Before long, my mother began to notice that my breathing was becoming labored and that my complexion was turning blue. She alerted the nurse and explained her concern. The nurse assured her that everything was normal. However, I was taken to the neo-natal unit, a little later, to be examined and to find what was causing the symptoms. After some tests, the doctors discovered that I had pneumonia and sinus infection. I was prescribed an antibiotic, and my parents were assured that there wasn't anything to be concerned about. My life was about to be changed forever.

The nurse assigned to my case was Nurse Church (ironic, don’t you think). She picked up what she mistakenly thought was my medication and proceeded to administer an undiluted, adult dose, of potassium chloride. Potassium chloride is the main ingredient used in lethal injections, and that is exactly the way it worked on me. My heart stopped instantly. In her panic, Nurse Church buried the medicine vile and syringe in the dirty laundry for fear of being discovered. The doctors worked to resuscitate me, but, without any idea of what had caused the heart failure, there was nothing they could do to save my life.

After a few minutes, the doctors were ready to give up and declare me dead. That was--until my pediatrician walked into the room. He took one look at me and told the doctors to treat me as if I had been overdosed. They tried to protest saying that there was no evidence of an overdose. Nevertheless, he insisted and told them that they had better get my heart started. He searched the room for the evidence that would tell him what I had been given, and he found the medication and syringe that had been hidden.

The doctors were able to get my heart restarted, but I had been without a heartbeat for ten minutes. I was placed on life support, but I showed no signs of improvement. My pediatrician walked into my mother’s room and sat gently on the edge of the bed. He sat there quietly for a while and finally asked, “What would you do if someone killed your baby?” My mother began to panic, but he assured her that I was alive. Then he asked her again, “What would you do if someone killed your baby?”  She was at a loss for words, and he continued, “That is essentially what they’ve just done.” He proceeded to tell her what had just transpired, and he sat there and cried with my mother.

 My pediatrician was asked why he was at the hospital. He told my parents that he was at home celebrating Christmas with his family when he felt God urging him to get to the hospital. He apologized to his family and rushed over. He said that when he got to the hospital, he heard all the commotion and somehow knew that it was his patient. When he got to me, the doctors were giving up. They were ready to tell my parents that I had suffered cardiac arrest and had died of complications from the pneumonia. However, he stepped in, and I was resuscitated and placed on life support.

I was on life support for four hours. The doctors explained to my parents that after a couple of minutes without blood circulation the brain begins to die and after ten minutes the brain is considered dead. They told them that as a result of my heart being stopped for ten minutes, I was left clinically dead. The only thing keeping my heart beating was the machines. Their prognosis was that if, somehow, I miraculously survived I would be in a complete vegetative state for the rest of my life. They then asked my parents to be merciful and give them permission to terminate the life support.

Instead of shutting off the life support, my parents began to call everyone they could, and they started a prayer chain. Within a few hours, there were people all over America and in several other countries praying for a little baby lying clinically dead in a Cincinnati hospital. The situation looked hopeless, but my parents refused to just let go of the promises of God. After four hours, I began to show signs of improvement. My parents where again told that my situation was still critical but that I had somehow pulled through. They were removing the respirator and were going to attempt to wean me off the oxygen.

On Christmas Eve, the nurses dressed all the babies up in elf costumes and a Santa Claus came through and delivered each child to his or her parent. When they got to my mother’s room they handed her roommate her baby, and one of the nurses asked where I was and why I wasn’t being brought to my mother. The other nurse quickly shushed her and chased her out of the room. A little while later a nurse came in the room and handed my mother my elf costume and said that she thought my mother would like to have it as a memento of her son.

After a while, a doctor walked into the room and told my mother that my lungs had collapsed. They began to explain that the way the lungs are designed once air has leaked out into the chest cavity it places pressure on the lungs and the lungs are not able to fill again. They said that the idea of the air in the chest cavity escaping back into the lungs would be like poking a hole in a balloon and then waiting for the air around the balloon to escape into the balloon and inflate it.  The doctors told my mother that they needed to do a procedure to let the pressure out of my chest so that my tiny body could draw air back into my lungs.

My mother asked the doctors if they were going to give me something for the pain before the procedure. Then the doctors explained that due to the overdose it would be too dangerous to give me any pain medication. So, she decided to refuse the procedure. She told the doctors that they were going to leave it in God’s hands and that if God wanted me to live, He would be the one to heal me. Once again, they began to make phone calls and they had the prayer chain going.

After what seemed like an eternity to my parents, the doctor came back into the room. The doctor looked at my mother and said, “I have never seen anything like this in my career and I will probably never see anything like it again.” He told them that my lungs had reabsorbed the air in my chest, and I was once again breathing on my own.

I only remained in the hospital for another few days, and my condition gradually improved. I was eventually released into my parents’ care. When I got home, I was still not able to move, and I had no voice because my vocal cords had been stripped when the doctors placed the breathing tube down my throat. They weren’t able to say if I’d ever regain my voice and they were certain that I’d never gain motor skills. The social workers insisted that my parents should place me in a medical institution and forget that I’d been born. However, my parents weren’t willing to give up on me.

I slowly gained some motor skills, and my voice did come back as a high-pitched squeal, but I was severely mentally delayed. I had no sense of physical pain and no concept of emotions. I later described it like being a dead man walking. I didn’t understand abstract concepts like joy or sorrow or even colors. I only functioned in the concrete -- things I could touch or see. I gained enough understanding to know that there were a lot of things wrong with me. I knew that my mind wasn’t working right and that I wasn’t like everyone else. Some days I would just cry out, “Mommy, help me!” Mommy, help me!” After years of testing, the diagnosis was still bleak.

By the time I was six, I had officially failed in a “special needs” kindergarten class. I still drooled like an infant and leaned forward at the waist to walk clumsily. The educational specialist said that I was unteachable. They said that I would never be able to count to ten or even repeat five-word sentences. While the physiatrists saw me as a time bomb. They said that due to my lack of emotional control I posed a real danger to society and that it was unfair to my “normal siblings” to keep me in the home. They again pleaded with my parents to put me in an institution and forget I was ever born. My parents refused to give up, and they continued to believe that God had great things in store for me. I thank God for parents with great faith.

Since the school refused to continue wasting their time trying to teach me, my parents were forced to look into other educational options. That is when a pastor friend of theirs told them about a school his church, Liberty Temple, had just started in the basement of their building. The school used the ACE (Accelerated Christian Education) curriculum.  He offered to enroll my three siblings and me, free of charge if my mother would come teach for him. My mother tried to tell him that she didn’t have the credentials to teach and that she couldn’t do it. However, for every excuse she made God provided an answer, and before the next school year began, she had received all the necessary training. She later continued to obtain college degrees in education and Christian counseling.

At the time, my family was attending another local church where my parents served as the children’s pastors. However, one Sunday that summer, before the school year began, my parents decided to take the family and visit Liberty Temple for a service. During that service, as the pastor was preaching, I managed to escape from my parents and run straight to the altar. The pastor stopped preaching, walked over to me, and asked, “What do you want from the Lord?” I responded, “I just want to spell my name.” The pastor called on the church to pray with him over me. Then my parents led me back to my seat. I am sure that I embarrassed them thoroughly that day, because I had a unique ability to do that.

My request was very simple, but I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more. I would sit for hours at home trying to write names. Because I only thought in concrete items nothing was more important than a name. Most of the time I tried to write “Jesus” or “Ryan”, but I would try writing anything that my mother might recognize. Whenever I thought I might have something, I’d run to her and ask her to read what I wrote. Of course, she never could unless I’d copied it, but sometimes she would guess right, and that would make my day. Therefore, being able to spell my name was like being able to communicate who I was.

The Lord heard the cry of my heart, and that first year in Liberty Christian Academy I learned to read and write. As a matter of fact, I completed kindergarten and first grade with an A+ average. Sometimes progress was slow, but God was opening my mind and healing my body. I was seven when I started talking clearly enough to be understood, and all I could talk about was My Jesus. My siblings would go around and gather the children from the neighborhood to the front steps of our house. I would tell them about how My Jesus loved them.

Going into high school I dreamed of being a computer engineer and working for NASA. I decided to take every math course our school had to offer, and I stayed at least a grade level ahead in that subject. I even did algebraic equations for fun at home. However, slowly, I found more and more of my focus being drawn from my favorite subject. I knew that God had called me to preach the Gospel, but I thought that I would do that when I got older. But I began to find large portions of my school day were being spent reading the Bible instead of learning mathematics. So, I dropped my advanced math courses and took every Bible course available, instead. By the time I graduated, I completed double the state required credits and my GPA never dropped below an A average. My overall high school GPA was 96.9%.

When I was sixteen, I began preaching occasionally when our pastor was on vacation or out of town. I went on my first overseas mission trip when I was eighteen and was licensed as a minister through Liberty Temple at the age of nineteen. God led me to a great group of pastors, and, at twenty years of age, I became one of the youngest licensed ministers of an international network of ministers. Then just two weeks before I turned twenty-one, I was unanimously elected in as the senior pastor of Liberty Temple. I have since graduated from Bible College, Cum Laude, with degrees in Christian Education and theology, and was even given the privilege of returning to the college to be an instructor in Church Government.

I cannot claim, to any degree, these accomplishments as my own. I couldn't open my own understanding any more than I could have brought myself back to life. I can see clearly how God has given me everything that I have. The same is true for you. God holds your life in His hand. The Bible says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of Lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17).

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