AMAZING STORIES
Sharon Bryson: Left for Dead
By Michelle Wilson
The 700 Club
Original Air Date: December 13, 2010
CBN.com
– “'We have to kill you. You’ve seen our face.’ And I’m like, ’Oh no.’”
Fear turned Sharon Bryson’s heart to ice as her attackers pushed their way into her apartment. She had no doubt that she was about to die as they pointed a gun at her face and told her they had to kill her.
“I said, ‘Lord, please, I don’t want to go to hell for all of the things I did wrong. Please, forgive me in my heart.’”
Sharon grew up in a Christian home, but at 17 years old something changed.
“It’s just the pressure of the media, of music, of what we see on television, of what my friends are doing,” Sharon tells The 700 Club.
Like most Christian teens, Sharon faced a daily battle between wanting to love God and wanting to do things that many of her friends were doing.
“I went to my friends’ house, and she was doing drugs in a circle. I just participated. I was a virgin, and then I lost my virginity soon after.”
After high school, Sharon moved far from home.
“I felt like I just couldn’t serve the Lord. I felt like I had done too much wrong, and I couldn’t be forgiven.”
She found a job and made new friends. But these friends encouraged her to live recklessly, too. Even though she secretly wanted to return to her faith in God, her addictions to drugs and her wild lifestyle always seemed to win out.
“I was like, ‘Lord, I don’t know how I’m going to do it, because I’m so convicted to this sinful way of living. I don’t know how I’ll ever leave and get out of this life. But Lord, you know, You can help me. I’ll try but I can’t do it on my own.’”
Nothing seemed to help until a fateful day of September 3, 1998. Sharon was getting ready for work when she heard a knock on her apartment door. Some drug friends asked if they could use her phone.
“I had a very strong voice in my head saying, ‘No, don’t let them use the phone.’ A real bad feeling. When they came in right away, they had pulled out a gun and put it in my mouth and forced me to get on my hands and knees.”
The couple demanded money. They took Sharon’s bank card and her access code. When they finished robbing her they decided to kill her.
“They’re like, ‘We are going to kill you. We have to kill you. You’ve seen our face.’ I’m like, ‘Oh no.’ So they tie me up in that corner. I just began to repent of my sins and just ask Jesus to come in my heart. I said, ‘I’ll serve You. Please just let me at least go to heaven if I die today.’”
Sharon fought back. That’s when the woman found a knife and started to brutally stab her.
“I just said, ‘Jesus, take my spirit, Lord.’ She just put that knife so deep in my neck that it severed an artery. She had thought she got my jugular vein, which she missed the doctor told me by only half an inch. I was stabbed so deep in my stomach that it hit my spine at the back. I had two ruptured bowels. I was stabbed so deep in my eyes and my eyelid was literally hanging off.”
After the couple had gone, Sharon regained consciousness and pulled herself to her front door. A neighbor found her and called 911. She was rushed to the hospital where she spent the next eight hours in trauma surgery.
“They put about 27 staples in my stomach to staple me back together. Then they sowed my neck back together, because I had a severed artery and I had these stitches in my neck that were the kind you can never take out. Then they quickly stitched up my face, my broken nose as best they could. I had a severed tear duct in my eye.”
Sharon sustained 30 stab wounds but miraculously she had survived. Doctors were amazed.
“The doctors would come every day and be like, ‘I can’t believe she is healing so quickly. You should have really died. You’re really, really lucky.’ I’m like, ‘You know what? It’s not really luck. It’s like the blessing of the Lord. It’s just Jesus that kept me alive.’”
As Sharon’s injuries healed she had time to reflect on her life and the choices she had made. That’s when she decided to pray to fully surrender her life to Jesus.
“When I would pray, I would tell the Lord, ‘Lord, I love you. Thank You for healing me. Thank You for saving me.’ I made promises to the Lord that I wanted to serve Him, that I wanted to declare His glory, that I wanted to live my life for Him.”
Sharon was released from the hospital after only nine days. Police arrested her attackers, and they were sentenced to 10 years in prison. Sharon was in court and offered them her forgiveness.
“Jesus forgave me. I have to forgive. You have to choose to forgive. I felt so much freedom to be able to forgive them. I felt like, yes, they should be held responsible, because I wanted to be responsible and not let them hurt anyone else like they hurt me.
Sharon is thankful to be alive. But ask her what she is most grateful for, and she’ll tell you for her second chance.
“The most important thing that God has done for me in my life was save my soul. First of all, that He died for me on the cross and He gave me a second chance. God works everything out for our good and to glorify Him. I believe that even what the devil meant for bad, God can change it around and turn it for His glory.”
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