I almost died recently. I was in the hospital with a deadly scorpion sting. Normally I would prefer to keep such a story as this private, but there is something in my spirit that is telling me that I need to share it, so here goes…
Let me start by telling you all that by far my absolute biggest fear in my entire life is a scorpion. I mean, we are talking recurring nightmares kind of fear ever since I was a little girl. I don’t know why, perhaps it was an old movie I saw or something, but never the less we’ve all got our biggest fears right? Well, now you know mine. What is also uncanny is that I was born in October, so my zodiac sign is a Scorpio. (still not sure if this means I’m afraid of myself???) To this we are going to add something else I find extremely interesting: the evening in which this event occurred was the exact moment in time when the planet Jupiter entered into Scorpio… a position that it will be in for the next year. (I don’t know what this means either, but I’m looking into it).
I live outside of Marrakech Morocco in a beautiful olive grove. My partner Tivon and I had just come home from a long day of running errands in town. It was about 8:00 at night and it was dark. I went out to the car to bring in a bag of groceries. I was wearing open Teva strap sandals, and I suddenly felt the most horrific pain I’ve ever experienced in my life on the side of my right foot. All I could do was scream, I looked down and could hardly see anything, but I did see this black spidery looking mass about the size of the palm of my hand jerking backwards in a recoil. At the time I had no idea what it was, I thought it could have been a snake, I actually thought it was something esoteric at first. I also thought that the only scorpions here were small, But this thing was huge. This is the thing that stung me.
Its called a “Fattail Scorpion” and its one of the most dangerous groups of scorpion species in the world. It was about 4 inches long. Its latin name Androctonus orginates from the Greek meaning “man killer”. Their venom contains powerful neurotoxins and is especially potent.
Searing hot fire overtook my flesh. I was screaming uncontrollably and ran into the house. The pain was unrelenting. Tivon immediately ran to my side and I tried to tell him through hysterical choking tears what I thought happened to me. He soaked my foot and gave me a huge pile of activated charcoal tablets to swallow with milk. I was thrashing in pain. He started sucking the poison out of my foot with his mouth. At this point I could feel the fire of the poison moving up my leg into my groin area, it was heading towards my heart where it could give me a heart attack and kill me. I was doing all I could to try to prevent the poison from moving through my body, but there really was very little I could do. It was already inside my blood stream, my blood pressure was going through the roof and the agony of the pain had me in a state of shock. All I could do was pray and that’s what I did.
I prayed and I screamed. I called up on the name of Jesus, I pulled up every bible verse that God had written on my heart. “I give you the power to tread on scorpions”… and “by his stripes I am healed” I prayed in tongues, I screamed some more… Tivon prayed with me. I repeated Gods words in authority over and over and over again at the top of my lungs. Together the two of us where in full on spiritual warfare. Rebuking the evil that was running through my veins and trying to kill me. Tivon went to our neighbors who called a clinic and drove me to hospital nearby.
While my flesh was a blazing inferno of torment, my mind was on a different battlefield all together. Yes, I had fearful thoughts running through my mind. But my faith was my shield through it all. This was it for me, it was my moment of testing my faith and beliefs. I was possibly facing death and I had no fear of it. Because I know where I’m going when I die and also because I knew that I had a lot more work to do in this life. I was more afraid of causing pain to the people that I would leave behind.
And then something incredible happened. It was about 2 hours after the initial sting. I had been fighting a physical and spiritual war this whole time. I was laid out on a hospital table, hooked up to a machine with tubes and wires all over me to monitor my heart rate. I was still writhing in pain and crying uncontrollably. All the nurses walked out of the room and I was left in there completely alone for about 5 minutes. It was then that I felt the undeniable presence of God enter into the room. It was my precious Jesus, whom I know and love with all my heart. It was his presence there with me. I didn’t see him with my eyes but I felt him with every fiber of my being. And I had a deeper understanding of what he meant when he said “blessed is he who has not seen me and believes”. With his presence, an energy of confidence flooded my mind and I heard the words “It is finished”, “You are already healed”, “In a few hours you will go home, just wait and let the doctors run their tests”.
Then a new nurse entered into the room, she asked me what my name is. I told her “Naima” which is a very popular name here in Morocco. Just about every fourth woman here is named Naima. I’ve been told it means “Gift from Allah”. She was surprised to hear that my name was Naima and asked me if I was Moroccan. I told her that no, my parents named me after a song, and then I started singing it to her. She lit up with the sound of my voice and couldn’t believe that I was the same woman who was screaming in pain just a few short minutes ago.
They transferred me to a recovery bed where I got to sit there and watch my sky-rocketed blood pressure on another machine. I was noticing other very strange symptoms too. The venom running through my body created a menthol taste in my mouth and I had “pins and needles” effects all over my body. It felt like I was standing naked in an ice crystal wind storm, yet I was drenched in sweat. They wanted to give me morphine, but I refused it as I knew that I needed my mind to be clear and sharp so that I could keep focusing on my prayers until I was finally through this.
Tivon had to leave for a while to go get the car and come back. While he was gone I was hooked up to tubes in a hospital bed with nothing but my phone. So I took the one good finger I had and typed out a Facebook post asking for prayers. Hundreds of messages started flooding in with prayers from friends all over the world in real time. My mom was looking up my symptoms for me and talking to me along with my sister from the other side of the planet on wassap. I have to say, this technology is flipping amazing.
Tivon returned and sat next to my hospital bed and we waited. I was still in tremendous pain, but I was in great spirits, because I knew that God had saved me and pretty soon I would be going home. There were three other sick people in the room with me, I decided to start praying for each of them to heal to. I was just so grateful. So unbelievably and undeniable grateful. It was around 5am when they released me and I was able to go home. I didn’t fall asleep until many hours later as the pain kept me awake. In all truth the pain from that dreaded thing did not fully stop until about 48 hours after the initial sting.
So here I am on the other side of all of this. I made it. I am writing this post on my 40th birthday. I’m completely recovered physically and forever changed mentally and emotionally and spiritually. It’s hard to put into words what it feels like after you’ve experienced your greatest fear and live to tell the tale. God has given us the power to tread on scorpions. For me this was a life long fear that turned into a very literal reality. And when it happened God did not leave nor forsake me.
If your reading this and you are in a place where FEAR is completely controlling every aspect of your life, I want you to know that it doesn’t need to be like this. You can be set free from fear. Call out to God with all your heart and he will save you, just like he saved me. God bless you all.
