laura ann miller

This is a story about my brother David. But really it’s my story. It’s a deeply personal account of faith and praying for miracles and trusting God regardless of the outcome. God gave me the gift of His love and presence in a dream. I’ve pondered this for some time and although I don’t completely understand it myself, I feel compelled to share this story with you. I want to share the goodness and gentleness of the Lord with you through this story. It’s a bit longer than I usually post, so you may want to get a nice warm cup of tea or coffee to enjoy while you read. This is my gift… I don’t remember hanging out with my big brother David growing up. I have memories of his T-ball trophy in his room and his team photograph, but I don’t know if I ever went to one of his games. I remember he had a lot of matchbox cars and I always loved the big red Coca Cola truck. Did he let me play with it or did I sneak in his room and play with it when he went to school? My mom says we used to fight a lot and I would get him in trouble, but I don’t remember any of that either. I don’t remember his laugh or playing together or fighting together. I do remember the day of his car accident though. I was a little four-year-old playing in my baby sister’s crib. I think I had climbed right in with her. A neighbor came in the room and said, “Your brother had an accident and we need to pray.” I don’t remember any other details that followed. Did she say car accident? Did I understand the seriousness? I don’t think I could have at that age. I just prayed. Time was marked for me and my family that morning. Somewhere in the time span which traveled the day my neighbor asked me to pray for my brother and the in-between days of growing up I learned a few details from parents of what happened that morning.  David was crossing the street to his school bus stop and was hit by a car. He suffered a severe head injury. I’ve learned now there is a new name for this, TBI, Traumatic Brain Injury. We lived in Germany at the time of my brother’s accident. My dad was in the Air Force and stationed there. I went to a German pre-school, but never learned German because the teachers would speak to me in English. David was in a coma for some time, but when he stabilized enough my dad was re-assigned to the U.S. We moved from Germany to Biloxi, Mississippi. David spent many weeks at Children’s Hospital in New Orleans. My mom and dad, along with me and my baby sister, would drive back and forth from Biloxi to New Orleans to visit David during hospital visiting hours. He eventually came home with us. My mom took on taking care of him right from the beginning. His injury left him paralyzed, unable to eat, talk, or walk. Davey could understand us though and learned to blink to communicate a simple yes or no. And always to my amazement David could still smile and laugh. We prayed as family constantly. Somewhere in the time before my brother’s accident, to his little nine-year-old body clinging to life in the hospital, God was already at work. He was there with my parents through visions and prayers. I didn’t know much about any of this as a child. But I did believe with my parents God could heal David. I believed he would. Through the years that followed my brother’s accident my family faithfully spent time in church, David right there in his wheelchair with us. I loved my Davey. I talked with him every day and played dolls with my sister on his wheelchair. And I prayed everyday God would heal him, this prayer was also always my secret birthday wish when blowing out birthday candles Sunday school would bring something completely different from wishes and prayers. I would get lost in the wonder of Sunday school lessons. The ones that made me the happiest and upset me the most were the lessons where Jesus would heal the sick people. I always imagined what it would be like if He was healing my brother instead of those people. The woman with the issue of blood who touched his garment; Jesus, if only you were here now, I would run through the crowd and touch your robe for my brother. Or what about the friends who lowered their crippled friend through the roof to Jesus? I knew I could find someone to carry David with me and lower him through that roof so Jesus could heal him and say, “Pick up your mat and walk…” I was jealous of all those sick people who had Jesus right by their side. It was wonderful and horrible. Wonderful to know a mighty God who could heal the sick, horrible because Jesus was no longer here for my brother David. I couldn’t run through crowds to find him and touch him or talk to him or ask him to come to my house. Now I’m older, no longer letting my imagination run wild in Sunday School. But I can tell you, I still get a little tense when I hear a sermon about healing.

Easter 1987

Recently my mother in law gave me a book to read about heaven. This story was about a father and his son who suffered a horrific car accident. His little boy, by all logic, should have died. The little boy’s story is about God, angels, and heaven. His dad’s story is of prayers, angels, and miracles. The book was hard to read as I thought of David and his accident. My mind wandered in-between what ifs and hope. I played back through the years of prayer and wondered more about the divine ways of God. (Spoiler Alert) Yet, when I got to the end of the book, the final conclusion, words I was too familiar with hit me in the gut. These unanswered prayer words, “…whether he is healed here on earth or one day in heaven.” Hope and wonder left. I read those words and wanted to throw the book. Our family too had experienced God’s divine presence in the midst of my brother’s injuries. As a little girl I prayed for my brother’s healing expectantly. My mom had shared a vision she had once of an angel and another of a brain being healed. I think there may have been another story of a dead plant which bloomed aging, but I’m not sure about the details. I thought for sure I would witness David miraculously get up out of his wheelchair one day. Somewhere though, over the course of thirty years, the expectancy of healing turned to those same words uttered, “Maybe God meant David would be whole again in heaven.” Uncertainty over God’s will. Maybe God meant… I would have stood up and thrown the book in the pool right then, had it not been my mother in law’s library book. Couldn’t God just heal David now? Why a lifetime of suffering? A few months later, March 17, 2012 I was with my family visiting my in-laws again. My mother in law handed me another book to read. One look at the cover and I told her, “No thank you!”  Another book about a little boy who experiences heaven and comes back to talk about it. I told her I wasn’t interested, I wouldn’t read it, I already believed in heaven. I didn’t need to read some best seller to tell me Heaven was real. I told her how I wanted to take the other book she’d given me and chuck it the pool. Sorry Mom! Despite my earlier protests, when everyone was out of the room, I picked it up and read the back cover. What struck me was the little boy’s encounter with Jesus. I decided to find just that chapter and began to read. As I began to read I don’t think I found the little boy’s description of heaven hard to believe. I found it reassuring. But I found my self connected to his dad’s questions, and his dad’s thoughts– thinking he was alone when he was crying out to God in anger over his son being in the hospital. The little boy’s father shared something from 2 Peter 3:8,9

But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: To the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years is as one day. The Lord is not slow in doing what he promised– the way some people understand slowness.

Can it be God? When I feel like saying, How long, O Lord, must I wait? How long, O Lord, for David to suffer? Is it really this simple for you God? Thirty years? One day is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as one day? What am I really missing this side of heaven? What don’t I understand in light of eternity? Can I really say, this is a light and momentary trouble?

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:17,18

We left my in-law’s house late to head home. That night I had a dream. I dreamt about me and David. We were little kids and we were playing together. In my dream I knew we were near a castle and we were running through grass. He was ahead of me and I was chasing after him. I had a little cane with plaques on it and he had a cane too. His was bigger than mine and had more plaques on it. I had never had a dream of my brother and I before. When I woke up I was thinking of this dream, but there was also a word, Stute-Guard. This is how the word sounded to me. It’s hard to describe, but I kept going over and over it. I didn’t understand it, but I thought it was German. I decided to see if I could look up this word online. I was excited and nervous. I hoped the word might mean healing or miracle in German. I was almost afraid to look it up. I felt completely ridiculous because I don’t even know German and wasn’t even sure if it was a real word or a nonsensical dream word. I found a translator app online, German to English, and I started to type in my word. A word I wasn’t even sure was real, let alone how to spell correctly. As I started to type, the word came up, Stuttgart. I clicked on  the translate button… “Stuttgart, city in southwestern Germany, capital of the state of Baden-Wuettemberg”.  I was shocked and even more intrigued. I don’t know anything about the places or geography of Germany. We had left soon after my fourth birthday. I started to look up more information. I read about Stuttgart on Wikipedia and found this: “A number of significant castles stand in Stuttgart’s suburbs and beyond as reminders of the city’s royal past.” Wow Lord! My dream was more than nonsense. The word you gave me was real. I couldn’t help but smile as I thought of me and David running around together somewhere near a castle. The word didn’t mean healing or miracle, but I knew the dream was a gift. The Lord sees my heart and he knows. He holds David in his hands and he cares for him in a way I can’t comprehend. I waited till night to call my mom and talk to her about the dream. I was nervous, but I wanted to know more. Maybe she knew something about my dream that I didn’t. I asked her about Stuttgart. Had she ever heard of it? “Oh yes. We visited there with Grandma and Grandpa. They had good friends who lived there and we took a trip with them. It was just before David’s accident.” She said it all so matter of fact, which of course I suppose it was, but for me it was like discovering a secret treasure! I was more in awe. There is so much about God I fail to understand. He brings me these treasures in the midst of my anger and tears.

What is man that you take thought of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Psalm 8:4

I called my dad later. He filled me in on more details about our trip. It was May, 1983. My Grandma and Grandpa came to visit us in Germany and we traveled together. We drove through the Black Forrest and stopped along the way at a castle named Hohenzollern, south of Stuttgart. This was a Saturday. Then we drove on to visit my grandparent’s friend in Stuttgart, a history professor. My dad told me David’s accident was the following Wednesday. Dear God, this dream, this gift of a memory with my brother, this was the last time I ran and played together with my brother before he was paralyzed. I was amazed by it all, every little detail, adding to and confirming this dream and gift. After my chat with my dad I received an e-mail from my Grandma Betty. She was on that trip to Stuttgart. She said she had talked to my dad and he had mentioned I was sad about David’s accident. I didn’t have time right then to e-mail her back with the details of my dream. I wrote back and told her, I had always been sad over my brother, but I was talking to dad because I had a dream and I was curious. She sent back a reply. I was in awe once again!

“Ah, Laura, I do love you so much…One thing I remember about that trip was when we went to a beautiful garden and you and David really upset me. I couldn’t do anything about it because it was up to your Mom and Dad. I just remember you and David racing through the gardens, full of joy, but with no regard for anyone else, dodging, running into the other’s paths, etc.”

More confirmation of images from my dream. And imagine this very little thing, me chasing my brother around, running after him, this one last gift for my brother and I before his accident. One last chance to run free, legs pumping hard for a boundless and reckless boy, before those legs would be stopped. A gift frozen in time. A memory given to me thirty years later. What if my Grandma had spoken up all those years ago and stopped us from running together? Funny how she thought about it, but decided not to. Strange for her to share those thoughts with me thirty years later. I think of this now when I see my two running reckless. I talked with my dad again more about David and his accident. He told me more details of our trip and the time leading up to David’s injury. We talked about God and faith and trust. He asked me if mom had told me about what David had said to her before the accident. No, she hadn’t. This is what he shared with me- My eight year old brother came to her and said he had a dream. He said Jesus came to him and told him something was going to happen to him, but he would be okay because Jesus would be with him. Jesus would be with him. All these years I’ve longed to find Jesus. To have him near like the disciples did. To walk and talk with him and run frantic to find him and ask him to heal a paralyzed boy. He was already here. He was here with my brother before the car touched his little body. He’s been here the whole time. Mary Magdalene went looking for Jesus too. She was talking right to him. She was begging him to take her to Jesus. She didn’t even know it was him. “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” He was already by her side, right there with her! God, please give me the faith to remember you are already here in our midst, even when I can’t see.

Mom and David 1975

Dad and David 1975

Me 18 months and David 6 years

Me, My Sis, and David

Davey

These photos are from my Grandma Betty who was with us in Germany. She asked if I’d like to have them. Yes! Please! What a gift!

My mom with me, David, Heidi, and Grandma and Grandpa with their friend in Stuttgart

My Mom with me, Heid, and David in a garden in Stuttgart -David has his cane with the plaques on it

Saying goodbye to Grandma and Grandpa at the train station. I think just days before David’s accident.

All grown up, playing in front of a castle again

My brother Davey