Nothing is impossible
Danny Maloney knows the miraculous power of prayer
I am a volunteer at the
Salvos’ family stores in
Manunda, Cairns, Qld,
and a recovering alcoholic.
Thanks to the Salvos’
Bridge Program, which
I had to go through four
times, I am sober today
and loving it!
I wanted to share some
amazing instances where I
believe the power of prayer
has saved my life.
In 1975 I had a car accident, breaking the C2 vertebrae in my neck. My mother was told I would not survive 36 hours—she prayed for me and here I am!
In 2001, I went fishing
with two mates. I was as
drunk as a skunk. After
jumping from a rock, I fell, hitting my head
as I sank to the bottom. My mate told me
that they rang the police and ambulance
and could not find me for about 14 minutes.
When I regained consciousness in the hospital,
the doctor told me that by everything
scientific I should be dead or a vegetable.
He also told me he rang my mother in
Melbourne and asked her to come and
switch off my life support machine. But
my mother prayed for me!
In 2002, I was admitted to the Mt Isa
Hospital suffering severe alcohol poisoning.
After examining me and doing
some blood tests, the specialist said, ‘Mr
Maloney your liver is shot to pieces’—
meaning I had sclerosis of the liver, and
it was cancerous. The nursing sister who
was accompanying them was a personal
friend. She came back to me after the
ward rounds and said, ‘He shouldn’t have
told you like that’ and we had a hug and
a cry together.
That afternoon, I had three visitors, a
mate who is an electrical technician and
was working for the Salvos, and two ladies
who were elders at the church I attended at
the time. I told them that the specialist had
virtually pronounced a death sentence on
me. With that, Tina, one of the ladies said ‘Danny, we are not going to accept that,
and tomorrow we, the whole church are
going to pray and ask God for a miracle.’
My mate said he would pray also.
On Monday I had more blood tests
done. On Tuesday morning, the doctor
came walking towards me reading my
blood test results. She stopped in her
tracks, looked at me and then the test
results, and her exact words were, ‘Mr
Maloney, I don’t know what is going on
here. According to the tests, there has
been a dramatic increase in your blood
cell count, and there is absolutely nothing
wrong with you at all.’
My road to recovery took a long time,
but God didn’t give up on me. Two years
later I was in Darwin staying at the Bakhita
hostel run by St Vincent de Paul for men
with alcohol and drug problems. I had, by
then, begun drinking methylated spirits
and was feeling very sore in my liver, so I
went to the hostel’s doctor in the Nightcliff
medical centre. I told him I had pains in or
around my liver and that my father was an
alcoholic who had died of cancer of the
liver at age 53 and it really worried me.
He arranged for me to have a liver ultrasound.
When I returned with the results he
read the specialist’s diagnosis, and said
to me, ‘Danny, there is nothing wrong with
your liver, and as a matter of fact there is no
fat at all around your liver, and for a man of
your age that is impossible. You have a liver
equivalent to that of a newborn baby!’
God still does miracles today—there is
incredible power in prayer.
Reading my Bible and actually thinking
and respecting what God has in store for
me has opened my eyes to how I treat
my body. I am thinking more about what
I am putting into my body, what I do with
it, the people I associate with and the
actions I do.
God keeps telling me to trust in him
with all aspects of my life and this is what
I am doing.
Story republished courtesy of Warcry.