The prayer for a miracle to save our baby son

Cassie and Rick Littlejohn’s son clung to life in the NICU. Press play to hear how God’s hope arrived for thousands to see.

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On the day of the scheduled C-section, Cassie Littlejohn woke up anxious.

It was as if she knew a storm was coming. Then God confirmed it in her devotional time.

“Trust me. I’ve got this,” God spoke to her heart that morning.

On the way to the hospital, Cassie prayed Jeremiah 29:11 about 30 times: “I have plans to prosper you; to give you a future and a hope.”

That day, Levi was born limp and blue. He wasn’t breathing.

Suffering from seizure-like activity, Levi was put on a ventilator and rushed to another hospital, where they put him in a medically induced coma by freezing his brain.

It almost feels like your heart is being ripped out of your chest

An overwhelming crisis

The storm ripped the Littlejohns' ordinary lives from their foundation on that Monday of Thanksgiving week.

“Being a parent and not being able to fix or help your child, or take that pain from him, is quite overwhelming,” Cassie says.

Cassie saw Levi for the first time in a transport unit covered with wires.

Other women could hold their babies and bring them home. Cassie could only sit in a beautifully prepared nursery and stare at an empty crib, not knowing one day to the next whether Levi would make it.

READ: My son's healing was a miracle for our marriage

“It almost feels like your heart is being ripped out of your chest. You feel hopeless. You feel lost ... It can literally break you to your core, and it did,” Cassie says.

Doctors speculated that Levi had choked on fluid inside the womb. They didn’t know how long he went without oxygen. He may also have suffered strokes in utero.

After four days, Levi emerged from the coma. But over a sequence of weeks, he was hit with complications, one after another.

They found a blood clot in his brain and a virus that attacked his heart and liver and caused those organs to become enlarged.

Losing hope

The doctors struggled to make sense of what was going on. After two weeks, the doctors were pessimistic Levi would make it.

The only hope for Levi was a miracle.

Cassie had to speak her faith over her child, even if she wasn’t always feeling it. She had to trust God’s promises.

Family, friends, their network at NewSpring Spartanburg, and thousands of others on social media joined with them.

“We prayed for the doctors to have wisdom. We prayed for healing. We prayed for intervention. We prayed for answers. We anointed Levi with oil and prayed Scripture over him.”

One day, after crying out bitterly to God for answers, Cassie was riding home from the hospital with her husband in their pickup truck when a song came on the radio. The lyrics mentioned “coming home for Christmas.”

In that moment, she felt God speak a promise to her heart that Levi would be home Christmas Eve.

Every day the doctors would come by and just marvel

A dramatic turn

That night, one of Cassie’s close friends had planned a special prayer time on Facebook. People in Spartanburg, across South Carolina, and all over the world were going to ask God for healing together at the same time: 8:30pm.

For the first time, Cassie and Rick and everyone following Levi’s story, in person, online and through prayer chains, saw the true power of believing and praying in agreement with God.

Overnight, Levi’s health made a dramatic turn.

Many things changed all at once. He began to feed on a full bottle. He came off oxygen. His blood pressure regulated.

It was like the difference between daylight and darkness, Cassie says.

“He miraculously turned around,” she says. “It was all due to the prayer and God healing our Levi. I have no doubt.”

Within two days, Levi seemed to be a brand new baby. Within a week and a half, he was home — on Christmas Eve night — just like God had promised.

The doctors thought that wouldn’t happen for months.

“Every day the doctors would come by and just marvel,” Cassie says about their visits to Levi's NICU quarters.

When I look at Levi, I see the goodness of God

The power of prayer

From then on, prayer came alive for Cassie and Rick. It no longer seemed like a religious routine but a necessity.

“Prayer is our tool to protect, heal, comfort,” Cassie says. “It’s our gift. It’s our shield. It’s our sword against Satan and the battles we fight.”

Rick, in particular, saw the blessing of prayer.

“He prays for everybody now. He stops what he is doing and prays right then. He has taught me to pray immediately,” Cassie says. “He sometimes will even go up to the NICU and pray for the children there.”

The doctors warned the Littlejohns that Levi may face delays. But the now 3-year-old is healthy and developing normally. In fact, he is slightly ahead of his peers.

For Cassie, Levi’s story is proof that God is the same today as He was when He parted the Red Sea, healed the lame, and raised Jesus from the dead.

“When I look at Levi, I see the goodness of God. I see His favor, and I see His mercy and his hope,” Cassie says.

Watch the video to see Cassie explain how the hope of God brought her and her husband through the storm.