Healing

2018-08-22T17:20:00.004-04:00

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed..."
Luke 4:18

Only in heaven will we enjoy all that the Lord Jesus gave his life to accomplish for us. However, there are times here on earth when he delights us with healings, sometimes instantaneous, sometimes progressive, but always turning our eyes upon HIM.

Let your heart be uplifted and your faith strengthened as you read and delight in these stories of wonderful visitations of healing which have been granted to ordinary people like you and me.

See the links to the stories on the side panel.

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Pudgy

2008-10-13T10:50:00.001-04:00

Pudgy’s real name was Steven. He was about 11. He was a pal of my kids and lived a street away.

One Saturday morning, my next door neighbor stopped by and asked me if I knew how Pudgy was doing. I didn’t know anything was wrong with him, but she told me that she was sure I knew as one of my sons was with him when he had been hit by a car the evening before. None of my kids had mentioned anything like this, and I couldn’t imagine that either of my boys would have come home from playing, sat down with the family to eat dinner, and never mention what had happened to Pudgy.

My neighbor told me that he was in the hospital and was not expected to live. There was a supermarket near my home, and this neighbor told me that Pudgy and two boys had been playing with carts from the supermarket and one had pushed the cart with Pudgy in it out into a major highway where it was hit by a car. Someone had told her that one of the boys had blond hair, and that was why she had assumed it was one of mine.

I quickly called my boys together and neither of them had been present. My neighbor told me what hospital he was in, so I went into my husband’s medical office, which adjoined the house. He was shocked, and as soon as he had finished his office hours, came into the house, refused lunch and said he was going immediately to the hospital to see what was going on. He said he was lead by God to lay hands on the child and pray for his healing. This was not a normal occurrence for him – although it wasn’t the only time my husband did this with miraculous results.

When he reached the local Catholic hospital, Pudgy was near death. The parents, Marylou and Jerry, had been told he would likely not live, or if he did, he would “be a vegetable.” Dick read the medical chart and said to the parents, “With my doctor hat, your son is very ill and going to die, but with my spiritual hat I am telling you he is going to recover.”

Pudgy was in a coma at this point, on a respirator, and non-responsive. He had severe head injuries. Dick laid hands on him and said, “Be healed in the name of Jesus.” With that, Pudgy coughed out his respirator and began breathing on his own. Dick left, and came home for lunch, and fully expected a miracle.

Dick went back to the hospital several days later and found Pudgy’s bed empty. Instead of panicking and thinking he was dead, he asked where they had moved the child. He was in a wheelchair in a solarium, not responding verbally, with eyes not focusing, but breathing on his own, and partly out of the coma. His parents said he had steadily improved after Dick’s prayer.

Pudgy remained in a semi coma, and I went in to see him and visited with Marylou. My children were also praying daily for their friend, and they decided I should take him in a particular gift. It was a game that required some intelligence to play. My son (the blond who wasn’t there, by the way) said that he didn’t want to send a sentimental type gift, but something that required Pudgy to be completely healed, and fully intelligent to play. He called it an “act of faith.”

Pudgy was discharged from the hospital shortly thereafter, and sent to a rehab – still not talking. One day, a week later, a nurse asked him a question, not really expecting an answer. Suddenly Pudgy answered, fully in control. A week later, he was home, hanging out in the neighborhood and riding his bike! He had missed a few weeks of school, but not one IQ point!

His healing was complete! And a miracle.

My husband never took any credit for this healing. He knew he was simply an instrument of God. God had directed him to go to the hospital, lay hands on Pudgy, pray for healing and then leave, and that's exactly what he did. Jesus was the healer.

Sandra C
Maine

God Turned A Curse Into A Miracle

2007-09-24T16:47:00.000-04:00

It was the day after Christmas. Our daughter Lesley was 6 months old. At the time she was the youngest of 5 children. My husband, a physician, had recently taken an interest in helping treat drug addicts in our area of New Jersey, and was doing some work at a local treatment program. He also had a private family practice.

So on this quiet day, after all the exuberance of the exciting holiday, I was sitting at my dining room table, taking a few moments to look through unopened Christmas cards that I had been too busy to read. In the meantime, my husband, five miles away, had just had an encounter with a drug addict who was an avowed satanist. We had been Christians for about 5 years or so at this time, and my husband began to witness Christ to this man, who took offense and said he was putting a curse on my husband, and said satan would cause great trouble for him that day. My husband rebuked him, and after the man left, my husband, who had planned to do several errands, began to feel very sick at his stomach and had to come home.

Our baby, Lesley, was in her playpen. She was showing signs of a cold, so I had made an appointment to take her to her doctor. I asked my oldest daughter who was 11, to bring me the baby so I could get her ready for the appointment. "Mom," she cried out," there's something wrong with the baby!" Lesley was limp and scarcely breathing. It seemed as though each breath would be her last!

Just then, my husband came into the house, and saw that it looked like the baby was dying, and said, "Let's go." I grabbed a blanket for her and we got into the car and headed to the nearest hospital about 5 miles away. Generally it was not a long trip in distance, but it was long because of a lot of traffic. We even drove partly on the wrong side of the road, racing against time. We prayed all the way to the hospital, begging God to spare her life, while I tried to breathe air into her mouth. Nothing changed.

When we arrived at the hospital, we ran into the emergency room, and the doctors grabbed her and began working on her. They were giving her oxygen, but still she remained limp and not responsive and would not begin to breathe on her own. We all stood around the examining table, when suddenly a mental picture of my father-in-law came into my mind!

My husband and I were still working out the intricacies of our Christian walk at this point. He had been raised Roman Catholic; I had been raised Methodist but had had a falling out with the church as a young adult as it failed to answer my questions about my faith. So at this point we were simply calling ourselves Christians with no other label. We attended a church and a weekly prayer meeting but we were not identifying ourselves by the denomination. We had also decided that we believed that baptism was to be done as a believing adult not as a baby. So unlike our older children, Lesley was not baptized. But when I had this picture of my husband's father deeply mourning this unbaptized baby, I blurted out to my husband, "She isn't baptized! Your father will not understand why!"

I did not really like my father-in-law. And it was me to whom God spoke, not to my husband. My father-in-law was nothing like my gentlemanly father, rather he was rough, tough, generally angry, and knew every swear and foul word in existence and probably invented a few. He also had some brain damage from a construction accident that limited his ability to think rationally and he often latched onto a topic and couldn't let go of it. I respected that he was my husband's father, but I did not respect the person.

Before we became Christians, my very Catholic in-laws prevailed in the area of having to have the children baptized right away. I had resentments about that because my family's feelings were completely ignored. They treated me as a second-class citizen in matters of religion. We were to raise the children Catholic and I had nothing to say about it or anything pertaining to it.

My husband was saved in 1966 at a retreat right before he went to Vietnam. I was saved after he returned. We were involved with the Catholic charismatic movement at its earliest stages in the Philadelphia area, but the leadership of the group was not particularly open to Protestants being involved - God forbid that one might take communion! Eventually we left that group and, with some friends, established a non-denominational group in NJ. When my husband left the Catholic church and became a Methodist, his whole family blamed me! I guess in their eyes, I went from no power to ultimate power.

So it was the strangest thing for me to entertain in my mind at this awful moment -how my father-in-law would feel! It flashed through my mind also that 11 months earlier my 11 year old nephew died in an awful accident and how my father-in-law was so angry at the driver of the car who hit him on his bike, and how the anger never seemed to leave him. He ranted on and on. The fact that our baby Lesley was unbaptized had no significance to her salvation in either my husband's or my eyes, but I became instantly aware that it would add much pain for this man. And for God to place this thought in my mind at this moment was totally outside my reality. I didn't even think to hesitate and the words just came out.

So upon hearing my words, the staff in the Catholic hospital was horrified, and said they would call a priest. My husband said, "no, I will do it," and immediately got a cup of water from the sink and poured it over her head, baptizing her in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Then the most amazing thing happened -- Lesley came back to life -- breathing normally and wanting to be held and hugged! Everyone in the room was just stunned -- including us!

In all, they kept her in the hospital for about 10 days. The doctors suspected all kinds of terrible diseases including SIDS, Cystic Fibrosis, Leukemia and a few others, but all tests were negative and I took home a normal healthy child!

A few months later, my husband and I and our older children were baptized by immersion. While we still believed that we were to be baptized as believing adults, we knew that God had worked a miracle of healing in an infant baptism - to touch the heart of a bitter man.

Baptizing our baby in that hospital had been an involuntary and automatic act of obedience for me, and Dick had just jumped right in as soon as the words were out of my mouth. It became a witness of the power of God and the leading of God in desperate circumstances. And obedience, especially when one does not at all understand why God would direct in such an unusual way, always leads to unexpected blessing and in this case, an actual miracle.

There were people who worked in the ER who came up to Lesley's hospital room each day during the time she was an inpatient, because they had been witnesses to a miracle. Years later when we moved to Maine and I was working at a local hospital, I met a doctor who had been working in that same emergency room in NJ the same day we brought in our dying daughter, and he remembered the event and brought it up to me, saying he was still amazed by it!

Sandy C
Maine

All Desire For Cigarettes Vanished

2007-08-24T16:49:00.000-04:00

This a simple story, but one that may encourage someone who smokes.

Almost 17 years ago I wanted to quit smoking. I was trying things like "CigArrest." I did quit once for a month. But I was again having the hardest time to quit.

I started to give it to the Lord. I would give it to Him, then take it back, until one evening at a Bible study when the Pastor called for prayer, I felt the Lord nudge me in my heart and say "ask for peace." I was confused about it. But I decided to obey even though it didn't make sense to me. I went up for prayer and asked for peace in my situation.

Well that night the Lord delivered me from cigarettes. Suddenly, I didn't have cravings or strong desire to smoke. I even smelled my hands and they didn't smell like nicotine.

It's hard to explain. I suddenly had the ability to overcome the desire to smoke. I was never able to do this on my own before this. In November it will be 17 years. He's a good provider.

Donna P
Maine

Our Baby

2007-08-20T18:30:00.001-04:00

I was 41 years old when I got married for the first time. While I did marry a younger woman and became the step father to three girls, I never thought that I would have a child of my own. It was just over a month after my 44th birthday when my wife Renee told me we were having a baby. You can only imagine my surprise and joy on hearing that news, but just a month later everything came crashing down.

It was a Saturday morning and Renee and I were at my oldest step daughter’s cheerleading competition. Renee went to the bathroom and when she came back she told me she was bleeding. I asked her if she had any bleeding in any of her previous pregnancies and she said no.

We immediately went home and Renee called her Doctor’s office. The doctor on call called her back very quickly. He said that 1/3rd of all pregnant women experience some bleeding during pregnancy. Chances are it is nothing to worry about, but if this was the start of a miscarriage, there was nothing that could be done. He told her to rest and call back if the bleeding doesn’t let up or if she passes any tissue. He also told her to come into the office on Monday. The bleeding did let up, and we were hopeful that everything would be normal.

On Monday, I went with Renee to her doctor’s appointment. The doctor did an ultrasound, but wasn’t pleased with the results. He scheduled her for some blood work and set another appointment for Thursday.

That Thursday we returned to the doctor’s office and he did another ultrasound. I make no claim to be a medical expert, so while I may not be precise with some of the details, this is the way it was explained to me.

The doctor told us that on the ultrasound he was searching the uterus for the yolk sack. The yolk sack should be a perfect circle, with a black ring around it. He said all that he could find was a grayish crescent shape. In addition he did not find a heartbeat. He said that he has done over 50,000 ultrasounds, and this was not a viable pregnancy. In addition he feared that this could be a tubular pregnancy which could be dangerous for Renee. He recommended that she get a D&C.

While I don’t know much about a D&C, I do know that is used for a variety of gynecological problems. In addition, as I understand it, abortions are often done using a similar procedure. The doctor said we could go to our hospital to have a more sophisticated ultrasound done, but he was certain the results would be the same. We opted to have that second ultrasound, and they scheduled it for later that morning.

The results from that ultrasound were similar, but there was one difference. Our doctor told us that the radiologist who read that ultrasound agreed that this was not a viable pregnancy. However, there was still a slight heartbeat, but it was clearly in a state of demise and would not last long. It also showed that this was not a tubular pregnancy.

Now if there is a heartbeat, no matter how “slight”, there is still a life and now if we have that D&C done, it is no longer just a gynecological procedure, but it is an abortion. I have been a member of the Knights of Columbus for years. The Knights have campaigned long and hard against abortion. I’ve contributed to several pro-life causes and participated in pro-life rallies. Never did I think that my wife would have an abortion, but now that was exactly the decision we were facing.

After we left the hospital, we went for lunch at a local restaurant and discussed what we should do. We were torn as to what to do, but neither of us wanted to end this new life. When we got home, we called the doctor. He could tell what we were going through. He said that while he was still convinced that this was not a viable pregnancy, we didn’t need to act right away. Since we now knew this was not a tubular pregnancy and Renee was in no danger, he recommended that we go back to his office on Monday and his partner would do another ultrasound. He felt that ultrasound would give us concrete results to better help us make what was the inevitable decision. We agreed that was a good plan and got an appointment for 11AM on Monday.

I have to say that weekend was one of the toughest in our lives. Renee was still experiencing several symptoms of a pregnant woman. While these can be very uncomfortable for a woman having a normal pregnancy, for a woman who knows that the baby inside her is dead or dying, it is mental torture. I can almost always find a way to cheer my wife up when she is sad, but this weekend, there was nothing I could do to make things better.

Monday finally arrived. As the appointment was later in the morning, I went to work and met my wife at the doctor’s office. As I held the office door open for her, she turned back to me and said, “After this…no matter what…we have to do something, because I just can’t take it any more.” I said, “I know. We will.” Because, I knew what she had been going through, and I couldn’t ask her to go through that any more.

It was then that I silently said a small prayer. I said, “Please God, give us a way out of this.” If the ultrasound would just show that there was no heartbeat and no life, we could have that D&C done and get our lives back to normal. At the same time, we could hold the moral high ground, because if there is no life, then the D&C would not be an abortion.

As I said earlier, a different doctor did this ultrasound. He started the ultrasound and it hadn’t been going for 15 seconds, when he turned the monitor towards us. He said that what we were looking at was the uterus and near the top of the screen was the yolk sack. I looked at it and did a double take and looked again. I then looked at my wife and she looked back at me with the same puzzled look. What was confusing us was that the yolk sack that was showing on the screen wasn’t the grayish crescent shape that showed up in the previous ultrasound, but it was a perfect circle with a black ring around it. Exactly the way our first doctor had said it should have looked like.

This doctor could see we were confused by this, and he said, “hasn’t anyone shown you this before?” I said, “No doctor. No one has ever seen this before.” His response was just, “Huh.”
I then asked him what I felt was the big question: “Doctor, is there a heartbeat?” He said, “Look at the yolk sack on the screen. Do you see the white shape in the middle?” “Yes,” I replied. “Do you see how it is flashing’” he asked. Again I replied, “Yes.” “Well,” he said, “that is the heartbeat.

Now I am sitting there totally confused. Finally my wife says, “Okay, wait a minute. Am I pregnant or did I miscarry?” “Well,” the doctor answered. “I don’t want to get your hopes up too high, because you are still a high risk for a miscarriage, but right now I would say your due date is the middle of October.”

The doctor left the examining room and Renee started to get dressed. I’m still not 100% sure what has just happened, and I started questioning her, “This was good, right?” “Yes David,” she answered. “This was very good.” Suddenly there was a knock on the examining room door. I opened the door to see our first doctor standing there. In his hand he was holding the pictures from the ultrasound which the other doctor had just done. His mouth was literally hanging open and he was stammering and stuttering. Finally he said, “Thank God we waited and didn’t get that D&C.” I just smiled and said, “Yes doctor, thank God.”

Our doctor wanted us to go back to the hospital to have them do an ultrasound to either confirm or refute the ultrasound we just had done. We were scheduled for Thursday, one week after the first set of ultrasounds. The way they do ultrasounds at our hospital, a technician conducts the ultrasound and gives the results to a radiologist, who reads and interprets the results. It worked out that we had a different technician doing this ultrasound but it was the same radiologist who read the first one. The first time, the radiologist called our doctor and our doctor went over the results with us. This time the radiologist came out to speak with us.

He said, “In the 30 years that I’ve been reading ultrasounds, I have never seen one as bad as the one I looked at last week that ended up in a good pregnancy.” He stuck out both his arms and pointed his thumbs down and said, “That was just awful!” “But this ultrasound I saw today…” Now he held up both hands, made the ok sign, and said, “Primo!”

We still had several months to go before the pregnancy would be full term. Every time Renee had any pain or spotted any blood, we wondered if this was it. Were we losing our baby? Through it all, Renee started to look more and more pregnant. Then finally, on October 22nd (Renee’s birthday); after 36 hours of sporadic labor; David Arthur Duguay Jr. was born, and he was absolutely perfect!

I often think back to that day we went for the ultrasound and my little prayer for help. I never expected it to be answered the way it was, but after all of this, I am convinced. Miracles do happen and I keep watching my little miracle grow up every day.

David Duguay
Connecticut

A Mother's Surrender

2007-08-20T00:27:00.000-04:00

When my son Jonathan was thirteen years old, he was out one day riding his bike with his older brother Mike, and his best friend Simon, they were coming down a hill. They weren't wearing helmets and he hit a rock and flipped over, landing on his skull and cracked it open. I was at work, and got the call from my older son saying, "Mom, uh, Jonathan's in the
hospital. He fell off his bike and was taken to the emergency room."

My heart -- I'd never had a phone call like that -- and I just went into a state of panic. I called my sister and blurted out, "Jon's in the emergency room and I'm headed to the hospital, and I don't know what happened ..." and she said, "Let me pray for you right now!"

She prayed over me and this peace came over me. So I'm driving to the hospital in PERFECT PEACE and I said, "Lord, I know Jon belongs to you, and I surrender my son to you. He's in your hands, and I just give him to you. If you want to take him, or if you will heal him, I surrender." And that peace just kept me and I arrived at the hospital, and found him with his
head all in bandages and he was in great pain. His brain was swelling, and the situation wasn't good. But God brought him through that. He had to go through surgery to drain the blood, and to this day he has a big horse-shoe shaped scar still there, but God spared him.

But surrendering him and giving him back to God, I was able to do only because of that tremendous peace that had come upon me when my sister prayed, which enabled me to surrender to whatever the Lord decided to do. God spared him, and all I can say is "all glory to God."

Vivi A
California

He Told Me To Pray Over Our Dog

2007-08-19T18:50:00.001-04:00

My children were about three and four years old and we decided to get an old English Sheep dog puppy. We drove out to where the puppy was. But when we looked at them, we couldn't decide which puppy to get, and we ended up getting two of them, one male and one female. The male was the runt of the litter, but the female was very active. When the male was about eight months old, we realized there was something not quite right with his walk, he was starting to limp. The limp continued until one day when he laid down and would not, could not, get up.

It was on a Saturday and I had to travel some distance to get him to a vet who would see him on the weekend. She took x-rays, and come to find out, he had something called "Hip Displasia." We learned that it's not unusual for this kind of dog to get Hip Displasia, but usually they only get it when they're older. The vet explained that this might have been brought on by the other dog who was very active and a bit too rough with him. The dog needed surgery and it was going to be approximately $1,000 a hip. So we're were looking at $2,000 and we didn't have that kind of money then.

So I went home. I went to the Lord and said, "Lord, you know what this is all about and how this dog is too young to have this." I put the dog out in the back yard and kept the other dog away from him.

Then a thought came into my mind, a feeling that I should pray over the dog. I just laid my hands on him, and prayed saying, "Lord, if you want this dog healed, I know beyond any doubt that you can do it." I just stayed there praying over the dog, perhaps five or ten minutes. Then I just sat back with a cool drink, and the next thing I know -- THE DOG GOT UP! Literally GOT UP and started walking!

I knew it was a miracle. We had the x-rays showing this was a true physical defect. And then to see this dog just get up like that, I just knew this was a pet miracle story. I just thanked the Lord that he put it upon my heart to lay hands on the dog and pray, because I never would have thought of doing that myself. The dog lived several more years and was just such a really good dog, a sweet, sweet dog.

Karen W
California

Our Cat Was Half Dead

2007-08-19T18:40:00.000-04:00

We have a cat named Tiger who would go outside at night and not come back in. Well she was attacked by a raccoon one night and what a nightmare. It cost us over $1,000 to have her wounds drained and attended to. We hadn't found her for three days, and when we did find her, she was half dead and gangrene had set in and the vet had to carve all the gangrenous flesh off. So she ended up having a lot of flesh missing there on her back end. The vet said she would never again be able to jump and she would never be able to lift her tail higher than her back.

But she continued to stay out all night, and a few months later, she was attacked a second time. It looked like a raccoon had got her and dragged her. Exasperated, I said to my husband Mike, "we're not paying another dime on this cat!!!" But we prayed over her, and God healed her.

Awhile later, we noticed that she was listless and wouldn't eat. Our son Joseph found a large growth in her stomach area. It was a large lump which got bigger and bigger. Again, I said "we're just not spending any more money on this cat!" We were about to go on vacation, and we just prayed over that cat, and our son Joseph prayed over the cat, and then we left on vacation.

When we called home, we heard that the cat was "better," but when we got home, that cat was healed!

She can lift her tail and you can no longer tell there was any injury there. The Lord has healed this cat TWICE! And I realized that God heals not only his people, but their pets too. It's several years later now and Tiger is still with us, alive and well.

Vivi A
California

Curvature In His Spine

2007-08-19T18:32:00.000-04:00

When my husband and I were first married, he was always complaining about pain in his back. When lying down, he'd curl up to relieve pressure from his back.

One night I was giving him a back rub, and as I was massaging his back I felt the curvature that was there. His spine came down straight to that point, then it curved in, then was straight below it. I was stunned. So I just prayed. It wasn't an elaborate prayer, I just prayed, "God, I ask you to heal Mike's back, in the Name of Jesus."

All of a sudden, Mike says, "Are you putting a lot of pressure on my back?"

And I said, "No, why?"

He said, "well it feels very hot, and a lot of pressure there."

I put my hand back onto his spine and it was HOT. There was such heat there! And God healed him instantly that night. God healed him from that curvature in the spine, and he has never had pain there again. And we both give all glory to God who healed him that night.

Vivi A
California

He Told Me To Fight!

2007-08-13T00:06:00.000-04:00

I've struggled with physical problems all my life. When I was in high school, I came home one day knowing I had done something to my back in Physical Ed. I could hardly move. That was my first experience with back problems, but certainly not the last.

Later, after a 12-hundred mile drive while moving several states away, I was nearly paralyzed. I could hardly get up out of a chair and I couldn't stand straight. I couldn't straighten out my legs in bed but would double them up, and I couldn't get comfortable and experienced excruciating pain.

Around that time, my mother came to visit me and she said she was praying for me. I went to a prayer meeting with her and they laid hands on me, but I didn't receive an immediate healing and I was SO disappointed. I cried out to the Lord -I had 2 small children by now to take care of and I told Him that I didn't believe he wanted me to stay in this condition. Eventually I was healed, but it took a long time of prayer and believing. I never resigned myself to this being my "cross." We have enough trials in our lives, and I expect them to come, but I believe those are only there to strengthen our faith as it's put to the test. We really do become stronger from our trials, just as Scripture says.

After I had my healing, I was still occasionally attacked. One time, I was ironing very leisurely and suddenly I felt like someone had stabbed me in the back. Maybe Satan did, but whatever, I rebuked it and refused to believe that I was not healed. It went away shortly after and I remembered where Scripture says that if you resist Satan, he will flee from you. I was beginning to accept the fact that we're in warfare whether we like it or not, and that we just have to involve ourselves in the fight.

Later, I started a new job and there was another attack on my back during my first week of work. I walked out to the parking lot and started to faint from the pain. It really drains you. I cried out to the Lord in exasperation and told Him that I couldn't have this, that I was just starting out on a new job and that it seemed that every time I tried to move forward, I got slapped in the face by something bad. I absolutely refused to accept it and the next morning .....I WAS FINE! I had NEVER recovered from an attack so quickly, and to this day I have never had another of those attacks to my back.

But ...I had other physical problems. I had stomach problems and became frustrated and depressed because my experience was not validating my faith, and I asked God why He was allowing me to go on and on in defeat. He spoke to me one day, so clearly that I had absolutely no doubt, and said that the trial of my faith was more precious than gold TO HIM. He showed me that if I would flex the muscles of my faith, not only would I see victory, but this walk will be precious TO HIM. It means everything to God when we are faithful to use our faith after he has spoken to us what his direction in any circumstance is, rather than just pay lip service to his word. We can say all kinds of things about God and his mighty works, but how can we convince anyone if we never prove it to be true in our own lives?

And so, I've learned to fight my battles with spiritual weapons, not only in health areas but in every area of life. I feel that in experiencing what I have, I've captured something so valuable that I want the whole world to know! There's a real ART to fighting the fight of faith. The reason we don't see more of God's works in our lives is not because we're "bad," but because of our unbelief. Scripture says "Through faith and patience" we inherit the promises of God," and "without faith it is impossible to please Him."

I'm so awed by what I've learned that I want the whole world to know. If anyone would like to discuss this further, please email me at:

cjacques77@hotmail.com

Cindy Jacques
California

References:
"Through faith and patience..." Hebrews 6:12
"Without faith it is impossible to please him..." Hebrews 11:6

You Shall Be Free Indeed

2007-08-12T00:47:00.000-04:00

There was alcoholism both in my family and in my fiance's family, and we had seen a lot of drunkenness. So we agreed that there would never be alcohol in our home. But the strength of that commitment only lasted until our wedding day. I had wanted no alcohol at our wedding, but family overruled and there was wine on the table. Of course we wouldn't touch it, I thought. Wellll .....he drank his wine. And then he drank mine.

Not long after being married, we began going out to dinner with my husband's co-workers. I had the perfect excuse not to drink alcohol -- I was 18 when we were married, and it was illegal to drink until the age of 21. But the very week that I turned 21, before going out to dinner with one of his coworkers, I was informed that I was to no longer order "Shirley Temples."

"But why?" I asked, "no one would know the difference."

"Oh they'll notice," he said. "I won't have you embarrassing me like that, I want you to join us in having a drink with our meal."

So we went to dinner, and he ordered a drink for me as well as for himself. I was trembling when I picked up that glass. I was scared to death. But I was in no way prepared for the effect it would have on me. Suddenly all my anxieties left me. I had never felt so "well" in all of my life. I could hardly believe it. "This is amazing," I thought. "I've just never felt so great in all of my life!"

I had a genetic condition, a genetic defect in the nervous system which caused, among many other things, a tendency toward deep depression. My father had had this affliction, and it had made him miserable. His affliction plus the environment caused in our home by his depression and rages, left me a very hurting person by the time I left my father's house. I don't know that I had EVER felt "well." And CERTAINLY not as well as I felt that night in that restaurant.

Then one night my husband came home with a half gallon of vodka.

"What on earth are you doing???" I cried. "We agreed before we got married that we would NEVER have alcohol in our home!"

"We're going to be going to dinner in my coworkers' homes and that means we'll have to reciprocate. And there's no way I'm not going to offer them a drink!"

What could I say? He was intent on "climbing the ladder," and this was part of the game. There was no way out.

Well, we had people over for dinner and of course we all had a drink. And I had the very same reaction to the drink that I had had in that restaurant. I felt like I was walking on clouds. Happy and free and feeling SO good!

The depression I was subject to would come on unexpectedly. There was no cause-and-effect to it, it could descend upon me when times were good and when I was totally relaxed. I spent years trying to find the common cause, the one sure-fire thing that would bring it on, but there was none. I went on all kinds of diets, and natural vitamins and supplements, the whole nine-yards. At one point I rid our home of all processed flour and sugar, eliminated all the stuff that was thought to be "bad" for you. I saw doctors, I did everything I could think of in an effort to find the cause of the depression or some way to treat it. Nothing worked, nothing even remotely helped. It was an enigma.

But alcohol did the trick. One drink and I felt super-good. So .......the obvious happened. The next time depression descended upon me, I went into the cupboard and poured myself a drink.

"Wine is a mocker..." says the Bible. But I didn't know that yet. To me it set me free. It made the darkness recede. It made me very, very "happy." And all the anxieties about alcohol that I had had before my marriage, were trumped by the incredible highs alcohol brought about. It didn't take long before I was truly hooked. I wasn't drinking just with company anymore, but I was drinking at home alone, whenever the darkness started to fall. And before long it took less and less darkness to send me to that cupboard.

This went on for years. And before I left my twenties I was drinking every day. The time came when I was drinking all of my waking hours.

Truly, truly wine IS a mocker. I had four children and I actually thought I was a better mother to them when I was drinking, because it meant I was always in a good mood. But the "mocker" part of intoxication began to change me. Instead of being giggly and funny, I began to have a different reaction to the influence of alcohol. Instead of doubling over in laughter, I started crying. Instead of being able to calmly listen, I began to argue. And then one day I woke up in the morning with no memory of the evening before. Then it happened again. And again. I would go for days with no memory of where I had been or what I had done. Later, I read that this change begins when the liver starts deteriorating. And that scared me. I realized I was in trouble, big trouble, after years of nearly non-stop drinking. I was a danger to myself and a danger to everyone around me. What on earth was I going to do?

Well ...I began the first of several mind games I tried with myself. First I decided I would only drink when we were out. What a joke! I couldn't get through the first day. Withdrawal is no joke, believe me. So then I decided I'd only drink at night. Again, I couldn't get through even a single day. So then I decided I'd space them out and try to wean myself off them. But after the first drink, I was not ABLE to NOT have another. It was a nightmare. I began to realize that not only was I in BIG trouble, but I was horrified to find that there was NOTHING I could do about it.

One day, it must have been early in the day because I remember it clearly, I was sitting in the big overstuffed chair crying, and I said to God, "God, please either do something or take my life. All my life the thing I have feared more than anything else was death. But this is worse than death. Please either do something or take my life."

To make a long story short, and I truly do have to skip the long and wonderful story leading up to this, but for the sake of brevity I'll leave that story for another time. Suffice it to say that there truly was a God in heaven who heard my cry, drunk as I was, and immediately a whole story went into effect that would lead up to a day in the office of a man and woman who God sent to deliver me from the depths of hell which my life had become. This man and woman led me into a knowledge of God that I had never known possible prior to that. God, to me, was a theology, what I was taught as a child. But they had a RELATIONSHIP with Him and offered to help me find this too if I was willing. Willing??? What a question. But to tell this story briefly would be an insult to what God has done for me and in me, so I'll tell it in a separate story. The bottom line is that on the morning of November 29th of that year, I was born again and entered into a relationship with the living God that I would never have believed possible.

Three weeks later I was in my kitchen. It was the day before Christmas eve. We had moved back to my home town and we were to go to a party the next night with family, and there was going to be a lot of drinking and singing and joke telling and just fun. Suddenly .......very suddenly .....the Lord Jesus Christ was standing to my right in the kitchen. I didn't see him in detail, it was an experience I couldn't describe to someone unless they had also had such an experience. But I in some sense saw him and knew that it was not an angel or a saint, I KNEW Him. He spoke to me. He said, "if you will go to the sink and pour that drink down the drain, I will set you free."

My thoughts raced back and forth in my mind. The party tomorrow night and how much I was looking forward to it. I actually thought, but did NOT say, "if only you could have come the day AFTER tomorrow." But there was a seriousness in his voice that conveyed to me in no uncertain terms that it's now or you may never have another chance, and the seriousness
of his voice erased all other thoughts. I turned toward the sink and walked over to it. I poured the drink down the drain. And as that liquid was going down the drain, all desire for alcohol drained out of me. I was so stunned that I didn't know what to do. I turned around. The presence of the Lord was gone. I turned and looked at the half-gallon on the counter and I gagged. And I laughed because this was as crazy as anything I had experienced while I was drunk -- I mean, I could not look at that bottle without gagging. It was repulsive to me. I kept turning back and forth to see if this was real, and it was. Every time I turned toward that bottle I gagged. And I knew ......I was FREE!

I jumped into the car and raced over to my mother's house. I burst through the kitchen door and blurted out to her, "you just can't believe what just happened!!!!" And I related to her exactly what had happened in my kitchen.

My mother didn't know what to say. Is there any way this could possibly be true? But she knew how totally addicted I was. It had been YEARS! And all my mother could say was, "well, we'll see."

The next night I went to the party. I was high as a kite -- ON THE LORD, not on alcohol. We sang, we told jokes, we just had a lot of fun, and afterwards I realized the extent of the miracle I had received: I had had NO withdrawal. Withdrawal! It's what prevents most alcoholics from being ABLE to stop drinking. Withdrawal is absolute hell. I surely knew I couldn't get past it, oh how I had tried. But here I was, in my right mind, and it happened totally without any trace of withdrawal! What a way to start a new life with the Lord. He gave me something that I could never, ever forget no matter what I had to go through in life. I had experienced his mighty power. I had experienced his mighty love. I was free.

PART TWO

The repulsion to the sight of alcohol lasted for about six months and then after that, alcohol just wasn't a part of my life at all, I never even thought about it.

Until one day. I was sitting on the couch in my living room and I heard a voice say to me, "Who the Son sets free is free indeed." I had started reading the Bible and I knew that was Scripture.

"Yes, I truly am 'free indeed,' I said.

"But," the voice continued, "if you're 'free indeed,' then you can drink like everyone else without worrying about becoming an alcoholic. If you're 'free indeed,' you can drink socially like everyone else. Either that or you're not 'free indeed."

I tossed this thought around and around in my mind. It made sense. It was a Scripture for goodness sakes.

There was a wedding coming up in the family, so I said to my husband, "I need to try this thing out. At the wedding, let me drink from your glass so no one will know I'm drinking. I need to know if I'm really 'free indeed.'"

So on Saturday we went to the wedding. And at the reception, I drank from his glass. And by the time I got home late that afternoon, I knew I was as hooked as I had been on the day before I had had my miracle. I was so shocked, so angry, felt so betrayed, and so SCARED! All I knew is that I just HAD to have a drink. And another. And another.

There are no words to describe what this was like. I just couldn't believe it. I had thought that the worst thing that could happen is that I'd start wanting a drink when I felt 'down,' but that I could very carefully watch it and catch it if I saw myself getting into trouble. But it wasn't like that at all. I didn't start at the beginning, I started where I had left off!!! I needed to drink just as powerfully as I had on the last day before my miracle.

"How could this happen?" my mind screamed in rage!?! "I thought I was 'free indeed'! Why is that Scripture not working?"

I had been seduced. That voice that came to me when I was sitting on my couch was the voice of Satan himself. "The thief comes not except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy." And he had come to destroy me. To destroy the testimony I had. He tricked me. By a SCRIPTURE no less! The Bible which I had so come to love, was used to destroy me. How HORRIBLE! How unfair!

Well I wasted no time going to the Lord and confessing what a fool I had been to listen to that voice, how I should have recognized that voice, but I didn't and now look what happened, and can you just deliver me again?

God had become not only my savior, but he was my Father now too. And a wise Father doesn't just solve all his children's problems and make them just go away. No, this was a lesson that I had to learn, and to learn so well that I would never, EVER forget it. It was going to be seventeen months. Seventeen months of hell on earth. Seventeen months of skid-row type drinking. And crying. And pleading. And near despair.

One day, realizing I had become a danger to myself and others, I went to a doctor. Not a good doctor, a cheap doctor suggested to me by a friend, a doctor I could go to without any traces. I told him I needed something I could take in place of alcohol, so I could swap it for alcohol and stop drinking. This @#$ doctor gave me prescription anti-depressants. The next day, I ended up in the hospital. You can't mix alcohol and drugs. That $@# doctor had not told me that I would have to get alcohol out of my system before taking the drugs! It pushed me over the edge and I found myself in the hospital in pain beyond what I ever would have imagined one could suffer. It made depression look like a picnic. In the hospital, they gave me an anti-depressant, but all I could think of was getting home so I could have a drink. Before going home, I was solemnly warned that I was NOT to take alcohol with these medications. So I went home and immediately did NOT take the medication, so I could get it out of my system and have a drink. The craving was torture. The next morning I came down into my living room desperate for that drink, and a Christian TV program was on, and the moderator was talking about the futility of alcohol and how it would lead to death. And I knew God had that man say that at that moment just as I was meaning to take a drink. I knew it was the Lord beyond any shadow of a doubt.

I crumbled onto the floor in an ocean of tears. There was no way on earth I could beat this thing, yet I knew it would lead to my death. I told the Lord, "Father, I want a drink more than ANYTHING else in this world. It numbs the pain. Regardless what else it does to me, it does numb the pain. But I know your Word says that a drunkard will not inherit the Kingdom of God (1st Corinthians 6:9-10). So based on your Word, I ask you to set me free. I can't begin to tell you how much I want a drink, but I submit to your Word, and therefore ask you to set me free one more time."

The presence of the Lord was in the room, he was standing by the side of the fireplace. And he spoke to me saying that yes, he will set me free one more time, but it will not be a miracle this time, I would have to go through the withdrawal.

"Nooooooo ...." I screamed, "I CANNOT go through that, no way on earth I can go through that..."

"I will be with you," he said.

"That's not enough," I shouted, "there is just NO WAY I can go through withdrawal even if you're with me, NO, NO, NO WAY!!!"

"You will go through it, but I will be with you." And he was gone.

I writhed in pain, rolled back and forth on the floor. I got up and paced like a crazy person back and forth across our long living room. Then I went to the garage. It was a holiday in April and my husband was home. I said to him, "please, take me for a ride, I have to get out of here, I'm losing my mind, let's just go riding out in the country somewhere."

So we headed north to the countryside. The torment in my mind was beyond any possibility to describe. It was nothing less than torture, the kind of torture that could lead someone to take his life. That was not an option for me, because I knew I belonged to the Lord and had no right to take my life. Yet I knew I couldn't endure this torture either. Something was happening in the spiritual realm, because I was aware of a tug of war raging over me. Waves of torment would flood over me, billows of torture - I think about it now and wonder that I survived that, so horrible it was.

This continued for maybe an hour, maybe more. And then all of a sudden, something broke, and -- I really don't know how to describe this because it's hard to put into words something that was supernatural -- but this "grace" came over me, a supernatural assurance that I CAN do it. I turned to my husband and said, "till the day I leave this earth, I will never have another drink." Stunned, he looked over at me and said, "are you .... I mean .... are you ...sure?" "I'm sure," I said.

That was 29 years ago.

It took a month. I endured the agony of not only physical withdrawal, but psychological withdrawal. Without alcohol in my system the earth looked bleak, dark, hostile. I couldn't imagine living in this world as stark as it was without the filter of alcohol. Sounds were especially harsh to me. Light bothered my eyes. My nerves were naked. No alcohol, no filter, just raw senses turned up to the thousandth degree. I kept remembering over and over and over what the Lord had said to me, "I will be with you." How could he be "with" me and yet I continue to endure such torture? But he was. Many times over that approximate 30-day period, when the pain got to the unbearable stage, some kind of comfort would come. The most effective comfort came when the man and woman who had led me to the Lord would pray over me. Every time the pain became absolutely unbearable, I'd get in the car and drive to their house. After they would pray for me, the pain would subside. This happened several times throughout that period.

It's odd how these things work. I can tell you the very moment it finally left me forever. I was in the car, stopped at the corner of the street, and the torment just lifted up and away from me, very suddenly, very unexpectedly, and I knew it was over. The world was ugly to me. Dark. But the torment was gone.

So what was the lesson so crucial for me to learn?

I can tell you 29 years later that I AM FREE INDEED. Some people who stop drinking have to fight alcoholism daily. They have to go to AA meetings once, twice, three times a week for years, often for the rest of their lives. They are NOT 'free indeed.' They are coping. It's a daily battle for them. But that's not the way it is with me. I am TRULY 'free indeed.' Alcohol is not a temptation to me in the least, I never, ever even think about it. If I'm out to dinner with someone and they have a drink, I don't even notice that. It's just NOT THERE anymore.

But I am NOT free to return to what the Lord has set me free of. See, alcoholism is SIN. And once I've been set free from any kind of sin in my life, I am NOT free to return to that sin. The Lord has broken the power of that sin in me. But I am not to go back to it and flirt with it thinking it won't get me again. And that's the lesson that was CRUCIAL that I learn, because over the years, the Lord would set me free from many, many, MANY other things and I HAD to know that once I've been released, once I've been delivered, once I am free, I am NEVER to turn back to it again.

God, my heavenly Father, is a Father in the truest sense of the Word. He's a good Father, reassuring me time and time again of his love for me, and demonstrating his great care for me. This story is one of the very few in which he had to be stern with me. Rarely has he spoken to me in a harsh way. No, rather, I have known his love, his comfort, his encouragement, I have been delighted by his revelations, and by his presence from time to time. He has never left me, NEVER forsaken me, it's a kind of love that is totally unique, not the love of a human father, but the perfect and trustworthy love of the God who made me and desires to grow me up in fellowship with him. I am so secure in him. There were to come some very hard stories ahead in my life. Walking with the Lord is a very serious thing, requiring a depth of commitment that sometimes is all you have to hang on to. But the more you experience his faithfulness and utter
trustworthiness, the more you let go and surrender in all joy knowing you are safe in him, no matter what.

O Love of God, how rich, how pure,
How measureless and strong.
It shall forevermore endure,
The saints' and angels' song.
F Lehman, 1917

References
"Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed. "
John 8:36

"The thief comes not except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy."
John 10:10

Evie
Maine