DAVID ROY’S TESTIMONY Who I am My name is David Roy Prestridge- now, the name David Roy is Hebrew for ‘Beloved King’. But I never really lived up to the full majesty 0f that name until I died to the flesh! A “fish” story I had always felt the pull of God on my life to preach His glorious Gospel, but I had allowed myself to be seduced by the flesh and the spirit of the world into becoming a licensed stationary engineer. As much as I loved being an engineer, I could never seem to make it work as a career! I would bounce from one job as an engineer to another. Like the Prophet Jonah fled to Tarshish ignoring the call of God to go to Nineveh and preach, so God has sent me to this last generation to preach, and I too had chosen to ignore God’s calling on my life and become an engineer instead of a Preacher! God doesn’t like to be ignored! When Jonah ignored God’s call to preach at Nineveh and fled to Tarshish, so did I ignore God’s call for me to preach to this last generation and became an engineer instead! When Jonah ignored God he was swallowed by a giant fish and taken to Nineveh, this is the story of my “fish”! Waking up Imagine if you will, going to bed, having some really vivid nightmares and not being able to wake up! No matter how “intense” the dream would get, I could not wake up! Then one evening I did wake up, and that’s when the real nightmare began! God had mercifully wiped all memory of the cycle accident and the 13 month coma from my mind, so for all I knew I was still in bed in my own room! I woke up alone, and in a strange room. But hold on- it gets even better! I quickly discovered that I couldn’t move. The only muscles I could move were my eyes, and I had double vision to top it off! But hold on- it gets even better! I lay facing the open door of the room I was in, and I could see into the lighted hallway outside. Occasionally I would see someone dressed in a smock, but when I attempted to get their attention by calling to them, I discovered I couldn’t talk yet either! But hold on- it gets even better! I became aware of a tracheotomy in my neck, with an oxygen tube running to it! Communicating So there I lay- paralyzed and unable to speak. How could I “tell” people I was awake? I explored the room I was in with my eyes. On the ceiling was a photo of my wife [she’s so pretty] and myself, right by my bed a food pump clicked and whirred as it pumped a milky-looking substance through a tube in my lower left side. Another tube ran from just by my belly button and connected to a drainage bag on the side of the bed. A woman dressed in a smock came in the room, turned the food pump off, disconnected the tube, and used an oversized medical syringe to funnel a cocktail of medicine in me. How could I tell her that I was awake? “Look at you” said the woman in the smock “have your eyes open and everything!” I started to make eye contact with the woman, then look at the photo of my wife on the ceiling. By about the third time I did this, she asked “Mr. Prestridge, are you awake? Can you understand me? Blink if you can.” I blinked. “And now would you like me to call your wife?” the woman asked. I blinked again. She hooked my tube back up to the food pump and started it clicking and whirring again. “I’ll do that right now!” the woman said as she left the room “Hands down, this is a miracle!” I wondered what she meant by that last statement about the miracle, but I was sure she wasn’t talking about me, because there was nothing miraculous about ME! Mystery solved After what seemed to be like an eternity [about an hour and a half] my wife Margie came in the room. “David?” She asked in a timid voice “Do you know me? Blink if you do.” I blinked. “How many kids do we have?” She asked. I blinked five times. [Once for each kid] “That’s right- five!” she said, wiping a tear from eye “I wasn’t sure that you would remember Jeffrey or not, seeing how he was born so close to your accident!” Accident, What accident? “Do you even remember your accident? Blink once for “yes” and twice for “no”.” I blinked twice. “Well, you were job hunting on that black motorcycle that you had just bought- you do remember buying it, right?” I blinked twice again. I remember test-driving a black motorcycle and really liking it, but that’s all I remembered about it! “Well, remember it or not” Margie said with a mischievous gleam in her eye “the thing is toast now! But I’m getting ahead of myself.” “You had just lost your job again as an engineer due to downsizing. Out of a crew of three engineers they only kept one. You had been job hunting and you called to tell me you were on your way home. Do you remember that horrendous cycle wreck your nephew had turning into Grannies house?” I blinked. The poor kid! Lost his foot! “That’s the same place where you had your accident. My guess is you were stopping to show off your new bike to your big brother, Dale. You had pulled off the shoulder on the opposite side of the highway from your Grannies drive, and when you crossed the highway you were hit by a truck. You were knocked over 150 feet, resulting in a crushed cheek, your right arm being broke in 3 places, and your collar bone being broken. See?” She asked taking the fingers of my right hand and placing them on a suspicious lump on my left collar bone. “And as for your new black motorcycle, it landed in the ditch where it caught on fire! [See? I told you it was toast!].” “But as bad as all that was, it gets worse! Are you sure you want me to finish?” She teased. I blinked! “Well, your brain smashed against the inside of your skull putting you in a 13 month coma. You were out for over a year, sweetheart!” Demonic depression As I allowed this last bit of information sink in, the deepest depression sank in, too! “They had you flown from the wreck by helicopter to the Intensive Care Unit of St. John hospital where you spent the next 12 days trying to get you stable enough for a room.” “They ran into a major snare trying to feed you. It seemed you had reflux and you would vomit and aspirate every time your stomach got full! They tried raising the head of your bed 45 degrees- no luck; they tried putting it in at a lower rate with the same results; vomiting!” “You were wasting away before their eyes ! You came in at 230, you dropped down to 165; and all those doctors figured out that they just couldn’t feed you through your stomach so they tried installing another feeding tube in your small intestine- just below your stomach.” “To the doctor’s delight that tube worked- but it leaked a little, so they ran your new feeding tube through a Stoma bag, and decided that you were stable enough to go in the regular hospital, where you stayed for the next 8 months, and from there it was to here a nursing home in Collinsville.” I was still trying to wrap my brain around a 13 month coma. Was that even possible? “It’s getting late.” She bent over and kissed my head “I’ll bring the kids by to see you tomorrow.” She turned around and smiled at me before she turned the light off and left the room. “It is so good to have you back!’’ Then she turned the light off and left me alone to brood in the dark. Rehab! Because I didn’t die, they made arrangements to transfer me to a rehab clinic, where I lived in-house for a full month. I had made some marvelous progress [although I couldn’t see it at the time] when I first arrived, I couldn’t move at all, now thanks to some very painful, very intense therapy sessions, I could now move my head up-and-down, and from side-to-side too! My right arm and leg also responded [somewhat], I could move them as well as my head, but both of my feet were so drawn back, I could point with my toes. My right hand was drawn up as well. I only had control over my thumb, index finger, and pinky finger. But as for the left half of my body, it was as if someone drew a line dividing my body in half. I had no response or control in my left arm or in my left leg. Motorized wheelchair A pump was implanted in me to pump some medicine into my spine to take away the rigidness in my body, so I sit in a wheelchair with less pain, and because I could manipulate a joystick with my right hand, I was turned loose with a power chair! Speech and my first computer You know, you just don’t realize how much speech is used or just how much you use it until you lose it! Since I thought I couldn’t speak, my speech therapist fitted my wheelchair with a modified laptop computer with some speech software made to speak for me. Miracle man At the end of the month, I listened to the lies of Satan [that old snake] and thought that this would be as good as I would ever get. I could not see how far I was, all I could do is lament over what I had lost. That’s what the Devil (that old snake) wants is for us to have ourselves one big pity party! A reporter from the local paper had come when he had heard about my story; how I had awoke from a 13 month coma and how I had been not able to move at all when I first arrived, but now I could not only move my head, but I could also manipulate a joystick well enough with my right hand to drive a power chair! I could type with the index finger of my right hand on a lap-top computer with a speech program and have it talk for me. The reporter called me “the miracle man” in his article, but I didn’t feel miraculous! I felt angry and abandoned by God! Back to the nursing home When I arrived back to the nursing home in Collinsville, all the workers were impressed by how well I had done in re-hab. But all the joy I should have felt was swallowed up in depression! Over the next few days, my depression had gotten worse. I could only see where I would be a burden on others, especially on my family! Satan [that old snake] had me convinced that my family would be a lot better off without me around! Steal, kill, and destroy Satan [that old snake] is known to be a thief and a robber! Just what did he steal from me? Was it Silver? Was it Gold? It was something of much more value. He had stolen all the joy of life from me. The Devil was whispering the lie that I had already been through re-hab so this was as good as I would ever get. I pictured myself as a burden to others, especially to my family. Attempted suicide One evening, I had made the grim decision to kill myself! I felt the Tracheotomy with my right hand and I wrapped my index finger around it, and began to P-U-L-L! [If I couldn’t breathe, then I couldn’t live either, right?] It hurt like you would not believe, but I KEPT PULLING!! I pulled it out because I was very angry and also very frustrated! At last! The Trach was out of my neck! What was the problem? I could still breathe! Now what do I do? As if on cue a housekeeper knocked on the door and came in the room and turned the light on. It would have been startling enough to turn the lights on and find a person at their best sitting there, but what she found was me. Not only did I look guilty, but I had a gaping hole in my neck and also had a bloody Trach hissing Oxygen in my right hand. She left the room and returned with the nurse and a few orderlies. After laying me in the bed, they tied my right hand to the rail on the side of my bed, and then the nurse put the Trach back in my neck. [It went back in easier than it came out!] The nurse and the orderlies had left. When the housekeeper had finished with her sweeping and mopping she turned the light off and left the room as well, leaving me alone in a dark room with my only mobile arm tied down to the bed. She left me to brood about my failed suicide. The visit “But Jesus cried out with a loud voice and breathed His last. And the temple curtain was torn in two, from top to bottom.” (Mk. 15: 37-38/nb) We know this passage means that through the Holy blood that was shed by Jesus on the cross man can approach God, but a torn curtain is a torn curtain; meaning that God can also approach us through the blood of Christ! As I was saying, I was laying in bed, my right arm, the only arm I could move, was tied to the bed rail so all I could do was lay there and feel sorry for myself. All of the sudden, I became aware of another presence in the room with me! “Why did you try and kill yourself? If you had died in that wreck- or died tonight you would be held in Hell until Judgment Day, where you would have been condemned a hypocrite and perished in the lake of fire!” It was God! I suddenly became aware of how HOLY He is and how SINFUL AND SELF-CENTERED I was and I felt so ashamed! “I made you to be a Preacher not an engineer, and you knew it. Why did you stop running your race to become a Preacher, when I meant for you to use being an engineer as a stepping stone to your goal?” All I could do was repent before my God! From that moment on, I knew I was called to preach, but how could I preach when I couldn’t even talk [yet]? Crucified with Christ “I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.” [Gal. 2:20/NB] The computer I asked Margie for some Bible software I could load on the lap-top computer I was to talk with. I went on the internet and I felt the Holy Spirit say “This is where I am sending you to preach.” I set up a site [EAGLE ministries] that I could post the sermons I write on and thanks to the World Wide Web and E-mail, and most of all BY THE GRACE OF GOD, I preach in Africa, in Pakistan, and in India all from my home in the U.S.A! My voice Once I was home, we never could use the computer to communicate with. Then my wife Margie made a glorious observation that shook my world! She could hear me make noise when I coughed, so she encouraged me to practice making that sound and learn how to talk with it! That worked! [For the most part] I was hard to understand and my voice sounded rough, but praise God; I was speaking without a computer! New beginning Do you remember Jeffrey, my youngest son? The one that was just a baby when I had my cycle wreck? Well, he is in his freshman year of high school and here I am still in a wheel chair and still typing with 1 finger. New word A young lady sent me an encouraging testimony about how God had miraculously stopped her from going blind, and how He healed her bad eyes, the very next day I was watching a T.V. Preacher named Andrew Womack, and he was teaching that God had already healed us, but it is up to us to receive it by faith! The Holy Spirit had me to pay close attention to him! Where I am at now is only temporary! Jesus has already taken the stripes for me to walk again! I am no longer a quadriplegic waiting for my healing; I am now a healed quadriplegic waiting to walk! God bless, David Roy; an Internet Preacher
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 23:17:07 +0000
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