The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven: A Remarkable Account of Miracles, Angels, and Life Beyond This World by Kevin Malarkey; Alex Malarkey Read Free Book Online Page B

Beth and I never even left the hospital; we weren’t interested in being anywhere else. At the same time, support came flowing in. The first group to assemble for help was made up of friends, family, and our church family, led by Pastor Brown. But soon the exponentially growing number of men and women around Alex and our family could only be described as an army.
    Our children were with us virtually the entire time, but on those occasions when they weren’t, they were warmly loved and nurtured by friends or family. For instance, a few women took turns rocking, feeding, and changing our newborn whenever Beth couldn’t be with him. Someone organized the delivery of all our meals. Someone else organized the bringing of fresh clothes and the laundering of dirty clothes, as well as providing any personal items we needed. Errands were handled by someone else. So much food began appearing that there was a buffet line in the ICU waiting room at one point. It remained for days as people removed and replaced covered dishes as necessary. Get-well cards bearing notes, prayers, and Scripture verses flowed in until every square inch of Alex’s room was papered over with them. The doctors and nurses were dumbfounded and often commented that they had never seen such an outpouring of love.
    A steady stream of godly men—elders, deacons, pastors, and lay leaders—along with many godly women arrived from every corner of the state. Common were the stories of people who “felt God tugging at their hearts to come.” One pastor drove two hours just to visit Alex. Since he arrived after visiting hours and wasn’t on the prearranged schedule, the hospital denied him admittance to Alex’s room. Undaunted, he drove home, only to turn around the next morning and drive back, spending most of the day praying over Alex. During those first few critical days, many local youth groups came as well, singing praise and worship songs in Alex’s room. At any given time, there were never fewer than five people in Alex’s room during visiting hours.
    Within a short time, there were so many visitors that someone organized a visiting schedule to accommodate them all. Even more important, someone organized a night-watch prayer vigil in Alex’s room. Every two hours, someone was praying over Alex throughout the night—every night, for months. Many of these saints we never met. They were there serving God in obscurity, for His glory.
    The ministry to Alex and our family engendered so much activity that the hospital had to organize itself, too, in order to handle all the traffic. Hospital staff printed up stacks of “Alex” passes with his name and room number. They told us that Alex typically had more visitors than the rest of the ICU patients combined, a situation the saints soon endeavored to remedy.
    The prayer/visiting/blessing ministry that started with Alex soon fanned out to the other families in the ICU. In this God reserved a special blessing for Beth and me. We had been completely absorbed with Alex and his care—understandable, yes, but when we joined those who came to minister to Alex and went from room to room in the ICU to comfort others and to pray with them, God did something in our hearts. These firsthand encounters with other families experiencing deep trials were a poignant reminder in the midst of our own sorrow that there were many other people suffering just as much as we were. It helped us gain perspective, helped us to turn outward and see in a new light the blessings God was bestowing so abundantly on us.
    If you were looking for good food and good Christian fellowship during that mid-November, there was no better place than Children’s Hospital and the ministry that grew up around Alex. We could never begin to appropriately thank the thousands who blessed us with their selfless giving. If there ever was a time when the church enveloped needy souls in arms of love, we experienced it.
    Oh, and one more thing. That stack of unpaid