God is Always There for You: Gabriel's Healing
North Carolina worship pastor and wife clung to the promises of God as they watched their 6-year-old son fight for his life.
When Ronnie Whitaker began studying about God’s promises in January of 2024 in preparation for a sermon he would preach, he did not know how tightly he would personally cling to those promises in the coming month.Greg Davenport, lead pastor of 1Hope Assembly of God in Sanford, North Carolina, had asked Whitaker, the church’s worship pastor of eight years, to deliver a Wednesday night teaching at the beginning of 2024. As he studied and prayed what the Lord would have him to say, Whitaker felt God impressing on him to share the importance of trusting God’s promises. That was January 31.
The following day, his 6-year-old son began to feel ill and on Feb. 2, 2024, was diagnosed with RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) and the flu. As he rested at home, Whitaker and his wife, Morgan, assumed the sickness would pass.
However, after several days with no signs of recovery, the couple took their son back to the doctor.
“The doctor told us that on top of his RSV and flu, he also had strep and low hemoglobin,” Whitaker recalls. “She urged us to take him to the emergency room.”
Immediately, the Whitakers took their son to the ER where the medical team acknowledged the boy was very sick but also reassured Ronnie and Morgan that this was expected with such a young child battling three illnesses at once.
“We went home and for the next two days, things seemed to be getting better,” says Whitaker.
Still not well enough to attend the Wednesday night service on Feb. 7, Gabriel stayed home with his mother and younger brother while Whitaker went for the evening’s events. Yet upon his return home, he felt the Lord impressing that he needed to pray for his son.
“This captured my attention… I told my wife we needed to pray,” he says.
Within 24 hours, the Whitakers watched as their son lay nearly unresponsive on the couch, panting in a short, shallow breathing pattern. As he slept throughout the next day, Whitaker recalls that Gabriel would spontaneously wake up screaming.
Aware that things had declined, the couple decided to take their son to a different emergency room for re-evaluation. It was there that doctors discovered fluid had “severely” surrounded one of Gabriel’s lungs, a condition called pleural effusion. The doctors rushed Gabriel to a main hospital where an emergency surgical team stood ready to intervene.
“At the main hospital, they repeated Gabriel’s lung x-ray and saw that now there was an abscess on his lung as well as fluid surrounding it,” says Whitaker.
Gabriel’s great aunt, Vicky Daniels, had served as a registered nurse for nearly 40 years but was still unprepared for what she saw when she looked at her great-nephew. She recalls that he was barely able to breathe and states that his illnesses were a fatal combination.
The medical team decided to place a small tube through Gabriel’s back to relieve pressure in the lung and allow the fluid to drain.
By day three of his hospital stay, Gabriel’s lung had drained 102ml of fluid and things began to look hopeful. Days four and five continued to offer hope when the drainage slowed down and then ceased entirely.
But early in the morning on the sixth day, a doctor rushed into Gabriel’s room unexpectedly, stating that the most recent x-ray had shown an increase in the fluid around his lung but that it was not draining.
“The doctor looked at us and said, ‘Prepare to make some weighty decisions later today,’ and we couldn’t even bring ourselves to ask him what that meant,” Whitaker shares.
It was in that moment that he was reminded of the teaching the Lord had given him just 17 days prior: that God’s promises are true and believers can trust in them wholeheartedly.
Whitaker walked to his son’s bedside and called out to the Lord on his behalf. As he finished his prayer, the last of his strength left him and he collapsed in the hospital bathroom.
But as he hit his physical limit, Gabriel’s body immediately began to strengthen. Within two hours, the surgeon returned to the room and said that more fluid had drained in the last two hours than had drained all together previously.
Day seven was a day of rejoicing when 245ml of fluid drained from Gabriel’s lung and all of his symptoms began to subside.
Whitaker recalls the confusion from each of his doctors who came in and saw the miracle that was taking place before their eyes.
Just three days later, Gabriel was released from the hospital and given a clean bill of health by all of his doctors.
At only six years old, Gabriel has a true understanding of his testimony and how his story will be one that brings encouragement to others who need a miracle. He says of his story, “God is always there for you.”
This simple but eternal promise of God was lived out in the life of one little boy who wants to also remind others that this promise is for everyone.