row. I guess the intensity took me over the edge, because I had a heart attack. I couldn’t breath. I could inhale, but it didn’t feel like I was getting any oxygen. The world faded out. Art said my heart stopped beating for several minutes. He thought I was dead. Perhaps I did.
I had a fantastic experience! I heard beautiful, other worldly, music, and then my guardian angel appeared. I knew I was dying, but I resisted death out of concern for my children. What would happen to them? My angel showed me that my children would be fine without me. After I knew my children would be all right, I felt at peace and free to walk into the light. There was nothing I wanted more than to go Home to God. The light was so beautiful and compelling.
However, just as I started to leave, I remembered that I hadn’t accomplished my life’s goal. My goal was to become love. My guardian angel suggested that I could become love as of that moment and fulfill my mssion. This was a wonderful and welcome solution. I rejoiced and started to accept her solution, when I suddenly had a deeper realization. “No!” I exclaimed. “I need to become love and live it.”
My guardian angel understood my need, but she cautioned me about what lay ahead if I decided to return to life. She showed me how my personal growth had come from my environment. I had been moved along by the currents of life, without really choosing my own destiny. Nothing in life was going to force me to grow if things stayed the same. I could just vegetate and get by on past accomplishments without making any real progress.
She told me the only way I could continue to grow was by choice. I would have to choose to create changes and opportunities for growth in my life, instead of just doing what came easy to me. I agreed to live my life by choice from that time forward, creating opportunities for growth.
With that thought, I was suddenly back in my body, experiencing a lot of pain. My husband was bending over me, frantically trying to force me to breath. I gasped for air and got it. I felt weak, but I knew I was all right. I didn’t need to see a doctor. I wasn’t sick. The only purpose for my dying experience was so that I might begin to live.
I had also learned that death wasn’t to be feared. Death was merely the process of being transformed into light. The Light was beautiful and compelling. The music was like none I had ever heard before. I had truly wanted to walk into the Light. Only my life’s purpose brought me back. I no longer feared my own or my son’s death. That changed everything.
Part IV: Love Has No Limits
That night, I took a fresh look at what I was to do about David. I prayed and asked God for guidance. I had learned a lot about healing in the past few years. I had learned enough to know that healing the body is not always appropriate. Perhaps it was time for David to make a transition to the other side. Because of my new experience with death, I knew it wasn’t anything to be afraid of. I wanted to know God’s plan for David? Was he to be healed or make a transition? I didn’t want to interfere with God’s plan. I loved David more than I wanted to hang on to him.
I wanted to know what was best for David, so I prayed for an answer. Then I heard the still small voice inside me saying,“You don’t have to know what is best for David. All you have to do is love him. If he is to be healed, your love will heal him, and if he is to make a transition, your love will help him make the transition.” How simple was the answer. I fell into a peaceful sleep. God was asking me to do something I knew how to do . . . love.
I went to the hospital the next morning feeling renewed and excited to begin the next leg of our journey together, David and I. He was still my miracle baby. I had learned so much from him during his short time on earth. I was very grateful to have him in my life.
When I walked into the hospital room he was playing with his toy soldier. He shot the soldier and then picked him up in his arms. I said,“That’s right, honey, love him. Love heals.”
David looked up at me in amazement, like he was puzzled that I didn’t understand what life was all about. To my amazement, he said, “Mommy, it doesn’t matter. He’l just be born again.” Out of the mouths of babes! What wisdom. He didn’t see death as a limit to life either.
Not wanting to miss an opportunity to help him, I decided to teach him what to do after he leaves the body. I said, “You’re right, honey. Then tell him to follow the light.”
“What light, Mommy?” He puzzled.
I pointed above his head, saying, “The Light of God.”
As David looked up, he began staring at something above his head. The expression on his face was one of wonder and amazement. Then his pupils began to dilate as he said, “Oh Mommy, it’s boo-ti-full!”
There was no question in my mind that he was seeing The Light and The Light was real. I thought he was going to follow The Light right then and there. Not wanting to push him into anything, I made a joke to pull him out of this state.
I decided to quite trying to teach him anything. I’d do what God asked me to do instead. Love therapy was much safer. I’d just love him and let nature take its own course. Nature didn’t need my help.
Shortly after that, the doctor and nurses arrived to take David for a bone marrow test. To everyone’s surprise, they weren’t gone very long. They came back without doing the test, because his new blood tests showed that his body had done a complete reversal. His platelets had mysteriously returned to normal.
The doctor said, “I don’t want you to get your hopes up. This doesn’t mean David is cured. His disease is terminal. It has just gone into remission. You’ll be bringing him back to the hospital within the month to die.”
David is now 47 years old, an extremely healthy, athletic, and loving father to three beautiful children. Now and then I still remind him that he will always be my miracle baby and my teacher of love. David taught me that there are no limits to what love can heal.
© 1984-2014 Kalie Marino, 215-672-1599
