"By
His stripes we are healed" (Isaiah 53:5)
He is Alive
In 1956, I (Larry Peirce) was 10 years old and started getting
daily headaches that we now describe as migraines, which often
made me too sick to move. Fifteen years later, I was managing a
car wash when one of my regular customers (a doctor) could see I
was in pain and wanted to call an ambulance. I was having one of
my worst headaches, but told him I was not going to the
hospital. He suggested I see the chiropractor across the street;
the doctor said he would come back in two hours and put me in
the hospital anyway if I didn’t get any relief. So I went across
the street, got a full spinal and neck manipulation, and the
pain disappeared.
After at least 20 chiropractic
manipulations a year for 25 years, the treatments stopped
relieving the pain. At this point I was 50 years old and had
traveled the craft circuit in most of the states east of the
Mississippi, and now I was back home in the little town of
Daleville, Indiana. The headaches now made it impossible to do
anything except sit in a chair and hurt. We then went to Central
Indiana Orthopedics in a plea for pain relief. The doctor
ordered a spinal MRI and neck x-rays. When the doctor looked at
the MRI, he said he couldn’t read it, gave us a phone number to
call, and gave me a prescription for pain pills. The number was
for the neurological unit at Indiana University Hospital at
Indianapolis. When the doctor there saw the MRI and x-rays, he
looked at them and said, "wait just a minute, I want to show
these to the chief of neurosurgery".
A few minutes later, the doctor
came back with two other doctors, one of which introduced
himself as the chief of neurosurgery. He looked me square in the
eye and said, "Why are you alive"? He explained that I had three
broken neck vertebrae (C5, C6, C7) and each of these vertebrae
was missing half of the spinal fluid. He asked me if I had been
in a car wreck, or if I could remember anything happening to my
neck. I remembered that when I was 10 years old, I was using a
forbidden trampoline. I did a back flip and came straight down on
my head. He said that the accident should have severed my spinal
cord, and I should have been in extreme pain my whole life. He
asked, "How is it that you managed to survive?" I told him I was
having routine chiropractic back and neck manipulations. He
turned white and said that each one of those should have severed
my spine. He also told me that both collarbones had been broken
and were pressing on nerves that affected the lower back.
He
showed me a new way to sit and a new exercise for the lower
back. I asked him what they could do to get me out of the pain;
he said nothing could be done because of the location of the
injury. However, he asked me to consider moving within 30
minutes of the hospital so that when my spine finally did sever
they could have my body immediately for study.
We were numb with shock as we
started on the hour and a half drive back home. I was thinking
how I could actually be alive. Not being a religious person,
this next idea really shot through me: there really is a Jesus
Christ, He is real, His power is real, and He had been using it
on me for 50 years even though I never knew it. At that point I
turned my head to the right to look at what I thought was a
deer, my neck gave a tremendous snap, and the headaches and back
pain disappeared. I told Jesus right then that I would do
whatever He wanted me to do.
Eight years later, I woke up in
the middle of the night and couldn’t catch my breath, so I went
to the local Emergency Room. They admitted me and I had a heart
catheterization, which earned me an ambulance ride to The Heart
Center of Indiana. They determined that I had three blockages
and an aneurism in my heart. I met with four doctors, one of
which explained that most blockages are like a kink in a garden
hose; however, in my case the three arteries that were clogged
were like old pieces of rusted cast iron pipe, with clogs all
the way through the pipe. He explained that I had three arteries
that were clogged instead of four because the left ventricle of
the heart had blown out of shape with an aneurism and destroyed
that artery.
I’d never had any heart pain, so I immediately
remembered that I had given Jesus my word, but had not done
anything about it. The doctor told me that due to my weight,
high cholesterol, high triglycerides, and not being certain
where they could reattach arteries and veins, I may or may not
survive surgery. If I did survive, he couldn't guarantee me even
a day's worth of existence. So I told him about my broken neck
and assured him that whatever he did, Jesus would handle the
rest of it, since Jesus had already given me 48 extra years of
life.
I am now telling every single
person that Jesus is alive, He is real, and all you have to do
is believe in Him.
We are members of the South
Meridian Church of God in Anderson Indiana.
Larry Peirce -
email:
dpeirce@iquest.net
Or through
Ron@FridayStudy.org
