Daniel @daniel@campduffel.social

3 weeks ago, i felt a strong prompting to go spend time with my family. I did, and events led to me and my father sitting and talking alone for about an hour and a half. As it was happening, I had a very strong sense that this moment was very precious, so I tried to pay attention.

As i was driving home I was trying to make sense of what I had experienced. I wasn't quite sure what it meant, but it felt like things were about to change. One week later, all of his systems just suddenly started shutting down. Heart, liver, kidneys, brain, everything.
They rushed him to the hospital, but by all appearances he was gone. They couldn't figure out why his systems were shutting down.

I realized how precious that time had been. I entrusted the outcome to God, and began thinking about how I could support my family.
But a few nights later, there was a very dark, heavy weight in the air. It was a crushing weight of death and sadness. It pissed me off.
So I pushed back on it, and started praying. At that moment, a random song from Youtube suddenly started playing on my computer. It was a Celtic Hymn. I listened to that hymn on repeat for the entire night. Didn't sleep, and I kept praying. By the time the morning came, things felt different. I felt a very real possibility that my Dad might survive.

I learned later that many people who knew him had experienced something similar. A pretty large group of them even met up one night just to pray for him. They next day, his condition changed. If you knew him, and the impact he has had on many peoples lives, you would understand why so many people would meet together like that.

I spend two nights with him in the hospital. These were very weird nights. He was not really there. He would fall asleep for 30 minutes, then wake up and start physically trying to push something off of him. He didn't even know who I was. At one point he took a swing at me. But it wasn't me he was fighting. He was fighting something else. He was fighting whatever that darkness was that I felt that night. He was fighting for life.

After those nights, I started asking God directly, to bring him home by Christmas. This was, of course. impossible. According to the doctors, there was still a chance he wouldn't make it. I didn't care. I was asking, and I meant it.

Tonight, my Dad came home, and tomorrow is Christmas Eve.
So listen up... I don't know why some make it, and some don't. All I can tell you is this.... Fight. Believe. Believe in the Goodness of God, and His willingness to hear you. And don't stop. Do not be intimidated by mountains. Or as Neo would say, "There is no spoon." Risk believing, and you may see a miracle.

Ive seen this 3 years in a row but I swear it never gets old