B V O V
:
1 3
by Melanie Hemry
In a coma, Marleth looked as pale as the
white sheets on the hospital bed. So still,
she resembled a broken doll rather than a
teenage girl filled with life and laughter.
Maria Lobato, Marleth's mother, stood
at her daughter's bedside holding her
cool, limp hand. She remembered the
day, at age 3, when Marleth had been born
again. Weeping and shaking, the child had
received the Baptism in the Holy Spirit
with evidence of speaking in tongues.
Maria had known then that her daughter
had a call on her life.
A year later, Maria had taken Marleth
to her first West Coast Believers'
Convention. The child had basked in that
environment—especially when she'd
been old enough to join the Superkids.
Each year when KCM's trucks left to
return to Fort Worth, Texas, Marleth had
longed to go with them.
Maria and Marleth lived in a guest
house owned by Marleth's older sister
and her family. Marleth spent many
evenings sitting on the roof, looking at the
stars and communing with God. At 15, too
old for Superkids, Marleth had attended
Pre-Service Prayer at the Believers'
Convention with Pastors Lynne
Hammond and Terri Copeland Pearsons.
Afterward, her mother had bought her a
copy of Pastor Lynne's book The Master
Is Calling. Those two things had changed
Marleth's prayer life.
Now doctors were warning Maria that
her daughter might not survive. If she did
live, they said, there was a good chance
that she would not breathe on her own, or
be brain-dead. A vegetable.
Maria refused to accept that diagnosis.
She knew that Jesus had suffered the
entire curse of the Law and that by His
stripes Marleth was healed. She opened
her Bible to Psalm 118:17 and prayed:
Coming
Home
THE RESPIRATOR MOANED A MOURNFUL SOUND
AS IT PUSHED AIR INTO MARLETH LOBATO'S LUNGS. THE CAR
WRECK THAT THRUST THE 17-YEAR-OLD INTO THE HOSPITAL
HAD BEEN DEVASTATING. HER HEAD HIT THE WINDSHIELD
WITH SUCH FORCE THAT HER BRAIN HEMORRHAGED.
