By Mark Ellis –
Paul Meyer looked forward to a trip to Kona, Hawaii that mixed ministry and family time in a beautiful setting.
He had been serving with an international ministry and planned to speak at a local church.
“This is the first time that I took my whole family to Hawaii. I just rejoiced that I was able to have a vacation with my family for the first time in 12 years,” he told God Reports.
Paul is an experienced ocean swimmer. “I’m passionate about the water and I did everything. I was a lifeguard, played water polo and body surfed all my life. I was able to catch pretty much every wave I decided to take, which maybe made me a little bit cocky,” he says.
He met another vacationer in the water named Thomas, visiting from Canada, and they bonded as they caught waves and talked. “I found out that he’s not only a Christian, but he’s also a bit more conservative than most Canadians.”
After about an hour in the ocean, the waves began to increase in size.
Paul’s two sons were boogie boarding. He looked toward the beach and noticed his wife sitting alone, which tugged at his heart.
“This is my last wave,” he called out to Thomas. Little did he know it would be his last wave, ever.
As he pushed off with his legs and used his arms to propel himself into the face of the wave, suddenly his body was hurtling downward at a steep vertical angle, plunging into shallow water with tremendous force.
“I had my eyes open as I was going down, and then just before the impact, I closed my eyes. Then I hit my head.”
Remarkably, the blow did not knock him out. “The first miracle that happened is that I opened my eyes and I was conscious. I could have been unconscious.
“I was under the water. I could open up my eyes, but I couldn’t move anything, nothing. From the top down, there was no feeling. And even worse, I was face down.”
Paul doesn’t remember how long he was able to hold his breath, but he considers that his second miracle.
In the moment of crisis, when many people might panic, God’s peace descended on him. “I had peace like never before in my life. It’s an indescribable peace.”
At the same time, he recognized someone had to pick him up or he would drown. Paul knew he could only hold his breath for a minute or two, but he lost track of time.
As a former lifeguard, he understood that if someone picked him up in the wrong manner, it could cause more permanent damage to his spinal cord.
“I was 100% in the hands of the Lord. I’m holding my breath knowing that I cannot turn around.”
Paul began to pray, Lord, I’d love to see my children growing up. Who will provide for them? I would love to see the ministry grow…
He remembered a passage from Jonah, when he was trapped in the belly of the whale unable to move:
When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered you, Lord,
and my prayer rose to you,
to your holy temple. (Jonah 2:9)
Suddenly Paul noticed two legs standing nearby and wondered if it was Thomas.
Thomas tried to duck under the same wave taken by Paul, but it was too strong. “I got pummeled, swept up and in,” Thomas recounts, “and as I came up, I saw Paul floating right at my feet, face down.”
Paul’s wife also saw him take the wave, knew immediately he was in trouble, and screamed for the lifeguard, who rang his horn signaling an emergency, sprang to his feet, and sprinted toward the water.
“I heard panic at the beach,” Thomas says, “because by that time, the lifeguard had already rung his horn. I could see the lifeguard running towards me, and God kicked in and said, Don’t move him.”
Thomas – also a former lifeguard – thought he would do more harm than good if he attempted to move Paul. “I thought, well, by the time he gets here, I’m way better off to let him do it properly than for me to move him and risk damage.”
This was the third miracle: that God placed someone next to him who understood the dangers of improperly moving someone with a spinal injury.
“It literally was probably five seconds by the time the lifeguard got there and started his maneuvers,” Thomas recounted. “When Paul came up, I thought he was dead, because he had blood dripping from his head, and he wasn’t breathing. He was just lying there, limp.”
The lifeguard carefully dragged Paul to the beach. “Maybe 10 or 15 seconds later, all of a sudden, he gulped for air,” Thomas said.
“I can’t feel anything,” Paul choked out, staring upward. “It feels like my head is disconnected from my body.
This verse came to the forefront of Paul’s mind:
They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow. (Colossians 2:19)
Paul’s wife, Thomas, and others surrounding the limp body began to pray.
“Are you a Christian?” Paul asked the lifeguard, wondering if he would join in the prayers.
“Yes,” he replied.
“Would you mind laying hands on me and praying?” Paul said to those around him.
“I have a deep Christian faith,” Thomas reflects, “but I’ve never been someone that would lay their hands on someone to ask for healing. That was the first time I ever put my hands on a person asking for God to heal. And we did that.”
The lifeguard placed Paul on a spinal board and moved him further up the beach, placing an umbrella over him to shield the sun.
Then God smiled on Paul and a small answer to their prayers appeared – one of his toes began to wiggle.
“I did not feel my toes wiggling, but I felt my arms starting to hurt,” Paul recounts. “I relied 100% on my faith in God, that he had the best in his mind for me and I was fully in his hands.”
When the EMTs brought Paul to Kona Hospital, he was smiling, as captured in a photo his wife took. In addition to the “crazy peace” he had underwater, he had an assurance, that no matter the ultimate outcome of his injuries, he would enjoy eternal life with his Savior, Jesus Christ.
When Paul woke up the next morning, he asked the nurse if he could stand up.
The nurse looked at him with shock. “You can’t stand up; you’re paralyzed!” she exclaimed.
“I’d love to try to stand up,” he replied.
She called in a second nurse; they sat him up in bed and swung his legs around.
Then he amazed the nurses as more prayers were answered. “I was able to stand and walk my first steps,” Paul says. “I was not very strong — I was weak.”
Transferred by helicopter to a hospital in Honolulu, he underwent surgery to implant four screws to stabilize each side of his cervical (neck) vertebrae.
“I’m almost 100% restored except for thee fingers that are still numb,” he says. “I praise the Lord that he did not restore me 100% — and that may sound strange — but otherwise I would forget,” he says.
“I can do pretty much everything — with the exception of body surfing — I had to promise my wife.
A month after the accident, Paul met with a neurosurgeon in Dallas, Texas.
When the doctor viewed the MRI of his neck, he said, “Is this you, Mr. Meyer? Do you believe in God? People like you are either dead or fully paralyzed for the rest of their lives.”
Paul’s wife, with him at the appointment, could not hold back her tears. “I call it the spine miracle,” Paul says. “There’s just so much around my accident that is amazing. The power of prayer is just unbelievable.”
If you want to know more about a personal relationship with God, go here
