My Testimony

Some of the details of my testimony I remember very vividly, and others have been told to me by my family.

I was nine years old, and it was just before Christmas 1963. My family was staying with my dad’s parents in Lakes Charles, Louisiana while my dad was out of town. Dad was flying into Lakes Charles that night, and I was eagerly looking forward to seeing him. It was early evening when my dad’s brother, who was 17, decided to drive down to the corner store and buy some fireworks, and I went with him. The road we took turned from pavement to gravel at a T, where you had to turn right or left. We were busy looking up, watching a plane overhead, and wondering if it was my dad coming in. Suddenly, the car began to skid in the gravel, running through the T. I looked up to see the ground rushing at us. I slammed face first into the steel dashboard. We had run off the road and nose-dived into the bottom of a deep ditch, landing with the taillights barely visible from the road. My uncle thought I was dead.

My next memory is waking up for a split second in the X-ray area of the hospital, and then my family gathered around my hospital bed. I could see them, but it was like my mind was in a fog. I had a severe concussion. My mom tells me my face looked like ground hamburger meat. My face had hit the dash of the car so hard it had made a dent in the un-padded, steel dashboard. The pediatrician told my mom that my brain had splattered like a glass bottle dropped on the floor. I went in and out of consciousness. I was in very bad shape, and my parents thought I might not live.

Shortly after my dad arrived at the hospital, he went to a payphone downstairs to call Brother Branham to ask for prayer for me. There were no cell phones or private phones in the rooms. Brother Branham prayed and told my dad I was going to be well! Dad asked Brother Branham if that was THUS SAITH THE LORD. Dad had just recently come out of a denomination and did not fully know at the time who Brother Branham was. Dad knew if Brother Branham said it was THUS SAITH THE LORD, that it would happen as Brother Branham spoke it. Brother Branham told my dad that it was THUS SAITH THE LORD and to put a prayer cloth on me. Before Dad could even make it back upstairs with the good news from Brother Branham, I distinctly remember sitting up in my hospital bed and saying to my mom, “I feel like I could eat some fried chicken.” I was healed! My mom thought I was still just delirious, but my mind was clear. Mom remembers dad returning to my room, smiling from ear to ear. He obediently placed the prayer cloth on me as instructed by Brother Branham. The swelling in my face started going down, and I was able to go home shortly, in time for Christmas.