Healing

Jack’s eye was completely healed

This incredible story from Tye Stephens reveals just how much God cares about us – and the things we care about. This 5-minute read will strengthen your faith and encourage you to believe for every detail of your life.

My registered female lab was unintentionally bred by my male curr, which led to a litter of puppies we were not particularly excited about. We were able to find good homes for all of the puppies but 1 – a male my daughters named Jack. We were hoping that some close friends of ours were going to let their son, Johnathan, have him, but they resisted our best efforts to send Jack home with him.

Johnathan had been at our house several times playing with Jack and had really bonded with the pup, but they already have two dogs at home and his parents were not budging on the issue.

We came home late after an evening of fellowship with some new friends, and shortly after midnight, the puppy began yelping and screaming violently. I ran outside to the kennels to find him flailing around somehow attached to the fence. In the darkness, I struggled to determine the nature of his ensnarement, but he was obviously in a lot of pain. My wife, Cynthia, and the girls ran outside and shined a light out toward me. I immediately saw the extent of the problem and told them to go back inside.

He had been chewing on the clamp that attached the heat lamp to the pen, and somehow got the 9 gauge wire bent around and impaled through the roof of his mouth, into his nasal cavity, and then out his right eye socket where it was stuck much like a fishing hook. His eyeball was completely gouged out, with just a fatty mass of tissue left hanging outside the head.

I struggled to calm the puppy enough to free him, and was sure that at any minute my effort would cause the wire to hit his brain and I would feel him go limp in my hands. After fishing the wire out successfully, he darted into his dog house and whimpered quietly. Being after midnight on a weekend, I knew a vet was out of the question. I was certain daylight would inevitably lead to disposing of his carcass, or in a best-case scenario, having to euthanize him. But, the next morning, he was alert and outside his dog house.

We were celebrating my 17-yr old daughter Kalyn’s birthday and had a busy schedule for the day, so I decided to wait until the girls were distracted with the day’s events to take the puppy away to meet his fate.

Late in the day, my 14-yr old daughter Kyna asked if I was going to take him to be put down, and I told her I felt like it was the best thing to do in this situation. She said she really felt bad for Johnathan and wished there was an alternative. I told her I would wait until Sunday morning, and then we would make the decision.

Sunday morning, I got up early and walked out to the kennels to face the dismal task ahead. I stood in shock as Jack jumped up and down against the gate to greet me, with his EYEBALL FULLY INTACT AND BACK IN IT’S SOCKET! I moved in for a closer inspection, and saw the eyeball focus on me and move around in his head. I rushed inside and woke up Kalyn, and said, “Did you pray for Jack last night?”. She answered no, so I ran to Kyna’s room with Kalyn questioningly in tow, and said, “Did you pray for Jack last night?”. In her haze, she replied, “Yes. Why?”. I said, “What exactly did you pray?”. She said, “I knew Johnathan was going to really be upset that the dog had to be put down, even though he couldn’t have him. So I just asked God to put Jack’s eye back in his head and heal him for Jonathan’s sake. Why? What happened?”

I told them to come and look for themselves.

There was still a lot of swelling around the eye, and a large piece of white skin protruding from the socket, but he was otherwise healthy. We rejoiced for the miracle we had seen… but God wasn’t done yet.

We got ready and went to church at Impact for Sunday Service and sat in our usual spot. A friend of my wife’s, Jennifer, asked if she could sit with us. After the first song and the announcements, Jennifer leaned over to Cynthia and asked if we knew anyone who had lab puppies for sale. Smiling, Cynthia asked her why she asked. She said that they were wanting to buy their son, Colton, a lab puppy for his upcoming birthday. Their sources had fallen through and they weren’t having any luck finding one last-minute, and that he really had his heart set on one. Cynthia said, “It just so happens that we have one for you. I’ll tell you the story after church.”

Jack healed completely, and Colton was able to have him for his birthday. He renamed him Fisher, and as evidenced in the photos, they are great pals. So, not only did God show us miraculous healing through the power of selfless prayer, He blessed multiple families through the process… all of which began from an accidental litter of puppies that nobody wanted in the first place. It truly shows how God’s plans are greater than ours, and how we cannot begin to understand the complexity of it all.

I pray that our testimony is inspirational and strengthens your faith as it has ours. I wish I had some pictures of the original injury, but who could have anticipated the outcome? The first picture is several days after the accident, and you can still see the swelling and skin protruding. I cannot begin to explain how gruesome the original injury was. Truly amazing!