I'm alive because prayer works!
Ludger Grewe
Hi, I’m Ludger, and last Wednesday my leg was painful and swollen. I recognized deep vein thrombosis (blood clots) from when I had this in 2006 - but then my whole leg was not swollen. After a sonogram on Thursday showed clots throughout my leg, they sent me to the ER. They did a CT scan and the ER doc said it was very dangerous. The scan also showed clots all over my lungs, and there was a large clot very close to my heart.
You know, if you have an injury or a sickness where you are near death but unconscious, it is totally different than being completely aware and feeling pretty normal, but I knew I was so short, so close to going to Heaven.
It was hard. We have a German proverb - you see a movie of your life in your brain. I told the Lord, “If it’s my time to go, then I’m willing to come. But if there’s still something you want me to do on this earth, then let me do that.” I was praying the hardest I’ve prayed in my life.
The ICU team put me in a separate area, with its own AC unit, that as not connected to the ICU for COVID-19 patients. Normally I would have gone to a different hospital, but God directed us to this hospital that was prepared to keep me safe.
In the meantime, my wife Dabney contacted every group possible – the Germans, all of the Americans, other internationals we know from the baseball camps – to pray. My phone never stopped dinging, all these prayers coming in from around the world. Every two hours, a nurse was coming in for blood tests, breathing tests, what-the-heck tests, so I couldn’t sleep, but I was in contact with brothers and sisters. Even my boss, who is an atheist, said he prayed for the first time in his life.
Finally, the night was over, and I was still alive. God still has work for me, He wants to keep me here. The tests kept getting better. They took another sonogram of my heart, and the doc told me the results were good. I said, “Well, yesterday, your colleague told me that there is big blood clots inside the short bit coming into my heart, but now it's not there anymore. Can you explain that to me?” He couldn’t really give me a reason. I said, “It’s a wonder, a miracle.” He said if you want to regard it that way, you can.
I was sitting there, crying out and shouting out loud to the Lord. I was so close to death. But He healed me. I felt like God was telling me I’ve been too focused on how to please my company, how to make money, that I haven’t been looking at the big picture. I need to get back to the basics, take time to walk in the garden, see the butterflies, enjoy God’s creation. I don’t know what projects God has for me, whether it’s expanding the baseball camps in Germany or something else. But already I have had conversations with friends in Germany who aren’t Christians about what God has done.
Prayer works! We prayed hour by hour, and hour after hour I was still alive. Medicine works, but I know prayer works! God isn’t dead. Thank you for your prayer support - I shouldn’t be here, but God still has something for me to do!
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