He Heard God Speak and What Happened Next Shocked His Doctors

Christopher Gunderson spent the first 16 years of his life unable to eat and in desperate need of medical intervention for survival. But Gunderson, who was born with chronic pseudo-obstruction syndrome — an ailment in which the gastrointestinal tracts can't appropriately absorb food — experienced a miracle that changed everything. "I was born ... basically, where my stomach was completely paralyzed," he told CBN News. "They call it complete gastroparesis, and it wouldn't pump anything from my stomach to my small intestine." This meant Gunderson, whose story is briefly told in CBN's new documentary "Investigating the Supernatural: Miracles," would vomit whenever he ate, making nourishment near-impossible.

"It took my parents and the doctors several studies and diagnostic tests to figure out that that was truly the case that I had complete gastroparesis," he said. Doctors were forced to insert two tubes into his body. One, which went into his stomach, decompressed everything he swallowed to try and help process it through.

Another tube, connected to Gunderson's small intestine, allowed him to get nutrition from formula — something he relied on for nutrients throughout the first 16 years of his life. As he got older and more active, the situation became tougher to navigate. "I would have bile actually back up into my stomach and cause severe heartburn on a daily basis," Gunderson said. "I'd have to constantly drain that out throughout the night and throughout the day."

Eventually, doctors came to fear what might happen due to the lack of nourishment and complications. "My parents were told multiple times that the doctors didn't know how long I was going to live for," Gunderson said, noting he went septic in the past and had infections. "They never exposed that to me, which I'm grateful for." Gunderson was raised in a Christian household but was skeptical that miracles are still unfolding. Despite that belief, he and his family found themselves at a 2011 event featuring Bruce Van Natta, a ministry leader whose own miracle healing story of being crushed by a truck and surviving has led to speeches, addresses, and books.

"My mom was hearing his testimony, and during the whole time that Bruce was talking my mom was hearing God tell her to go talk to him," Gunderson said. "He was saying a lot of familiar medical terminology that most people wouldn't really know because of what Bruce had gone through and what I've gone through." His mom ended up approaching Van Natta. While Gunderson wasn't there at the time, she asked Van Natta if he would pray for her son. Van Natta agreed and told the mother to bring her son the next day to hear him speak — so they did. Little did the family know, but a miracle was on the horizon.