Read Don's Story
19 years ago, my wife and I had this conversation about, we have four beautiful children, living the American dream, but we said something is missing. We are missing something in life. And so a year later, tragedy hit us.
They were all drinking and having a good time. This kid had the GHB drug in a Gatorade bottle… my son Brandon loves Gatorade, so unbeknown to him, what was in it, he drank half the bottle and he had the GHB drug in it. So it suppressed him to the point where it stopped him from breathing. It killed him.
When he got into Charity, they said that he had already stopped breathing 10 to 12 minutes.
11 days, we were there doing everything I could do, medically speaking, humanly possible to try to get life back into my son.
The nurse said, “You can talk to him. He can probably hear you. He won’t be able to respond, but he can hear you.” I was just telling him how much I love him. I told the Lord “Lord don’t take him; take me.” He was only 18. As I was talking to him, I had seen a couple of tears coming down his eyes. I knew at that point he could hear me.
My good friend, he walked to me and said, “If you get an opportunity, I would like you to read this.” He handed me a track and I stuck in my back pocket and I took it out that night and I read it, and I read it again, and I read it again. I did what it told me to do. It was four spiritual laws and a little prayer in the back where I could surrender my life to Christ. And I did. From that point on, it was just an amazing journey from that point on.
They asked if we would donate his organs. We said yes, and by saying that 9 people’s lives were saved, by donating his organs.
God put on my heart to pick up his word and start reading it.
The first thing that he revealed to me was in John 14:27 with Jesus said, “Peace, I leave you with. My peace, I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give.” He said, “Do not let your hearts troubled, nor let it be fearful.” That scripture came off that page and went this heart here and it hasn’t left for 18 years. I never ever felt this way ever in my life, never in my life.
I was asked to go to Cabrini one time to get my testimony, and I wound up going seven times. On the fifth time, my wife, she came with me and she stood up. She stood up and said, “I just wanted to let y’all know that I would rather be where I am today in my walk with the Lord, than to have my son back.” I just looked up and said, “Lord, only you could have done this and you have done it.” She had found that peace that God had given me in that hospital.
He changed my life. He changed my heart. He changed my heart of rock to a heart flesh to make me realize and understand that everything is ultimately from Him and everything is for Him.
My name is Don Bourgeois and He changed my life.