Instead of immediately discussing and taking questions about the game that had just ended, one NFL player, New Orleans Saints linebacker Demario Davis, talked about something else entirely. He shared his powerful and moving testimony about God’s faithfulness, love and healing power. Demario opened up about a recent and frightening incident with his young daughter and her battle with epilepsy.
Athletes, because of what they can do on the field and the court with ease, are somewhat looked at as more than human. Their athletic abilities allow them to effortlessly do things that most people can only dream of doing. But, at the end of the day, when the game clock hits zero and the final buzzer sounds, they are human beings, too. They experience trials, hardships and difficulties just like everyone else.
In a clip posted on YouTube, Demario shared an incident that proves this is indeed the case. The Saints player began his time at the podium by sharing Revelation 3:20: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, then I will come in to him, and will dine with him, and he with me.”
“I want to tell ya about a knock I heard this week,” Demario said.
He said that his 4-year-old daughter had suffered her third epileptic seizure earlier in the week. This child has already been through a lot in her young life. Demario mentioned that she has also had a bout of cancer, beating retinoblastoma.
Demario noticed something was wrong with his daughter as she was playing at home with several friends. He and his wife called an ambulance, which rushed her to the hospital. Demario drove, following behind while his wife rode in the ambulance with their daughter.
After getting to the hospital, Demario says his wife told him that their daughter stopped breathing on the way to the hospital twice. The child’s seizure lasted for nearly 30 minutes.
At this point, Demario feared the worst.
“And at this point, if she seized for 30 minutes, you start to fear there could be development issues that could mess with her brain,” he said. “You know, she stopped breathing, if there was no oxygen going to her brain, you know, you starting to think about will her speech be slurred or anything.”
Demario and his wife continued praying, reaching out to the Lord on behalf of their little girl. Then, in the middle of the night, around 3 a.m., in the hospital room, Demario said he heard a knock.
“And the knock was my daughter,” he said. “I prayed for her; I said, ‘God, let this just be an attack from the enemy. It’s just trying to be a distraction and let him have overplayed his hand, and my daughter come back stronger than before.’”
Demario says that the knock was his daughter talking. What he heard amazed him. She was talking clearer than before the seizure, which is unusual. Demario adds that it typically takes a couple of days for people to return to their usual selves after a seizure.
“The next morning, when she got up, my daughter was so sharp,” he said. “She was able to talk to me and her mom. I mean, clear conversation. I mean, she’s sharp for a 4-year-old. No stuttering. All her words clear.”
Demario says that the Lord answered his prayer to protect his daughter through the seizure, to make her better than before and then some. He added that anyone who has something in their life should just lay before His feet.
“I just want people to know, like, if you’ve got stuff going on in your life, lay it before the Lord,” he said. “Lay it before the Lord and trust and be expecting of a knock because what the Word says is you have to get up and answer the door. He’s not going to open the door for you.”
