The Spider That Ended the Night | Ep. 66

0:01Speaker 1:I walked on my arm and there was a spider on my arm, and I'd smacked my arm and just pushed it onto the floor. Thought nothing of it and just went back to sleep.

0:09Speaker 2:But when Jordan woke again later that day, the pain intensified. He felt increasingly disoriented, nauseated, and weak. Then he began vomiting blood.

0:20Speaker 1:So I knew something wasn't right. I drove myself to the hospital.

0:25Speaker 2:Jordan barely made it through the doors before collapsing. This is the Miracle Files.

0:35Speaker 3:I'm Emily Jones and I'm Holly Worthington.

0:38Speaker 4:We're two sisters who love a captivating true story, but we're also seeking more light in our lives.

0:44Speaker 2:So we're on a mission to find and share unforgettable, uplifting stories of God's miracles. We hope you'll join us on this journey.

0:55Speaker 4:Welcome back to the Miracle Files. You all know about our love for spiders.

1:00Speaker 3:Say that factiously? Yeah, no, we do not love spiders. We hate spiders. Yeah, right to the spiders. Yeah, sorry, spiders, you're not our favorite.

1:10Speaker 4:But we've come across a bunch of stories, especially recently, it seems like where spiders play a critical role in somebody's miracle story.

1:20Speaker 3:I know it's so weird.

1:21Speaker 2:I mean, you'll have to see how you feel about this spider, like it may change your opinion.

1:25Speaker 3:I don't know. I'd love to hear what we think. Leave us a comment or an email.

1:29Speaker 1:But yeah, we'll.

1:30Speaker 3:See what you think of this spiders.

1:31Speaker 4:I know.

1:31Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd love to hear it too. Okay, well, let's just dive right in. All right, let's go.

1:40Speaker 2:Eight hairy little legs crawled up Jordan's arm as he slept. Jordan was oblivious to how this tiny little creature would change his life forever. But our story starts long before this day. It begins years before in Blackpool, England. For decades, Blackpool has ranked among the most deprived towns in the country, marked by crime, addiction and violence, where ambition often disappears before it ever has a chance to grow. It's the kind of place that teaches you how to cling to the day instead of reach for the future, where life can feel like a web that's impossible to escape. And this is where Jordan's story begins. He was born to a Palestinian father who had left Jerusalem behind in search of peace and opportunity. And to an English mother raised in generational poverty. His parents separated when he was still an infant, leaving his father largely absent for the first few years of his childhood.

2:46Speaker 1:I was raised by and my stepdad predominantly, but my earliest memories were my mum and my stepdad raised those in absolute poverty. So when I say Blackpool is poorer than most places, you can imagine we were living in the poor part of Blackpool.

3:03Speaker 2:Eight people lived in a one bedroom flat. There was rarely enough food, rarely enough space, and never enough stability, Just the constant pressure of survival tightening around the family like an invisible snare. One of the books Jordan read over and over again was Harry Potter. At the time, he didn't have the language to explain why it mattered so much to him. He only knew that the story of a neglected boy locked away from the world waiting for something more felt strangely familiar. That book, he now says, may have kept him alive.

3:42Speaker 1:My mum, she had a rough childhood. She had it rough, to be honest, and when my stepdad wasn't there, I used to get battered bad as a kid. Bat I was very abused as a kid. Number. Once I caught a smoking outside, she said, I'm going to tell my stepdad you shouldn't be doing that. She went to smap me a coward. She booted me in there, and it was like that was I just thought that was normal.

4:03Speaker 2:But despite the hardship Jordan grew up with, he recognized that his parents had done some things right. From them, he learned lessons that would shape him for years to come.

4:15Speaker 1:One of the things he did very early on, my stepdad settles down. He said, we've got nothing. He said, I'm going to show you now that you can create anything. He said, I promise you, he said, I'm going to I'm done with this. He said, I'm going to create a business ironing, doing people's ironing. Literally, for like the next two years, all my memories were were just watching my mum and stepdad iron in, ironing, iron in, ironing, saving up, saving up, saving up. He got to a point where, in nineteen ninety nine, so I was six at this point, did saved upoloader cash did moved out of the one bed flat, but into a place that wasn't that much better. And at that point my stepdad said We're going to take all of our money now and invest it all in some bed shops tanning salons.

4:57Speaker 2:By the time Jordan was a teenager, his stepfather mother sold the chain of sun bed shops, retired early, and.

5:04Speaker 3:Moved to Spain. They did it.

5:07Speaker 2:His mother and stepfather escaped poverty completely, However, Jordan did not. At fifteen, Jordan had moved out on his own, desperate for independence and distance from the environment he had grown up in. He remained in England, still trapped in the poverty his mother and stepfather had left behind. Two years later, his girlfriend told him she was pregnant. Three months after that, his stepfather, the one man Jordan considered his main role model, was killed suddenly in a motorcycle accident. Jordan was the last person he spoke to. At just seventeen, Jordan found himself flying to Spain to bring his stepfather's body home, emotionally supporting his grieving family, finishing school early, and preparing to become a father, all at once. He made a decision then that would define him for years to come.

6:06Speaker 2:He would take responsibility, He would provide. He would build a life for his family, no matter the cost. Sales became his way out.

6:16Speaker 1:By twenty one, I was earning more money than anyone who had known, more than my school teachers, more than my head teacher. Like my goal was always money, but I was already family orientated at this point. I had two children, I was married. At twenty one, I was earning probably a quarter of a million pounds a year.

6:33Speaker 2:Jordan was finally spinning a future that looked bright and beautiful. Everything seemed to be falling into place, but just six weeks after his wedding, his future was ripped to shreds. His childhood sweetheart, the girl he'd been with since thirteen years of age, dropped a bomb on him that he never saw coming.

6:55Speaker 1:And I've been with this girl since I was at school. She basically said she'd been having an affair with a forty five year old guy. She took my money, took my car, talk everything.

7:05Speaker 2:She also threatened to keep Jordan's children from him. The life Jordan had woven so purposefully was gone overnight, and Jordan disintegrated with it. Overwhelmed by shame and despair, he reached out to his birth father, who offered Jordan a place to sleep on a couch. Nights were the hardest. Jordan remembers asking his father to talk to him until he fell asleep, just so he wouldn't be alone with his thoughts. Jordan, the man who once believed he'd conquered his world, now felt caught tangled, like he fought his way out of one web, only to wake up wrapped in another. What followed was not a single bad decision, but a dive into total darkness. Jordan threw himself into excess, clubbing, drugs, binge spending, and violence for any type of poison that might numb him. He became someone driven entirely by ego, anger and self destruction, convinced that fear was strength and cruelty was power.

8:14Speaker 1:All of a sudden, I was held bent on just becoming the most scary, nasty villain you could ever meet in Blackpool, in the worst out that that's what I wanted to be. I was hell bent on one hundred percent of people meeting me hating me, Like if you said just be nice to that person, I'd've been like no, And just because I want to fight, it went fully off the ailes. At this point I ballooned to twenty three stone in weight. Which is one hundred and forty six kilograms. So I was like double my weight now, But that was crazy. I was just going out binge drinking.

8:45Speaker 2:Money flowed in, and just as quickly it vanished. One month Jordan would earn tens of thousands of pounds, the next he would have to borrow gas money from his father. Overcome by depression, Jordan tried to end his own life, but even in this attempt to alleviate his suffering, he found only more pain. Instead, he survived, left with the haunting realization that even death had rejected him. It was during this darkest chapter that something completely unexpected occurred. Jordan was now twenty four. It was December, and after another long stretch of partying at Jordan's house, Jordan had gone to sleep, intoxicated and exhausted, surrounded by people, yet feeling utterly alone.

9:38Speaker 3:All of a sudden, he awoke to jabbing.

9:41Speaker 1:Pain, and I remember waking up in the morning thinking that my friend had stuck an injection in me. We were all taking steroids and things like that, and growth homa. This is how crazy Blackpool is. We were literally injecting ourselves with growth hormone and inchilin and things like that, and being like, yeah, come on, man, just thinking that was cool. And I remember way think him it stopped me with something.

10:02Speaker 2:But Jordan's friend couldn't have injected something into Jordan's arm. His friend snored sleeping soundly. Jordan glanced around, confused, and I was.

10:14Speaker 1:Like, it's weird. And I looked on my arm and there was a spider on my arm. And I'd smacked my arm and just pushed it onto the floor. Thought nothing of it and just went back to sleep.

10:23Speaker 2:The spider Jordan had brushed to the ground was a false widow, common in England and rarely dangerous. But when Jordan woke again later that day, the pain intensified. Jordan's arm began to swell rapidly, becoming hot to the touch. He started shivering uncontrollably. As the night wore on, he felt increasingly disoriented, nauseated, and weak. Then he began vomiting blood.

10:51Speaker 1:So I knew something wasn't right. I drove myself to the hospital. But when I was driving to the hospital, I felt super, super sick. I pulled over to be sick in the middle of Blackpool Town Center and a policeman thought I had been like drink driving or something, so we have like breathalyzed a test. He was going to come and breathalyze me. I said, may look, I'm going to hospital. I've been bit by a spy. To take me if you want, I can drive. I've just been sick. It's all over my seats. I had white leather seats with blood on it. I went look at my arm and he actually blue lighted me to the hospital.

11:20Speaker 1:Like he said, just follow me to the hospital. It was two minutes he went, just follow me. He said, you're all right, it's a but I don't want you doing any dammage.

11:28Speaker 2:Jordan barely made it through the doors before collapsing. Doctors determined Jordan was in septic shock, though they could not explain why. Poison specialists were contacted across England, then as far away as Australia. No one could identify the cause. Jordan was admitted and placed under constant observation for days.

11:54Speaker 3:His arm continued to swell.

11:56Speaker 2:Growing so large that the skin stretched until it cracked. Nurses applied petroleum jelly to prevent it from splitting completely. Antibiotics were administered aggressively, but nothing seemed to stop the swelling for progressing. Eventually, the medical team presented Jordan with an unthinkable option. Up until now, Jordan still thought of himself as untouchable, but reality slapped him in the face.

12:26Speaker 1:This was on light day. Then they said we need to cut your arm off. I was like, this is crazy. This was humbling. When they came and said we need to cut your arm.

12:32Speaker 2:Off, Jordan refused to let them amputate. Doctors warned him that the infection was spreading and that if it reached his organs, it would shut them down entirely. They drew a line around the infection to track its progress.

12:50Speaker 1:I said, you're not caught in my armor of no way. I don't want to be the one armed guy like I Actually at this point, I was like no chance. I was like, be more lenient drawing off a line, Like just do something. He said, like, we'll draw another line and we'll hope. Then we'll give it the benefit of the doubt. Anyway, fast forward about twelve hours. They must have done this about twelve times. I'm not even joking. My arm look like adopted art. They just kept drawing another line and I kept saying, just drawing over, just drawing over, just draw anover. In the end came and said, if we don't coot this off now, we believe this is going to shut.

13:18Speaker 3:You down, shut you down.

13:21Speaker 2:Jordan couldn't believe he was facing the possibility of dying from something as simple as a spider bite. Even then, Jordan refused the life saving surgery. That night, Jordan fell asleep in his hospital bed, convinced he was losing control of his fate.

13:41Speaker 3:While he slept, he dreamed.

13:44Speaker 2:Jordan describes the dream not as dramatic, but deeply unsettling and powerful. A voice spoke to him, not condemning, not angry, but firm and unmistakable.

13:58Speaker 1:So that not had a dream. And in this dream a voice that I now believe was God. In this voice said, you're not living your life in my image. You're from Jerusalem. Literally, your blood is Jerusalem. That's where all my family are. We own the land that the whaling wall is on, that the church of the Holy Sepplchers. He said, you're living so far away from your family from what you are from my image. Let me show you something. And I had this dream. It was like a Christmas Carol, this film where they show you a ghost, I saw this. I saw me. Now in the.

14:27Speaker 2:Dream, Jordan looked down and saw himself lying in the hospital bed. Shame and disappointment.

14:33Speaker 1:Washed over him.

14:35Speaker 2:Then Jordan was shown a different version of his future, a man dressed in a suit, a better version of himself, with success, followers, money, influence, and most importantly family. Then the vision shifted back to his present reality. The voice spoke again and questioned Jordan.

14:58Speaker 1:And he just kept going, what are you doing, brother? Why do you like that? Why are you so fat? Why so useless? Why so on your own? What's going on? You need soyr i fat? You need soyr i fat, you need soyr eye faund. Just just kept having this repetitive thing. And I woke up and come just losing my marbles fully as ocupants, losing my marbles.

15:16Speaker 2:The words continued to spin in his mind, sort your life out. Upon waking, Jordan was shaken. He didn't yet have language for faith, but he knew something had changed. For the first time in years, he felt confronted not by consequences but by meaning, And in one night, in the length of one dream, Jordan felt a release as if an invisible thread had been loosened from his heart, he saw his escape from the life he was living, and that path to freedom stood before him. In one word, God, In that moment, he stopped fighting and surrendered his life completely.

16:02Speaker 1:But yeah, I'm fully committed at this point forward. I'm gonna I'm going to believe in this thing called God anit to sort my life out.

16:11Speaker 2:Later that day, with Jordan's body succumbing to the infection, doctors came up with a last ditch plan. They broke Jordan's elbow in an attempt to relieve the pressure in his arm. Unexpectedly, nothing came out, no puss, no venom.

16:28Speaker 1:They were like, that's weird. Nothing has come out of your arm.

16:32Speaker 2:It was as if the infection had simply vanished. The only thing doctors could find were swollen cells. And even more unexpectedly, the very next day, doctors discharged Jordan.

16:46Speaker 1:They just went, you can go. We don't think it's going to get any bigger now and actually break and it seems to have made the swelling go down, so you can go. And I just went what they just went, you can go. You can just go. And I've been in hospital for all these days and I had a broken arm. They said, we can't put your arm in a cast now because we've had to operate on it to get to the middle of your elbow. You need to have it recleaned every two days, and it's going to be hell. Then you can't have anesthetic. And I was like, okay, Gray. And at this point I had no girlfriend, no life, no anything. And I had to drive myself home with one arm on a car that had twelve parking tickets because the guy had just given me one every day. And I was like, this is my redempt, my exact redemption. Moment was a time probably too much info, but I was vomiting, I was ill.

17:28Speaker 1:I was like, I've got one arm, I'm covered in sick, I'm not even seen my kids. I'm fat, I'm on my own. New Jordan starts now.

17:35Speaker 2:For once, Jordan didn't feel angry. He simply felt finished with the life he had been living. Jordan didn't leave the hospital healed in the way most people would define healing. His arm was broken, his body weak, and his life still very much in pieces. What had changed was not his circumstances, but a newfound belief in God. That felt if Jordan suddenly had winks to fly and to fly in an entirely new direction.

18:07Speaker 1:And I threw all the money I had mentoring sessions. So I had mentor in sessions one to one with Jordan Peterson, who now is like world famous. Back then wasn't like it was fully god. I just someone once led me to him, heard this podcast. I was like, this guy's psychologist. I'll just pay him for a session. I'll find a way. Jordan Peterson had convinced me I could go on this five year journey and be anything. So I was like, I want to be an influencer in five years. That's got an eight part, that's homeschooling my kids. That's known for being the best at sales.

18:34Speaker 1:So he's like, right, So, if to be all them things in five years, what do you physically need to be by year four? I was like, well, I probably need to have retired as a sales director. I need to be in good shape. He was like, right, So to have done all them things by year four, what do you need to have done by year free? I was like, well, I probably need to have become a sales director. I need to have lost maybe fifty kges. He was like, right, so to have done that by year free? Where do you need to be by year two?

18:57Speaker 1:I was like, well, I just need to be the best on a sales team. Again. He was like, right, so to be there by year two? Where do you need to be by year one? I was like, I need to be back on a sales team. I was getting energy. I'm getting goosebumps again. Now he was like, right, so to be on a good sales team at the Real Madrid or the Harlem Globetrotters next year. Where do you need to be in six months? I went just on any sales team. So then that's my next step.

19:17Speaker 1:He's like, so, where do you need to be in free months? I was like to sit in major interviews. He went, so what do you need to have done in a month? And we just reverse engineered this whole path.

19:25Speaker 2:This time around. Jordan re entered the sales world humbly, earning trust where he had once burned it. He repaired relationships slowly. He committed himself to being present for his children, even when doing so meant driving hundreds of miles each week. He stripped his life down to what mattered and allowed everything else to fall away. Over time, the life he once believed was lost began to take shape again, this time built on intention instead of ego. He married an amazing woman, He built a home. He found stability not in money or admiration, but in family, discipline, and faith.

20:08Speaker 2:The chaos that wants to find him no longer had the same hold.

20:13Speaker 1:I then just went on this campaign of just being nice as nice as I could to everyone. And this was really cool because this definitely was God and definitely did happen for a reason. Because all the same people who used to know me before I went off the rails, my old CEO had given me a chance at this same company again, and I walked back into that company again. Even the old head of HR who sacked me, she's become one of my best friends now, Like truthfully, she has.

20:36Speaker 1:And they all saw this redemption. I mean, she's she's a Muslim, but God's in all and she just said, this turnaround is so amazing to see. She hated me the first time around the second time, and she's like, it's a miracle. They all were, to be honest.

20:49Speaker 2:Looking back now, Jordan believes the spider bite was not random. But instead divine intervention.

20:57Speaker 1:I mean, I still see these spiders. It's pretty funny, and I don't care about them anymore because in mind, I'm just thinking it's God.

21:03Speaker 2:Doctor still cannot fully explain what happened to Jordan's body. The infection had no clear source. This swelling stopped without warning. The arm they planned to healed instead. But for Jordan, the deeper mystery lies not in how he survived, but why. He believes the moment he nearly lost his life was the moment it was finally returned to him. Today, Jordan speaks to those who feel trapped by their pasts, caught in the web of addiction, shame, or by the belief that they have already ruined their one.

21:41Speaker 3:Chance at a meaningful life.

21:43Speaker 2:Jordan knows that belief well.

21:45Speaker 3:He lived it.

21:46Speaker 2:He's now not only successful monetarily, but also in the ways that truly matter. The miracle, he says, was not just that he survived a spider bite that should.

21:57Speaker 3:Have killed him.

21:58Speaker 2:The miracle was the survival forced him to stop trying to escape from himself, from responsibility, and from God.

22:08Speaker 1:And I think my mission now is actually take over the screens and spread a positive message. I actually think the big mission is speak out to all the guys that were where I was in my twenties and stop them going down that whole journey that probably cost me six or seven years and could have cost me my life. So I want to stop people doing that. Young people in the UK, I'll tell you now, they are desperate for God. They've got a God sized hole in their heart.

22:31Speaker 1:They don't want to go out drinking anymore. I actually believe nightclubs will become faith centers and things like that. They are desperate for it.

22:38Speaker 2:Jordan's story isn't just about survival. It's about transformation, and not only his own, but the many lives he's now helped transform as well. Who would have thought that the miracle of Jordan's life would come from a spider. Then again, miracles don't always take place in the way one might expect.

22:59Speaker 3:Sometimes the smallest thing, like a.

23:02Speaker 2:Spider bite in the night, allows God to interrupt and save a life.

23:11Speaker 4:Okay, I love this story, Emily, but that creepy spider sound you use that was like, I know, awful, and I kind of loved it at the same time.

23:22Speaker 2:I do what I can, right, But yeah, let's talk about this story.

23:27Speaker 3:It's such an incredible story.

23:29Speaker 2:I love the transformation that Jordan was able to make and what a miracle that was.

23:34Speaker 4:Yeah, seriously, it's amazing to see how God can change our hearts like that's truly. The miracle in the story is how much Jordan changed. And I heard someone say recently that a blessing is anything that just brings you closer to God, and the things Jordan went through definitely drew him closer to God.

23:54Speaker 1:Yeah.

23:54Speaker 2:I mean, it's weird to say a spider was the blessing, but yeah, once again, who knew the spider.

24:00Speaker 3:Ad guy in the story?

24:01Speaker 4:I know, I'm sorrying to think maybe spiders don't deserve such a bad rap, but.

24:06Speaker 3:I don't know. I still can't get behind spidersn't about that. I don't know about that.

24:10Speaker 2:But still, obviously this spider was. This was supposed to happen, and God showed up for Jordan in a way that Jordan needed to hear him. Yeah, and the way he showed up in his dream and just you know, you need to change your life and it turned everything around.

24:25Speaker 4:Yeah, that repeated you need to sort your life out, like.

24:29Speaker 3:Sort your life out.

24:31Speaker 2:Yeah, And it's really interesting because in the eyes of the world, there were times when people may have thought he was really successful. Yeah, you know, he was very wealthy. But he shared something with us that I thought was really interesting because it really allows you to see what was going on on the inside of him.

24:48Speaker 3:He was in a very dark place.

24:52Speaker 1:I was going to do that, spending thirty grand going to a night club, trying to get attention, trying to feel something the day after getting a beginning, and crying in it because I felt nothing, literally crying, like I talk about this now, sat in a blue Lamborghini, listened to post alone, crying my eyes out. Some guy came up to me to take a photo of the lambow and I could see him and he got this close to like my car, and he saw me and he literally just went He put his phone away and walked off.

25:18Speaker 1:And I remember thinking, this is low in it, that.

25:22Speaker 3:Is just so sad.

25:24Speaker 4:And I can just picture him sitting there and just feeling so low. And it shows you that joy does not come from material possessions, like I truly believe joy only comes from God.

25:39Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it was shocking for that man to see such a sad person inside.

25:43Speaker 3:Such a beautiful vehicle.

25:46Speaker 2:You know, it's really interesting now because Jordan said that he sees these spiders all over the place. Yeah, he just leaves them alone, Like I feel wear me, I probably would have the house.

25:56Speaker 3:Yeah, you're not kidding. But he just says.

25:58Speaker 2:Anytime he's struggling, he'll see these spiders and it's just this reminder from God like that he needs to stay on track.

26:06Speaker 3:Yes, so true.

26:07Speaker 4:And it's now been about eight years since he was bitten by that spider. And what's really cool is if you look at his life now, like his goals have come to fruition, and most importantly, of course, he has a beautiful wife and children factually married. Yes, he's also quite the influencer. He has a successful business and he's just been able to achieve all of this happiness that he's now sharing with other people his secrets and how he's changed his life and how he's become so happy.

26:41Speaker 4:So if you're interested in following him, his Instagram user name is the Lion Glass and he can explain to you why he called it that.

26:50Speaker 3:But he's a fascinating man. Yeah, he really is. Well, thank you everyone for joining us today.

26:57Speaker 2:You know, maybe we'll stop having your husband's squad all the spiders.

27:01Speaker 3:Probably not after this episode. Probably not. There's a chance, but we want to know you guys for joining us.

27:08Speaker 2:If you haven't subscribed to our podcast, make sure you subscribe.

27:12Speaker 3:We'll see you next time. See you then, Thank you for joining us.

27:16Speaker 4:If you have a miracle to share, contact us at the Miracle files dot com or find us on social media. We release new episodes each Monday.

27:25Speaker 2:Yes, so don't forget miracle mondays. Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and YouTube for amazing video content as well.

27:33Speaker 4:Join us next time as we discover more of God's miracles, and don't forget to look for his light in your own lives.