He was only nine years old when the doctors put him to sleep to rebuild his spine. What happened next wasn’t in any medical chart.
Jamey Carrington has lived with Spinal Muscular Atrophy Type 2 since he was just a year old. By the time he reached nine, his condition had caused a severe 108-degree curve in his spine. The shape of his back brought immense physical pain to him and emotional heartbreak to his family. They finally got the opportunity for a major surgery. Doctors planned to place metal rods in his back so he could simply sit up straight and stop wearing a protective shell over his chest.
He remembers playing on his iPad with his dad right before going into the procedure room. Most of us would be terrified in that moment, but a nine-year-old just finds a way to be a kid.
Once Jamey went under the anesthesia, the medical team intubated him and placed a breathing tube down his throat to give him oxygen. While the surgeons worked on his spine, Jamey wasn’t just sleeping. He found himself standing in a completely white room. He says it was the whitest, most vivid room he had ever seen.
A man approached him. He was dark-skinned, wearing a white robe with a purple sash over it. He looked Jamey right in the eyes, and Jamey looked right back.
The man simply told him, “Everything’s going to be okay.” Then he laid his hand on the breathing tube and pulled it out. Jamey felt absolutely no pain whatsoever. Immediately, his surroundings shifted. He was back in the hospital room just as the real doctor was pulling the tube out of his mouth painlessly. Jamey woke up confused, asking where his parents were.
Jamey now shares his testimony of seeing Jesus during surgery to encourage others who are walking through deep suffering. He admits he didn’t realize it right then, but that was Jesus Christ meeting him in his most vulnerable moment. “I didn’t know that version of him that he knew me,” Jamey said.
Did you notice how God reached out to a little boy who didn’t yet know Jesus personally? Before we ever knew God, He already loved us. And how wonderful that love is! The Bible says, “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19, NKJV). Even before we were formed in our mother’s womb, He knew us, and He calls each of us by name. As God told the prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you” (Jeremiah 1:5, NKJV).
Now 19, Jamey runs 99 Ministries to share his faith on stages and online. People often tell him they are praying for him to walk, but he tells them he has his disability for a reason: to share God’s goodness. “Jesus didn’t heal my body,” he says. “He healed something deeper. He healed my heart.” Most of us spend our lives begging God to fix our physical problems. Jamey found peace in the exact body he was given.
Are you worried as you look at your problems today? The book of Romans tells us, “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” (Romans 8:28, NKJV). Jamey will tell you straight up that God did not fix his problems, but He fixed him first so he could handle them.
You might be looking at your own life right now and asking God to just take the pain away. You might be tired and frustrated about what you have to deal with every day. I want you to know that the Jesus who met a little boy in a hospital room knows exactly what you are going through right now. He might not take the situation away today, but He will give you the strength to make it through. God knows you, and He is going to use your situation for something good.
WATCH: Jamey Carrington’s Powerful Words About Seeing Jesus as a 9-Year-Old
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