Eddie’s Gift from God
This is my testimony but I call it my gift from God.
I was saved at the age of 9. I knew God was working in my heart. It was on Sunday morning and Brother Carlton had just finished the sermon. We started singing the invitation and I thought my heart was going to jump out of my chest. I couldn’t stand still! So I stepped out and started going to the front to talk with Brother Carlton. I wanted to be saved! After church when we got home I was playing outside with our cousins and I wanted to tell everyone that I was saved at church today. It was very real to me.
I knew I had been saved.
Through the years God has blessed me and answered many prayers. The marvelous blessing I am going to tell you about was given to me on September 15, 2005.
I had been feeling tired and run down physically for about two weeks. I didn’t have any specific pains or symptoms of heart trouble during that time. On the 14th I went to see my Doctor for him to check me out and to see if he could determine what was making me feel so tired. He checked me physically by listening to my heart and my breathing, but he couldn’t find any problem. Afterwards, I went back to work and finished the day.
That evening at home I just sat in my chair resting and later went to bed. We had greyhounds at that time and one of them would not leave my side. She followed me everywhere that night. Lili and I talked about how the greyhound was acting that night. We think she was trying to tell us I was having a heart attack.
The following morning as I was getting ready for work I told Lili my wife, staying at work all day might be too much. Later that morning I called Lili to tell her I was going to eat lunch and then decide if I needed to come home or not. After lunch I was still feeling tired and decided to go home and lay down. About 1:00 o’clock, I went to tell my boss I was going home and rest. When I exited the building one of the younger men approached me as he was coming from another building across the parking lot and we greeted each other. Several days later he would tell me that I bent over and placed my hands on my knees and then fell forward face first on the pavement. He immediately ran inside to get help and call the paramedics. Men came along to start CPR and other people came outside to help, but they couldn’t get any response and I had already turned gray by that time. Two of the men who worked in the building started praying for me, the first one kneeling over me and the other one went back to his office and knelt beside his desk.
God was already performing miracles.
The paramedics came and continued CPR. To get my heart beating again they used the defibrillator to shock my heart. They put me in the ambulance to transport me to Oak Ridge Hospital which was approximately 8 miles away. My bosses called Lili at our home in Lenoir City telling her I had suffered a heart attack and that the paramedics were taking me to Oak Ridge Hospital. She called my brother to take her to the hospital. When they arrived there the emergency room personnel said they didn’t have any one there by my name. The reason being the paramedics had had to stop the ambulance three times to restart my heart which ended up taking more time getting me to the hospital emergency room.
They got me to the emergency room a few minutes after my wife and brother arrived. A Doctor started examining me to determine what had happened. When he finished his exam and the heart cath he told my wife that I had suffered a major heart attack and that I had six blockages all of them 90 to 100%. He didn’t give me any chance of recovering he also told her they didn’t have a heart surgeon to perform the surgery. The Doctor said the hospital would place a call for any heart surgeon that was in the area to answer the call.
Doctor Maggart answered the call. He said he was traveling from Harriman Hospital back to his office in Knoxville and was in Oak Ridge at that very moment. He said for them to get me ready for surgery and that he was pulling into the parking lot. Doctor Maggart examined me and then went to tell my wife in the waiting room what he was going to do. He told Lili I was in serious condition and that he didn’t know if he could do any good. ‘He is in the Lord’s hands.’ He said.
He went on to tell her that the operation would take him about six hours and that if he came out sooner – I just didn’t make it. He started the operation and finished in approximately three hours. Then he went in to talk with Lili and seeing him so early, she thought I was dead. Doctor Maggart said ‘He’s a pretty tough old bird he made it through the surgery.’
God performed miracle after miracle that day.
The first was where I fell. It was near the building where I worked and people used that entrance often. The second was the young man that was there saw me fall and then went to get help. The third was the two coworkers praying for me. The fourth was the paramedics stopping three times to restart my heart on the way to the hospital. The fifth was Doctor Maggart traveling through Oak Ridge at that exact time to answer the call. The sixth was Doctor Maggart performing the operation and putting me in the hands of the Lord. The seventh was him finishing the operation in 3 hours.
God was there all the time and in every situation, I am so blessed.
I want to go back to when the heart attack happened. When I walked out of the building I was looking around thinking what a beautiful day it was. The sky was so blue and without a cloud to be seen. The temperature was perfect at about 70 degrees.
Then all of a sudden I was standing in the dark. I was in an extremely dark place and I was standing on something as smooth as glass. When I walked out of the building I had shoes on but here I was standing without my shoes and I was feeling the smooth surface on my bare feet.
Then I thought, ‘I just died.’
You mean this is death? No pain and I was still alive? The darkness was so black I think you could have cut it with a knife but there was absolutely no fear. My thoughts turned to my wife and son, what will they do without me?
‘I’m dead.’
In a split second I thought about that song that Ivan Parker sang – It’s True! The song is about everything we’ve ever heard about Heaven being true. All of this happened in fractions of seconds and then the power of God’s love just flowed through me and it was all I could think about. I felt that I was home, I had no fear, I was in perfect comfort and with the mighty power of God’s love. It was truly amazing. I was alive and feeling so marvelous being there. I could have stayed there forever.
I was where I was supposed to be, engulfed in God’s love.
Just thinking about it now still amazes me. We have something really special to look forward to when we get there. I felt I could reach out with my mind – my senses were magnified – greater, I don’t know how to explain what I felt. I just knew that this was where I was supposed to be.
It was like the feeling when you were a child and had spent a week away from home and your parents. When you came back after that week you walked in the door and you felt love, peace, comfort, and safety. There was no fear. You had arrived home and it was wonderful. That’s what I felt. I wish I had the words to explain exactly how I felt.
The love was truly amazing.
The feeling on my feet of the smooth surface, I believe I was standing on the street of gold, Revelation 21:21 the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent glass. Wow! Just think I was there! It still gives me the most wonderful feeling to know that God allowed me to experience something so amazing and it’s there for all of us if we are saved and have accepted Jesus as Lord and Savior.
Amen. Praise God.
When I came back or left where I was standing, it felt like someone had laid a warm blanket over my body and then I wasn’t there anymore. When I woke up it seemed like I was in a fog, I think it was the anesthesia wearing off and I was beginning to awaken. The heart attack happened on Thursday but I didn’t really feel really awake until Saturday. Up until then everything was just like I was in a fog.
There was a reason God brought me back.
My wife Lili wanted to be the first one to go to heaven. She was so afraid I would go first and leave her here, because she often asked the question. Who would take care of her? God allowed me and gave me the strength to care for her several years up until God took her home to heaven. I know she prayed many times for God to take her home first.
I was at her side the morning God took her home. I told her that ‘Ben (our son) and I would be OK. That everything would be OK, you can go now. Go on and be with Jesus.’ She took two breaths and was gone home. I know where she went and where she is today, I am comforted knowing that she is with her Savior and Lord.
My prayer is for God to use my testimony to help someone to realize they need to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Praise God for His amazing Love and Care
God bless everyone!
Eddie Williams
Editor’s Question: Since taking care of Lili was the reason God brought you back, then He set it up so that the heart attack would not ‘kill’ you. Why do you think he took you ‘there’ in the first place? I’m sure you have considered that. Would you like to share your thoughts?
Eddie’s response: To begin with the heart attack did indeed kill me the doctor’s report confirmed that it was an acute ST myocardial infarction (STEMI) in medical terms.
The first question is something I can’t explain. All I know is that I was completely in God’s hands. I don’t know why I had a heart attack that day I just wanted to complete the day and go home that evening just as I had done every other day. But God had different plans, just as we can’t explain things happening to us or Him answering our prayers in His own time. I know I learned that day that we think we control everything about our lives, but God has other plans for us. He tells us ‘Do not worry about what we will eat or how we will be clothed because He feeds the Sparrows and supplies all their needs.’
We can’t explain why some people suffer cancer, dementia, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, or heart problems. Only God knows. I didn’t have any idea that day that I was going to suffer a heart attack and die before I could get home. God could have decided not to send me back and I could be in heaven now.
The place where I was standing, I could have stayed at forever. It was that peaceful and magnificent. It was heaven. I was with my Savior and I know He was with me. I think God didn’t want me to see anything just as He didn’t want Moses seeing His front side, He held His hands over Moses eyes until He passed and Moses saw only God’s backside. We can’t explain that. All of us have a definite day and minute when we will die, God has our death date written down. I guess that it wasn’t my time to stay in heaven or like Lili told me my house just wasn’t ready yet. Only God knows. I will leave it at that, but one day I will know. I’ll be able to see why I couldn’t see, hear, what I was standing on without any fear, silence, and the magnificent powerful love of God.
One day I was in one of my doctor’s offices talking with the nurse, we had talked about my heart attack and about me going to heaven some years previous. She told me that she had also had a heart attack and she had had the same experiences I had. Since then she has had another heart attack, but she didn’t recover this time.
I know she is in heaven now.
I only know what the Bible tells us about the Valley of the Shadow of Death in Job and Psalms. I know I was there and other people have experienced the same things.
All I know is that God loves us more than we could ever know on this side of heaven. We couldn’t experience that magnitude of love here on earth and live. Our hearts would burst! Our bodies just couldn’t bear the power of such love.
I tell you God’s love is so amazing, so marvelous, so pure, so peaceful, so powerful, so magnificent and so piercing of every part of our body, it’s just so wonderful, with words I can’t explain. We truly have something to look forward to when we get to heaven. He really loves us!
God bless everyone who reads this humble attempt to explain my trip to heaven . . . my gift from God.
My prayer is that as you read this attempt to explain my blessing from God you will examine your own heart and soul. Examine it so that you will know beyond a shadow of doubt that you are ‘Saved’. Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior? Do you know that you will go to heaven when you die? It could be in the next instant like me. On that crisp and clear September morning I had no idea that the very next second I would be dead.
Confess to Jesus that you are a sinner and ask Him to come into your heart and ‘Save’ you. Please accept Him today!
Thank you.
Eddie Williams