’m CSPC member Joe Russell, and this is how I’m living deeply. 

The Monday after Easter this year, April 1st, was as serious an April Fool’s Day as I ever want to have. Normally, I would’ve been on the golf course, but I was actually at work that day. I’m mostly retired, but for the last 12 years I’ve worked one day a week to keep active. That day, I‘d agreed to cover an extra shift for a coworker who wanted to visit her family for Easter. So, there I was at the Harper Porsche dealership, right next to a Rural Metro fire station and right across the street from a Knoxville fire station. I work in finance and was talking to the service manager about some pricing details. Then, everything went black. The last thing I remember was saying, ‘I can’t breathe!’ Total cardiac arrest. My heart stopped beating for three to four minutes. Next thing I knew, I was waking up in the hospital on Tuesday night, hooked up to all sorts of machines. I had been unconscious for a day and a half. Folks at the dealership had acted quickly, running over to the nearby fire stations to get help. I was in critical condition. The fact that I was so close to immediate medical help when it happened was nothing short of a miracle. Had I been on the golf course like I usually am on Mondays, or driving home, I might not be here to share this story. Waking up in the hospital, I had no idea what had happened. I vaguely remember people in the room, but it was all a blur. It wasn’t until Wednesday morning that things started to make sense. At one point while my clarity of mind was returning, my wife Glenda was talking to the doctor, who asked if I had a living will. She told him ‘Yes.’ The doctor responded, ‘I hope we didn’t go against his wishes,’ which made me realize just how serious the situation had been. The fear wasn’t so much that I was going to die -they had stabilized my vitals- but that all the time without oxygen to my brain could leave me in some sort of diminished or vegetative state. My mind was foggy as this all started to hit me, but I had this strange sense of peace. I never felt fear, not even when I learned about the severity of my condition.

I later found out that while I was unconscious, my Sunday school class, the Covenant class, had been praying for me non-stop. It’s a good bunch of us old folks, and their prayers were like a protective shield around me. When I finally regained full consciousness, I felt those prayers deeply. It was a comforting presence God used to help reassure me everything was going to be okay. I had undergone coronary bypass surgery 23 years earlier, almost to the day: On April 1st, 2001, I left the hospital after a successful triple bypass. Then, on April 1st, 2024, my heart stopped. The irony wasn’t lost on me. It was an anniversary- but instead of celebrating, I was fighting for my life. As I recovered, the timing of it all really hit me. The first nurse who attended to me in the cardiac care unit looked more like a biker than a nurse, tattoos and all. He told me, ‘Man, God must have a plan for you. You shouldn’t be here.’ Several doctors and nurses echoed that- that it wasn’t my time and God had something special in store for me. I still don’t know what that is. When I shared this experience with the Covenant class, I joked that maybe God’s plan was just for me to keep collecting money for our class Christmas brunch! (And if so, okay! It’s my way of contributing.) I know the prayers from my church family, friends, and even strangers kept me strong. They gave me peace and reassurance during the most challenging time of my life. I believe in the power of prayer more than ever now. It’s not about seeing bright lights or hearing voices; it’s about feeling a deep, unshakeable peace and knowing you’re not alone. I don’t have any profound insights to offer, but I can tell you that over the past few months, God has communicated His presence to me more profoundly than ever before- and people’s prayers for me have something to do with that. I think we all pray for specific results. God answered ‘Yes’ this time, but sometimes the answer is ‘No.’ So for me, the most important gift He gave was the peace I had through this whole process. That peace took away worries and fears- and THAT was the result of earnest prayer.

I call it a process because it wasn’t over when I woke up in the hospital. The doctors told me: ‘We’ve got two options. One would be to open you up again and try to do go in and do repair work that way, or we could do it through another procedure involving a heart cath.’ I really didn’t want to be opened up, which can take forever to get over. The doctors ended up agreeing- they decided the risk of open-heart surgery wasn’t worth it. So they went ahead and did the cath repair, putting in stents that way and also some other sort of device that acts as kind of an internal defibrillator. There was still risk, but I was never really worried. I told the doctors, ‘Okay, go for it. I’m ready.’ I had that peace from the prayers. And I’ve even seen God bring positive results from this beyond just blessing and strengthening me. Harper has updated their emergency contacts (they had an outdated number and couldn’t reach Glenda at first), added AED devices in each facility, and provided CPR classes. That could all save someone else’s life! As for me, recovering at 77 isn’t the same as at 54, but I’m doing cardiac rehab three mornings a week, and it’s helping. I plan to get back on the golf course once it cools off and I regain my stamina. There’s a group from our Sunday school class that plays on Mondays, and I’m looking forward to joining them. Reflecting on everything, it’s still sort of surreal: being where I was when I died for a few minutes, that was the first sign of divine intervention. I tried too hard sometimes to be normal- to talk to people who visited me in the hospital. So many came, out of such good hearts, that it was exhausting! Glenda ended up having to limit visits to immediate family only. But the outpouring of love and support from church members, coworkers, and even long-term customers who came to see me was really uplifting. I’m glad I survived it for that reason alone. If Glenda and I had needed anything while I was recovering (we didn’t), all we had to do was ask, and it would have been 10 times the volume of what we needed. I hope nobody ever has to go through something like this, but if they do, I hope they get the prayers that I got.”