Blog

by Daniel Fazzina

“And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
- St. Paul the Apostle, Romans 8:28

My name is Daniel Fazzina, and God has intervened in my life many times. One of those times was when I was in the midst of a health crisis.

I felt the dull ache of death in my chest—the throbbing, the pounding! I just wanted it to stop—please! I saw dim fluorescent lights and heard distant, frantic, unfamiliar voices. I was on my back, moving down a long hallway. But where was I? A wave of nausea churned in my gut. I cringed, and vomit exploded from my mouth.

I felt something bite me. “What was that?” I wondered. “Get it off of me!” I felt the cold sting of thin steel pierce my flesh, and a burning sensation climbed from the wound up into the veins of my arm. Faces flashed into my view like ghosts, vanishing before my confused mind could recognize them, teasing me, taunting me.

I glimpsed a middle-aged man with a furrowed brow peering closely into my face. Why was he touching my eyelids? There were bright lights, flashes of white, then a young black woman with a kind, nervous face hovering over me. Was she an angel? It seemed as if my eyes were rolling around in their sockets like loose marbles while a spectral blacksmith used my head as an anvil, pounding me relentlessly with his invisible hammer. I heard my name through the clamor like a distant echo: “Daniel? Daniel! He’s going out! Doctor!”

Another flash, this time something vaguely familiar, deep brown eyes. Those eyes—could it be Mom? Yes! I wanted to cry out but my voice refused to comply. My tongue was tied in a knot, and the room was spinning, but Mother was there. A look of sadness mixed with terror covered her face. Her loving eyes had ballooned to twice their normal size. I focused on them, somewhat comforted, knowing she was there as consciousness fled from me.

Little did I know, this initial emergency room visit would be the beginning of my family’s descent into the valley of the shadow of death. It was the summer of 2002, and I was twenty-seven years old. The doctors found a massive, cancerous tumor inside my chest. The diagnosis was lymphoma. The tumor was positioned just above my heart, and it was larger than my heart. As it grew, it began crushing my pulmonary artery, starving me of oxygen and literally suffocating me.

The oncologists said it was inoperable, and that they would try to treat it with medication, but they weren’t sure if it would respond. If it didn’t, they assured me I’d be dead within months—three at the most.

What do you do when you hear news like that? It’s impossible to know what the “right” response should be. I felt a mixture of disbelief, shock, and numbness.

The following months were the most challenging and glorious of my life, filled with doctors’ visits, prayer meetings, pain, prophecies, medical tests, visions, love, and support. As a follower of Jesus since my childhood, I knew I was God’s child and that He could heal me if He wanted to. It was in this season of my life that God taught me to completely depend on Him. I remember being alone one night in my hospital bed, literally suffocating. I looked up to the ceiling and offered up a simple prayer. “Lord,” I said, “I know I’m Your child. If You want to take me, I’ll go with You.” The Bible says that for the believer, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (see 2 Cor. 5:8), and I believe that. I continued, “But if You want to heal me and let me live, I will do my best to continue to serve You, and to share with the world Your goodness, love, mercy, and power.” I was a broken man, totally thrown onto the mercy of God, praying like Jesus did, “Not my will, but Yours, be done” (see Luke 22:42).

In late December, I went in for my follow-up PET scan. It had been three months since I started chemotherapy, and this was the halfway-point scan to gauge the progress. The doctors were hoping (and my loved ones were praying) the tumor would be smaller and that the treatment was working. Well, God really answered everyone’s prayers because when I got the results, the tumor was not just smaller, it was completely gone! When I saw the pictures with no sign of the tumor that had so ominously threatened my life only months before, I looked up to heaven and with tears in my eyes thanked Jesus for His goodness and mercy.

Ironic as it may sound, God used a terrible, deadly disease to bless me abundantly. All the grace and blessings that resulted from my being sick could fill its own book, but here are a few examples:

My faith in Jesus and the knowledge that He is in control of my life, no matter how bad things look, was made more real to me through my experience. “Head knowledge” was tested and turned into “experiential knowledge.”

The faith of many people around me was strengthened after having witnessed the miracles that occurred during the crisis. Many relationships with friends and family were strengthened.

My relationship with my girlfriend, Sahani, was strengthened. We were drawn closer together in prayer, and it helped to mature us in our relationship with each other and with God. Today we are happily married and so blessed!

I have been honored to share my testimony at many churches, on radio shows, even on Fox News and television programs such as The 700 Club and TBN’s Praise the Lord. I now host my own radio show called Divine Intervention, on which I interview others who have experienced miracles. This led to the publication of the Divine Intervention book series, the latest of which is entitled Divine Intervention: 50 True Stories of God’s Miracles Today, and releases August 5th 2014 from Charisma House Publishers.

Many other blessings came out of my being ill, but it’s enough to say that the same Jesus who walked the earth 2,000 years ago performing miracles and healing people is still alive today and still doing miracles. He is real and He wants a relationship with you. I pray that you don’t take my word for it, however. I pray you will take a chance on Jesus, that you will give Him an opportunity to show you, and that you will experience Him for yourself. He loves you so much!

About Daniel Fazzina:

Mr. Fazzina’s professional background is in media production. His experience includes hosting radio shows, editing music videos, directing a short film, and award-winning commercials. He also served as a board member of St. John’s University’s chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, where he earned his B.S. in Communication Arts in 1998. After studying in Spain, Italy, and France, and doing missionary work in the Dominican Republic, he has gained a broadened appreciation for different peoples, languages, and cultures. His radio program, “The Divine Intervention Show,” can be heard on Sundays at 10 p.m. on its flagship station, Hope Radio in New York, on various other radio stations across America, and on the Internet at divineinterventionradio.com. Daniel's own personal testimony of miraculous healings - one from a painful chronic back condition in 2001, and one from a massive, cancerous tumor in 2002, led him to start the Divine Intervention Radio show and book series, in which he interviews intriguing people who have experienced the hand of God in Amazing ways. His additional interests include Biblical apologetics, alternative fuel technologies, networking, reading, writing, economics, cryptozoology, and creation science.

Everyday Miracles Pay Homage to Divine Intervention
God’s hand at work in the world, evidenced by powerful personal testimonies

Moses parted the Red Sea. Peter healed a man born lame. Jesus calmed a raging storm, healed paralytics, and raised the dead. The Bible contains some incredible stories of miracles and divine interventions, but are these types of events still happening today? The answer to this question, detailed in Daniel Fazzina’s Divine Intervention: 50 True Stories of God’s Miracles Today (Charisma House, August 2014), is an emphatic yes! Contained within the book is a collection of amazing true stories that attest to this fact. You will read astonishing firsthand accounts of people who have been healed of paralysis, "terminal" cancer, and tumors through prayer. You will see the love of God powerfully transform the life of an Islamic terrorist. You will witness the liberation of the demon-possessed, the resurrection of the dead and much more.

“The testimonies are true, amazing, and provide unmistakable evidence that God is still intervening in people’s lives today, just as He did during the time the Bible was written,” says Fazzina. “They are from people with diverse cultural and denominational backgrounds from all over the world who give glory to Jesus for their experiences.”

The topic resonates with Fazzina on a personal level too. More than ten years ago, he was healed of a painful chronic back condition and a large cancerous tumor in his chest. The doctors said he could be dead within a matter of weeks, but God had other plans for him, and now he is “an ordinary man [who] can not deny there are miracles happening every day.”

Daniel Fazzina’s radio program, “The Divine Intervention Show,” can be heard on radio stations across America and on the Internet on divineinterventionradio.com. A native New Yorker, Daniel currently resides in Virginia with his wife.