Scripture Reading:
LUKE 7:1–17
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
PHILIPPIANS 4:6–7
KARI CLAUSEN WAS A WOMAN WHO CLUNG TO THE PEOPLE SHE LOVED, especially to her children. She was overprotective, and there were nights when she couldn’t sleep for fear they might get hurt. It was something she despised about herself, but it remained all the same.
“Help me have a looser hold on them, God,” she would pray for Cole, five, and Anna, three. But inevitably she took to worrying again.
On the morning when the tragedy struck, Kari and her husband, Mel, were packing and loading their belongings into a trailer for a move from West Hills, California, to nearby Thousand Oaks. A loud crash from the backyard suddenly rang through the house.
“Cole! Anna!” Kari screamed as she raced out the back door. What she saw made her heart stand still. The three-hundred-pound steel ramp at the back of the trailer had come down onto the ground, and underneath it was Cole’s limp body. Blood was oozing from his nose, mouth, and ears, and the ramp was resting on his head.
“Mel!” Kari screamed. “Help!”
Her husband was immediately at her side, and together they summoned a strength that was beyond their own, lifting the ramp off Cole’s head. Blood began pouring from his sunken skull.
“My God, he’s dead!” Kari was hysterical as Mel took the boy into his arms. “What do we do?”
With Mel’s calming instructions, they were quickly in the car, racing toward Union Memorial Hospital.
“He’s gonna die, Mel. I can’t drive fast enough.” Kari’s hands shook and her heart raced.
“He’s still breathing.” Mel’s voice was loud and insistent. “He’s not going to die. You need to pray!”
Kari prayed for several moments, begging God to spare Cole’s life. She began to sing the words of her favorite hymn, “Great is thy faithfulness… O God my Father,” and a calm came over her heart.
She continued to drive as a realization hit her: she could do nothing to help Cole. He was completely in God’s hands. The truth of that calmed her further.
“Pray for a miracle, Kari,” Mel said quietly. “He’s breathing slower.”
“I am.” Kari swallowed back a torrent of sobs. “God’s in control.” Then she recalled that Cole had asked Jesus to come and live in his heart, and peace came to her that his place in heaven was secure.
Pulling up to the hospital’s emergency room entrance, Mel rushed the blood-covered child into an examination room. As they laid him on a table, Cole began to cough and cry. “I’m choking.”
Kari felt sick as she realized he was choking on his own blood. She took hold of his hand as once more his body went limp and his eyes closed.
Hearing what happened, a doctor said that Cole must be transferred to a hospital across town, where they had more sophisticated equipment for severe head injuries.
As they waited for the ambulance, two nurses struggled to locate Cole’s pulse. “We’re losing him!” one of them shouted. “Get the doctor.”
As Kari stepped back to get out of the way, Cole suddenly moved. In a surreal manner, his small shoulders rose so that he was nearly sitting straight up. It seemed as if someone was supporting him with invisible hands behind his back. His long, black eyelashes fluttered and his eyes opened, staring blankly.
In a weak voice he said, “Jesus, please take care of me.” Then his eyes shut and he sank back down.
The nurses looked at each other in disbelief and then at the Clausens, who were also stunned by what had happened. Before a word could be spoken, the ambulance attendants rushed in and whisked the boy away.
Early tests showed that Cole had suffered extensive damage, shattering his skull and sending bone fragments into the area of the brain that controls speech, hearing, and memory. The neurosurgeon explained that it required immediate surgery and warned that if Cole survived, he would not be the same boy he had been.
For six hours Kari and Mel and family prayed as the surgeons worked. Again, Kari felt an overwhelming sense of peace. God was in control… even of her fears.
Finally, the doctor came in and motioned for them to follow. “Come say hello to Cole,” he said.
Kari gasped softly. “He’s… he’s…”
The doctor smiled. “Come see for yourself.”
They followed the doctor to Cole’s bedside. His head was swathed in bandages. As Kari reached out her fingers toward him, a tiny burp escaped his mouth.
“Excuse me,” he whispered.
Kari felt a surge of elation. He could speak! They had not lost Cole after all. Happy tears flowed.
Despite obvious signs of success, doctors continued to warn the Clausens that Cole could take a turn for the worse—bleeding, blood clots, seizures. Worst of all, he carried a significant risk of developing a brain infection.
Cole had to undergo a series of painful intravenous antibiotic treatments to counteract the risk of what could be a fatal complication. During the first night, he moaned from nausea and said, “Mommy, pray for me.”
In that instant, Kari felt her heart soar. If Cole could see clearly enough that the solution was prayer, she had no doubts he would survive. She prayed as she’d never truly prayed before… with confidence.
Through the next three days, whenever Cole was awake, he asked for only one thing—“Pray for me.”
The following day, Cole was moved to intensive care, where he got up and walked to the bathroom by himself, talked nonstop, and played with Legos.
The technician who did Cole’s initial CAT scan stopped by and told Kari, “I never in a million years thought he’d live or ever be like this again, especially not so soon. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
The intravenous treatments were harrowing. The strong medication burned throughout Cole’s body for the entire thirty-minute treatment. During the last treatment, Kari prayed that Cole would feel no pain, and remarkably he never so much as stirred or cried out.
It was the second time since Cole’s injury that God had clearly proven he was in control. After ten days in the hospital, they were able to bring Cole home. Time passed, and Cole healed completely.
For a time, Cole didn’t remember anything about what happened, but one day he told Kari that he had pulled the pin and made the trailer ramp fall.
“It really hurt,” he said. “But then Jesus came. He was just… all white. Then you and Daddy came and lifted the ramp off my head.”
Kari shuddered. “Is that all you remember?”
“Jesus came to see me when we got to the hospital, too. He lifted me up and I asked him to help me. Then he hugged me and said, ‘Cole, you’re going to be okay.’”
Kari’s mind flew back to that moment and tears flowed. Taking him in her arms, she could sense another set of arms enfolding both of them, arms that had been there when there was nothing more she could do for him.
Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?
JOHN 11:40