BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

Zane heard his mother’s reaction and rushed to the kitchen. He stood frozen, wide-eyed, in the doorway. Christa didn’t say another word. She walked across the room and looked at her husband. He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t breathing. What kind of life will my children have without their father? she thought. A voice screamed in her head: Call 911, now! If you don’t call 911 now, he’ll die, and it will be all your fault! Christa knew that God didn’t speak that way. She understood that a spirit of fear was screaming at her to try and make her afraid. She also knew that what she said would be the deciding factor about what happened. Jesus only did what He saw His Father do. He only said what He heard His Father say. In that moment, Christa refused to open her mouth until she heard what her Father said. Suddenly, standing over her dead husband, Christa declared: “In the Name of Jesus, be made whole!” Nothing happened. Christa grabbed Jim’s shoulders and turned him over onto his back. “In the Name of Jesus, be made whole!” She didn’t utter another word. She knew better. She and Zane each stood still…waiting. An Encounter With Jesus While unconscious, Jim remembers having what must have been an out-of-body experience. “Two demons are dragging me down, the darkness is getting darker,” he said. “Then Jesus speaks, not once, but twice. I turn around and look. There is Jesus! He grabs me and pulls me back into my body!” “Jim took a long, shuddering breath,” Christa says. “His eyes rolled back around again, but he was very disoriented. So Zane helped me get him to bed. I sat on the side of the bed and asked the Lord what to do. ‘Should I sit up with him all night and pray?’ I didn’t get any direction, so I crawled into bed beside him and we slept all night. “The next morning, we got up but none of us spoke about what had happened,” says Christa. “We were solemn. We didn’t know what to say. We just kept looking at one another. I made Jim something to eat. When I walked over to hand it to him, I smelled something so sweet and clean. I’d never smelled anything like it before. “What’s that smell?” Christa asked Jim. “I had an encounter with Jesus,” Jim answered. “I saw Jesus.” To Jim, the aroma smelled like roses. But to Christa, it smelled more like honey. She went to his bathroom to see if she could find anything that resembled that smell. Nothing. She did the same thing in Jim’s closet, and his truck. Nothing. The aroma remained with Jim for a week, then it went away, Christa said. A Different Result As a result of the fall, Jim’s face was bruised, and his hand was hurt. X-rays revealed that the bone in his cheek was cracked and three bones in his hand were broken. “The doctor said that my body was healing itself and we should let it finish the job,” Jim said. “A week later, I went back to work offshore. As soon as I arrived, I changed clothes and went fishing for snapper. There was nothing wrong with me. I was in excellent health and have never had any health issues since.” Jim and Christa decided to never tell anyone what had happened. “We agreed that if someone asked, we’d tell it,” Jim said. “Before Christa’s brother died, we told him. BVOV : 17

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