My story starts in 2010. Following a long period of illness, I had an operation to remove my gall bladder. This was supposed to solve the problem but I continued tosuffer severe bouts of crippling abdominal pain often several in one day.
I was taking the maximum permitted dose of pain relief but this gradually became less and less effective, and was told I'd have to move on tooral morphine, which I'd probably have to take for life. I could eat virtually nothing and was losing weight uncontrollably.
Then I was told there was a possibility I could have liver cancer.
I was completely at peace; if I was to die, that was God's will. My only discomfort was with regard to how my threeyoungsters would cope if it came to that.
A member of the congregation at our church, someone I was just beginning to become friends with but didnt know very well, undertook a three-day fast during Holy Week and committed his prayers for my healing. I was totally unaware he was doing this I knew about the fast but not the prayers for me.
Some threeweeks later, I went for a further hospital appointment and was told the growths on my liver were benign. Only after that did I hear about the prayers for me during the fast.
The pain attacks continued and I resigned myself to living in pain and on a cocktail of medication. I had been a Christian for over 25 years so I trusted God to stay with me, even if healing wasnt to be the plan for me. I still wasnt afraid. I believe that peace was His gift.
However, the person who had prayed for me during hisfast did not believe it was God's will that I should remain in such pain. One day I was having coffee with him and I had a massive attack of pain, so severe I was feeling sick and faint, with sweat was pouring off me. He quietly placed his hands where the pain was he said he could feel the heat inside me and prayed silently. After a fewminutes I felt as if cool water was pouring through me; the pain subsided and I just felt exhausted but very peaceful.
The following morning I woke for the first time in over a year with no pain. I decided not to take any pain relief until the pain kicked in again as it was good to miss a dose or twobecause they made me so drowsy.
That was in February 2011.
I have not needed regular pain relief since. I can eat close to a normal diet and am now a healthy dress size again. I have completed the Nijmegen marches threetimes in 2011, 2012 and 2013 the first year walking 100 miles in fourdays and the subsequent years walking 128 miles in fourdays. It shouldnt be possible with how weak I was, but I wanted to do it to prove that God can do the impossible for those who believe He can.
I wanted to share my story to bring glory to our God, but also because the person He chose to use as the channel for His healing power is not the kind of person the world might think God would choose.
He is not a high-flying, successful career manwith a normal lifestyle (whatever that is). He has virtually nothing of his own no job, no house, and he has been broken emotionally by all the things life has put him through loss of jobs, loss of relationships and so much more. Yet despite all of that he still believed God could do this and he trusted Him to do what was best for me and God rewarded His faith in ways he could never have imagined.
So really, this is twopeoples stories of how amazing our God is!
About the author:
Carol is aLicensed Lay Minister at Christ Church with St Marys in Swindon.