But God Testimony: A Lifetime of Miraculous Survival

Two small words can change the whole direction of a story: “But God.”

In Scripture, they often appear at the exact moment when everything looks lost. The situation is hopeless, the odds are stacked, the human options have run out, and then comes a turn. Joseph’s brothers meant evil against him, but God meant it for good. Jesus was put to death, but God raised him from the dead. We were dead in our trespasses, but God, being rich in mercy, made us alive.

Teresa Andarakis uses the same phrase to describe her life. In a testimony recently published by The Daily Declaration, she looks back over more than seven decades of illness, accidents, loss and hardship and keeps coming to the same conclusion: but God.

This post shares her story in summary, looks at the biblical pattern behind it, and offers some careful thoughts on how to read a testimony like this, with faith and with good sense.

Born Into Grief

Teresa’s story begins before she was born. Her mother had already suffered the loss of twin girls through miscarriage. Then, during a later pregnancy, her parents had a bike accident while avoiding a bus. Teresa’s brother was born with injuries down one side of his body and died two days after birth.

It was into that grief that she was conceived. Her parents were both in their forties, and her mother, believing she was starting menopause, did not want another child. Teresa writes that by the time her mother realised she was pregnant, it was too late to end it, and that earlier discovery would have meant an abortion.

Her mother later developed pre-eclampsia, a dangerous condition in pregnancy, and Teresa was born in 1952 after a long labour. Because her parents had opposite Rh blood factors, the hospital had prepared for a complete blood transfusion for the newborn. Teresa remembers hearing about the fear that the birth might end in stillbirth. She survived, and she calls that the first of many deliverances.

Teresa shares some of her own understanding of how her early start affected her health. Those are her words, based on her experience and what she was told, and they are part of her testimony rather than medical conclusions. What is clear from her account is that her health has been fragile for most of her life.

A Childhood Watched Over

She grew up in a tiny settlement near Childers in Queensland, in a home with no running water. In dry seasons, her parents carried water from the creek on a yoke across their shoulders.

Several childhood stories stand out in her account:

• The runaway. At about three, she decided to run away from home and scrambled across a ditch almost as deep as she was tall. Her mother found her, guided by a white flash, which turned out to be the tail of the family collie. Teresa has always believed an angel was with her.
• The bull. She once wandered into a paddock where a neighbour’s bull, known for aggression, was kept. She felt completely safe, and the bull stayed calm and kept its distance.
• The snake. Around seven or eight, she stopped suddenly when the dog barked, and looked down to see a brown snake crossing the path exactly where her foot would have landed.
• The fog. At nine, on the old Princes Highway in thick fog in 1961, she woke from sleep and screamed for the driver to stop. He braked just in time to keep the car from going over a cliff.
• The train. On a school excursion, she leapt onto a moving train and found herself pressed against an open door, one step from falling onto the tracks.

None of these stories can be proven or disproved, and Teresa doesn’t try to. For her, they form a pattern she has chosen to read as care.

Dangerous Company in Her Teens

In her teenage years, her circle of friends included people tied to the drug scene and, through one friend, to figures in the underworld. She writes that she never knowingly took drugs, partly because of her asthma. She describes a nightclub encounter that nearly turned violent, a barbecue that ended with gunfire, and a speeding, overcrowded car travelling the wrong way down a one-way street that collided with another vehicle. Each time, she says, no one was hurt.

Three Sons, Three Deaths, Three Returns

The most striking part of her testimony concerns the births of her three sons.

At 19, after a severe haemorrhage and a labour of around 27 hours, she says she clinically died. She describes being in a vast building where a giant hand was writing, and a voice, which she believes was the Lord’s, telling her it was not her time and that there was more to do.

At 21, during the caesarean birth of her second son, she says she died on the operating table again. She describes leaving her body, watching the medical team work, and moving through a dark tunnel toward a small light. She felt no fear, only deep peace. An angel stood at the centre of the light, and together they passed through fields of wildflowers into a golden radiance. She says she stood in the presence of Jesus, and was sent back. She writes that leaving that presence is so hard that she still feels the ache.

At 25, with her third son, it happened a third time. Afterwards, surgeons told her she had the internal condition of a much older, very ill person, and expected she would need an oxygen concentrator within months. That was 48 years ago, and she is still not on continuous oxygen.

A Dark Season

Teresa is also honest about her lowest point. About a year before her third son was born, overwhelmed, exhausted and without the support she desperately needed, she attempted to end her own life. She survived, and life went on.

She doesn’t dress this up, and neither should we. It’s a reminder that people who testify to God’s faithfulness have often walked through real despair. If you are carrying thoughts like that right now, please reach out to someone today. In Australia, Lifeline is available 24 hours a day on 13 11 14, and in an emergency you can call 000.

Decades of Deliverance

The rest of her account reads like a long series of “But God” moments:

• A mystery car rally with her young son, when another vehicle struck the exact centre of the passenger-side tyre of her car. Police and witnesses told her any variation in the impact would likely have rolled the car.
• 1989, driving on the Cumberland Highway blinded by sun, she cried “Help, Lord” and came to rest on the grass beneath a road sign on the far side of a six-lane freeway, with no scratch on the car.
• 1990, on the Old Bathurst Road, her station wagon left the road on a bend. She had time only to cry “Lord!” and the car stopped at the edge of a cliff.
• Around 2012, she was admitted to hospital with failing kidneys, and recovered enough overnight to be moved to a general ward.
• 2016, after nearly three decades of deferred surgery because of her history, she needed her gallbladder removed along with polyps and scarring over her kidneys. She writes that God told her she would survive, and that she clinically died during the operation yet was brought back.
• Recent years have brought diverticulitis, repeated cellulitis and swelling, a serious bowel infection, and consistently very high blood pressure. Her doctors are concerned about stroke or heart attack. She says that, besides trusting God, the second-best thing she can do is refuse to let her health dominate her thoughts.

She also mentions that the prayer team at Liberty Church continues to intercede for her.

Provision Through Hard Years

Her testimony isn’t only about dramatic rescues. She describes seasons of couch-surfing, near-homelessness and financial ruin, years with one or two outfits, and long stretches of living on potatoes, scones, soup and baked beans. She has had to give everything away and start from nothing more than once. Yet she says she has never truly gone hungry or been without a roof.

She also admits she hasn’t always walked closely with God, and that for years she didn’t fully understand why Jesus had to die the way he did. Even so, she says God never left her.

Her best image comes near the end. Think of a plant raised in a perfectly controlled nursery and one that pushes up through hard ground in the wild. The nursery plant thrives in ideal conditions but often fails in the real world. The wild plant has known thirst, weeds and sparse feeding, and is frequently stronger, with deeper roots. We don’t grow in comfort, she says. Growth requires stretching.

The “But God” Pattern in Scripture

Teresa’s phrase isn’t just a catchphrase. It echoes some of the most important turning points in the Bible:

• Genesis 50:20. Joseph tells the brothers who sold him that they intended harm, but God intended it for good, to save many lives.
• Psalm 73:26. The psalmist admits that flesh and heart may fail, but God is the strength of his heart and his portion for ever.
• Acts 13:30. In Paul’s sermon, humanity’s verdict on Jesus is death, but God raised him from the dead.
• Ephesians 2:4–5. We were dead in our sins, but God, rich in mercy and out of great love, made us alive with Christ.
• 2 Corinthians 12:9. Paul asks for relief and is told that God’s grace is sufficient, because his power is made perfect in weakness.

Notice what these have in common. The “but” doesn’t deny the hardship. Joseph really was betrayed. Jesus really died. Paul’s thorn really stayed. The turn is that God is present and active inside the situation, whether he changes it or not.

How Should We Read a Testimony Like This?

Stories about near-death experiences raise questions, and it’s worth being thoughtful.

Researchers have studied this for years. The AWARE study, led by Dr Sam Parnia, looked at awareness during cardiac arrest across hospitals in the UK and US. Of more than 2,000 cardiac arrest events, 140 survivors completed interviews, and some reported awareness during resuscitation. A larger follow-up, AWARE-II, tracked 567 cardiac arrest patients. Earlier research suggested that a notable minority of survivors, perhaps 10 to 20 per cent, describe lucid, well-ordered experiences and memories from the time their hearts had stopped. Parnia has argued that these experiences can’t simply be dismissed as a trick of a dying brain.

At the same time, serious scholars disagree about what they mean. Some point out that the experiences vary widely, that they can include fear as well as peace, and that eyewitness memory under extreme stress is unreliable. Others note that there are explanations that don’t require an afterlife, and that these studies have not proven that consciousness continues after death. Even the researchers don’t claim that.

So how should a Christian respond? We can hold three things together:

1. Take the person seriously. Teresa is describing what she experienced and believes. Her account deserves respect, not ridicule.
2. Don’t build doctrine on one story. Scripture, not personal experience, is our foundation. Her testimony can encourage us without being treated as a new revelation.
3. Keep Jesus at the centre. The most important thing in her story isn’t the tunnel or the light. It’s her trust in Christ, in good seasons and bad.

Our Take

Here’s where we’d like to add some commentary.

1. Testimony is a gift to the church.

Revelation 12:11 speaks of overcoming by the blood of the Lamb and the word of testimony. Telling what God has done builds faith in others, especially people who are weary. A story like Teresa’s reminds us that faith is lived out in real bodies, kitchens, hospital wards and car accidents.

2. The miracle isn’t only survival.

It’s tempting to read this story as a list of rescues. But look again: some of the most powerful lines are about the long stretches in between, the years of poverty, the loneliness, the pain, the high blood pressure that hasn’t gone away. “But God” is as much about presence as rescue. Teresa says she has never truly known loneliness, even in seasons alone.

3. Be careful with the logic of healing.

Not every believer is healed, and not every close call ends well. Hebrews 11 praises people who escaped the sword and, in the very same passage, people who were tortured and killed and were just as faithful. A testimony of deliverance should never become a message that those who suffered or died lacked faith. Many sincere, praying people still bury loved ones.

4. Every life matters, including the unwanted ones.

Teresa’s story begins with a mother who didn’t want another child and nearly didn’t have one. We can say gently that every human life has worth, and also that women facing unplanned or frightening pregnancies need compassion and practical support, not judgement. Teresa herself writes about her mother with understanding.

5. Community carries what individuals can’t.

She mentions her church’s prayer team. People living with long-term illness need more than a good story. They need meals, visits, transport, prayer and company. That’s something every congregation can ask about.

The Other Side of the Conversation

Not everyone will read this story the same way, and it’s fair to say so.

• Sceptics point out that we hear from the people who survived, not from the many who didn’t. They also note that near misses are common in any long life and that memory tends to link events into a meaningful pattern.
• Medical professionals would caution that individual stories shouldn’t replace medical advice, and that claims about conditions or prognoses need checking against a doctor’s actual assessment.
• Some believers struggle with testimonies like this because they have prayed just as hard and seen a different outcome. Their grief deserves care, not a quick answer.
• Others emphasise that testimonies are valuable precisely because they are personal. They’re not trying to prove anything to a sceptic. They’re witnesses saying, “This is what I’ve seen and what I believe.”

All of these voices have something to teach us. A good reader can respect the testimony, ask careful questions and stay kind.

What We Can Take From Teresa’s Story

• Keep your eyes on Jesus. That’s her own advice, and it’s the heart of the testimony.
• Don’t let your health, or any one problem, rule your thinking. It’s easier said than done, but it’s a discipline worth practising.
• Expect growth through hard ground. The plant analogy is a helpful reminder that difficulty isn’t wasted.
• Pray in the moment. Several of her stories include very short prayers: “Help, Lord.” “Lord!” God isn’t impressed by long words, only by honest dependence.
• Tell your own story. Most of us have “But God” moments we’ve never shared.

Questions to Reflect On

• Where in my own life can I trace a “But God” moment?
• Have I been tempted to read my suffering as proof that God has left me?
• Who in my church or family is going through a long illness, and how could I support them this week?
• What would it look like to trust God with the outcome, rather than only with the rescue?
• Who needs to hear my story?

A Short Prayer

Father, thank you that you are the God of “but.” When every human option runs out, you are still at work. Give us eyes to see your faithfulness in the rescues and in the long, ordinary seasons. Comfort those who are ill, tired or afraid. Strengthen those who carry scars. Keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, whatever the day brings. Amen.

If You Are Struggling

If anything in this story touches a dark place in your own life, you don’t have to carry it alone. In Australia, you can call Lifeline on 13 11 14 at any time, day or night, or call 000 in an emergency. Talking to your GP, a pastor or a trusted friend is a good next step too.