SID: Hello, Sid Roth here with Clarice and Ron Holden. And Clarice, you were on cloud nine because God has restored your marriage, prospered your business. And instantly, your husband is hit with a drunk driver, a truck plows into him. He had, what a broken neck? What else did you know?
CLARICE: His neck was broken in two places, his leg was shattered, his pelvis was broken, his liver was torn, his kidney was bruised…
SID: What she didn’t know was there was some even worse things going on. She got to the hospital, and about a week later, she sees that there’s something seriously wrong and these doctors aren’t taking care of it. And yes, what she just described was bad, but there was something more. You knew there was something even worse that was going on. What’d you do about it?
CLARICE: Well, I told them “He is irrational. I mean I could not make him understand anything
We have got to do something. We’ve got to have and MRI, a CAT scan, or something.” They brought someone in, and as soon as they did the CAT scan, here comes the doctor running down the hall, “Mrs. Holden, we’ve got an emergency. Your husband has a crack in his intestines and it is seeping into his system all week. And he is poisoning, and it will kill him if we don’t do surgery immediately.” And so they went into surgery. He was in surgery from five and a half to six hours, and the doctor came in after that and he said, “We’ve done everything we can do. He is in a coma, he’s on life support, he has a colostomy, and he is wide open. Because, when we did the surgery, his insides came out, and we were not able to close him back. So, we have a net over him. Mrs. Holden, you need to go home and get your affairs in order. Your husband will not make it through the night.”
SID: Stop. When he said that to you, “Your husband will not make it through the night,” what came out of your mouth?
CLARICE: I said, “I just know that he will.” I knew that he would. And I said, “I need you to get in agreement with me. I’m going to pray, and I’m going to believe God that He will give you the wisdom to do what it takes to get him well.”
SID: Wait a second, the doctor said he’s not going to make it through the night, and you say to the doctor I want you to agree you’re going to have wisdom to get him well. I mean these two are not computing. What did he say to you?
CLARICE: He said, “Mrs. Holden, I can’t do that. Now seriously, it’s bad. Three hours is what he’s going to be here. It’ll last about three hours.” And I said “I just will not take no for an answer.” But he walked out of the room, and I went to the chapel and I got by myself, and when I was coming out of that chapel about an hour later, this doctor came by. And I approached him and asked him again to please agree with me; that I was going to pray, and I believed God would give him wisdom. And he said he would agree with me. And we started praying, and I said, “Now tell me, what is the first thing that we need to get him through? What is it going to take to get him through this night.” And he told us. And we went to prayer with this, and we stood. And when we got through the night, the next morning, the doctor said “We made it through the night.” I said “Yes, and we’re going to make it through the day too.” So we just progressed every day, things were happening. And they would get worse, they’d tell us what we needed, we would tell the prayer team, and we would pray. And things would ease off. I also, in turn, told my family “We are not going to… I don’t want anybody saying ‘Poor Ronnie.’ We are going to believe he is coming out of this. And if you don’t believe the way I’m believing, you cannot come in to see him.” And I stood there, and I just stood guard. It was like I would not let anybody in, but I kept praying, just making sure that things…
SID: How many days did you stay in the hospital with him?
CLARICE: 52 days.
SID: Did you ever leave the hospital?
CLARICE: I didn’t go home.
SID: Why?
CLARICE: Because that’s my husband. I cannot leave him there, and I wasn’t going to leave him. And the doctor kept saying to me “Mrs. Holden, you need to go get rest.” I said, “When he goes home, I’ll go home.” And that’s what I meant. And I just knew that I had to be there every moment. And there were real bad times. I mean Ronnie, he was crashing, and there were code blue’s, and his kidneys would shut down, different things would happen, and it was a moment-by-moment fight.
SID: There had to be one point, though, at least, or many points, when you thought, “It’s just too hard. He’s not going to make it. I’m tossing in the towel. I’m going home.”
CLARICE: I didn’t say I was going home, but I did have a night that I lost all hope for just a moment.
SID: Briefly, tell me.
CLARICE: I just knew, I felt like someone said to me “You’ve got to play your husband’s funeral.” It just made me so mad; I acted like a crazy person. I started beating on the walls; I said, “I will not. I will not.” And I got what was in my head into my heart. I said, “He’s going to be well, he’s going to go home, and he’s going to be fine.” And I fought that night, and the next morning, he started getting better.
SID: Listen, it says in the scriptures in God’s presence, all things are possible. Well, not only was Clarice in God’s presence, so are you.