By Nancy Zugschwert
The recently released movie “Breakthrough” tells the story of a 14-year-old boy who is miraculously revived after drowning when his mother prays for the Holy Spirit to let him live. Not only does the boy come back to life after being without pulse or breath for an hour, but he also suffers no permanent or lasting injury.
The boy in the true story that inspired the movie is John Smith, who is now 18 years old and planning to attend North Central University this fall to major in Pastoral Studies. Smith, along with his mother, Joyce Smith, were keynote speakers at the 59th Annual Minnesota Prayer Breakfast on April 25.
According to both mother and son, the movie, produced by Becki Cross Trujillo, Stephen Curry, DeVon Franklin, and Samuel Rodriguez, is an accurate portrayal of what happened the day John plunged through thin ice into a frigid lake, and what Joyce calls “a series of miracles” that took place throughout the ordeal and its aftermath.
Speaking at the prayer breakfast and a smaller breakout session afterward, mother and son each shared about their roles in the story and perspectives on how they have seen God working in their lives since then.
‘I immediately went into prayer’
Joyce articulated a powerful question to the parents in the room: “How important are your children? When you get a phone call, what are you going to do, what are you going to stand on?” She then shared, “I have found out that through my life, God doesn’t bring you to a situation he doesn’t prepare you for.”
The very morning of John’s accident, Joyce had read a devotional that asked the question, “What is your go-to in time of crisis?” When she got the call telling her they had just pulled her son out of the lake, Joyce recalled, “I immediately went into prayer. I prayed, ‘Please don’t take my son from me.’”
She prayed in the car on the way to the hospital, calling on God with the promises He had given, and she was now claiming from Scripture passages such as Jeremiah 29:11. When she arrived in John’s room and watched the doctors and nurses work on her son, she prayed silently to herself.
The doctor finally came over to Joyce and said she could talk to John, indicating she could say goodbye. Joyce told the prayer breakfast audience, “But that wasn’t what I was envisioning.”
“It was my son that lay before me on the cart, dead,” she said. “Every professional had come to the end of everything they could do, and they were getting ready to call time of death. But instead it was as if God said, ‘You’ve done everything you can do, now watch what I can do.’
“I got ahold of his feet and it came to my mind there is a verse that said the Holy Spirit raised from the dead. It was time to put into practice that I believe God is who He says he is. I prayed, ‘Holy Spirit please come and give me back my son.’ At that moment, that very moment … beep, beep, beep” was the sound as the heart monitor started up again.
What do you do when you’re a miracle?
“Going into the water, I wasn’t saved,” John said candidly. “I was adopted and struggled with a feeling of abandonment.” Growing up in church, his abandonment feelings grew whenever a pastor he became close to moved away to another call. His response to was to pour himself into sports. “I fell away and began to idolize basketball.”
John’s return to God was not as instantaneous as his heartbeat at his mother’s prayer.
“I woke up and was still not saved,” John said. “I did not want anything to do with it.” He lost good friends because of the accident and kept doing his own thing.
But God had different plans for the boy He had resurrected.
“God doesn’t hurt you, but He gives you life lessons,” John reflected. He realized God was trying to show him that the things he wanted were temporary but what God had for him was lifelong and eternal.
“There were two basketball games I will never forget,” John recounted, “when I heard Him audibly say, ‘Why are you running from me?’” The second time it happened, John knew it was time to surrender. “I got on my knees and said [to God], ‘Whatever you have for me, I’m yours.’”
John told attendees at the breakout session, “Giving God control is my number-one thing, because you’re never going to know what He has for you until you give your life to Him. Finding my purpose that night, I just gave God complete control.”
Since then, John has felt God affirm clearly that he is to go into pastoral ministry. He is graduating from high school this spring and looks forward to training for his calling at North Central University this fall. He said when he gave his life to God, he had no idea where He would lead, “but I couldn’t be happier with it being North Central University. The Holy-Spirit-driven university is unbelievable and I could not be more excited to become a Ram!”
A pastor’s perspective
Jason Noble, the pastor of the Smiths’ church in St. Louis, Missouri, at the time of the accident, also spoke at the prayer breakfast breakout session. He said one of the most frequent questions he has heard surrounding the Smiths’ experience is, “Why did John live, and others die?”
“So many times, when we ask, ‘Why?’ we don’t get an answer,” Noble said. “The real question is, ‘What? What do you [God] want me to do with this?’”
Noble shared about the prayers that were going up for John, all around the world, on the day of the accident and in the weeks following as John completely recovered. “There is power when we pray,” he said. “We were seven days in and prayer requests would go around the world for John. The nurses would hand us a prayer list and those prayers would go around the world by the end of the day.”
Noble was once asked, “If John had died, would you still believe God is good?”
“The answer is yes,” Noble said. “We need to say, ‘God, I trust you no matter what the storm looks like.’”
