Bob’s Covid Pneumonia Testimony October 2021
A THANK YOU TO ALL PRAYER WARRIORS
“YOU DO NOT REALLY KNOW JESUS IS ALL YOU NEED UNTIL JESUS IS ALL YOU HAVE”
First and foremost, I want to thank our Lord Jesus Christ for getting me through the spiritual and health battle I went through for days. It changed me. I want to serve Him more for what He has done for me on the Cross and His Resurrection.
Secondly, I want to thank my wife Laura for being my hospital advocate. She was diligent in calling and telling the doctors and staff just what I will take and what I will not take. This helped so much in my days of recovery. Plus, I thank her for getting many people, churches, groups, businesses interceding for me and my recovery. Then writing down what so many people were getting through their prayers, it was humbling to hear.
I also want to thank my family, friends, and Bible Study groups for adding me to their Church prayer lists all over the State and for praying for me. Amazing to hear!
There is only one reason I believe I made it out of the hospital in only 6 days and that I am alive. It is because of the PRAYER from all God’s Saint’s interceding for me. Prayer is the most potent, powerful force known to humanity. Because we have been made partakers in Jesus’ victory over sin and death (1 John 4:4), we have the authority as sons and daughters of God to pray for others – pushing back the darkness of sin and oppression. In prayer, we have a weapon that has divine power to destroy strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:4). “The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects” (James 5:16), and there is no one more righteous than Jesus.
I went to the Doctor on a Wednesday to just get my asthma prescriptions filled, feeling great at the time. But when Thursday came, I felt like I was having a major asthma attack. So I went back on the prednisone, inhalers, and antibiotics as I always did in past.
But after two days of not sleeping and getting worse – I thought I was going to die. On top of not sleeping, each time I closed my eyes I would see a blood red wall of sort; all around me. No sound, no people, and no feelings. The red wall was trying to get me to feel very fearful. I knew then that this was not from Jesus. It was spiritual warfare as stated in Ephesians 6. So, I was putting on the armor of God over and over – but each time I closed my eyes I kept seeing this blood red wall.
I will now move to Saturday morning and at 4 AM. I told Laura that I cannot go another hour feeling like this. She said it’s time for the emergency room. When I got there and they took my oxygen levels, the results were so low they took me right in and administered oxygen, strong intervenes antibiotics and a covid test. Long story short, I had covid Pneumonia. All beds were full in the Cities area at the time, so I was placed in this little room till 8pm when a bed opened up for me at another location (praise God).
Finally at hospital, I found it to be so lonely and cold. All of the staff dressed in what looked like space suits each time they came in to check on me. There was very little interaction with anyone – except when they came in to do their job.
Here too, each time I shut my eyes – all I can see is this blood red wall and felt loneliness.
I would cry out to Jesus to take this from me, heal me, and I kept asking why all of this torment? There was just silence. But no matter what, I would keep saying verses of the Bible I knew, repeating them over and over. I could not get Galatians 2:20 out of my mind and it says:
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”
After reflecting on this verse for a time, Satan kept bringing up such negative lies about me. “See you should not have left business and gone into ministry, you are not worthy of Jesus’ love, you are such a sinner, you deserve to die, look at your past, you think Jesus can forgive that? ”, and many other things.
Then the Lord showed up and started to show me the awful nature of the pride of my own heart that I had against my Savior. Once I really saw myself as the Lord saw me, I learned that it is not the abominable sins of the flesh that shock him, but the pride (Fear, Entitlement, Ingratitude, People Pleasing, Prayerlessness, Hypocrisy, Rebellion) of my own heart against Jesus. When I saw myself in the light of the Lord; the shame and the horror and the desperate conviction, to come home and give up all of myself and allow God to make me fit for all that He wants me to be. I need to learn more here.
As Galatians 2:20 says: “it is no longer I who live, but Christ in me.” So I thought, who am I to tell God what to do with my problems? It is Him that lives in me. I gave Him my life when I became a believer and became filled with the Holy Spirit so that He can use me in any way to bring Glory to Himself. This will be my ultimate joy in the future. I believe Romans 8:28 “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good” and Romans 8:34 “Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died – more than that who was raised – who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.” Verse 31. If God is for us, who can be against us? 32. He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things.”
Wednesday morning, I kept thinking of all this and at 10:27 am I heard the Lord say: “Bob you are all done with this oxygen and this hospital, it is time for you to get ready and go home.” So I took the oxygen out and thought to myself, “what are you doing?” Was I hearing from the Lord or was it me with hopeful thinking? So I asked the Lord to give me a sign to assure me that it was Him (Oh me of little faith).
I first noticed that when I shut my eyes, the blood red was gone. I thought this may be from my first excitement since getting sick, so asked for more signs and Jesus delivered.
- Oxygen stayed above 90 without machine.
- Looked out the window and all the leaves that were blowing around were now in the perfect formation of a perfect heart. (Have the picture of it!)
- I texted a few people about this and the time it occurred, and a lady texted back saying 10/27 is when her husband and one of my dearest friends went home to be with the Lord. Another person had Isiah 10:27.
- I had tears running down my cheeks, which I’ve never had before that I can remember. A new softness of heart.
- Had a vision of a big white sheet falling down on an area and heard the Lord say: “My presence will not leave again”. It’s time for Christians to rise up now that they have the maturity; cause the harvest is ripe.
- Hospital food even had a taste that day. (well, a little)
- Doctor at 3pm said it was unbelievable and said if oxygen stays above 89 – I can go home tomorrow. I would need some oxygen and a nurse would be checking on me every other day, along with a zoom call with a doctor for a few days. Of course I said yes. Laura set all this up as I laid there praising the Lord for how he has changed me. He showed me in ministry that we need to train up the younger generation; while trusting in the Holy Spirit to touch the ones we minister to.
Laura had a word that this was my Gethsemane I had to go through (Matthew 26:36-46).
Here Jesus bares his soul, and we see pain beyond imagining.
Three things mark out the time in Gethsemane:
1. It is a time of deep agony. See verses 37-38.
Whatever the trials or suffering of our lives, however great our darkness or our pain Jesus understands, Jesus knows the need to get down on the ground and cry out to God to be released. He knows!
2. It is a time of wrestling and resolution: Straightforward honesty verse 39
Verse 42 Jesus prays a 2nd time and a 3rd in verse 44 but this time “your will be done”.
3. Is a time of weakness and failure. Verses 38, 41, 43, 45 disciples sleeping.
We are no different than the disciples. We do not sin out of ignorance, we sin because of weakness, unwillingness, selfishness, or carelessness. At a time when the deep spiritual battles are at stake, we’re not on the alert, not at our posts, not playing our part – as I so found out during my time with Covid.
When Jesus left Gethsemane, the challenge of the future was still there. The agony of the cross was still ahead. Easter was about to come. But Jesus came through Gethsemane strengthened in knowing God’s will more surely and he could face anything God allowed in his life. Because of what happened in his Gethsemane, he was now prepared for even the cross. May God also make us ready for his perfect will, whatever that may be.
Yes I was in a “war room” and PRAYER was the weapon from all of you saints praying for me, that’s what got me through. Jesus was there all the time, I know, but with the covid I just could not feel Him. But thank God, my faith and knowing Scripture and help from my prayer partners – this battle ends in Victory. I experienced and now know; Jesus is the only answer. You cannot add to Jesus because then it is religion. And you cannot take anything away from Him. Jesus is the way the truth and the life! Amen
Sometimes God allows pain and loss that have nothing to do with sin in our lives and are not meant to teach us anything. Rather, our loss and bewilderment become an avenue by which God gives himself to us more than he ever could have before, when we were at ease. When God puts us into a position where we must hold onto our relationship with God for God’s sake only – in which we stand to gain nothing but God – we start to receive him more fully than we ever had before. Job’s amazed cry “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes see you,” (Job 42:5) becomes our own. God’s good desire to grow us into maturity for His Glory and our ultimate Joy!
1 Corinthians 2:5 “so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
Saving faith is produced by the heart-changing power of the Holy Spirit as the Gospel is proclaimed. Scripture points out the value of reason and knowledge (Colossians 2:8 & 2 Timothy 2:15), while demonstrating a difference between what man’s mind can achieve and what God’s Spirit can reveal. God’s wisdom, including His plan to offer salvation through Christ’s crucifixion, must be received and believed spiritually through God’s Holy Spirit.
“YOU DO NOT REALLY KNOW JESUS IS ALL YOU NEED UNTIL JESUS IS ALL YOU HAVE”
THANK YOU ALL -THE BODY OF CHRIST IN ACTION!
Keep Praying
BOB