N. Texans Say Their Miracles Show Power Of Prayer

TEXAS (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―

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A man with severe hearing loss suddenly regains his hearing. A girl with a brain aneurysm beats a five-percent chance for survival. And, a man who witnessed his wife's death sees her come back to life. Are these medical miracles? Yes. But, according to those involved, the stories are also a testament to the power of prayer. 

One night three years ago, John Harrigill had a medical emergency. His wife of 22 years, Marie, died in her sleep. John remembers flipping the light on and noticing his wife had turned purple. Her labored breathing suddenly stopped. "I could see a vapor come out of her mouth and like leave her body. Immediately her whole body just turned ice cold and she was purple all around her lips. She was gone," he recalled. 

Josh Brown was one of the Bedford Fire Department paramedics who arrived at the Harrigill house that night. "She was dead, for sure," Brown remembers. Paramedics shocked Marie's heart three times. "We ended up getting a pulse back," said Brown. 

But Marie wasn't out of the woods; John Harrigill says the hospital would have to shock his wife's heart two more times. As a professing Christian, John was immediately filled with regret. He had gone to bed angry with his wife before she died. "She had told me before she went to bed that she had loved me. And, I didn't say nothing back. Didn't respond or anything," John remembered. "That moment back of saying I love you would've meant the world to me." 

Sitting in the back of the police car that drove him to the hospital, John said he prayed to have his wife back. "And instantly, the back of that police car filled with peace, like I've never experienced before," John said. 

But Marie still faced major obstacles. "Her hands was like drawn together like this and her toes were drawn together," John said motioning. Doctors told him a lack of oxygen may have damaged Marie's brain. But miraculously Marie came out of it just fine. "I think it's a miracle. I'm a walking miracle," she said. 

Marie doesn't remember the fight with her husband or her death. "That's really hard to comprehend. People just don't die and come back," she said. "But, I believe in the power of prayer, that it can happen." 

Prayer, Lindsey Campbell believes, saved her life at the age of six. That was when a blood vessel burst in her brain. "It was causing the chambers of my brain to split apart," Lindsey said. 

Doctors told Lindsey's mother, Gayla, that there was only a five-percent chance for survival or life in a vegetative state. "I told the Lord, my mom's gone and I can't stand the thought of her [Lindsey], you know, passing away. Please not to take her," Gayla remembered. 

Thinking that God would listen to the voice of children, Gayla set out on a mission. She gathered Lindsey's six-year-old twin brother and his three-year-old cousin and prayed with them. "I believe the Lord heard the children and all of the people. She [Lindsey] was on prayer chains from churches all over the United States," Gayla said. 

Lindsey is now 21-years-old and preparing to get married in July. "I would've died 15 years ago if the statistics... if it was all strictly science," said Lindsey. "So, that's why I know God's there. Because God can do everything." 

There was a time when Don Thayer had lost so much of his hearing that he drove everyone out of the room when he turned up the volume on the television and radio. "It was extremely frustrating. It made me feel like I wasn't a whole person," he said. 

But three years ago Thayer stopped wearing his hearing aids when he says God told him to take them out. "He audibly told me to take the hearing aids out of my ear and put them in my pocket," Thayer recalled. At the time, Thayer was attending a healing conference with visiting healing evangelist Bill Johnson. 

According to Thayer, his healing took place in about five or 10 minutes. He said it was like tuning in a radio. "I just said praise God, thank you for giving my hearing back. I cried like a baby." 

Now, Thayer prays for others at his place of worships -- Gateway Church in Southlake. 

Gateway Church has a prayer room. Bob Hamp is the Executive Pastor of Pastoral Care. Hamp says prayer is different for everyone. "That desire for relief, from a specific thing, causes our expectation and communication to be 'Do this God!' When he may be saying, 'I want to heal you. But this is the area of your life I'm working on first.'" Hamp said. 

John Harrigill agrees with Hamp and says the miracle that took place in his wife created a miracle in him too. He says he became a better husband. "I think a lot of husbands and wives can take each other for granted," John said, with tears in his eyes. "This year we celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary."