JEWEL
“I had long depended on alcohol to give me courage to enter a room full of people and overcome the constant migraines that knocked me out for at least a day. I lived on Codeine tablets I could buy across the counter at that time, plus a cocktail of prescribed tranquilizers that had me sleeping a lot of the time, but didn't touch the mental and physical mess I was in. After an overdose, I signed myself out of hospital, came straight home and threw away all the remaining drugs so I would not be tempted again. Withdrawal was indescribable. I became harder and drank more.
“I was told Jesus was alive and healing every day, and although I did believe the young woman's story of Jesus healing her mother of osteoarthritis that had put her in a wheelchair, I felt I couldn't be good enough to have God do anything like that for me. I found just living a challenge knowing I was never good at anything anyway.
“Finally, some two years later, I was forced to get help for my eldest boy who the Doctors wanted to prescribe valium for because of a vision problem caused by nervous tension. I knew from personal experience that all the drugs and help I had received had not fixed the problem. Then his teacher came to see me at home. She told me she was a Christian and that Jesus healed everybody that came to Him, and He could heal my son.
“I attended coffee mornings and heard amazing testimonies. I was struck by the peace that enveloped the women, knowing I was holding on to my world with gritted teeth and shutting myself down emotionally. Rage would erupt quickly when I couldn't deal with the problems around me, so I attended more coffee meetings and finally went to a healing meeting.
“Because of my distrust of anybody, I checked out the scriptures they quoted in the Bible my godmother had given me at my Anglican baptism 25 years earlier. I found I couldn't make the scriptures say anything different than what they were telling me.
“On the evening of the first Sunday meeting I was going to attend, a friend dropped in on his way home from the hospital, very upset. His son had a strangulated testicle, and he only had one that had ever descended. Because Doctors could not make this happen, they needed to remove it and the thought of his only son being a eunuch devastated him.
“I told the women who was picking me up for the meeting that night and said she would pray for him. I thought God might listen to her but not to me. However, when the Pastor asked if anyone wanted prayer, my immediate thought was ‘if I was a real friend I would care about this lad and ask just in case it worked’. I put my hand up reluctantly and the Pastor prayed and cheerfully said it was not a problem. After the meeting he approached me and said that in cases like this if I went to the people concerned and told them I had asked Jesus to heal their boy, it gave God a platform to move and show Himself and the love He had for the lad.
“My first thought was that it was alright for him and he believed this, but if it might make a difference then I had better do it. The parents weren't particularly impressed, but a day later the boy was discharged, totally healed. With very little trust, I mentally made a chalk mark for God, thinking that's only one thing. But I decided to go to another meeting.
“At my second meeting the Pastor read from a scripture in Romans that spoke to me. It said if we did not have the spirit of God, we were not a child of His. I knew I was not a child of His, and when I saw another lady getting baptised by full immersion, I decided I would have to do something about this or else I may never come back. I timidly said I would be baptised too.
“That night for the first time in my life, I had peace and slept without falling into a gaping never ending hole in the ground, or off a rooftop without ever hitting the ground. Three days later I went to another coffee morning and came home wanting to be in the Holy Spirit like the others there. I knelt beside my bed and spent the next 3 hours occasionally talking to God and waiting for my mouth to open in speak in tongues, but nothing happened.
“I phoned the woman who had taken me to the meeting and told her I believed God healed but didn't believe He wanted me. I hung up and got on preparing dinner. The Pastor rang and said he could come around and go over scriptures with me and pray. I was furious that once again I had been put down by someone and shamed because this woman had told the Pastor, God didn't want me! However, I thought if I tried this and it didn’t work, then I had really given it a good shot. So, I agreed.
“That night the Pastor showed me scriptures I already knew, then started to pray saying Jesus was right there and I was to just speak. Suddenly I had a realisation. I actually had to use my voice, and God wasn't going to make me do that. I took a breath but then let it go. I took another and spoke a few words then stopped. The Pastor told me to just sit up in bed and practise, so later I did just that. To my amazement a language was there, but I had no other sensation and felt if it was of God then there should be stars and shakings and amazing physical impressions. But there was nothing. My ears had begun to get used to the vowels and consonants I was saying, so when I thought I’d give it one more go and the language became a guttural Germanic sound, I looked at the ceiling and said ‘oh my God, you are real’. I knew I hadn't made up these sounds. He changed the language to prove to me that He had filled me with His Holy Spirit. Immediately I had a 180-degree change in my thinking. I knew I was loved and valued by God – no longer unlovable and rejected. Overnight I became an optimist and confident. I knew also Jesus had forever removed my thirst for alcohol and I never drank again.
“The next obvious sign was a strep throat. Although at the age of 9 my tonsils and adenoids had been surgically removed, I continued to often have green mucus pouring from my nose, leaving me drained. No medical treatments could fix it, so when I felt it start again, I asked God to heal me, and He did.
“A few weeks later God proved I was under His protection. My husband and I were practicing for an aerobatic competition and were up flying over the airfield one Sunday afternoon. I knew the theory behind the maneuvers and as he pulled the plane straight up and shut the throttle off, I realised something was wrong. He was automatically doing all the things he needed to do, but it was clear the plane was not responding. I knew if the plane slipped backwards, the pins in the rudder would be broken, and we could then not pull out of the spiral and would plow into the ground. My husband managed to tip the plane onto one wing and as we lost height, I saw the propellor slowly flicking around driven by the downward rush of air. The engine had failed.
“We lost height rapidly and as he continued trying to restart the engine, I thought with alarm we had no parachutes and what about the 4 boys! It all seemed to be slow motion. Suddenly the engine fired and we were able to pull up just above the ground. He looked at me and said we needed to go up and do it again, or we would never have the nerve to fly again.
“We did so and when we landed, we were asked by the Chief Flying Instructor who had been watching us from the ground, what had we been up to? My husband thought he must have starved the carburetor of fuel, not thinking this was impossible as it was not a gravity feed system. The following day we were told the engine on the same plane cut out for an instructor flying on a straight path. He too managed to restart the engine and later it was found the plane had a faulty carburetor".
“Money was so tight that clothing me and the four boys, paying dentist bills, keeping the car running and covering football subs, or new shoes felt impossible. I would make a list of all the bargains at the grocery stores in our area, then pare the list back to the bare essentials, adding up every cent so those nightmares of having to return groceries at the checkout wouldn’t come true. One day I checked my receipt against the money in my purse, and realised the numbers didn’t add up, yet God had miraculously multiplied my money. Another day I found as I went to buy new sheets, there were specials enabling me to buy a set when I needed them, and new clothes given to me by a friend that were in my size and colours.
“The boys were always outdoors doing rough and tumble things and I seemed to have a perpetual crisis to deal with, When Jesus came into our lives, I called upon Him regularly and healing was given. One instance was when my youngest fell from a tall pine tree and had grabbed a rope to come down as it was time to go home. The rope wasn’t tied on properly. He fell and was concussed on the ground. I had no knowledge of this until he arrived home on his bike and said he had a headache. I told him to lie down until he had a shower. But when he called out and asked where his bike was, I realised something was wrong. When I went into his bedroom his eyes seemed glazed, so I rang the mother at the house where he had been playing, and she said he had been unconscious but had come to, so she let him ride home. I put him in the car and drove to the hospital. Once there, the doctors told me that because his skull had not fractured, pressure had built up, and the area where he had landed would impact his physical, mental and emotional functioning. I was calm and told the doctors Jesus would heal him. They thought I was in shock and had lost the plot. I stayed with him in hospital till 1am praying and I asked another church lady to pray as well. The next morning at 9.30am I got a call telling me to come and pick him up as he was sitting up in bed playing with puzzles and reading. I praised Jesus and picked him up. They warned me he should be kept quiet and do nothing stressful – no tests at school and nothing that would excite him. In the afternoon the doctor who had been on duty rang me and abused me for taking him out of the hospital, obviously thinking my Christian principals had made me do so. I asked him to go and check the records that showed the hospital had phoned me and told me to take him home. I took him to school the next day and spoke to his teacher and told him what had happened. I asked him to keep an eye on my lad, but he rang me later that day and in an apologetic tone and said the lad had insisted he do his math test and as usual had passed in the 90’s. To keep the hospital happy, I took him back twice a week for tests, but in the end, they gave up as they could find nothing wrong with him.
“Because money was so hard to come by, if the boys wanted anything they had to save their pocket money and where possible, I would contribute. My youngest wanted a Seiko watch which was very dear, but a friend was going to Fiji and in those days, you could buy something duty free and much cheaper. The lad gave him all his pocket money, and he got his watch. One day I had taken the boys waterskiing, but we left early as the boys had paper runs. When the runabout was put on the trailer, my lad put his prized Seiko watch on the side of the boat. When we got home, he realised what he had done and was very upset but went off to do his paper run. I went back to look for the watch, but it was nowhere to be found. He was complaining and moaning about it, and I told him to pray about it and perhaps it had been handed in to the Police station. He said there were no honest people but he went off to pray and came back later, saying he was sure it would turn up. The next afternoon, his father took him to the Police station, and someone had passed the main mall, about a half mile from the beach and saw the watch face down in the gutter and left it there. It was still there when the man and son came back from the mall, but it had been turned over and the glass cracked. They took it to the Police station. We found out who they were, and my son went around and thanked them. The cracked glass was easily replaced.
“I had a back injury from moving the tandem trailer out of the way of my car. I was told I had a misplaced disc and a squashed nerve. The pain grew worse by the day although I still tried to mow the lawns and function normally. At night I would lie on my stomach on the lounge floor to try and rest and ease the pain. I went to church and asked for prayer as I sat perched on a table edge because I could not sit down. I knew Jesus was my healer, so I kept my eyes fixed on him. A few weeks went by and finally I had to ask my husband to take me to the emergency department at the hospital. I had to crouch in the footwell of the car as my back was too painful to sit. He dropped me off and I waited, semi standing in the long queue. I needed to go to the bathroom and one nurse pointed down the hall. When I got there, I was in such agony that when my undies fell to the floor, I started crying as I couldn’t bend down to pick them up. Finally, they took me to lie down to wait until I could be seen. They x-rayed me, then tried stretching me, twisting me, applying heat and finally told me the only option was to remove the disc and insert a cement like mix and fit me with a brace I would wear for the rest of my life. Then they sent me home and told me to come back after the weekend. My husband came to pick me up and miraculously on the way home, the pain was gone. I was completely numb. I didn’t know if this was a good thing, I simply enjoyed being released from the relentless pain. My Pastor arrived at the same time we did, and I told him not to worry as I was numb and had no pain. However, during the evening, the pain shot from my spine down my leg. It was so intense I was seeing spots! I lay down but could not even bear a sheet over me. My husband was so concerned he was wringing his hands and almost crying beside me. I asked him to phone the Pastor again, and he also phoned our doctor who kept late hours at the surgery. My Pastor turned up promptly and began to pray.
“Whilst he was praying I had the slightest easing of pain and had a picture come to me of Jesus standing beside the bed, taking my wrist and lifting me off the bed. My Pastor stopped and asked how I was feeling, and I said the pain had eased slightly. He said he sensed the presence of Jesus, prayed a little more, then said he was leaving. I wanted to tell him not to go as the pain was still extremely intense, but I stopped myself. He shut the bedroom door as he left. I thought to myself, if you really saw Jesus standing there you must be healed. I managed to raise myself up, lift my legs down to the floor, and stand in an upside-down L shape. I started walking praising Jesus for my healing. Within 5 minutes, all pain was gone, and I was bending and twisting without any discomfort at all. Jesus healed me. I was back mowing the lawns within a week”.
Luke 18:27 “what is impossible with man is possible with God’.