Some Personal Experiences
n the fascinating discussion regarding healing, Scott asked for some first-hand experiences. I have been reticent to share the following experiences because they are personal. Yet, I think the time is right to include them in the discussion as my own first-hand experiences with both physical healings and provision of God.
Stretching Space – In May, 1995, I was preparing to move from New Jersey to Dallas, Texas to attend Dallas Theological Seminary. My parents offered to help with the moving expenses and to drive the moving truck for me so that I didn’t have to drive it and tow my car. I fully appreciated this offer, and accepted.
Based on the small amount of stuff that I had, I estimated that a 10-ft. U-haul truck would be sufficient, so that is what we rented. As moving day approached, I dragged my foot along the carpet in the living room of my small home to make a mark where the end and sides of the 10-ft. space would be. And I began stacking the boxes in that space.
The closer I got to moving day, the more I realized that my stuff was not going to fit in the space I had carefully measured and marked out in the living room. There was no way.
Driving to work a few days before the move, I was meditating on the passage where Jesus multiplied the bread and the fish to feed 5,000 people. Unaccustomed to asking for “miracles”, I began to talk to God openly.
“Lord, I don’t know how to ask for this, because I don’t even know if it is something I’m supposed to be asking you for. It seems silly. However, the reality is, my belongings will not fit in the 10-ft. truck we have reserved. If you were able to multiply a few loaves and fish enough to feed 5,000 people, I can’t help but believe that you can stretch the 10-ft. of space inside that truck to allow everything to fit.”
With that, I continued stacking boxes right up until moving day, extending past the line on the carpet. And I told absolutely no one about the problem or my prayer for provision. Instead, I just quietly trusted that all would be well.
Moving day arrived, and my parents went to pick up the truck. As I sat waiting on the front step, they backed the truck up the driveway. I sat there looking at it thinking, “That doesn’t look like the truck in the picture.” My parents got out of the truck, and I said, “Is that a 10-ft. truck?” They said, “Well, actually, when we went to pick up the truck, they were out of 10-ft trucks. Since that’s what we had reserved, the guy at the U-haul place told us that he would just give us a 14-ft truck at the same price.”
When we packed the 14-ft truck, my boxes and belongings came right to the very end of that truck with just enough room to slide the door down and latch it! God “stretched” the 10-ft truck to just the right size to meet my needs!
Throwing Away the Meds – I am normally in very good health. I am very grateful for that. But it didn’t look so good for a while. In May, 2001, I was working at my desk in San Marcos, TX coding away on a software project. All of a sudden, I started feeling dizzy. My hands started to shake, and I began feeling very nauseous. Without warning, I suddenly began vomiting. Everything began to feel very strange and out of sorts to me.
I got control of the vomiting and decided to try to make my way to the bathroom at the other corner of the building. Feeling very weak, I made my way to my feet and started down the hall. Everything was spinning, and I kept falling. I tried to lean against the wall for support, and slowly made my way to the other end and into the bathroom. Once there, I laid on the cool tile for a while trying to get the feelings to subside.
Eventually, I managed to get myself back up and make my way to a co-worker’s office. He took one look at me and said, “Are you ok????” I tried to talk, but couldn’t really get the words out. He left to call 911 and another co-worker tried to help me to a chair. Instead, I began to collapse, and ended up stretched out on the floor.
By the time the ambulance arrived, I was not sure whether I was staying conscious or not. I was hyperventilating. My feet and legs felt numb, and I was losing feeling in my fingers. I tried to talk, but was trembling so much that I couldn’t really get anything out. All kinds of thoughts were running through my mind.
I spent several hours in the ER, but they could not find anything wrong. Finally, they discharged me, and since I was too weak to drive, a friend gave me a ride home. I had no strength at all, and my head was hurting very, very badly.
To make a long story short, this began a period of almost two months where I endured a constant migraine headache that debilitated me. My job was kind enough to allow me to telecommute, but every day, I would get up, stumble to my home office, attempt to work, but within 15 minutes, have to lay back down again. The headache would not go away. I had no strength. I couldn’t hardly think straight, and I ended up just taking a huge amount of sick days (my employer allowed us to borrow from future sick days, so I took advantage of that at the time).
Every day was the same — attempt to get up and deal with the pain, endure maybe 15 minutes of being up, and then feeling like I was going to collapse again.
Several times, a friend took me to the doctor. They did blood tests. They did a brain MRI. They could not identify anything that was causing the pain. So they put me on some pain medication to try to make the pain subside some. Even that seemed to have little effect.
For almost two months, I stayed in this condition. It was actually during this time that I began to seek to understand what God’s heart was with regard to healing. I began to spend time reading the accounts of healing in the Bible. I had always been the one to argue, “Well, Jesus didn’t heal everyone when he was here.” Yet, I could not find support for that argument.
What I found, in fact, was the statement in Matthew 8 where it says that they brought the sick to Jesus “and he healed them all.” And then, this was the part that really intrigued me, Matthew ties that into Isaiah 53 and the prophecy regarding Jesus there.
When I read that, I was dumbfounded. Part of the prophecy of Jesus coming included physical healing? And that was right in there with “by his stripes we are healed”? Why had I never seen that before?
So, I said, “Lord, I have been thinking all along that there’s a chance that you don’t want to heal. That you may have brought this into my life for some reason. That I shouldn’t assume that you want to heal me. But your heart, as revealed in Jesus, appears to be quite different. I believe that you do want to heal me, and I want to accept that.”
With that, and I am not exaggerating at all in any of this, I got up, threw the medication in the trash can, walked out the door, got in my car, and went to work. The headache left, the dizzy feeling, the weakness, all began to go away, and I have not looked back since.
After two months of barely being able to walk, I can’t tell you how good it felt to move around and function in life again!!
He’s Not Hurt? – Sometime around November, 2004, a co-worker of mine got a frantic call from his wife. Some men had been working on their roof, and one of them had fallen off the roof. Since my co-worker didn’t have his car with him (his wife had dropped him off earlier that day), he asked me to take him to his house.
When we got there, we saw the situation. One of the workers had, indeed, fallen from a roof that was about eight feet off the ground. He lay on the ground, his head against a wheelbarrow and his body twisted. He was conscious, but complaining about a lot of pain.
The ambulance arrived shortly after we got there, and the EMT began to assess the situation. It did not look very good, and they medical personnel were being extremely cautious. It was hard to tell if anything was broken, but every time they tried to move him, he complained about severe pain.
As he lay there, I watched and prayed. “Lord, I don’t know exactly what I should do here. Do I walk up in front of all these people and lay hands on this gentleman? Will I make a fool of myself?” I didn’t want to, in any way, draw attention to myself. And so I quietly just kept praying. “Lord, you know the extent of injuries here. You know the fall that he has taken, and how hard he hit. You know how to make everything the way it should be, and I ask you to heal this man. Put together any bones that are broken and restore him.”
They finally managed to get him loaded into the ambulance and rushed off to the hospital. We spent a few more minutes with my co-worker’s wife who was quite obviously and understandably shaken by all of this. But finally, we went back to work. I continued to pray and wonder what would happen.
The next day, I asked my co-worker if he had heard anything. He said, “Yeah, actually. Believe it or not, they checked him out at the hospital and found nothing wrong. They released him, and he is fine!”
Now, I don’t take credit for any part of this. I just am testifying to what I saw. A man fell from eight feet, landing on his back (we found out later that he had experienced a seizure that caused him to fall), possibly even hitting his head on the wheelbarrow, complained of severe pain, and several hours later walked out of the hospital completely fine!
Scott, thanks for asking about the personal experiences. I’ve enjoyed revisiting these events in my mind and sharing them.
Until next time,
steve 
December 12th, 2007 09:15
Thank you for being so personal and open Brother. My wife and I recently began attending a new church and the pastor there has talked a lot about the idea that healing is part of the free and ebundant life that Jesus bought for us. He too sees the Isaiah passage and the corresponding discourses in the NT as you do. This was a new idea for me, but like you, I have had to believe what is written rather than what I’ve always been taught.
Grace Brother
December 12th, 2007 09:20
Larry, thanks for your comments here. I don’t know if I ever officially welcomed you to my blog, but welcome, my friend!
Your comments are an encouragement and I appreciate your focus on believing what is in the scripture.
December 12th, 2007 09:30
Those are excellent examples of answered prayers. The last two are the most poignant but even the first is not to be dismissed. I fully believe that God answers prayers (not always in the way we expect/hope as the first on points out) and I’m glad that he answered those. It’s these kind of first hand stories that encourage folks like me that really need it. I believe I’ll share a few of my own over at my spot.
December 12th, 2007 12:05
Steve,
I don’t often talk about my own experience of healing – but you’ve provided me with the opportunity.
About 26 years ago, I ended up with severe whiplash that landed me in hospital in mind-blowing pain. After a series of x-rays, a Dr. Mah (I can still remember his name) told me I had degenerative disk disease and would probably be in a wheel chair by the time I was fifty. (I’m 52.) Needless to say I was freaked out.
After seeing a specialist, I discovered Mah’s diagnosis was inaccurate. I had damaged my neck in a car accident as a 12yr old kid – and the damage on the x-ray was from that accident. The whiplash had highlighted the damage. However, the specialist told me I could expect to suffer from neck pain for the rest of my life according to the specialist.
I became a Christian the following year and was married the year after that. Imbi often had the pleasure of seeing me in double donuts around my neck – or using a neck stretching device hung over a door to help alleviate the pain.
One Sunday morning at the anti-charismatic Pentecostal Church we would later be tossed from (for sharing some Wimber materials with the worship team we led), we had prayer for healing. People gathered in groups and my group prayed for me…and the pain went away. Period.
About eight years later I was seeing a new chiropractor, a Christian. He needed to x-ray my back to see if and where adjustment was necessary. I returned a few days later for the results and to begin treatment. He started with my lower back and told me that was the area that needed adjustment. He went through my entire back and when he got to my neck, he said, “Now your neck, your neck is perfect.” His exact words. And I began to cry.
You see, I thought the Spirit had taken my pain away and that had been good enough for me. I had no idea my neck had been repaired.
The chiro was shocked by my tears – but loved the story when I could finally suck it up and get it out.
Thanks for the discussion here, Steve.
Hope you and yours are having a wonderful Advent.
December 12th, 2007 12:31
I have seen a number of instances of divine intervention in my life as well as witnessing it in the lives of others.
One in particular is my dad. As a child, osteomylitis had completely destroyed the tibula in his right leg. X-rays showed that the bone was non-existent. His mother prayed for his healing and God caused a new bone to grow in his leg.
The ladies of my church witnessed a miracle recently when they volunteered to feed a Thanksgiving meal to an ESL class at a Hispanic mission. They were told to prepare for 50 people and did so. When the meal was served, over 120 people showed up. Everyone received full servings and there were even leftovers.
Are you surprised to hear this from me, Steve?
December 12th, 2007 13:13
Scott, I look forward to reading your accounts, too. Thanks for a great discussion, bro!
Bill, great to hear from you! And your story brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for sharing.
Gordon, yes
But seriously, thank you so much for sharing, too.
I’m honestly really touched at the responses this post is getting.
December 12th, 2007 15:58
Steve -
Thanks for writing this. It reminds me, as God often does, about how He healed me when I was just 20 months old. I love to think about how miraculously He healed my body. I was playing in a friend’s garage with another toddler and our moms were visiting. There are was an antique armoire in the garage and inside was a large bowl of pens (they were promotional pens they had for the dad’s work). So, as toddlers do, we were pretending that the armoire was our oven and the bowl of pens was dinner. We would run around the garage a few times and then we would stop and open the doors to the armoire and “check on dinner”.
Well, one time I opened the doors and the armoire proceeded to fall on top of my little 20-month-old body. It fractured my skull. I was in a coma and having periodic grand mal seizures. My prognosis was not good … if I did wake from the coma I would have severe brain damage, blindness, deafness in the ear where the eardrum had ruptured, seizures for the rest of my life, and severe sensitivity to light. My mom is a huge believer in the power of prayer and she was praying fervently, as was everyone else she knew (she’s a prayer chain queen).
I woke up after 4 days in a coma. But I still had seizures and I did have severe sensitivity to light, as well as newly discovered hole in the spine/base of the skull. The doctors weren’t sure about anything with me at that point – the prognosis was still the same. That was in May. By the time October rolled around and I went in for my 6 month follow-up with the doctor I was completely healed. All these things that the doctors were just sure would be problems that I would have for the rest of my life … God healed them all.
I have absolutely NO ill-effects from the accident – none – never have. I have exceptional hearing (I mean the nurses would always be amazed at the things I could hear when I would have hearing tests growing up), my eyesight is excellent, I have had no seizures since having just a couple right after waking from the coma, and I have absolutely no brain damage (although, according to my family, that’s debatable – HA!). The hole in my spine healed with no ill effects and I have no sensitivity to light at all. And these are not things that “healed over time”, although even if they were I still wouldn’t discount it – it would still be God’s healing power. My body has completely been healed and the only explanation is God’s miraculous healing.
Thanks for talking about this subject, Steve … and thanks for the opportunity to share!
Blessings!
~Heather
December 12th, 2007 19:04
Thanks for the healing testimony, which increases my faith in that department. But the trailer story really speaks to me, because it’s the kind of miraculous adjustment that the Lord seems to make regularly. We just need to recognize his little (and large)interventions for what they truly are, and then give him the credit and the glory for them. Keep up the good work.
Carey
December 13th, 2007 23:01
For those that say that miracles do not happen. Really do not listen to their brothers and sisters very well do they?
December 14th, 2007 09:42
Nate,
I think a lot of us would rather not talk about the miraculous because of the way fakery is pitched as reality by the TBN/WoF set.
I have experienced miraculous healing and have also seen (as an example) Mark, a dear friend, charismatic, associate pastor and father of two small girls (one autistic) die of cancer in his thirties after us doing “all the stuff” to appropriate his healing. I still don’t understand why God would choose to heal my neck and not heal Mark.
In that confusing space, many choose to believe God no longer heals. And I do understand why.
December 14th, 2007 09:52
I agree with Bill that in that confusing space that he wrote about many choose to believe that God no longer heals.
It’s unfortunate that many of us try to understand God when His ways are not our ways and our thoughts are not His thoughts. There are many things that I do not understand, but nonetheless I believe. God wouldn’t be God if we could explain every mystery.
~Heather
December 14th, 2007 10:57
Steve,
I’ve been reading your posts, and I’ve been very encouraged by them. I’m glad that you are getting your voice back, and that it is as healthy and strong as ever.
-Alan
December 15th, 2007 00:02
Bill,
Ted Turner is an atheist because of God. Why? Because he begged God to heal his sister, and he did not. He cursed God, and became an atheist. Why? Because God would not do what he ask.
Sovereignty is sometimes a harsh thing. Things happen, and we get no explanation. I think that too many times, we like to get an image of God in our heads, and try to conform God to that image. Well, I don’t think God is going to allow that. He lets us know in no uncertain terms, that he can not be cajoled into our service.
We also get fooled by the “if you had faith enough to move mountains” quote. We believe that if our faith is strong enough, God will do what we want him to do. Kind of make him our personal genie. So that when he does not do as we request, we consider it a lack of faith, rather than us not doing what God would have us do. And accept what he gives us.
Or we fall into the, “God I have done all of this for you, you owe me this.” No he doesn’t. Until you give up your son to die, you still owe him.
People fall in to the Ted Turner syndrome as soon as God doesn’t grant a wish. Then they say, “well, if God didn’t do it for me, he just must not do it anymore.”
December 15th, 2007 18:36
Hi, Steve!
I haven’t responded much or been able to keep up with your blog as much as I’d like, but I absolutely have loved reading about your own personal testimonies as well as those of others in the comments here. I know that since becoming a Christian, I feel like God has done miracles in my own life just by making me know who I am in Him & not who the world had made me think I was. For that, I’m so forever grateful! & there are countless other things, even the smallest answers to prayer that God never ceases to amaze me with. To know He cares even in the slightest things of our lives!
Sometime I’ll have to completely update you on what God’s been doing in my life lately, but I trust He’s not done yet!
December 16th, 2007 21:25
Steve,
Thanks for sharing some of your experiences. It’s good to see you writing more lately. I’ll have to check in more often. Blessings and Merry Christmas brother!
Brandon
December 18th, 2007 12:59
Then should we be praying for the healing of our family members in Darfur?
December 22nd, 2007 11:54
Speaking of Africa I was reading a book written in Africa, Expecting Miracles where the Mrs Baker is describing miracles such as blind eyes seeing and she makes the point I would like to share. Jesus demonstrates his love through healing. How simple is this experiencing God’s miracle power is direcelty realted to being loved. It is faith working through love not just faith. So lets be loved by God.
January 1st, 2008 10:49
hey steve,
i have just stumbled upon your blog by recommendation of a friend of mine. my own blog also focusses on healing and the miraculous side of jesus. probably you will not be able to read it since it´s written in german.
i just wanted to tell you that i am really happy to find any internet ressoruces that focus on healing and the supernatural. i know it is sometimes hard to preach that message but it is worth it.
keep fighting the good fight!
storch
January 1st, 2008 23:19
Just wanted to say how much I appreciate this blog and the testimonies shared above. I believe God still heals, but sometimes life makes it hard to remember that. A little over a year ago, friends of mine lost their baby to SIDS. And I’ve personally struggled with some recurring physical problems. In the face of that and some other things, I’ve doubted God’s love and interest. Thank you for reminding me.
January 2nd, 2008 17:47
This is a great thread. I hope it’s discovered by many because it is clearly defining our inability to define or limit God. That said, I’d like to add another twist here:
I was in my fifties: confused and full of fear created by my need to hide from an abusive husband who really needed my voice stilled. I was in attendance at a party which also included some of my fellow church members. I was sitting across from a young couple who were passionate in their determination to follow all the rules and live “just right” for God. They were struggling with the fact there were so many problems in the life of their family: health issues, financial struggles and frequent crises of various nature.
The stranger sitting beside me was disturbing. She kept “seeing” evil spirits and bad omens, gradually convincing me she must be deranged. Late into the evening, she declared she was going to heal the young couple with all the issues. She announced everyone must follow her to another room where we could form a circle and pray for the young couple. I had no intention of being a part of that group even though she was most insistent I must accompany them.
Eventually my pastor’s wife stood up to join the group and motioned me forward, so I reluctantly went with them where a circle was formed and I just happened to end up with my hand on the shoulder of the young wife.
The strange woman began a prayer to Jesus that was one of the most beautiful prayers I have ever heard. Near the close of the prayer, hot coals began to surge through my veins. They began in the hand touching the young wife and slowly worked their way through my entire body. These coals were very, very hot and extremely painful. I did not know what to think.
After the prayer ended, the strange woman asked if anyone had felt anything. I was slow to confirm so she made the request again, saying she normally felt something herself, but had not felt anything at all. After the young couple confirmed they had felt nothing, I went ahead and acknowledged I was still feeling the heat.
In the ensuing days, I was to note that a goose egg lump in one armpit had disappeared, I quit taking sinus medicine and had a new found peacefulness about me. But the most important discovery did not occur until over five years later. The husband from whom I was hiding got wind of the fact I had been diagnosed with kidney disease and quickly set me free for fear he’d have to pay my medical bills.
Some months after the divorce was final, a new round of testing determined the massive cyst in my kidney was shriveling and appeared to be going away.
Do you see all the baffling turns in this? I did not pray for healing–didn’t even want to be involved. I was not prayed for by another. It would seem to me, God was (1) healing my skepticism and (2) setting up the scenario which would allow me the financial backing required to retire, move to the inner city, and begin working with families so beat down by their culture that they have no concept of the words “trust and hope”.
February 22nd, 2008 02:32
Steve, thank you for sharing these. God is faithful.