Jim Woodford’s life was built on a foundation of material success and self-reliance, but at 61 years old, a medical crisis would fundamentally alter his perspective forever. The man once known as “Diamond Jim” for his business acumen and love of wealth would emerge from a coma with a story that challenged everything he once believed about life, faith, and what truly matters.
Woodford’s identity had been wrapped up in his ability to solve problems and accumulate wealth. His wife Lorraine, a devout Christian, often prayed for her husband to undergo a spiritual transformation. “God please change his heart. Bring him to know Jesus Christ and just make a change in him and deal with this materialistic way,” she would pray regularly.
A rare diagnosis brings unbearable pain
As Woodford’s financial success grew, so did an internal emptiness that plagued him during quiet moments. The persistent question “Is this all there is?” haunted him. His world turned upside down when doctors diagnosed him with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare and incurable condition that brought severe physical suffering.
The businessman described the sensation as “unremitting, electrical current pain in every part of my body, accompanied with paralyzing inability to move.” According to Lorraine, the constant agony transformed her husband’s personality. “He was just getting to be a very angry person. The pain was just consuming him,” she recalled.
Despite his suffering, Woodford remained stubbornly independent. “Never once, and this speaks to the arrogance, did I reach inside or look up to the sky and say, ‘God, if you exist, help me out here.’ Not me, not Diamond Jim,” he later acknowledged.
A wife’s desperate prayer
By April 2014, Lorraine’s prayers had evolved. Exhausted and discouraged by the lack of change in her husband, she prayed: “God, I’ve been praying, but I haven’t seen any change. Maybe you just have to break him to remake him.”
Shortly thereafter, Woodford accidentally consumed more than four times his prescribed medication dosage. A burning sensation spread through his legs, and breathing became increasingly difficult. In desperation, he called out words he had never spoken before: “God! Forgive me! Forgive me!”
When he failed to return home, Lorraine contacted authorities. Police discovered him unconscious in his vehicle, and emergency responders transported him to the hospital. Medical professionals delivered grim news to Lorraine: her husband had suffered severe brain damage with no detectable brain activity and was experiencing organ failure.
An extraordinary experience beyond the hospital room
While medical staff worked to keep him alive, Woodford claims he was experiencing something entirely different. “I look to the right and there’s this incredible vista of beautiful flowers and meadows. And I turned my vision to the left and that beautiful green grass went from green to brown to scorched to black and dropped off in a crevasse. I saw the most hideous creature you could ever imagine. And I fell back in abject terror. But at this point, I turned toward the light and I cried out, ‘God, help me. Help me!'” he recounted.
According to Woodford, three angels appeared and transported him through heaven, where he encountered Jesus Christ. “I realized I was looking at none other than Jesus Christ, the Son of God…I had no answer…But as I looked into His eyes and He smiled at me. He knew me. I saw such intense love and forgiveness for me, for me who deserved nothing. And that was the moment…I was His forever. Whatever was about to become of me, I was His. I-I-I loved Him and He loved me,” he described.
A transformed man returns
Woodford claims he was reluctant to leave but was given a directive: “‘Go back and tell your brothers and sisters of the wonders we have shown you.’ Suddenly I’m in a cold hospital room on a gurney, screaming at the top of my lungs. Scared the daylights out of some of the nurses!”
Lorraine immediately recognized the profound change in her husband. “He was focused on Jesus. And he became much gentler,” she observed. While Woodford continues to live with the physical effects of Guillain-Barre syndrome, he reports that the debilitating pain has disappeared.
Today, Woodford dedicates himself to sharing his experience and message of faith. “You have to open the door of your heart to let Him in, and the door of my heart has now been opened,” he states simply, speaking to anyone willing to listen about salvation in Jesus Christ.
