After his New Orleans Saints won their season opener Sunday, veteran linebacker Demario Davis used his five-minute press conference in what he admitted was an “untraditional” way. The 34-year-old pro athlete spoke about the power of prayer, God’s miraculous healing, and our responsibility to open the door when Jesus knocks.
Addressing the media after defeating the Tennessee Titans on Sept. 10, Davis said, “Since so many of us didn’t get to go to church today, I have a word that I want to share.” Then he read Revelation 3:20, about Jesus standing at the door and knocking, and relayed a personal story about “a knock that I heard this week.”
Demario Davis on Daughter’s Miraculous Recovery
Davis, a father of five, described a harrowing scene from last Friday, when his 4-year-old daughter, Carly-Faith, had her “worst” epileptic seizure yet. The girl seized for 30 minutes, foaming at the mouth, and stopped breathing twice in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.
At that point, said Davis, “You start to fear there could be development issues. It could mess with her brain.” He and his wife, Tamela, spent the night praying in their daughter’s hospital room. About 3 a.m., Davis recalled, “I heard a knock, and the knock was my daughter. I said, ‘God, let this just be an attack from the enemy that’s just trying to be a distraction, and let him have overplayed his hand and my daughter come back stronger than before.’”
In the middle of the night, Davis said, Carly-Faith started “talking clearer than before.” And by morning, she was “sharper than before.” Most people with epilepsy are groggy for a few days following a seizure, he noted, yet his daughter came home “and it was as if nothing was happening.” She was even able to play for a while at her older sister’s birthday party.
Carly-Faith had been a month away from being able to stop taking epilepsy medication, her father said. Now she must start the clock over again with that. When she was 10 months old, Carly-Faith survived retinoblastoma.
Saints Linebacker: ‘Get Up and Open the Door’
Although football is a great game where “amazing things” happen, Davis said, “when we leave this game, we go back to being regular people. And regular people are living life, and people are waiting for a knock. And the Word says who Jesus is. He’s knocking at the door. All you’ve got to do is get up.”
Davis admitted being nervous as his daughter seized and was rushed to the hospital. “But I’m praying, and I’m trusting, and I’m believing,” he said. “And I’m not asking for my daughter to make it through; I’m asking that she’s better than before. And God gave me just what I asked for, plus some. I was blown away.”
