On November 11th we observed Veteran's Day which is set aside each year to honor those military veterans as well a those serving now that have fought and are still fighting for the freedom of our great country. It grew out of Armistice Day and declared by President Woodrow Wilson in 1919.
God has claimed many a life from wars over the years because to those fighting in combat especially, they needed his help to stay alive. I have no doubt that miracles through the times when they might have needed him most, can be told of many. Due to my own father's miracle in World War 11, I wanted to bring you their miracles that saved the lives of these two men that loved their country.
First comes the story of a man whose father-in law, lived to tell how God had saved his life, through a bee.
A Head Injury Sustained During WWII Changed His Relationship with God
But was it a bullet or was it a bee sting? He thought it was a miracle.
by From 
- Posted on Jul 24, 2020
His favorite stories were about his time in World War II. Like so many young men of his generation, he’d enlisted in the Army after the attack on Pearl Harbor and shipped out to Europe. He spoke of adventure, camaraderie and bravery.
I myself experienced the devastation that had engulfed Europe. My family was living in the Sathmar region of Romania when the war broke out. We spent the next few years struggling to survive. Looking back, it is incredible to think that my future father-in-law was a part of the Allied forces, fighting not 30 miles from where my family sat huddled in a refugee camp. Eventually we would make it to America.
At family gatherings, however, Jim’s war stories were few and far between. His wife—my mother-in-law—hated hearing anything about the war. It brought back painful memories of a time when she worried he wouldn’t make it home alive. Jim respected his wife’s wishes. He never mentioned the war when my mother-in-law was in earshot. We didn’t hear much about his WWII service until after she passed away.
On Jim’s eightieth birthday, we planned a big celebration for him, just as he’d wanted. We rented out a banquet hall and hired caterers. Toward the end of the evening, Jim gathered us all to make a toast. And to tell us a story.
Jim’s unit—the 92nd Signal Battalion—was part of General Omar Bradley’s First Army. They were the ones who stormed the beaches of Normandy, France, on June 6, 1944. D-day. The success of that mission was a miracle. And though Jim hadn’t been a part of that initial wave, he experienced a miracle of his own in Normandy.
Jim was attached to the Battalion Headquarters Company, which had been assigned to set up long-range communications. They landed on the beach, where so many had died mere days before, then traveled inland, picking their way through the infamous, sloping hedgerows of the French countryside.
They were just preparing to set up a radio tower when they came under enemy fire.
“Hit the dirt!” a commanding officer shouted. “We’ve arrived at the party!”
The men dropped to the ground. There was a ditch nearby. Some soldiers ran to it; others crawled. Anything to take cover from the attack. Bullets whizzed past, splattering mud as they went. Jim’s unit hadn’t been too far behind the battlefront, but they hadn’t expected to encounter enemy troops so soon. There were shouts. Cries of pain.
They say you never see the shot that takes you down. But Jim saw it. A bullet, speeding toward him. He closed his eyes and ducked. Not fast enough. White-hot pain exploded in the back of his head. The force of it rattled his teeth.
This is it, he thought. I’ve been hit.
The sounds of the battle muted. Time stopped. Swimming before his eyes was the image of his wife and baby daughter, Frances. They were back home, waiting for him.
In that moment, Jim prayed. He prayed harder and more earnestly than he’d ever prayed in his life. I can’t die here, he told God. I need to see them again.
Jim continued to pray until the gunfire died down and the all clear was given. The pain was still pulsing at the back of his head. He was afraid to remove his helmet, scared that it was the only thing still holding his skull together. But he needed to know how bad the wound was. Bracing himself, Jim sat up and took the helmet off.
There was no blood. Jim placed a tentative hand to the part of his head where the pain bloomed sharpest. He could feel something protruding from the skin. Jim thought he was going to be sick—then the thing started to move.
In a blind panic, Jim yanked it free. He blinked at it, confused. Because there, between his fingers, was a bug. No—not just a bug—a huge yellow jacket. It was dead but not before it had stung him in the back of the head.
Jim didn’t receive medical attention right away. There were many others who were badly wounded, and the field hospital was swamped. It wasn’t until two days later that Jim was finally seen by a doctor. In that time, his face had swollen so much, he could barely swallow. The wasp’s stinger was buried deep in the skin and needed to be cut out.
“I still have the scar,” Jim said to the hushed party, all those decades later. “It’s the only thing I have to prove it happened. Because I can’t explain it. I know people will say that it was just a bee sting, that I was never shot, but I disagree. I know that God was with me that day. That he heard my prayer. And somehow he transformed that bullet into a bee.”
Jim has since passed, but this story has stuck with me. He was never able to prove that what he experienced did happen, but that didn’t really matter, because it was real and transformative to him. It changed his relationship with God.
And as for me, his story showed how easily things could have wound up different. That everything turned out the way they did—that a little boy who was in a WWII refugee camp grew up, moved to the United States and fell in love with the daughter of an Allied soldier who maybe almost didn’t make it home—that’s a miracle all its own. See story at:
Head Injury Sustained During WWII Changed His Relationship with God | Guideposts
My Father's Story
My father never talked to us about his war experience. So my knowledge of what he went through during that time, is sketchy at best. However, what I do know is that he fought during WW11 with allied forces against Germany. And there was a reason I believe he did share about his own miracle in that war. Because it became his testimony of how he got saved.
He was in infantry and therefore was right in the thick of what was going on, on ground combat. During combat against Germany, it had been very frightening for those soldiers. Not knowing if they would make it out alive. And it was so scary that one time that his miracle came.
They were in the midst of gun fire going off all around them. And they were in foxholes hiding until they could safely get out. Whizzing bullets over head, he prayed, "God, if you get me out of this, I will serve you for the rest of my life."
It was simple as that. God had spared him. But then sometime during that time, he took a bullet in his thigh. He was taken to a hospital in Italy, where they removed the bullet and sent him back to the United States to recover.
Yes, to him it had been a miracle and had God not saved him that day, two of his four children would never have been born. My younger brother and myself.
Dad did not immediately get saved after that. He had forgotten his promise to the Lord. But in 1951 he had attended a Billy Graham Crusade in which he did. I can't say he was perfect after that. He wasn't. What I can say is I am thankful for that prayer because through all our family went through as the years went on, that decision to follow Christ continued all through his life until he went home in 2005 to live with the God that had saved his life that day, he saw many get saved because of his witness to them of Jesus Christ. For myself it had been the beginning of how I grew to love the Lord because our lives could have gone a whole different way then it did, just as the author of the story above. God is so good!
⭐
Two men. Two miracles.
God can do anything even with a bee and prayer. I don't know how the man thought he saw a bee coming at them, but then found it had struck him in the back of head, the stinging of a bee. Maybe it was a vision. Maybe it flew around to the back of him. But as we know....
God can do anything. Even with a bee,
If he so chooses.
And if we ask!
Have a blessed day!
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