HEALED!

Luke 13:10-13 
10 On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, 11 and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all. 12 When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” 13 Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God.

I AM THAT WOMAN!!!  OK.  No, it wasn't a Sabbath and no Jesus wasn't here speaking to me verbally but I was 'bent over' for 18 years and God has healed me!

I don't know if you ever hear the still small voice of our Lord and Savior, I rarely do.  But, I know I have.  There have been several times over my years where a thought would run through my mind and I knew without a doubt it wasn't mine.  There are other times when I know that what I'm thinking and saying can not be of my own power.  Those are the times I know that the Lord in the form of the Holy Spirit is the power and wisdom behind those thoughts. Unfortunately they are not as often as they should be in the life of any Christian because I struggle with turning myself and my days over to the Lord.  But ANY time I say something astute I know it's his work because on my own, I'm not the sharpest pencil in the drawer.

 Then there are the times that I've learned to identify as those of Satan's fiery darts which unfortunately have a way of ricocheting around my head way too often.   When I get caught up in living life on my own, I hear those fiery darts more.  There are these other times when I just know I've heard from the Father through a thought placed in my mind.   I don't know the theology of something like this but I do know that being a Believer, I have been indwelt by the Holy Spirit and at times if I'm listening and even sometimes when I am not listening too well, I know that I've heard from the Holy Spirit.  When these thoughts come through my mind...they are different than my own.

One such time was a year ago tonight.  Maybe even to the hour that I'm writing this for you.  My  husband was in Kuwait at the time, we were thinking we might end up even moving over there for a project he would manage.  It's funny how things as we see them can turn out totally different!  Our life right now is so far from what it was back then that is it's kind of comical to think about it!  No, not comical, awe inspiring.  And thus, I've decided to write about my life of the past few years.

This night one year ago, as I said, my husband was on business.  I had decided to fast while he was gone and do some praying and studying.   It's not because I was so spiritual but that I was so hungry for God's word and to draw close to the Creator of the world and my Lord and Savior.  The time was so sweet and I have a letter I wrote that day that I believe shows me the state I was in at the time...I was truly ok with where I was in my life.  As you can read in some of my earlier posts, I was sick with an awful condition called Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy that seemed to rule my life.

As I prayed that night I heard distinctly from the Lord "I'm going to heal you".  I was stunned and sat there trying to figure out if it really was what I thought I heard.  But I knew.  I don't speak to myself in that tense.  If it was my thought, I would have said something like "he's going to heal me".

The next morning, my good friend, Debbie picked me up for bible study.  I told her what I had heard from the Lord that previous night.  We were pretty close and going through Beth Moore's A Woman's Heart, God's Tabernacle.  It is a powerful study and had affected us both.  She was probably the only person who truly believed I was not unbalanced until they saw my life changing before their eyes.  Even men of God whom I looked up to looked at me like I was one of those wacky religious ladies, they were skeptical.  I mean, I would have been also, truth be told,  if someone walked up to me and said, "God told me he was going to heal me!"  :)  But I am jumping fwd.  We need to have confirmation of some sort to truly believe that we've heard from the Lord in this manner.   That morning in the study, we were watching a video.  At the point in the video when Beth used the verses I posted at the top of this page I turned to Debbie and said, I've had the RSD for 18 years!  She looked at me askance and said..."I've got chills".  We KNEW we had the confirmation I needed that this truly was God's will for my life!  It was hard over the next week or so as I tried to tell people that I thought the Lord was going to heal me.  I needed people to experience with me the awe of what was going on in my life. I struggled with questioning myself and the Lord.  "Lord, I really did hear what I thought I did, didn't I?"  But I also truly did/do believe that this is what was happening. I also knew that I needed to claim it BEFORE I was healed so that when people could see the change, they'd KNOW that God did reach down and touch me and healed me.

The following Sunday, we had a powerful worship service and I just knew God was in that place. I also knew that I had to stop questioning and believe and claim remission!  I had already stopped one drug that I'd been on for over 17 years at the highest dose allowed.  I had no increase in the pain that was kept under control by that drug.   I was still on the Morphine I needed for other types of pain and I was also on Cymbalta for the pain and depression that is so characteristic of RSD.

The medical response to what happened to me is I had a spontaneous remission.  So, I claimed I was in remission and talked to my doctors about withdrawing off the drugs.  They supported me and encouraged me to go slowly which I didn't, but that's another story.

So is, the rest of the story of my healing.  But I do want to say that it's a year later, I'm off the drugs and my life has changed drastically!  Wonderfully and we've been blessed more than words can describe!  But, I will try to tell more in future blog posts.