Life for Sophia Clark changed in an instant last year. One second, she was rooting for her high school basketball team while enjoying time with friends, and the next, she was lying on the driveway unconscious. When her mother, Gretchen, received an urgent call from her daughter’s school minutes later, Sophia was being loaded into the back of an ambulance.
“She had fallen from a moving vehicle and struck her head,” recalled Gretchen. “When I arrived at the hospital, Sophia was going in and out of consciousness and in a great deal of pain. The doctors immediately performed tests and determined she needed emergency surgery. They were going to LifeFlight her to [TriStar Skyline Medical Center] in Nashville, Tennessee. But before they moved her into the helicopter, my pastor, Apostle Chad Collins, called. He was out of the state at the time and asked me to hold the phone against Sophia’s ear while he prayed for her healing. I felt the presence of God at that very moment.”
Gretchen jumped into her vehicle after the helicopter left. While driving to Nashville, a calmness and peace washed over her. As the helicopter carrying Sophia landed, a group of 15 nurses and surgeons were waiting on standby, ready to perform emergency brain surgery.
“They were going to temporarily paralyze and intubate her,” said Gretchen. “But then one of the surgeons came out after examining her and said, ‘You know what? I’m going to wait on this surgery a little longer.’ I know it was the power of God that touched him and caused him to change his mind about the operation. Sophia was in the hospital in the intensive care unit (ICU) for three weeks after that, and every day when the physicians visited, they saw improvements. Some days, we noticed only a slight difference in her recovery, but as we walked through this journey together, there were always improvements.”
Apostle Collins recalled, “When she fell off the back of the moving vehicle, her head was swelling, and her prognosis was bleak because she had a brain bleed. When Gretchen called me, I asked her to put me on speakerphone so Sophia could hear me, and I began to pray. I told Sophia that I felt the anointing presence of God, and through the healing of the Lord, I believed she would recover without an operation. Shortly after I prayed that prayer, her doctors chose not to perform the surgery to relieve the swelling in her brain. I don’t think I slept but four hours that entire weekend because I was pacing the floor. Gretchen and Sophia have been members of my church since Sophia was about 6 years old. It would have been easy for Sophia to have suffered permanent brain damage or to have died that day, so we are grateful that God performed this miracle in her life.”
Gretchen said, “The ICU doctors and nurses told me that they’d never seen anyone with her type of head trauma recover so quickly. She did have to learn to walk again, but even that was speedy. After we returned home, she immediately went back to living her life. She went back to school and even got a job, and I thought, ‘Honey, you need to slow down.’ But in the end, this is what it’s all about — having the faith to really let her go. If she couldn’t do it, she would stop.”
The doctors diagnosed Sophia with post-concussion syndrome, and though she still battles with migraines, this near-death experience has caused her to step out of her comfort zone and embrace life to the fullest.
“I have a hard time remembering things now,” said Sophia. “I struggle to put sentences together at times, and I get migraines that bring me back to that time, but all of these things are fading as time goes on. I may have taken a couple of steps back because of the accident, but I have learned a lot and have been pushing and going after my heart’s desires. I’ve really been living life because it’s a gift.”
Sophia continued, “Right now could be your last moment on this Earth. What would you want to do or say before your time is over? Have you accomplished what you planned? Have you lived to please God? Knowing that I could have died without living more of my life really broke me when I was in the hospital. So, enjoy your time here. Don’t hold grudges against people. Pray for them instead.” GN
