BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

Their husbands arrived that night and by the next morning, Bonnie woke with extreme pain in her neck. When Auston, her husband, asked how she was doing, Bonnie admitted that she was in too much pain to stay. Back home, Auston took Bonnie to the emergency room where she was diagnosed with whiplash. They prescribed Percocet and sent her home. Two days later, she couldn’t move at all without great pain. She went to see a doctor who was also a friend. “A cortisone shot usually helps with this,” he said. By the time he finished injecting the shot into her neck, Bonnie was on the floor screaming. By now, she was in so much pain she couldn’t work. That was in 2003. For the next 10 years, Bonnie’s condition continued to deteriorate. By 2013, she was on 20 prescription medications a day, used a walker and carried around oxygen. She couldn’t walk more than 15 minutes at a time. Auston had to bathe and dress her each day. Bonnie had gone to four of the top surgeons in the area. Each one told her the same thing—that she definitely needed to have surgery. They each agreed that Bonnie’s back and neck were in such bad shape that the surgery would trigger a domino-type collapse that would leave her confined to a wheelchair. “If I were you, I’d just see a pain management specialist and live with it as long as possible before I had surgery,” one doctor said. One day in 2013, Auston came home and said, “Honey, I’ve got some bad news.” Bonnie thought, How can things get worse? “What’s wrong?” she asked. “I was just diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer. Honey, I don’t know who’ll take care of you now.” When Life Changed “That moment was a wake-up call for me,” Bonnie recalls. “I started remembering all the things the Lord had done for us, starting when I was 5 years old. My mother was only 4’6” tall, but she had a humongous heart and love for people. One day we drove past a huge tent on the side of the road. She said, ‘Bonnie, let’s go see what this is.’ It happened to be an A.A. Allen revival meeting. We went inside and listened. At the end of the meeting, Mama went forward and accepted Jesus as her Savior and received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. “When we got home, she just bubbled with excitement telling my dad all about it. My father liked to drink. He never got angry or mean, but he liked to drink. It was the only thing they disagreed about. He said, ‘Norma, you can go. I don’t care what you believe, but I won’t go. I don’t want to be involved.’ “For the next couple of weeks, Mama and I went every night. One night we got ready to leave and the car wouldn’t start. She told Daddy that if he’d drop us off, she’d find us a ride home. He dropped us off, and we thought he had left, but he hadn’t. “Daddy loved music, and he liked what he heard from the car. After we went into the tent, he slipped inside to listen to the music. That night, my father was saved, baptized in the Holy Spirit, and delivered from ever wanting alcohol or cigarettes again. “After that, Mother told everyone she met about Jesus. My parents started traveling to hear ministers of faith. Within three months, we’d gone to hear Oral Roberts, A.A. Allen and Kathryn Kuhlman. We joined a Pentecostal church. Living in our house was like being in an electrical grid. “One day Daddy bought me a new bed and took apart my old one to give away. When he found all the bubble gum I’d stuck under the railing, he said I had to help remove it. Daddy sat on the floor and put me between his legs. With his hand on mine, we used a big screwdriver to scrape that gum off. We had our mojo going. We were doing good. “My mother called him from the kitchen. When she did, he turned around and loosed my hand. But the screwdriver was still in motion. Instead of hitting the rail, that screwdriver went all the way up my nose and planted itself in my forehead. “My mother screamed and grabbed me. They pulled the screwdriver out and there was a huge hunk of fleshy tissue on the end. Blood gushed from the wound. There was so much blood on the floor that Daddy slipped in it and fell. “We lived almost 40 minutes from the hospital. My parents knew I was bleeding to death. Mama had me in her lap in the rocking chair and they both started praying in tongues. They also talked to the Lord: ‘You promised to meet our needs. You promised that You were our Healer. We need You!’ They prayed in tongues and talked to God. “As they prayed, I felt something like electricity flowing through my body. When that happened, the bleeding stopped instantly. It was like someone turned off a faucet. They wrapped me in a blanket and drove to the hospital. The doctor said it was a miracle that I lived. 24 : BVOV

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