My Miracle - God's Miracle

[Mike]

I've been asked about my motorcycle accident. How I got hurt... how I got listed as a living miracle. This isn't something I normally talk about, because it isn't something that normally happens to people. I was blessed beyond imagination. I know it, my doctor(s) knew it, and even the people at Living Miracle recognized it immediately - granting me the status of "Living Miracle" the first time my story was sent to them. You see, I didn't realize it, and possibly you didn't either, but most "Living Miracles" are usually sent in and denied. Then they come back, and are tweaked and changed a bit to word them better, and often denied again. Sometimes these reports can be sent in several times - never changing the truth, but changing the way they are written - before the group or committee accepts it as a true "Living Miracle". Mine as mentioned... I wrote the story down one time, and was told it was accepted immediately.

I'd grown up riding motorcycles my entire life. I had mini bikes as a kid. Motorcycles as a young adult. I even attended High School for a year or so aboard a little Yamaha 125 enduro. It was bright green, and a few friends started jokingly calling me "Frog". I think that was the humor of Kristen Larson, Denise St. Angelo and maybe Mauclin McGann...

In life every man, woman and child has a built in self defense, and self preservation mechanism. It's what is wired into their brain to help them survive. It's called "Fight or Flight". Some people are instantly ready to fight when things go terribly wrong. Others run to preserve their life or try to get away from the trouble. Neither is wrong, both are designed to preserve your life, and are instilled in us from an early age.

Me... I have the "fight" mechanism. When things get tough, or there is a horrible situation I immediately square up my shoulders and hit it face on. That's not always the smartest thing to do, but my brain is wired so that I never quit, never give up and refuse to let go in huge situations. This "Flight of Fight" mechanism isn't necessarily for little things (though it could be) think more along the lines of "life or death".

Having grown up riding street & dirt bikes, racing motorcycles after high school all through the 1980s and 1990s my brain was wired to "fight" to save it no matter what. I've been thrown over the handlebars, hit by other bikes and thrown off of mine - but at all times, my brain instinctively held onto the grips and tried to never let go If there was a 1% chance of saving it, I was going to take it!. There were situations over the years when I was racing where I was completely off of the bike, being dragged, but my hands were still on the bars, hand still holding the gas on smoothly and I actually climbed back onto the motorcycle and kept racing. There were times that didn't work either! But I always attempted to "save it". I had never, and my brain will not accept "throwing a motorcycle away" as it's called. That's where you just pitch it and try to get away from the bike to keep from getting hurt. That's more the "Flight" instinct, mine is the "Fight" instinct to save it... whew, I know that's long but you have to understand who(m) I truly am to understand the following.

After decades of riding and racing and never "throwing a bike away" I was headed out to my good friend Jeff and Chuck Crisafulli's grove to go riding on their private motocross track. About half way down Rt. 3 in Merritt Island (Courtney Parkway) I was driving along and almost as if a movie started rolling in front of my eyes, I saw myself crashing that day. Not only did I see myself crashing, but I "threw the bike away" which I just knew couldn't be right! This "vision" was so vivid, that I can’t begin to explain it to you. It was literally like a movie was happening right before my eyes, while I was driving - like a 3D movie was playing inside my head. It was so vivid that I was shocked a bit at what was happening... I’ll be honest about it I was a bit scared, my heart was pounding it was very real! About 4 months before I had crashed and broken my wrist and elbow. The day before this "vision" was the first day I had ridden and my arm was tired. It didn't feel that strong and I told my buddy Jeff that I'd probably sit out for a few days, but you know how guys are. After a phone call or two from Chuck & Jeff I couldn't stand it and had to go ride. When I got to the track, I was a nervous wreck. I mean this vision was so real of my crashing that the adrenaline was still pumping - yeah it was that real! Understand I have raced hundred(s) of actual races with anywhere from 20 to 40 other bikes on the track. So this nervousness inside, riding a track that I knew like the back of my hand with my two best friends... this was really odd and was directly related to the vision I had while driving out there. After a few laps, I stopped and was sitting there on the track and Chuck came riding up. He asked me what was up and I told him point blank "Something's wrong Chuck. I feel really really scared today. I even had a vision or something on the way here that I was going to crash bad." He started laughing the way that only a really-really good friend could without insulting you, and we actually stopped right there and I made him pray with me out on the track. What a strange thing to do... praying in the middle of a motocross track!

There was a jump on the track that had a lot of really soft sand in front of it. It was a long, but not very tall jump. So you had to really have your speed up to clear the entire distance. And it was hard to get that speed, because as you came out of the corner before it, and gassed it, your rear tire was spinning wildly in the sand... it was there that I had my accident. I had no clue it was coming. I had no clue anything bad was about to happen. I was riding laps jumping that jump lap after lap - then and on one of them I came around everything seemed about right and while up in the air I realized I was going to come up about one foot short on this jump. Normally, that’s not a big deal, but this jump had a big bump right on the end of it, a lip. If you come up even one foot short, your rear tire will hit this lip or bump and kick the rear end of the bike up over your head and you'll crash horribly... but that's not what I did. I started racing in 1981, this was 10+ years later... I'd been actually riding at that time for just over 25 years... and I did what I'd never done before in my entire life. Just like in the vision I "pitched it away" and threw the motorcycle away from me. My feet landed on the far side of the jump on flat ground. My body was at a 45 degree angle and as my feet touched down I remember in that instantaneous adrenaline filled moment thinking "I'm going to save it" meaning not get pounded. My feet hit the ground and since I was at such an exteme angle I started to water ski almost in the soft sand... and then as my butt hit the sand it dug in with great force from all the speed I was carrying. When it dug in, (imagine 45 degree angle and you're moving forward) my body just completely compressed. I actually felt and possibly even worse heard my spine compressing to the point that suddenly I didn't bend at the waist. I bent somewhere just below my chest as the vertebra was being crushed - crushed down by over 50%.

As I lay on the ground Jeff and Chuck came flying up and both were asking if I was okay. I remember Chuck (always the joker) lightly prodding me with his motocross boot in the leg and laughing saying "You're okay, get up!" and having ridden with Chuck for over a decade, he'd seen me crash hard and get up and walk away so he was I'm sure expecting the same. What happened next was bad... I remember screaming "Oh my God I'm in a fire ant bed get them off of me, get them off of me! There eating me up!" Jeff was looking and I remember seeing him moving quickly and laboriously and he said "Mike there aren't any" and I quickly replied "They're there, they're eating me up man get them off me" and he immediately fell down on his knees (remember I'm laying flat on my back) and he started trying to find the ants... that's when the horror set in. There were no ants. The absolutely indescribable and immense pain I was feeling... The feeling of literally being dunked into a scalding hot tank of water was every single nerve ending from the waist down SCREAMING IN AGONY because of my severely crushed spine!

So where does that leave me... the "Fight of Flight" thing again. Chuck and Jeff picked me up so that I was standing in between them with my hands over their shoulders. The moment they started to let me stand on my own I started to collapse. They both grabbed me... My spine was so damaged it couldn't hold my own upper body weight up. They didn't know what to do, but my brain was in high gear and I told them to take me to Chucks pick up truck. I couldn't support any weight on my spine so the two guys had to lift me to the tailgate, and Chuck climbed up into the truck and supported my head, shoulders and upper body and laid me down. I inched... literally inch wormed up into the bed of Chuck's truck and he started for the hospital. I was screaming "NO!" "TAKE ME HOME!" I already knew that there wasn't going to be anything they could do for me - or at least not until the swelling went down. Silly? Maybe, but I knew how badly I was hurt, and the man in me was saying that if I was going to die, it was going to be at home... it was that bad, and the pain was that bad! Chuck started the long drive out of the grove, out to Rt 3 and in towards town. I convinced him to head towards Cape Canaveral and he was upset about it. Sure enough he did what anyone would do - he involved the biggest boss in any mans life - he called my mom! Her first words were "Mike's hurt isn't he?" Fortunately she agreed with me and said "Michael knows what he wants, if he wants to come home, bring him here!"

When we got to my house it took an eternity. Here I was laid out like a slab of meat, unable to get out of the back of the truck. It was going to take two full grown strong men to lift me carefully out of the bed of the truck without hurting my spine. Jeff you see, had ridden his dirtbike to the track so he had to ride it all the way home (in Merritt Island), before he could jump in his truck and come to my house (in Cape Canaveral) to help... so I lay there trying to be cool, but the pain was absolutely-positively (nearly) unbearable. It literally felt as if boiling hot water was being poured all over me from the waist down.

Jeff finally arrived and the two guys helped me into the house and to the couch to lay down, before heading home themselves. Man was I scared... I knew this was bad-bad-bad and I had no answer for the first time in my life! I couldn’t fix this. I couldn’t... I couldn’t anything. This was really bad and I was really scared! This couldn’t be happening to me. This couldn’t be the way it all ends! Then my brain started working overtime - Okay so I had this vision God. I stopped and prayed! Why did this have to happen? What’s going on this isn’t fair. — here I was arguing and trying to negotiate with God. It’s like when the guy is a mile out in the ocean swimming for the coast, and says "God let me make it to shore, I’ll do this,this, this and this for you" then as he gets closer he says "I’ll do this and this" and as he hits the beach he says "Well, I might go to church on Sunday". That’s kind of what I was doing but in a "fight" mode because again that’s how my brain is wired. I was a bit ticked... it was fear!

The first night I was hot, and sweaty from riding that day, I was dirty so I was able to after about 10 minutes of gently moving (to keep from moving/twisting my spine) roll over onto the floor off the couch onto my hands and knees, and literally crawl very-very slowly on my hands and knees all the way to the shower. I had to crawl in on my knees and reach up to turn it on. I could feel the warm water coming out of the faucet and I turned the shower on. I fought to get into the tub, and was in the shower squatted down, but the heat felt so good. The hotter I made it, the better it felt. It was probably scalding hot and hitting me on the back and it felt like heaven... You know the old joke where you hit your elbow or your thumb and someone goes "Hold still, I'll make it feel better!" and they pretend they're going to smash your other thumb (or whatever). Like that new pain will over-ride the pain you're feeling. Well the scalding hot water of the shower felt better than the pain I was feeling in my spine and legs. I ran an entire 40 gallon water heater dry... the water was cold when I was done. Then I discovered something. I was in deep trouble... I was in a tub, and the heat had made things much-much worse. I could not get up and over the lip of the tub to get out. I fought, and fought and finally got out. The next part is not something I'm proud to tell everyone... the heat had really messed me up (though it felt so good) and I had to do something like a duck walk back to my couch. I tried crawling on my hands and knees, but the weight of gravity pulling my spine down was unbearable. So this "duck walk" thing is all I could do... Tears just gushing down my face from the pain, truth be told, I was crying like a baby because I was in so much pain! I was squatted down as low as I could go. My butt sitting on my heels, and my chest was laying on my knees because I couldn't hold my own upper body weight up. It was like I was broken in half in the middle - I was. My hands were on my ankles and straight as an arrow almost like a push-up so that it would support my spine... It took me forever to get back to the couch. I thought I’d never make it. I was crying so hard from the pain. I could only move a few inches at a time. It probably took me half an hour to make it 20'. I was really-really scared I was going to die... The shower - it felt so good. But it was a bad move because the heat inflamed my spine even more! So I reached the couch only to find I couldn’t get on it - no way. On my hands and knees with tears streaming down my face I fought so hard not to move my spine - and somehow was able to finally get back up onto the couch. I fell back asleep bawling like a baby... the pain was immense in both my spine and from my waist down.

So where is all the miracle in this?

After the weekend the pain was so bad, I'd probably cried 20 gallons of tears from the pain and I went to the Cape Canaveral Hospital. That was an episode in itself getting into a car to get there. X-Rays, doctors consulting, more doctors, specialists... and then those words. "You have to have immediate surgery! There is a 50/50 chance you'll be paralyzed, and there is a % that you will die." Remember the "Fight of Flight" thing. My flight wasn't actually "flight" it was more "Fight" because my attitude was that I got really ticked when the doctors said that I might die, and I said out loud the same thing I'd thought while laying on the ground after the accident. "Take me home, if I'm going to die, it's going to be there!" The doctors didn’t want to let me go. They told me I needed to lay in the hospital for a few days to let the swelling go down so they could operate. I protested, they wouldn’t let me go. My parents protested that if I wanted to go home - the doctors said no. I looked at my mom and told her to get behind the wheel chair and start pushing - she did.

Weeks... weeks and weeks. Months passed and every night and every day I lay on the couch in my parents home. I couldn't stand, I couldn't walk, I could barely turn over to my side because that required twisting my spine and that was too excruciating. That wasn't the worst part though it was the pain. The pain was so horrible that I can remember late at night being awakened as tears from my sleeping body would stream down my face and into my ears. Imagine, I was in so much pain that even though I was asleep, my body was crying from the pain... I've never heard of that happening to anyone, but it happened to me, every night, every day, 24 hours a day, 7 days per week - for months! My mom was actually taking care of me the best she could. I remember at one point when my mind was totally exhausted from months of unbelievable pain she came in the room and I started bawling like a baby. I was crying so hard that my upper body heaving from crying hurt me... I remember crying the words "Why me mom? What have I ever done that was so bad to deserve this?" and the tears were flowing so hard I could barely breath... I'm sure she said something wise, but the only thing I remember is crying out to God night after night, asking Him why this happened to me. I was really angry at Him... I wasn’t that bad of a guy. What did I do to deserve this... I'd started turning on the Christian channel at night while I was asleep. I was willing to try anything... Hey it couldn’t hurt right?

Funny, I don't remember how long into this horror, that my miracle happened, it was months, but I don't have a day, a date, a minute or hour. What I do have, is the memory of the most powerful thing that has ever happened in my life!

I had discovered after months that if I took crutches and taped them up with big towels that I could stand up and hang my entire body weight on the crutches so that my lower body was just hanging, with my toes just barely touching the ground to steady me. That way there was absolutely no weight on my spine. It was actually like inversion boots because my spine was being relieved of any pressure. One problem - at the time I weighed about 190lbs and supporting my entire weight by my arm pits meant that my shoulders were killing me, and my arm pits became very raw, and were actually bloody! It was extremely painful and caused a few tears in itself using crutches... But I could handle it for a little while, and it was soooo good to get up off the couch - off my back.

Once before I had injured my back in a motocross accident, and I remember laughing at a good friend of mine when she suggested a chiropractor. This was in 1981, and they were sort of a new medicine, that nobody had too much faith in. I laughed at my friend, and I don't think I ever apologized to her. Back in 1981 when I'd hurt my back I went to the local hang out "Apollo Bldg" to lay on the beach and recuperate, and ran into my old friend Bonnie Braille. She told me I should go see her brother Bob for my back. I laughed and said "Chiropractors are quacks!" and I'm sure it had to hurt her feelings some, but she argued that it worked. Well, after that particular accident and a few weeks of pain I decided to go see Bob Braille, and I'll be darned if it didn't help. I was racing again within a few weeks! But that was 1981. This was over 10 years later, and a much more severe crash!

Now, after this latest and much more tragic accident, I had been in pain for months. I figured I trusted Bob well enough to let him at least take X-Rays and tell me if there was anything he could do. You see, Bob remembered me from when I was a kid in High School so I felt safe in that he'd known me for years. I made an appointment, and went to see him explaining everything in great detail as he required me to do. You could tell he was nervous about this, and he wanted to know "everything" that my doctors had told me. He took numerous X-Rays that day and sent me home. He told me he was going to have to study them to see if he thought he could help me. I don't remember the exact details but I did go back. And it was an effort. Remember, I'm still on fire from the waist down feeling like I'm covered in fire ants or being dipped into boiling water. At any moment the pain can be so great that I start crying like a baby. And in truth, every now and then the pain was overwhelming and I'd just start to bawl like a baby (cry). Tears were filling my eyes almost all the time, and I just couldn't help it. While walking on the crutches felt good relieving the spinal pressure, imagine someone taking a saw and ripping into your tender arm pits. That's what supporting your entire body weight on crutches feels like when they are already raw and bloody.

I visited my old friend several times and he did several very-very light adjustments for me. One thing he always did though, was take a very expensive machine and have it run up one side of my spine and measure the heat, and then run it up the other side and measure the heat (once on the right side, once on the left side). A print out would be made and you could see the thermal heat coming from my spine on this graph. He'd put the two side by side and both of them at the same spot would jump wildly out as they got to the heat and inflammation of the injured part of my spine. I visited Bob probably 4-5 times per week and he'd always take these thermal scans.

Pain... that's all I could remember. It was like my mind was blank. I couldn’t remember anything, it was overwhelmed by all the pain for months and months. I can remember laying there staring at the ceiling and my brain was just screaming in pain the entire time... Yeah, I was in pain, and it's almost as if every single thing in my life that came before, had been wiped away, all I could remember was intense pain... pain and lots of tears. Some voluntary, but most of the tears were like breathing though. They just flowed on their own just due to the pain.

I’d nearly given up hope. I didn’t know who/what/where I was going to go to get help. There really wasn’t any out there. The never ending pain was so bad, that I remember wondering if death would be so bad - at least there would be no pain. I’d never hurt myself, but I remember thinking that if I died, at least it’d be peaceful. I didn’t know if I’d ever have that again in my life... the pain. God the pain... Then I remember laying there on the couch, and being almost in a daze. In the background I remember a Christian television station was on, and I can even remember who(m) it was speaking. I wasn't really paying attention though. Then... something happened that changed my life forever. When you're laying on a couch along the wall, you can't really see above (behind) your head or the arm of the couch. Imagine if all at once you felt a presence just above where you could see, that was so strong, so powerful, so... Every single sense in my body was heightened to the maximum level. I literally could have heard and might have even felt a pin drop! Yet I felt like I was paralyzed. I could not move a single muscle. I don't remember, but I honestly believe I could not even blink! I remember fighting, trying to move my fingers, my toes, anything... I felt as if I was being pressed down into the couch so uniformly that there was no way I could move anything. This unbelievable presence was just above my head, I had to look, had to see, but I couldn't move! I was scared, there was fear, but at the same time there was unbelievable peace and a feeling of............ words cannot explain what was going on. I knew that God... that Jesus Himself was standing at the head of my bed (couch) and I was frozen, but inside I could feel my heart, trembling, I felt fear from the sheer awesomeness of His presence, and what was going on...

I don't know how long it lasted. I don't know if it was five minutes, 10 minutes... time sort of stopped, and when it was all over my heart had to be beating a mile a minute! I was shaking with fear, but I wasn't scared... I knew what had happened, but I didn't know exactly what had happened.

The next day I grabbed my crutches, and fought my way to me feet and went to see my friend Bob Braille. Understand, when something like this happens to you - in this world it's very hard to tell anyone. No one wants to be laughed at, ridiculed, or made a joke of. But I had to tell Bob. When I got there, and he came into the examination room, I told him the entire story. I told him from start to finish. The smirk he wore as I told him was one of "Yeah okay Mike sure!" and now in retrospect I know how Bonnie must have felt those many years ago on the beach the first time she told me to go visit a chiropractor and I laughed at her... but I told him the story in great detail. He did his adjustments, sent someone in to measure the heat on my spine with his expensive thermo-doomahicky-thing-a-mabob. Then several minutes later the young lady came back and did the scan up one side of my spine, then the other again... a few minutes later she came back and did the scan up the left side, then the right again and left... then Dr. Bob came in and he laughed, apologized and said she was doing something wrong and he scanned up one side of my spine, and then the other. I laid there for what seemed like an eternity. Bob came back in to give me the latest reviews as he always did. And he sat down and said "Tell me the story again...". I told him everything and he laughed and said "You know Michael. I know you. If you'd have told me this after what I'm about to tell you I wouldn't have believed you" (then he laughed) "but you told me before, so there's no denying this..." He then hung up in front of the light board six strips of paper. Two were from several days before. Two were from the day before. Two were from moments before. He pointed out that on the graph from days before both went up and then a sharp heat rise where the damaged spine was. Then he pointed at the one from the day before and both went up and then a sharp heat rise where the damaged spine was. He then said "This is today’s. If you look..." (and he ran his pen up the graph) "...there is no change anywhere. It's perfectly straight. Just normal heat. I thought she was messing up so I had her come back and all of them look the same. This is the one I took and it was the same. We tested the machine, and it's working perfectly." Bob knew there was no earthly explanation for this other than the fact that I had received somehow, some way - a miracle. He had me sit (lay) there for a while and came back with some paperwork. He asked if I "would mind filling this out" and I said sure not knowing what it was. He informed me to write the story exactly as it had happened, and exactly as I'd explained it to him. When I was done he told me it was for "Living Miracle" and he'd like to send it off. I figured what the heck, send it. So a few weeks later he told me "Mike they never accept these the first time. They always want you to change the wording, or change the way it's written or change..." I spoke up and said well maybe they didn’t feel it was a miracle, but I know it was - and Bob spoke up and said "No they accepted your first try! I’ve never seen that happen before!"

After that time I still walked on crutches. I was still in great pain. I still awoke at night with tears streaming down my face. But I knew something had happened. I started to search the Bible and found things that were exactly what I had experienced. People spoke of being in the presence of God with "fear and trembling" and that is exactly what I had done. The Bible said "we walk by faith, not by sight" and after that first day the thermo-do-ma-hickey showed heat again where the injured spine was. So only that one day showed the "miracle" I couldn't move around without crutches, but I started believing some kind of miracle had happened, I knew it had, because I was there, something so powerful had happened that it was overwhelming - but what? It was time for me to "walk by faith not by sight".

The "but what" (happened) question was - a miracle. I started getting better exponentially (quicker and quicker). I was suddenly putting more and more pressure on my feet. Instead of putting a few ounces of pressure, I might have been putting a pound of pressure, then two, then a few.... Then a realization that I’m sure made me cry just because it was so overwhelming - I don't remember the day, or how, or when, but one day I realized "Hey I'm not in pain!" I wasn't burning from the waist down, and I didn't know how long I'd been like that... It’s like I had forgotten about the pain. It just wasn’t there anymore and I couldn’t remember when it quit, when I quit... hurting.

It was a long time before I was up and going strong. But somehow amazingly I felt strong enough again and I started racing motocross. Remember I said I started getting better quicker? It was the real deal - racing motocross... Months before I never thought I’d walk again and was almost praying to die because of the pain - Then amazingly, my first job back on my feet was working as a full time test rider for Sea Doo pounding their watercraft over and over for hours and hours in the river... to get the job I had to get a physical at a clinic in Wabasso and I had told Sea Doo about my spine, but that I'd started racing motocross again and it was stronger than ever, so they said "Okay!" But first I had to go take the physical, and after all the X-Rays the doctor (one of the funniest moments of my life) came RUNNING into the room with a horrified look on his face, in total fear screaming "OH MY GOD WERE YOU JUST IN A CAR CRASH? ARE YOU THE CRASH THAT JUST HAPPENED? DON'T MOVE!!! YOUR SPINE!!! OH MY GOD!!! YOUR SPINE IS DAMAGED DON'T MOVE!!! at which I just started laughing and told him that I was okay. That I knew about my spine and it had been like that for a while. That I raced motocross, and it was strong as could be... he was still in horror telling me to lay back, or sit in this chair... he could not comprehend that what he was seeing was an honest to goodness, living breathing miracle sitting right before him.

That doctor knew I had just been injured and was in critical condition. The last words he shared with me were "You know I can't recommend you for the job right?!!!" at which I smiled and said "That's okay!" I went back to Sea Doo (Bombardier) and told them what happened. One of their engineers raced motocross, and knew who I was. He'd seen me race and knew what I was capable of. They hired me on the spot to help me test their watercraft. As a matter of fact, I was so excited, because after they scolded me a few times for giving reports on the watercraft that were "too detailed" their factory race team came to test the watercraft(s) and said exactly what I had. So because of my motocross skills, I ended up testing some of their most secret high horsepower engines...

About the only negative thing that came from the entire event is that laying on my back for months and months. Then having to heal... during that period I started to put on weight. It's been an issue ever since - but if I had to choose between fighting my weight or possibly fighting the unbearable pain, and not being able to sleep, walk - for the rest of my life - I'll gladly choose the weight battle.

Why me... I've looked at heaven numerous times and wondered that both silently, and probably out loud. There are so many people paralyzed. There are so many people in wheel chairs, or injured badly... why did God share such an awesome miracle with me? I'm nobody, I'm the least of the least... I'm nobody famous that can be a phenomenal witness to what He's done for me, in front of millions of people. I'm not rich, and capable of sharing this world wide with info-mercials on what great things God can do...

I wasn't even expecting the miracle. Yet He shared it with me. A nobody...

It was "My Miracle. It was God's Miracle". I surely couldn't have done this myself - it took a power that was so strong, so great that it created the heavens and earth.

There is something much greater than the built in self preservation mechanism of "Fight or Flight" and that is the divine intervention of God. More people have been saved by calling on His name, yet we've gotten so use to just saying "Oh yeah, I'm a Christian" but not truly believing what He can do... that we allow all those potential miracles just slip away. Could God ever share a miracle like this with you? Absolutely. Will God ever share a miracle like this with you? My only response is that there is a scripture that says "He will never give you more than you can handle". So when I see someone in a very tough situation such as in a wheel chair, paralyzed or whatever it may be. I don't see someone to pity, I see someone that must be very-very strong because I personally couldn't handle that - and I believe Him when He says he will never give you more than you can handle. So for God to trust certain people with such awesome situations they must be very strong indeed. And He will use what was meant for evil, for good. So these people whether they know it or not will be a witness to other people.

That is my miracle. So the next time you look at me think to yourself "Who is Mike". And know that I’m someone special because God shared a life changing miracle with me. And think to yourself - that I’m not so special. I’m just Mike, a guy just like you... and if God is willing to do that for me - imagine what great things He is willing to do for you in your life?

[Mike]

By the way the point of this story wasn't really to preach to anyone, or imply anything other than the fact that "this is what happened to me", and this is my story...

The vision on the way to the track that day. The most vivid thing I'd ever seen. Although I was driving, it was like I was seeing two things at once as clearly as you can imagine (impossible I know).

Then when the miracle itself happened and I felt the presence of God just above my head - just out of my vision... it was undeniable. I knew exactly Who(m) it was, although I couldn't see anyone, and though I'd never felt that presence before.

Today is Christmas day... I guess it's as good a time as any to let my friends know one of the most important things that's ever happened to me - in my life.

Peace guys.
Mike