Ministering: Deacon Bisi Ajala
The film tells the story of a St. Louis teenager who slipped through an icy lake on January 19, 2015, and was underwater for 15 minutes before resuscitative efforts were started. Although being rescued, he is in a coma, and his family must rely on their faith to get through the ordeal. 14-year-old Guatemalan boy John Smith is being raised in Lake St. Louis, Missouri by his adoptive parents, Brian and Joyce. Though they are loving and supportive, John struggles with feelings of abandonment from his birth parents, and rebels against his parents and teachers.
In school, John’s class is assigned to give a presentation about their family backgrounds. On his day to present, John admits he did not do the assignment. His basketball coach, who promised him a starting position, warns John that if he gets a failing grade, he will be benched. John later gives a half-hearted presentation, saying that everyone already knows he is adopted, and he does not know much about his true background.
Later, John and his friends Josh and Reiger go out onto a frozen lake, ignoring a neighbor’s warning. The resident calls the police, and all three boys fall through the ice. Josh and Reiger swim to the surface and are rescued by first responders. Two of the rescuers dives in but cannot find John. As they are about to give up, one rescuer, Tommy Shine, hears a voice telling him to go back. Thinking it is his chief, he tries again, and lifts John to the surface. With no pulse or breath, John is taken to a hospital, where an emergency team works to save his life. After John still fails to register a pulse, attending physician Dr. Sutterer gives Joyce a chance to say goodbye. A weeping Joyce cradles John in her arms, pleading with The Holy Spirit to not let him die. A faint pulse then registers. Sutterer recommends transferring John to a better equipped hospital, citing Dr. Garrett as an expert in cases like John’s.
After John is transferred and placed in a medically induced coma, Garrett warns that he has little hope for a recovery, and that if the boy were to pull through, he would likely live in a persistent vegetative state. Jason Noble, the family’s new liberal pastor with whom Joyce has frequently clashed, visits the hospital and Joyce slowly warms to him. Like Joyce, he regards John’s progress as divine intervention. John shows some signs of consciousness: he can hear Joyce and Noble and respond with squeezes to the hand, and a tear trickles from his eye as a crowd gathers outside the hospital to sing and pray for his recovery.
Joyce turns John’s possible recovery into an obsession, harassing his health care professionals and alienating those around her, including Brian. In a heated moment, Joyce tells Brian that if not for her, John would be dead. After a hurtful rebuttal, Brian storms off. Realizing she cannot control John’s outcome, Joyce retreats to the roof of the hospital to pray, asking God for forgiveness and submitting to His will. It begins to snow, which she believes is an answer. She and Brian meet with Garrett, who says that the drugs they have been administering are becoming toxic to John’s system and may be doing more harm than good. Joyce, who was adamant about saving John’s life at all costs, suggests stopping treatment and bringing him out of the coma, stating that she is ready for whatever fate brings. Garrett agrees.
John is revived and regains consciousness, reliving his accident. He hears his mother’s voice and opens his eyes, with full cognitive ability. Days later, he is discharged from the hospital, returning home and then back to school. John’s return, though welcomed by many, is met with some resentment by others, who question why John’s life was spared while their own loved ones died. This weighs on John’s mind, he returns to the lake. There he sees Tommy Shine, and thanks him for saving his life. Tommy admits that he did not believe in God until after a series of protracted events since John’s accident, and all he did was pull John from the water. John reconciles his survival with a renewed sense of purpose in his life and rebuilds his relationships with those he had been alienating. After graduating from high school, John pursues a career in ministry.
In conclusion, this is a powerful true story about one woman’s bold prayers to bring her son back to life, the film asks questions like why does God save some and not others, and what are we supposed to be praying for anyway?
“Movie Summary courtesy of Wikipedia”
God Bless You!
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