‘Jesus, I Hear You’| National Catholic Register

‘He’s my hero,’ Meghan Drye says of 7-year-old Micah.

A 7-year-old boy called out to Jesus to save him before Hurricane Helene flood waters carried him away earlier this week.

Micah Drye’s lifeless body was later found about a quarter-mile away from his home in Asheville, North Carolina. But his mother thinks he was saved nonetheless.

“You know, I’m so proud of my son, because in his last moments, he wasn’t screaming for me. He was screaming, ‘Jesus.’ ‘Jesus, save me.’ ‘Jesus, I hear you.’ ‘Jesus, I’m calling upon you,’” said Meghan Drye, the boy’s mother, in an interview with Fox Weather on Thursday.

Micah always wanted to be a superhero, his mother said.

“And instead, he’s my hero, because he reached for something past flesh, past human, past anything that even grown adults, I think, would reach for. My son called out to the one God Almighty,” Drye said. “And I think at that moment, he was rescued.”

Hurricane Helene, which made landfall on the Gulf of Mexico coast Sept. 27, quickly made for the Carolinas. The storm dropped almost 10 inches of rain over two days in Asheville, a city in western North Carolina. The storm killed more than 200 people, including more than 100 people in North Carolina, including Micah.

But his mother finds purpose in his death.

She paid tribute to him.

“He was the smartest, smartest, bravest, hopeful, great friend, great son. I couldn’t have asked for a better son. And he was so happy up until the very end, when he was screaming for Jesus,” Drye said. “And in that moment I think he found joy.”

Drye’s recounting of her son’s last moments brought tears to one of the anchors interviewing her, who later explained that she has a 7-year-old at home.

Drye said she, her parents and Micah went to the roof of their home to get above the water, and she thought they were safe. But then the house fell apart.

She said she was in the water for five hours, including times when she was trapped in trees and dragged under the surface, until she heard a voice telling her to let go. She did, and she eventually drifted toward rescuers who got her out.

Drye’s parents also died in the flood.

Drye called her grief “unfathomable” and said she feels “broken.”

“But … the main thing that I take away from grief is the uplifting of all the prayers that I have received. And I think that all the chain of prayers that I have felt are the things that held me up, the things that are holding me together right now,” Drye said. “Because if it was up to my humanly flesh, I wouldn’t be able to do it. Family, togetherness, many, many people reaching out, praying, sending their support. That’s the pieces that I can’t have on my own that they’re putting together for me.”

Drye did the live interview Thursday standing next to one of her sisters, Heather Kephart, who paid tribute to their parents.

“Our parents, like everybody, were not perfect. But since the time that we could talk in our little Southern accents, they taught us Bible verses,” Kephart said.

“And we had — my dad, we had a big piece of cardboard; and for every Bible verse we memorized, he gave us a star. You know, the old foil-y stars. I don’t even know if they make them now, but we got one for every verse,” Kephart said. “And those verses to this day are in our hearts and in our minds. And … they wouldn’t want to do anything else in this moment but to give honor and glory to the Lord Jesus Christ.”

The two sisters recited together their father’s favorite Bible verse, Micah 6:8 — one version of which goes, 

“O mortal man, what is good, and what does the Lord require of thee, but only to do justice, and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

Drye said her son Micah was named after the Old Testament prophet in honor of her father’s love for that verse.

Asked what she wants other people to understand about her tragedy, Drye said she believes her parents and her son are rejoicing with God:

“I want them to remember that there is joy beyond the pain.”

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