MAGNOLIA, Texas — Joshua Nostrand remembers lying on a gurney just minutes after playing basketball at student camp, telling God at 14 years old that he trusted Him to decide whether he lived or died.

“It was calming for me to say to God, ‘I leave it all up to You. It’s not my choice,’” Joshua said, recounting the moments after he spent eight minutes in cardiac arrest.

The faith-testing incident happened just before the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s M3 Camp at Highland Lakes Camp and Conference Center south of Austin last summer. In the immediate moments following the medical emergency, God put the right people in the right places at the right times to save Joshua’s life. 

“We’re just in awe of the beauty of the gospel in this whole situation and the grace of God that is unmerited, and we’re very grateful for everything,” said Joshua’s father, Eddie, an associate pastor at Harbor Church in Magnolia.

Doctors determined Joshua sustained no brain damage despite being without oxygen for several minutes. The cause of the heart attack was attributed to a congenital heart defect. 

He underwent emergency open heart surgery to correct the coronary artery problem and, after 10 days in the hospital, he was on his way to recovery. 

Now Joshua is letting God use his story to strengthen him and others. 

“This whole experience has helped me grow in the gospel,” Joshua said. “Of course there will always be rough roads, but I’m always led to that experience where I gave everything to God and He just healed me.”

Eddie recalled the moment in the hospital when he, his wife Bianca and a doctor told Joshua he would undergo open heart surgery. 

“He showed no fear, which was just incredible,” Eddie said. “He just said, ‘My life is in God’s hands.’ … As a father and a mother to hear their 14-year-old boy at the time say that was incredible, because I don’t know that I could have that fearless trust and faith in that moment myself.”

Eddie remembers he had “never felt so helpless in the flesh” as he did when he saw his son in cardiac arrest and in the following hours. 

“At the same time, seeing Joshua’s display of faith encouraged our souls that it truly is not in our hands, and whatever the outcome, we needed to trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding.

“That’s a verse that so many believers memorize but don’t have ample opportunity to apply in these kinds of scenarios,” Eddie said of Proverbs 3:5. “It’s easier to apply when the stakes aren’t so high.” 

A poignant picture of the gospel

The entire episode was “an incredible maturing process for us,” Eddie said of himself and his wife, and now “the time that we have with (Joshua) is precious to us.”

He has thought more of how God must have felt in giving His only Son to die for the redemption of sinners. Joshua’s incident “made the gospel more real than we could have expected,” Eddie said. 

“It was like looking at the gospel like a multifaceted diamond. Though we saw some facets as clear as day in our hearts, this was another side to the gospel that we got to experience and see in clarity that encouraged us,” he said. 

The reality of the apostle Paul’s statement in Philippians 1:21 that “to live is Christ and to die is gain” was underscored for the father by the faith of the son. Also, 1 Peter 5:7, the admonition to cast anxieties on the Lord, has been magnified for the family.

“There’s a fatherly love that He has for His people, and the key to it is humility and not trying to take the circumstance by the reins and controlling it in your own strength,” Eddie said. “Humility is the best expression of faith in God.”

With life moving on in renewed faith, Joshua said he hopes to return to M3 camp this summer to complete the experience he expected last year and to share his story. That story has already had an impact on countless others.

Joshua heard from his siblings that some in their student ministry group gave testimony of being strengthened in their faith by his story. His 12-year-old sister spoke of the difference it made in her walk with Christ. 

The Nostrands delivered hamburgers and expressed gratitude to the helicopter crew that airlifted Joshua from the camp to a children’s hospital. A younger pilot “was almost teary-eyed” and said he had been struggling with his faith in Christ.

Hearing of Joshua’s “unwavering faith in God throughout the whole process” renewed the pilot’s faith and led him to want to seek the Lord again, Eddie said. 

“It has just been an incredible testimony,” Eddie added, “of God’s love and provision and providence and sovereignty and grace in our lives to be able to share and connect to the gospel and really point people to the Lord and make sure God gets all the glory in this.”

EDITOR’S NOTE — This article originally appeared in the Southern Baptist TEXAN.