By Caleb Campos —
In the water at a beach, Buddhist Alice Tran was struck by lightning. Her boyfriend and little sister moved to rescue her.
“They noticed me face down in the water come over to me and pulled me out and they realized that I had been put in cardiac arrest,” Alice says. ”Some good Samaritans came and they started performing CPR”
Alice Tran came from a family of devout Buddhists, and they would regularly go to temples to offer sacrifices, as well as in their house where they had shrines.
She was born and raised in California until she was 13 years old, when her mom divorced and moved the family moved to Tennessee.
At age 18 Alice graduated dental assistant school. Buddhism, she explained, was a works based life. You worked at being a good person and worked to earn things for yourself. The essence and core was works.
As a vacation, she, her family, and then boyfriend went to South Carolina. On the final day of their trip at the beach, they ignored warnings to get out of the water as storms rolled in. They were having too much fun.
Lightning struck.
Luckily for Alice an ambulance arrived shortly and took her to the hospital. She remained in a coma for three days. After a month of being hospitalized, she came back home
“I was surrounded by a lot of Christian coworkers and friends,” Alice says. “I came home and I was surrounded by them and they had mentioned that they had prayed their hearts out and had their church pray for me.”
Still, Alice didn’t come to God.
The lightning destroyed her life: she could no longer pursue her dental career in college. She had to go through rehab to recover her mobility. Everything she had been working at came to a screeching halt.
In her heart, bitterness grew.
Years later in 2023 at a time when she was depressed and suicidal, Alice turned on sermon even though she wasn’t really paying attention. It was background noise.
The end of the sermon caught her attention: You can work for your whole life. You can um run after you know a good career. You can run after um a spouse. You can run after achievements. Um but those are not the answer. It’s never going to fulfill you. Jesus is the answer.
Without thinking, she repeated the sinner’s prayer along with the pastor online.
“The second I did, I was wrecked with the peace of God,” she tells. “Exactly what I was looking for, what I was searching for the entire time, all these years. I didn’t have to work for it, strive or perform for it.”
A small voice in her head said: That day on the beach was a miracle that I was with you the entire time. That not only did I save you, but I saved you from hell.
The bitterness vanished. Human efforts, careers and achievements could not bring you fulfillment, only Jesus could.
Source: CBN
