David Hill - Laguna Niguel - October 2007
David is 52 and is the owner of DCH Development and Construction (a general contractor who works primarily in commercial construction and specializes in wind energy.

While I was at one of the classes at the Kingdom School of Ministry last month, Eddie came and ministered to us and the Lord touched me profoundly. God took me back about 20 years ago when the Lord rescued me. I had been depressed for a while as my business was failing and I was not walking closely with the Lord at that time and I was drawing my identity from my business. I hit rock bottom. I had tried to commit suicide and the Lord encountered me in such a loving way while I was in a Christian hospital listening to a man talk.

I literally felt the Father pick me up and rock me like I was a little baby. He just started speaking to me and telling me how much He loved me, had a purpose for me, and that I was going to be okay. Twenty years ago I didn’t know what I was experiencing—it was my first encounter with the father’s love, and I was profoundly changed and healed. However immediately following this encounter my family went through a desert season with some trials that just stripped so much more away from me.

So I am going to fast forward to this year, the Lord led my wife and I to attend the Kingdom School of Ministry and last month Eddie laid his hands on me and prayed for me to receive the father’s love. Immediately a download of pure love flowed right through me and touched me to the core again. I flashed back to my encounter with the Lord in the hospital and I realized that his love was what I had been touched by and was being filled with again. I can’t tell you all the wrong perspectives, all the judgments, and the religious garbage that He washed away from me in that short time. Then one week later I go to the Men’s Retreat and God encounters me again with the fathers love. Pastor Mike was talking to the men about friendships and I wasn’t even listening because the Lord began to download His love again touching some very deep hurts and wounds in me. I left the retreat completely different.

Seven days after the September VCC Mens’ Retreat I get a call from my wife and she says, “Grace (our daughter) is in the hospital. She has been in a bike accident and her friends say she has lost all her teeth and her face is messed up. Can you go to the hospital because Caleb (our 4 year old) is sick and he is in bed already.”

I walked into the E.R. in San Clemente and she was so messed up. Her jaw had been shattered and displaced. She had been riding her bike downhill at approximately 25 to 30 mph when a car cut her off and she lost control and crashed, her chin impacted the nut in the middle of the handlebars, then she hit the corner of the curb with her lower jaw. Her neck, chest, and trach had also been injured by the impact of the handle bars. Everything in her lower jaw was shoved in, shattered, and cut up badly. The area under her chin was all cut up too.

I knew from looking at her that she had been partying before she rode her bike. My first thought was, “If she hadn’t been intoxicated this would never have happened”. But a holy rage stirred up inside of me and I said “No” to the judgmental thoughts. Instead of speaking judgment, I went and hugged my daughter. I held her for three hours. I felt the Father’s love pouring out of me all over her.

God was doing a deep connection between us. She had not been close to us for the past year and usually did not like being hugged. She was 24 years old at the time. But God rested on me with such a peace in that emergency room while holding her. It’s been two years since I have been able to hug her like that. Her friends left and I was comforting her.

She said, “Daddy, my face is all deformed. I think I swallowed all my lower teeth. I felt them go down. I don’t have insurance and you don’t have insurance. How are we going to take care of this?” I am going to be so deformed and messed up.

I replied, “Your Daddy in heaven is going to take care of everything. Your teeth will be fine, and your face will be good as new.”

In the natural I was feeling panicked. I just spoke something that just looked impossible. How was God going to take care of the medical expenses this would generate? Yet I felt the father’s love reassure me and I was swallowed up in his peace.

“Daddy, would you sing me a song,” she asked.

I sang her a song while I continued to hold her.

“Daddy, would you tell me a story?”

God immediately gave this story that was all about her. It was about a land called the Land of Rose. There was a princess in the land whose job was to hand out a rose to each person she encountered each day form the kingdom. Her special role was to choose just the right type and color rose for those she would see that day. Then she would give them out as she met people throughout her day.

I didn’t know it at the time the Lord gave me the story, but my wife later told me that Grace loves fresh flowers and likes to go the farmers market in San Clemente, California to get the freshest ones each week. Later I realized the story the Lord gave me for her was really a prophetic story about her and her future. The peace of the Lord fell upon her and she was actually able to go to sleep for about an hour when the doctor came back in.

After she was seen, I brought her home with instructions to see a specialist the ER doctor referred us to. We called the next day to make an appointment but could not get any time sooner than in 2 more days. I felt this was too long but we were at a loss as to what we could do. She was in incredible pain and could not eat.

The next day following the accident, I went to see Pastor Mike to pray for Grace. After we prayed he shared with me that he just had a peace that everything would be ok. I also felt this peace but I had no idea how. Thirty minutes after leaving his office I got a call from one of my clients who had just heard what had happened to Grace. He asked if she had insurance and I told him she did not. He said he was going to come and take her to a doctor for a second opinion.

His doctor saw Grace and immediately referred her to a specialist who is well known for being the best surgeon in the area for these types of injuries. He told David he would take her there because he personally knew the doctor and he agreed to do the surgery the next morning for her as she was already infected in her mouth and in incredible pain. My client told us not to worry about the money because he would take care of the expenses!

The surgeon told us she would have lost everything had we waited any longer to do surgery. We put her on the crisis prayer list at Vineyard Community Church in Laguna Niguel, Ca. where we attend. When the surgeon finished the three hour surgery, he came out and told my wife, Cheryl, that he didn’t understand how she did not break all her teeth and the jaw joints (which usually break first in a jaw injury of this magnitude). Miraculously he said he was able to save all the teeth. This was the first of three surgeries she would have, but it was a miracle to us. This surgery alone would have cost her $30,000.

The next day after the surgery she was out taking her puppy on a walk and an older couple saw her face and asked if they could pray for her for the swelling to go down. Thirty minutes later almost all the swelling was gone. Praise God!

The best thing that happened is that now I can hug her any time I want and she has decided to come back to church with us. The love of the Father I received, the Father gave me an opportunity to give away to my daughter and it has changed us both forever. Her face by the way is perfect with no sign of the trauma she went through. Praise God!