Heather Sorensen of Rumford, right, relaxes with her friend Patricia Smith Swafford at Sorensen’s home recently. The two women support each other’s shared faith by talking and praying for each other, and they hold weekly women’s Bible studies in their homes. (Rumford Falls Times photo by Marianne Hutchinson)

RUMFORD — Heather Sorensen of Rumford almost died from an aneurysm in her brain in June 2014 and she credits God with telling her not to lie down.

She was outside of her home that day, washing her car and when she bent over to wash the car’s wheel wells and went to raise her head she felt an enormous pressure in her head. “I was like, ‘whoa …’ and I could feel that something was terribly wrong, but I could (hear) the Holy Ghost saying, ‘don’t lie down because you’ll die if you do,’’’ Sorensen said.

After a migraine headache she would normally find some relief from the pain by lying down on her bed, but because of the message she heard she went into the house and laid on the couch for a moment before telling her daughter to call an ambulance. Her husband and daughter were both in the kitchen where her daughter was cooking and they both stared at her, wondering why she thought this migraine was more serious than others she had suffered through.

Her daughter called an ambulance for her and that is almost all she remembers of her surgery and recovery time spent at Rumford Hospital and Maine Medical Center in Portland.

“I was down in the special care unit (at Maine Medical Center) for three weeks with barely any memories of it. When they came in to tell my husband what was going on before they did the surgery, he had to go into a room with 14 of my family members to tell them, and basically he lied to them because he didn’t want to tell them how bleak it was.”

Heather Sorensen of Rumford credits a message from God with saving her life after she suffered a brain aneurysm in June 2014. (Rumford Falls Times photo by Marianne Hutchinson)

But at different times — both before her surgery and during her recovery period — her family members and friends told her of statements she made to them, telling them that she wasn’t going to die, saying things like “God’s not through trying to show you how big he really is,” and putting her hand on her husband’s knee to reassure him she would be fine.

Although she has no memory of saying these things she credits God with speaking those comforting and reassuring words through her to them.

One change for the better in her life following the surgery was that it helped her become closer to her father. She hadn’t had a close relationship when she was younger due to her parents’ divorce and that he was a “young dad, and he just didn’t know how to parent,” Sorensen said.

“I felt like God gave me the dad that I wanted (during my recovery). He came here every day on his lunch break after my aneurysm. He came and brought food here and he tried to get me to eat.”

Nowadays she often tries to reach out to people who may want or need her help in prayer and by sharing messages about God on her Facebook page. “I’ve allowed God to use me as a vessel to help people; just for me to speak whatever it is that I can speak to them, to give them comfort,” she said.

“God is Almighty, he’s the great I am. His ways are higher and his thoughts are higher, so we can’t even conceive what he can do out of a bad thing.”

mhutchinson@sunmediagroup.net