An Ordinary Life

My Amazing Healing...

NOTE: This entry was created using voice-to-text and is currently being edited.

It was the last Sunday in May 2014. I was drained, emotionally drained. I hungered for the good old laying-on-of-hands kind of praying. Pentecostal praying.

There was a little church close by. It was a small United Pentecostal church. I had never visited it before but my hunger for prayer -- my desire for someone to minister to me in the laying-on-of-hands Pentecostal kind of praying -- prompted me to visit the church that evening.

I wasn't looking for physical healing that day. I just wanted the spiritual and emotional support of a group of spirit-filled Christians laying hands on me and just praying for God to soothe me, to comfort me, to touch my life in Jesus name.

I had checked online to find out what time the service started and it started at 6 o'clock. It was 5:30. I was talking on the phone to a Writing.Com friend1 who lives in Washington. We had agreed to connect at that time. I told her about the church I told her about wanting prayer. I told her that the service was about to start. She told me to go so I went.

There was a door to the church close to where my camper was parked. I walked to that door. I was using my walker. I opened the door. It was very hard to open. Giving it a hard push, it finally opened and I found myself walking in at the very front of the congregation just as the service was just getting ready to start. Everyone looked very startled to see someone coming in that door. I learned later they no longer use that door. They had remodeled and the door they now used was at the other end of the building. All eyes were on me and I was very embarrassed.

I quietly made my way to the back of the church. It was the kind of walker with a seat. So I sat on my walker in the back of the church and the service started.

I could feel the presence of God to some degree during the worship service. It wasn't as strong as sense of his presence as I had felt on other occasions and other places but it was Holy Spirit kind of worship and it felt good. There came a point that the preacher said "The Holy Spirit is here. Let's just let God have his way." or something to that effect and people begin to just worship and pray. Then the preacher said, "The Holy Spirit is here. God is here to meet needs. If you're here tonight and you have a need just reach up reach your hand up to God and ask him to meet that need."

I wasn't particularly excited about the preacher saying that because I wanted the laying-on-hands kind of prayer but I put my hand up in the air and said, "Ok, God, this isn't exactly what I wanted but I'm reaching up." I didn't say that out loud. I said it inside my head. I felt as though the Holy Spirit was prompting me to go forward for prayer but I'd never been in this church before. You don't usually go forward for prayer at the beginning of a service -- it was sort of an out-of-order kind of thing. I wasn't sure that it was the right thing to do. I did tell God, "God, you know me if you want me to go forward, I will." All of this was just a conversation I had between me and God inside my head.

The very next words out of the preacher's mouth were, "Someone came here tonight specifically for prayer. If you came here tonight specifically for prayer, come forward now."

Well, that was all I needed to hear. I stood up and grabbed my walker and headed to the front as fast as I could. When I got to the front I realized I've never been in a prayer line with my walker before. I turned it around and I sat down on it because at that time I couldn't stand up for any length of time without getting sort of faint and maybe ending up on the ground (not in a "slain in the spirit" kind of way, just in a syncope collapsing kind of way).

So here I was sitting on my walker in the front of the church waiting for prayer. The preacher came up and I do not know what possessed me but all the sudden, I said to him, "I want to be anointed with oil." I had not intended to be anointed with oil. I wasn't looking for physical healing. I was looking for emotional and spiritual support but the words came out of my mouth, "I want to be anointed with oil."

The preacher might have been a little surprised but he held out a hand that was a little shiny with oil. He said he was already going to do that without even mentioning it.

The preacher prayed for me and some other people prayed for me at the same time. Eventually, I turned around and went back to my seat I can't remember exactly how that came to be but I went back to my seat or I took my walker to the back of the church and sat down again.

The preacher then decided to change the plans for the service that day. He told the congregation to break up in groups of two or three and pray for each other. He just felt very strongly that the Holy Spirit was there to touch people's lives that day through prayer. Lots of people came back and prayed for me.

A few of the people came to me stayed there and prayed for the rest of the service. One particular couple that prayed for me stands out in my memory. I think their names are Jessica and Jason.

The thing that I remember is that Jason asked, "May I pray for you?" and then said to me, "I have faith." He also asked the preacher to annoint me with oil. So the preacher came back with some oil and this time officially annointed me with oil while Jessica, Jason and another lady with some other people prayed for me.

While I was being prayed for, I noticed an elderly woman a row or two ahead of me. I felt like the Holy Spirit was prompting me to pray for her. I found out later her first name is Billy. I found it out after the service but, while the others were praying for me, I did I spend my time praying for her. I was praying for Billy because I felt like that's what the Holy Spirit said to do. (I later found out she had recently lost her husband and was still grieving. I was glad I'd prayed for her.)

As the service was nearing its end, the preacher asked me, "What's your name?" and I told him my name. He asked if it would it be alright if he asked the church to pray for me that whole next week and I said yes that would be fine so he went off to conclude the service.

We'd been praying for at least an hour when the preacher brought the church service to a close. At that time, he asked the entire congregation to pray and fast for the next week for my complete healing. I was astonished I had never seen a church do something like that for someone that was a complete stranger. I was a bit embarrassed as well for the attention that had been drawn to me.

I didn't really believe in healing per se. I know that miracles happen and I have witnessed miracles and I've experienced miracles but I've also seen lots of times that people were not healed time after time. Somebody that comes to my mind is a lady named Joni Erickson-Tada. She broke her neck as a teenager. She went to lots of healing meetings. She even had Kathryn Kuhlman pray for her. Joni Erickson is still paralyzed from the neck down today. You can see the presence of God in her life but she had did not receive a miraculous physical healing. I was not really convinced that I would either. It did have some appeal to me though. I would love to have my life back -- that is how I felt.

A day or two later I was on my property and I needed to mow. In spite of my disability I could mow a little bit at a time. I could hold on to the mower just like I would hold on to a walker and I could walk around my lawn with the mower and get the grass cut but it took forever because I could only last for a short. Of time I had very poor endurance. Got the mower out and I thought well never can tell maybe I am going to be healed so maybe I'm being here maybe I need it so I started tomorrow and pretty quickly I was tuckered out and couldn't go any longer in there was no evidence of physical healing. so

So I said to God, quotation mark God it must not be your will to heal me please help me to live within the parameters of this disorder thank you

After praying that I went on about my business it wasn't until a couple weeks later that I really realize that something was happening there was one occasion shortly after that maybe a week later I walked to the neighbor's houseI walked to the neighbors house to return it cool I don't think I took my walker I'm pretty sure I didn't take my walk or I think I took my cane I walk to the neighbors house I remember sitting down and resting on the back of his pickup truck and then walking back and that was something I really had not been able to do before this on the way back another neighbor drove by and I stopped in the center of the road and talk to them and standing for any kind of extended. Of time was something I had not been able to do and I did it and it just made me wonder and I actually said to another neighbor and my be he told him this was interesting it made me wonder.

One of the things that had really bothered me about the disorder that I had was it made my skin nasty at the cells didn't stuff off and then normal manner but when my skin was would get wet like taking a bath or swimming or showering showering you could take your hand and running across like my hand my leg my my whatever and you would get a handful of skin it was nasty I hated it well the middle of June a couple weeks after this little church and started to pray for me I notice the difference I noticed my skin with smoother that was smooth that was I didn't have that nastiness and it was I just was like asking myself am I being him is something happening well yes I was I was being healed Amerigo is happening and it kept happening and its still an ongoing thing my health is good has been improving from then till now that was June 2014 and I in October 2014 I put my walker in storage and I haven't had to use a walker or cane since then my skin unfortunately did not stay quite as smooth and nice as it was in June but my hands are still smooth there isn't the horrible sloughing off of skin when it gets wet like there was then my arms look like old lady arms again which I had hoped that we would come back but you did but I'm excited about my health is better than its been in 20 years it is totally amazing totally totally amazing totally a miracle

A huge significant change for me has been a simple little question. it's a question that has been a part of my entire adult life. the meaning of that question has drastically changed as a result of this healing. The question is why me?

So many times in my life when bad things have happened I've asked why me why is this bad thing happening to me I probably even ask that when I became disabled as a result of a complication from his surgery in 2009 why me God why did this happen to me now when I think the words whiny it is an entirely different it is from an entirely different perspective it is why me why did God choose to heal me why if I be given this wonderful blessing of physical health being restored whiny new Paris

it is hard for me to have this wonderful blessing when there are other people in my life who need physical healing and and have not received it or did not receive it people that have to leave for healing we have no died why did God choose to heal me and not them I don't understand and I do pray that God helps me with this restored help to honor and glorify Him.

~ ~ ~ JESUS is LORD! ~ ~ ~

Footnotes
1  The friend was LinnAnn -book writer