The Miracle of Sarah Lyn By Frieda Yang 16 th September 2002 On Monday, 26 th of August 2002, at about 3:45 PM, I was about to finish teaching Andrew (Lyn) violin in the living room. My three-year-old daughter Madeline came to me and said, "Sarah's got a string." Madeline often came to interrupt my violin teaching. Often I just ask her to wait until I finish teaching, then I would attend to her needs. So as usual, I thought she just wanted me to be with her as she played with Sarah, Andrew's four-year-old sister, who often came to my house and played with Madeline while Andrew had his violin lessons. Without understanding what Madeline was trying to say, I just turned to her and said, "O. K. Just a minute, I am almost finished." Only moments before, Sarah and Madeline were running from the front of the living room to the back of our house. I had thought about their safety and closed the front gate. I thought they were just playing in the back somewhere. Since Nancy, Andrew's mother, had not arrived to pick up Andrew, I proceeded to tell him to play his competition piece one more time because he was performing it that weekend. Madeline saw that I didn't stop teaching, and went back to the back of the house by herself. My maid was taking care of my four-month-old baby in her room at the time. My two older children were upstairs. My husband Richard was also upstairs. About two minutes had passed while I tried to perfect Andrew's short piece of "Andantino". Madeline came in again and said in a persistent voice, "Mom, come. Sarah's got a string. Come." This time she held my hand andpulled me. By now, although I had not quite finished with Andrew (even though it was way past his lesson hour), because I didn't hear any sound from the back, I was a little curious and wondered what Madeline meant by"Sarah's got a string". I decided to follow her. With my violin still tucked under my arm, I followed Madeline toward the laundry area behind the garage, an area out of sight from my maid's room and the rest of the house. As I stepped out and into the cloth-line area, an unbelievable, horrible sight caught my eyes: Sarah was hung on the clothes-line in the hot sun ? Apparently there was an extra section of the strong nylon cloth-line string hanging loose, with a loop at the end of it. The loop was around her neck tightly, her feet off the ground by about one and a half feet; her whole body was completely limp and lifeless, and hung like a doll. The red plastic stool that my maid used for placing the basket of wet clothes was knocked down not too far from her. "Sarah!" I cried out, couldn't believe how this could have happened, for my daughter and Sarah always either played with whatever toys we had in the house, bicycled outside the house, or simply ran around the house chasing each other. Why would they play with the clothe-line string? I threw my violin on the hot cement, released her head from the string, and lay her lifeless body on the grass. Her hands were already cold, and the body turned blue and black from lack of oxygen. There were many dark red spots all over her forehead and eye lids. I could not sense any heart beat or pulse, and she was not breathing. Lifting her eyelids, I saw that her eyes were fixed and completely not responding to the bright sunlight. I did not want to believe that she had died, and did not want to accept the truth that she was not living, I cried out to the Lord in a loud voice right away, "Lord, save her! Lord, let Sarah live! Lord, Lord, please don't let her die!" "Oxygen, oxygen!" all I could think of was how to get her to breathe again. Only a week or so before, I had seen someone perform CPR on a drowning victim at a swimming pool. Never had learned it before, I just imitated the motions that I had seen: blow air into her mouth, and press a few times right below her rib. I would blow air, and cried out to the Lord in a loud voice, "Lord! Save Sarah!" while I pressed her belly two or three times (Only later, I learned that the proper way is to hold the nose, blow air once into the mouth, and press the chest - not the belly, five times.) By this time Andrew had stepped out. He froze in disbelieve at the scene. Didn't want him to see that Sarah was not breathing, I continued hovering over Sarah and using my back blocking Sarah from Andrew's full view. I quickly told him to call "Uncle Richard" upstairs. Sarah was still not breathing. I was getting very anxious with each second passing by, "If CPR could not revive her, only the Lord can." This thought made me fully aware that for Sarah to come back to life, the power was in His hands. So as I continued the "CPR", I begged and cried out loudly to God to revive her. If Sarah was to live again, the life was to come directly from above, from the almighty God. After about ten to fifteen times of blowing air in her, she started to gasp for breath very, very slowly. By now Richard had come. He saw what I was doing, and quickly took over and blew more air into her forcibly. The air went in more deeply this time and her chest visibly bulged up. She started to breathe more regularly, and started to moan. Seeing that she was breathing on her own, Richard got up and tried to find out from Andrew if he had reached his Dad by phone. I continued crying loudly to the Lord and continued blow air into her. Richard thought I was getting hysterical, said, "Don't scream, she is breathing! She'll be fine." However, I was not hysterical. I was merely act out what I learned from Bill Gothard's teaching according to the Bible, "The Power of Crying Out", that in a situation like this, our only hope was crying out loudly to the Lord. I knew that the breathing was only a very small part of life. "Sarah! Sarah!" I continued to call Sarah's name to see if she would respond. "Bring me ice!" I told my oldest son Thomas. We put the ice in a towel on her forehead, thinking that the coolness might wake her up. As the ice touched her, I saw a tiny stir in her that indicated perhaps she felt something, but nothing more. Though not a medical professional myself, I could see that there were more signs of death than life in her. My heart hung just as heavy as I first saw her. By now, Sarah's father, Dr. Philip Lyn ? who is also our pastor, had arrived. I was a little bit relieved. Being a professional Dr. Philip seemed to be trying his best at staying calm outwardly. He threw the little medical box open on the grass while trying to find her pulse. However, after fumbling through the box without taking anything out, he shouted to the nurse who came with him, "Give me the stereoscope!" And as he grabbed the stereoscope, I saw that his hands were shaking. "Let's go to the medical center." Richard drove Dr. Philip's car with him holding Sarah on his lap in the back seat. On the way to the hospital, Dr. Philip cursed the spirit of death and prayed against the spiritual attack. Pastor Philip was the main organizer for a major prayer conference of K. K. churches for revival that happened on August 28(superscript: th). In the conference, one of the video tapes was on an African pastor who came back to life after been dead for three days in a mortuary. His coffin was brought into the basement of a huge healing prayer conference and life came back to him! It was obvious to Pastor Philip that since Sarah is the weakest member of his family Satan chose to attack her prior to this prayer conference! As soon as they left, I went to telephone a couple of friends in church to pray for Sarah and to call others to pray for her. By now Nancy had arrived. The moment Andrew saw his mother he broke down. Upon hearing the awful news that Sarah was on the way to hospital, Nancy quickly drove to the hospital. On the way, she not only did not question God "Why did this happen?" but just simply surrender Sarah's life to the Lord. "No matter what happens, I still trust the Lord." She told us this latter. "Why on earth would Sarah play with the string?" I couldn't get this question out of my mind, so I asked my daughter Madeline, "Why did Sarah play with the string?" She replied, "She wanted to fly." I quickly said to her, "People can not fly. People don't have wings. Only birds can fly. When you see Superman flying in books, it is not real." Madeline continued, "Sarah said she wanted to fly. Sarah got on the chair (the stool), and put the string on her head, and then the chair fell down. She then cried. But then she didn't cry. So I came to tell you." How the devil put a deadly idea into a little four-year-old child and deceived her! This was a spiritual attack in the worse form. Knowing that something is terribly wrong with Sarah, Madeline said, "Can Sarah walk?" "No. Not yet. But let's pray for her." I then prayed with her and my boys for Sarah's complete recovery. Later, outside the Sabah Medical Center (SMC) emergency room, I saw that, with all respect to the doctors, all they could do was to give Sarah oxygen and "I. V." drips. "Cat" scan could not reveal whether she had brain damage in the area of memory. Even with the best medical equipment, the medical professionals' knowledge was not even close to the first step in getting the brain signals connected to the body. I realized more than ever the immense magnitude of our Life Giver - God's greatness. Along with several other Christians friends, I prayed the following prayer with all my heart, "Lord, I don't care what would be the chances of complete recovery medically speaking (knowing that it could be more than three or four minutes before she regained her breath), if You could revive a dead person after three days in the Bible, You could do it for Sarah, for it was only minutes that she had lost breathing. Lord, we are calling on Your name, which is greater than all other names. Save her for Your name's sake. The Bible says that we could call on Your name and that You would answer us. So, do it for Your name's sake. Don't let Your name be smeared." Later that evening, I returned home vowing that I would not eat until Sarah is all better, knowing that we had the hope of the power of prayer and that the spiritual battle is not yet over. When the church organized the prayer chain that night, my turn was to be at 4:10 AM. I woke up at around 3:45 AM and got up and prayed until 4:30. At that time, I knew things were alright. At 8:30 AM, we gathered all our children and went to the hospital. There were quite a number of friends and pastors gathered outside the room. Pastor Philip greeted me with his arm around my shoulder and said, "Sarah broke out of it at about 3:45 AM this morning. She sang three songs ? one of which was "Jesus Loves Me", and she talked to us until about 4:30 and went back to sleep!" Upon hearing the good news I couldn't help but burst out aloud "Praise the Lord!" with joyful tears in my eye. Pastor Philip then told me that at around 3:30, he was so tired that he went to sleep for only fifteen minutes. Before he went to sleep, he was concerned that Sarah may be well in all other faculties except sight. Because he had held a watch in front of her eyes but she did not seem to see. Only when he made the noise of the watch would Sarah turn her head in the direction of the watch. Also before she kissed the parents she would feel their faces with hands first. Then, in his short sleep, he dreamt that Sarah was holding up two hands and counting finger by finger from one to eleven. When he awoke fifteen minutes later, Sarah did exactly that, counting with fingers, counting to eleven! When Pastor Philip asked the Lord, "Why are you so merciful?" the reply was, "Because I love you." That morning, another pastor, Pastor Arthur, sensing the darkness broke off as he prayed at 3:45 drove to the hospital to tell Pastor Philip that God has "turned a curse into blessing, because I (God) love you (the church.)" (Deut. 23:5) What a timely confirmation! It was August 27th, Sarah's fourth birthday. What a new life that the Lord has blessed her with! We all celebrated for the Lord and for Sarah that morning, seeing that Sarah, still in her pajamas, totally well and opening all her birthday presents. The mark of the nylon rope was still on her neck. I learned later that people all over were praying for her: Many pastors and churches in K. K., in Singapore, in Kuala Lumpur, in Australia, and even in New Zealand. (The age of fast e-mail communication really increased the power of prayer even more.) I wanted to share several things that I learned through this incident: firstly, interceding constantly for loved ones and for the church (I Thes.5:17). Do not let down our spiritual guard. Since my fourth child's birth my prayer time had not been regular. And I neglected to be sensitive to spiritual things. Days before it happened, I had a disturbing thought, "what if one of my children was dead?" Immediately I thought, "How could Ihave such a horrible thought?" I tried to push it away. The thought came back, "How would you feel if one of them died?" This time the thought was accompanied by a vision of a little girl, like my daughter Madeline, butthe face was not clear, who lay dieing on the grassy ground. I rejected the image and to continue think any further. It was like stopping a video in my mind suddenly. Though I rejected the thought, however, I was too embarrassed to share this with my husband, and I did not pray against it. Fellow Christians, if you ever receive any negative thoughts like this one, get together with a loved-one and pray against it. By praying against it, God would break the curse of the devil and thwart his plan. Our weapon to the devil is prayer, and pray according to the Word of God (Eph 6:10-18, especially verse 17-18). I was reminded that several years ago a church member named Esther received a disturbing dream. In the dream, she saw a lady drowned in a white car falling into water. Together with her husband Andrew Lau, they prayed against the accident and for the safety of the lady. That evening, at almost midnight, as they went home from the Cell group (Bible study), the exact scene in her dream appeared in real life before their eyes: a white car had a terrible accident and fell into the big open drain next to the highway, except that the young lady, a daughter of a church member Ong Hock Siew, got out of the smashed car with almost no injury! My husband Richard had also witnessed the accident scene that night. This was a clear example of the victory of the power of interceding for the saints. Secondly, as a parent, do try to understand your children, especially the young ones who have not yet learned how to communicate well, before dismissing them. If not, serious consequences could follow. Take time and listen to them. I now coach my three-year old that if she sees something wrong but doesn't know how to tell, to say the following, "Mom, come, something wrong." Most importantly, in a situation where no other help can be obtained, crying out loud to God works! I encourage you all to buy Bill Gothard's new book on "Crying Out Loud". It will equip you with a tool useful for life. Lastly, cleansing the unclean spirit by prayer is essential and crucial for peace after spiritual encounter with the darkness. Immediately after the incident, several Christian friends came and prayed at the accident site, for the house, and for us. But the devil continued to attack us by causing illness and fear. For several days, Madeline would make terrible noises and kick violently during her sleep. My baby would also wake up in sudden loud cry as though something terrible was disturbing him. One after another, fever was upon myself as well as the two younger children. Then on Friday, our Cell group came and prayed for the cleansing of the house, and anointed all the entry points (the windows and the doors) to the house with oil. We dedicated the house to the Lord, and prayed specifically for Madeline. She is now fine. No more terrible dreams. And we could sense the spirit of death had finally left us. We have peaceful sleep again. To God be the glory! Exactly seven days later, during my quiet time, the Lord gave me Psalm 91 to encourage me, "Because you have made the Lord?your dwelling place, no evil shall befall you?for He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways." (Psalm 91:9-11) I am lead by the Lord to share this experience with others. Any testimony of God's goodness is not for our experience only, but is to be shared to glorify His name. Friends, feel free to pass on this story to others to encourage all to come to God, for He shall give you not only more abundant life on earth, but more importantly, eternal life in heaven. If spiritual things are real, then hell and heaven are real. Have you ever considered, "Where would I go after this life?" Frieda Yang SIB Skyline Church, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia |
|