‘An Everyday Miracle’: Zionsville author chronicles husband’s near-death experience in first book

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By Anna Skinner

Jennifer Muszik always thought she would write a book. She just wasn’t sure what topic to cover.

Her story, “An Everyday Miracle,” came in 2015, when her husband, Paul, became extremely ill with toxic shock syndrome. TSS, a rare and life-threatening bacterial infection, entered his bloodstream through a wound on his back.

Originally, Paul was diagnosed with shingles Feb. 16, 2015. Three days later, the real culprit was discovered, and Paul was promptly placed in the ER, then the ICU and then put into a medically induced coma.

“When they told me he wasn’t going to live, I made a choice to focus on God’s ability to heal him, to focus on the positives versus the negatives, and what other people were expecting,” Jennifer said. “They didn’t expect him to make it at all, and if he did, the long-term damage would have been unbelievable. I remember grabbing my (mother-in-law’s) hands and saying, ‘We are not going to focus on the negatives. I believe it to be true that this isn’t the end.’ So, that’s what we did.”

Throughout the 10 days of Paul’s coma, Jennifer blogged frequently and asked people on social media to pray for her husband’s healing.

“We would ask for really specific prayers, and we would see God moving as he continued to heal Paul,” she said. “The book is really that story. This book is about how all of us can see everyday miracles and how God continues to show up. He answers those little things, those little prayers, so many times.”

Jennifer said since she blogged throughout Paul’s healing process, the book is almost like live tweeting. “An Everyday Miracle” was self-published through IUniverse, an arm of Penguin Random House, in Dec. 2015.

“Paul read the book, and he knows the story from when he woke up. So by reading the book, he was able to understand the story from when he was put in the coma, and even though he was awake before that, he wasn’t really lucid, so he lost almost two weeks of his life,” Jennifer said. “Reading the book was hard for him. It was hard to feel it from our perspective as to what happened.”

Paul said he thanked God for his wife and her strength after reading the book.

“It was weird reliving the episode and getting a play-by-play of what went on around me when I was in the coma, but I am so incredibly proud of the way Jenn’s faith carried her through such difficult time,” Paul said. “She was so strong and held the whole family together.”

Jennifer said the experience has strengthened the bond between the two. Although Paul has stage 3 chronic kidney disease from the TSS, he is able to control that with diet and exercise.

“I think we took our lives for granted. We always thought there would be tomorrow, but something like this happens, and you realize that tomorrow is never guaranteed,” Jennifer said. “I wrote this book to share this amazing story of hope and healing with others. I also wrote the book to share God’s desire to have a personal and intimate relationship with each one of us.”

Jennifer said now her book is finished, she hopes to get back into blogging. Her book and blog can be found at godsfertileground.blogspot.com and Amazon.com.

Meet the Musziks

Family: Jennifer, 39, Paul, 41. Kids: Paul Jr., 8, Noah, 5, and Sarah, 4.

Church: St. Alphonsus Liguori Catholic Church, 1870 W. Oak St., Zionsville.

Schools: Paul Jr. attends Union Elementary. Noah attends Advent Lutheran Church.

Family activities: “Our oldest is into sports and plays travel baseball and basketball. We spend tons of time at practices or sporting events or in the backyard playing soccer or catch with the kids,” Jennifer said.


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