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'Miracles from Heaven' Mom Speaks Out: 'I Asked, "Why Anna?"'

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The movie "Miracles from Heaven" tells the true story of Annabel Beam, a little girl with an incurable digestive disease, and the faith struggles of her parents as they dealt with the devastating impact on their daughter.

CBN's Efrem Graham recently spoke with Annabel's mom, Christy Beam, about that harrowing experience.

"Did Jennifer Garner (the actress who played Beam) nail you?" Graham asked.

"Oh, she did an amazing job," Beam replied. "She did an amazing job and her heart was in it from the very beginning, completely engulfed herself in it."

In her memoir, also titled Miracles from Heaven, Beam shared how her daughter suffered through years of pain, hospital visits, surgeries, and invasive testing.

After being sent home to die, she fell 30 feet head-first into a hollow cottonwood tree on the family farm. She was trapped and un-responsive for hours, but woke up and walked away healed, with a story of meeting Jesus in heaven.

"Let's go back to that time. What were you praying for?" Graham asked.

"I honestly wish I could say that I was praying," Beam said. "I prayed for simple things."

"I asked, 'Why Anna?'" she recalled. "So many times I asked that question."

"You know, I have learned so much about God and who God is," Beam continued. "At that time, I would just cry out, 'God please don't answer her prayer, please don't take her.... please don't take her.'"

"I read that you said, 'To accept and believe that God could love your child more than you.' What makes you say that?" Graham asked.

"Because it just hit me one day that as much I love – clicked in my brain – God was a part of what was happening," Beam replied. "He was intimately involved in it."

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About The Author

Efrem Graham
Efrem
Graham

Efrem Graham is an award-winning journalist who came to CBN News from the ABC-owned and operated station in Toledo, Ohio. His most recent honor came as co-anchor of the newscast that earned the station’s morning news program its first Emmy Award. Efrem was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, but his formal television and journalism career was born across the Hudson River in New York City. He began as an NBC Page and quickly landed opportunities to work behind-the-scenes in local news, network news, entertainment, and the network’s Corporate Communications Department. His work earned him the NBC