Rescue Story

With the hospital maintaining a strict no-visitor policy due to a government lockdown aimed at containing spread of the virus, Michael called his wife, Heidi, and two daughters from his ICU bed, explaining the turn of events and telling them a tearful goodbye in case he never saw them again.

He was then sedated into a medically induced coma and placed on a ventilator to sustain his breathing.

“I remember thinking that I was going to either wake up one day in the hospital or in heaven,” Michael said. “My last thought was that I just wanted to see my daughter graduate from high school that year.”

Eight days later Michael awoke with his life still hanging in the balance. Doctors alerted Michael’s wife that, if his health didn’t improve, they would have to take him off the ventilator on his 12th day in ICU. Based on his weakened state, they expected he then would die.

But, as Michael battled COVID while isolated from loved ones, God used a steadying source of encouragement to remind him that he wasn’t alone and to inspire him to keep fighting.

“As I lay in the hospital for the next week I was too weak to do anything, but I was able to listen to Moody Radio on my phone app,” he said. “I’ve always been a Moody Radio listener. Thankfully God did a miracle in my life.”

Listening to a mix of music, preaching, teaching, and talk programming on Moody Radio fueled Michael with the spiritual and emotional strength he desperately needed throughout the day, along with regular video calls with his family. Unable to speak due to a breathing tube, Michael would sign “I love you” to his wife and girls when signing off.

Michael’s condition started turning a corner, and he was taken off his ventilator on his mother’s birthday a week earlier than doctors foresaw. After his dangerous bout of pneumonia subsided along with a debilitating fever, the hospital released Michael a few days later to joyously reunite with his family.

The following March, when Spring Share, Moody Radio’s biannual campaign to raise funds in support of its commercial-free, non-profit ministry, hit the airwaves, Michael couldn’t wait to participate. He was deeply grateful for the crucial role Moody’s radio ministry played in his startling recovery.

“When Share occurred right around my one-year anniversary of coming off the ventilator, I wanted to show God thanks by doing a large matching gift,” he said. “I’ve done it every Share since that time. The only reason I feel I am alive is so God could be glorified by my return to health and to show the many people that were praying for me that God answers prayer.”