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CBN.com – "I was having difficulty walking to and from the golf cart. That’s how exhausted I would become when I was playing golf."
Seventy-year-old Christopher Phelps had already decided that he wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of playing his favorite sport -- not even the obvious signs of a heart problem.
He says, "I started having a pain in my left arm, which to me was always an indication of some kind of problem with your heart. I just passed it off as being muscle spasms, and the shortness of breath [was] due to old age."
Christopher agreed to go see a heart specialist. Dr. Jamnadas is a respected cardiologist in Florida. He ran a series of tests and discovered that Christopher was suffering from a damaged heart valve.
Dr. Jamnadas explains, "It showed that his valve was critically narrowed. The valve area worked out to 0.7 square centimeters. When the valve area is less than 0.7 square centimeters, that’s an indication that that valve is so pathological and is so tight that this patient will need a valve replacement. So when we saw this on this echocardiogram, I was convinced that this patient is going to need this valve to come out and put a new valve in."
Christopher was very concerned when he got the word that he needed open heart surgery to replace the valve.
"Everything that I heard about recovery was kind of scary," Christopher shares. "They have to break the sternum, and they have to cut into the center of your body. That’s not a pleasant thought for anybody to have to go through."
Christopher and his wife Cathy had two days before the surgery to pray for a miracle. For added support Cathy called the CBN Prayer Counseling Center.
Cathy recalls, "I called CBN and the major ministries that we are involved with, because we know that those miracles happen. We’ve seen them before. I prayed, 'By Your Word, Lord, You promise us that by His wounds we were healed. Allow Your Holy Spirit to flow through our hearts.'"
"You know it’s kind of a scary thing knowing that you may not wake up at the other end, but again the Lord gave me a real peace about that. I was apprehensive, but I was never fearful," Christopher says.
Christopher and Cathy arrived at the hospital early for the first of two stages in his open heart procedure. As Cathy sat in the waiting room, something unusual happened. The lights went out in the hospital.
Cathy says, "The lights went out, and all of the doors go on lock down. So all of these big doors are slamming shut. Your intellectual mind says that there is backup power, but I knew they had the catheter in his heart at that time. They had been in there long enough."
"This is extremely unusual," Dr. Jamnadas recalls. "This doesn’t happen, and even if it does happen, it’s usually only for a brief second, and we usually continue. We usually don’t have to cancel cases. But here the power actually went out."
Christopher, Cathy and Dr. Jamnadas were about to find out. When the electricity was restored, the doctor and his staff discovered that a miracle had happened.
"There was a difference. The valve area turned out to be 1.5 square centimeters -- twice the size. I was floored," Dr. Jamnadas says. "I didn’t expect this at all. Something had happened where you can’t expect this. It was unexplained."
Christopher remembers the exact words that Dr. Jamnadas told him.
"He said, 'Do you remember that miracle healing that you were praying for? You got your miracle healing.' I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'That valve is back to normal, and we no longer have to do open heart surgery.'"
"Not too long after that, they wheeled Chris out," Cathy says, "and he was laughing and crying at the same time -- saying, 'He did it for me! He did it for me!'"
Christopher actually was able to go home the next morning.
Dr. Jamnadas says, "This is a modern day miracle. There is no other explanation. As a scientist, I have to look for explanations. I can tell you that there is no explanation except that whatever Chris and his wife did, however they prayed, the power was there. There was faith. There was a belief -- a belief that was so strong. There is a hope in them even before I did the procedure. They were hoping and praying, and I could feel that."
Christopher recently had a six month check-up, and tests revealed he is completely healthy. He’s exercising and back to playing his favorite sport.
"I’ve got my vitality back," Christopher says. "I feel my strength coming back. I am playing golf again -- walking a couple of miles a day. I just feel like a new person.
"He is our Lord God and Savior. He is the ultimate healer, and this is proof as far as I am concerned."
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