A pastor's wife, who was left unconscious for three weeks after falling ill with coronavirus, has woken up and is recovering after the pastor prayed for her until she awoke.
Pastor Leonard Himes, who is an associate pastor at Beulah Missionary Baptist Church in Decatur, Georgia, rushed his wife, Claudette, to hospital in mid-March. She was suffering with a bad fever, was confused and had other flu-like symptoms. She tested positive for coronavirus.
Pastor Himes has said, "I prayed with her and I said I loved her, and I said we're going to trust in the Lord and Saviour to heal you."
She was eventually placed on a ventilator in the hospital's intensive care unit, and remained severely sick for three weeks.
After nearly two weeks in the ICU, Claudette was showing no signs of improvement, and there were major concerns. Overall it was 18 straight days that the pastor was unable to see his wife face to face.
Even though she was unconscious, eventually Pastor Himes asked the hospital chaplain to place a baby monitor in her room so he could speak to her in the hope she would hear his voice.
He recalled, "I was able to read to her, and pray for her, and just let her know it was going to be OK. The nurse and the chaplain that were in the room attending to her turned the camera back at them and they were just sobbing, with tears running down their face."
The morning after that, he received the news that Claudette had finally woken up. Soon she was able to sit up, was extubated, and was able to breathe on her own again.
Pastor Himes fully believes that his wife's sudden healing was God's answer to his prayers. He said, "What I do know is God is real and He answers prayer. And He answered this one."
Claudette, who has no memory of the weeks she was battling the virus, now testifies, "He (Pastor Himes) tells me the stories of how bad it was, what I went through. It was mind-blowing. I just thought that I had the flu."
The pastor has also spoken about the unique difficulties faced by families suffering with the coronavirus: "In a normal circumstance, you can be by the side of your loved one and care for them and pray with them, and be there to at least know what's going on.
"But through this pandemic, the severity of it, we had to be totally separate."
Just days after recovering, Claudette was able to celebrate her birthday. She said, "Can you imagine having a birthday and someone telling you that you might not have made it? And to breathe God's air? Oh, my God, I'm just blessed!"
