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By Movieguide® Staff
Actor Jesse Hutch says his near-death experience gave him a new perspective on faith.
“I should be in a vegetative state,” he said during an episode of 100 HUNTLEY STREET. “What do you do with that?”
At 21, Hutch survived a near-drowning in the Ottawa River. He was submerged in the water without oxygen for 11 to 22 minutes before being rescued by a rafting group. Miraculously, Hutch did not sustain any lasting brain damage.
“I went home and sat on the edge of my bed and was like, ‘Okay, uh…what? Now what, Lord?’” Hutch explained. “My eyes were opened in a new way, and my ears were opened in a new way of listening, where I was like, ‘Okay, whatever you say goes. You got me. You completely took care of me.’”
The actor said God “used that situation,” adding, “I don’t believe He put me in it, but I believe that He uses where we end up, all for His glory. So I’m still learning from — about His glory, from that. Even when I share this story, every time, I always kind of learn something new, or I figure out a new way to go, ‘Oh, wow, Lord, You — thank You.’”
In an essay for Guideposts, Hutch wrote about overcoming his fear of water following the incident. He kayaked in the river he almost drowned in, and after getting back on land, he “broke down crying.”
“At last, I understood. All these years I’d been trying so hard to be strong — training to get into top shape, pushing away anyone who wanted to help — that I never let myself fully rely on the Lord, the only one who was powerful enough to watch over my life,” he explained. “My deepest fear wasn’t the water. It was vulnerability. I’d confused it with weakness.”
Hutch continued, “I promised myself — and God — that from then on, I would be open to wherever He was leading me, to whomever He put in my path.”
Speaking to CBN about the experience, the actor shared, “When I look back on my life, there was a definite hand that kept me out of trouble in many ways, and in some ways allowed me to get in just enough trouble to learn the lesson, but not walk away completely busted. God has his hand on my life and there’s a reason for it.”
Hutch’s near-death experience taught him some important lessons about faith, fear, and surrendering to the Lord.
Read Next: GAF’s Jesse Hutch Reveals How God Saved His Life: ‘I Shouldn’t Have Lived’
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