Not Quite Dead

As I read this issue’s article “Dying to Live Another Day,” I was reminded of my own brush with death. My first memory is three days after it happened. I was in a hospital bed and had no idea why. My family, some friends, and a police report pieced it together for me.

I don’t remember the collision, but it happened in January, in rural Illinois, when I was seventeen. As I was driving home late at night after a basketball game, a woman who had been drinking swerved into my lane as she crested a hill. We were both going around 50 miles an hour.

Dale Mason, Publisher

When two schoolmates came on the scene a minute or so later, they found an inebriated woman stumbling in the road and my car in a field with me trapped inside. I was in and out of consciousness, as searing pain overwhelmed me whenever I came to. One of my friends raced home and awoke my parents, and soon police, EMTs, and firemen arrived and used the “jaws of life” to free me.

As the ambulance sped to the hospital, my mother sat up front, and an EMT worked on me in the back. At some point he declared to the driver, “We’re losing him.” Then louder and more urgently, “We’re losing him!” Mom was about out of her seat when my heart restarted.

For about ten seconds my body was suspended between life and death, but God was not through with me yet. That realization has inspired me hundreds of times since then.

God designed the human body to somehow survive short periods without a heartbeat and for that I’m grateful, not because I eluded death—I know from the Bible what heavenly wonders await me—but because I’ve had many more days to point others to Jesus.

This incident has served as a reminder that if I woke up this morning, God still has a purpose for me. He’s not through with me yet, and I need to make the most of every day that He has appointed for me on earth. So do you.

Be sure to read the article about suspended animation. It reminds us that we have limited time to serve and glorify God on earth, and the sobering article on hell’s reality underscores the urgency of our task. I hope this issue inspires you to use every moment for Him.

All for Him,

Dale T. Mason, Publisher