HD UPDATE: Anne Graham Lotz took to social media yesterday to thank those who prayed for her son, Johathan Lotz, and announce that he has now been moved out of the ICU.
“PRAISE GOD!!! Praise our prayer-hearing, prayer-answering God! Jonathan has just been moved out of ICU. Now he begins rehab!!” she wrote. “Thank you, thank you for carrying Jonathan on your knees! Please continue to pray he will go from strength to strength with no permanent side effects!”
Lotz also shared with her social media followers a poem her mother taught her about trusting Jesus, that Anne said, “seems appropriate now”:
“Trust Him when dark doubts assail thee. Trust Him when thy strength is small. Trust Him when to simply trust Him is the hardest thing of all. Trust Him He is ever faithful. Trust Him for His will is best. Trust Him for the heart of Jesus is the only place to rest. Trust Him then through tears and sunshine, All thy cares upon Him cast. Till the storms of life are over and the trusting days are past.”
Anne Graham-Lotz’s daughter, Rachel-Ruth Lotz Wright, also took to Facebook to thank those who prayed for her brother.
“I can’t thank you enough for your prayers for him! He is still in ICU from complications with Covid, but he’s showing signs of improvement,” she explained. “I just wanted to ask you to please continue your prayers for his oxygen levels to go up! The outpouring of prayers and support has brought our family to tears a bunch! We know we aren’t the only ones going through difficulty – so thank you for your compassion!”
Rachel-Ruth also added that her brother, despite being so sick, has not let the opportunity pass by to witness to the hospital staff caring for him.
“His attitude has been positive the entire time!” she wrote. “He is witnessing up a storm in the hospital! My guess is the nurses must be fighting over who gets to care for him, because he is so sweet! He prayed with a nurse who wanted to rededicate her life to Jesus at 3am!”
Anne Graham Lotz Calls For Prayers As Son Battles Covid In ICU
Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of the late evangelist Billy Graham, asked for prayers over the weekend after her son, Jonathan Lotz, was hospitalized with COVID in critical condition.
“Fifty years ago I could hold my son in my arms. Now I have placed him in the arms of Jesus. He has been hospitalized with COVID and is in critical condition,” she wrote in a Facebook post.
“The verses last night in the Daily Light were perfect: ‘Brethren, pray for us’ 1 Thessalonians 5:25. And James 5.16– ‘Pray for one another that you may be healed.’ I am asking you to please pray for Jonathan’s swift healing and recovery. For the glory of God’s great name. Thank you.”
Later, the evangelist and founder of AnGeL Ministries in Raleigh followed up with another post saying Jonathan had been moved to the ICU.
Incredibly, Lotz relayed that her son has been focused on his faith and ministering to others even while in the ICU battling COVID, reading a text he sent her in the morning.
According to Lotz, her son wrote the following from the hospital: “He is being fruitful in the land of his affliction: ‘I am physically exhausted yet Spiritually overflowing! I am continually pouring over the Psalms of Ascent (120-134) in ICU. I have had the privilege of sharing Jesus with the ER & ICU staff! What a Savior! God is so good!’”
Lotz said that hopeful message in the midst of trial reminded her of Genesis 41:52, “The name of the second he called Ephraim, ‘For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction.’”
“Please be encouraged that God is hearing and answering your prayers—just please don’t let up,” she wrote. “Pray he will not have to go on a ventilator, that his oxygen levels would increase, that his lungs will be strengthened, healed and that his health will be fully restored—with no long term complications. My heart is filled with gratitude for your prayers.”
Lotz has dealt with her own share of health issues in the past, ultimately crediting God with healing her cancer.
Jonathan is also no stranger to major health issues, also having gone through cancer. According to The News & Observer, he worked for his famous grandfather during the mid-late 1990’s through 2002, and also managed a Chick-fil-A restaurant.
Please continue to keep Jonathan and the Lotz family in your prayers.