This is a testimony forwarded to me from a friend in Tasmania. I am leaving it in it’s entirety … written as she has written it. It is precedent for healing … and many have been healed by reading, and or by listening to the pod cast … enjoy … and if you need healing … take it as precedent and say “Do it again God” … and He will because … God is Good!
Psalm 107:2 ‘Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story…’ (NIV)
Psalm 107:1,2 ‘Oh, thank God – He’s so good! His love never runs out. All of you set free by God, tell the world! Tell how He freed you….’ (MSG)
God has freed me!!! Freed me from an illness where there was no cure, no answers, all avenues exhausted with no help to be found. God is so good!!
When I fell sick in Jan 2007 I was 39yrs old, married to a wonderful husband with two beautiful sons who were 12 and 14. Life was good, I worked full time, was active in our church, I had a close relationship with God, was fit – running two or three times a week, swam, played basketball, volleyball and any sport that came my way. As a family we regularly took holidays together and would go camping, bushwalking, water skiing, swimming and fishing. Life was good.
Then, out of the blue I got very, very sick. I sought out my local doctor who prescribed numerous courses of antibiotics, underwent various tests which turned out to be detrimental to my health which caused my health to be further weakened. I was finally diagnosed with having mycoplasma pneumonia along with glandular fever which led to an extremely weak immune system that then developed into an acute and severe case of post viral chronic fatigue. In addition to this, I also picked up a muscular condition called fibromyalgia.
Over the years my husband and friends taxied me around to various doctor’s appointments, medical tests, naturopaths, alternative doctors, health retreats etc. I tried all kinds of treatments in search of a cure: pain killers, antidepressants, magnets, naturopath concoctions, intense vitamin supplements, detox treatments, diets, massage, acupuncture, I even had my two amalgam fillings removed – I tried everything with no success and often the treatments made me worse, and on two occasions the treatments were so harmful to my health that my husband thought he was going to lose me.
This journey went on for five and half years and was the worst and hardest years of our lives but regardless, my relationship with God not only remained close but grew stronger and stronger. I’m not saying that I didn’t experience ‘down times’, I most certainly did, and for a period of time I did suffer from depression but I knew that God would one day heal me. So I remained hopeful and optimistic and had an inner strength that of course came from the Lord. God, on a very regular basis communicated to me through His word, through people, through visions and through His audible voice that He had everything under control and that the days were numbered for this illness and they would not last one day longer than He ordained. I was to wait, wait and be patient, trust in Him – so I did, I surrendered myself and my body to His will.
For the past 16 years my family and I attended Gateway Church in Devonport, Tasmania. Our church in August 2012 was hosting a Wonders Conference, a Conference where we invite God to display His miracles and wonders, and wow, did God show up! The conference ran from Thursday to Sunday morning. On the Thursday night my husband went to the meeting and was prayed for and prophesied over that there is a new beginning about to start, you’ve been a warrior and now the fight is over. He came home so excited. So off we all went to the Friday night meeting and I was especially believing that tonight was the night that I was going to be healed. I remember praying, just before we left home, ‘I give myself to you God, I surrender myself to you. I am ready to be healed – let your will be done in my life, I don’t want to be anywhere else but in the center of your will.’
When the alter call came, up I went, ready to be healed. A lady started praying for me, then she stopped and said, ‘God wants you to know how much He loves you.’ Ok. I told her that I knew God loved me and I told her a little of my story and said that I want to be healed. She continued praying then stopped and said, ‘God wants you to know just how much He loves you, like your first love – He loves you so, so much.’ The tears then just overflowed, I knew God loved me, I couldn’t have survived these past five and a half years without Him loving me so much and holding onto me so tightly. I went home not disappointed but confused, but then I felt God remind me ‘you wanted my will didn’t you?’ I absolutely did.
Most of the days while I was sick I was restricted to either my bed or the couch, I was most certainly house bound. For most of that time I couldn’t drive and when I did go out I paid for it dearly. Depending on what I did and how long or exhausting the outing was, was how long I suffered for it. Some outings could take days or even weeks to recover from and if I was really unlucky I would pick up some bug or virus going around, because of my weakened immune system, and then the recovery could even take months.
So, Saturday, after going out Friday night to the meeting, was a bad, bad day, spending the majority of the day in bed dosed high on pain killers. There was no way I could possibly get to another session. My husband spent all of Saturday at the conference and God revealed to him that all you have to do is get your wife to church just like the people in the New Testament did when they lowered their sick friend through the roof of the house where Jesus was preaching. He talked to our pastor and asked him, if he could arrange a time for the visiting team to pray for me after the morning service in one of the side rooms. Our pastor’s face lit up on hearing this and agreed that this could be arranged.
My husband played drums for that Sunday morning service and as soon as the worship finished (with my husband still seated behind the drums) our pastor got on stage and announced that we were believing for a miraculous healing this morning and ‘G, it’s time to go get your wife and bring her in’, Well, that did it! My husband was so excited, ‘this is it, it is going to happen!’ He messaged my youngest son (who by now was 17yrs) ‘I’m coming to pick up mum for church to be prayed for, can you wake her up.’ When he got home I was up and dressed but not really with it. I was in zombie mode as my mind and body weren’t really communicating or working well together, I didn’t even have the energy to speak. When my husband asked if I was ok all I could do was nod or give him the thumbs up signal. He said that trying to get me in the car was like trying to push a bean bag onto the seat, and I was only a little girl. I wanted to go and be prayed for but was sceptical of the timing, thinking that if it was my time to be healed God would’ve healed me Friday night.
I remember the car ride over and thinking, when we travel this road to come back home I’m either going to be healed or I’m going to be feeling even worse than I do now and will probably crawl back into bed and be bedridden for days. My husband’s mind was on a totally different wave length, because of the public announcement our pastor had made previously that morning, he knew that me being prayed for was going to be a public witness instead of a quiet, private event that he had led me to believe, and he wasn’t sure if or how I would handle this situation. He knew for a fact that I would strongly oppose such a spectacle because of how I was feeling and also being so much out of my character and my comfort zone.
So, we arrived at church, we quietly sneaked in the doors while the sermon was drawing to an end. I noticed people spotting us and then nudging others to look around and take notice but thought nothing of it, I didn’t have the energy to worry about what was going on. Then, our pastor from the stage calls out my name – I froze, goose bumps all over my body, and says, ‘can you and your husband come up on stage.’ He shared with the congregation a little about my story and how faithful I was and then asked me if I could pray for the church, just as Job prayed for his friends, and that when Job prayed for his friends he himself was healed, and so too would my prayer for the congregation bounce back tenfold on to me.
Pray for the church!! Me? In front of 500 people, pray out loud, when I can’t even put two words together this morning!! He handed me the microphone, and to this day I remember silently pleading ‘God, help me!’ God, to that moment, had never, ever let me down, and He wasn’t about to start. Shaking and with tears streaming down my face, God filled me with an incredible prayer for the congregation, a prayer that I could never in a million years come up with even if I’d had months to prepare, and apparently it was all spot on to what the topic had been on in the sermon that very morning (which I had missed). God is amazingly good!
Then, our pastor explained that the drummer who had now been ‘tagged in’ while my husband came to collect me, had a ‘word’ given to him that sometime over this conference weekend, while he was playing, someone was going to be healed. So our pastor asked him to start playing and let the Holy Spirit do the rest. Well, off he went (let me add that he is an incredible drummer). As the drummer was getting ready to start, the worship leader asked me to lay on the floor in front of the drums. At this point it didn’t faze me at all and I was more than happy too. So, here we are… little old me, quiet, not a ‘look-at-me’ person at all, laying on the floor, in front of the drums, on a stage, in front of 500 witnesses – God has such a sense of humour. I wasn’t aware at the time but found out later that while I was laying on the stage many of the congregation came forward, praying for me with their hands reached out towards me and towards heaven. While the ‘face melting’ drum solo was going on I felt incredible joy, I felt the Holy Spirit’s presence in and around me. At one point I felt like I couldn’t breathe, just couldn’t get a lung full of air at all and was kind of gasping, but then all of sudden I was able to take a huge breath and as I breathed out I felt the illness leave me.
When the drumming ceased I had to get the people who were around me to help me up (a bit embarrassing) and then they asked me how I felt and what had just happened. I silently prayed that God would help me say only what had happened, that I would be honest and not just say what I thought people wanted to hear. I reported that ‘I felt something happen, couldn’t really explain what but felt that God had healed me even though I was still feeling so weak’.
From the very moment I walked off the stage to this day, I have progressively got stronger and stronger. As we drove home I could feel energy returning back into my body. I am healed!!! At this point in time, almost 15 months after my healing, I have just completed a 10km fun run, 15 months ago I couldn’t even walk around the outside of my house! God is so good!! The worship leader that Sunday morning gave me a verse, Isaiah 40:31 ‘…strength will rise as you wait upon the Lord.’ That has been so true, and my strength continues to rise.
Refer to Podcasts:
Gateway Church Devonport, Tasmania, Australia Ps Mark von Blankensee, Aug 16 , 2012 – Wonders Conference Session Five – 53min in (but listen to the whole service)
Gateway Church Devonport, Ps Mark von Blankensee, Aug 26, 2012 – Celebration Sunday – begin 54min in – Testimony of myself, my husband, one of our pastors and the drummer.
http://www.gatewaychurch.net.au/church_devonport
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