Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Healing: My Testimony

About 3 and a half years ago, I started having extreme pain in my feet. The arches of my feet would hurt so bad, I could hardly walk sometimes.

We went to the Podiatrist, and he told me I had flat feet. Basically, I was born with no arch in my foot, and this caused my feet not to be able to support my weight properly. It was a common occurrence in people. The lack of arch in my feet had caused the ligament in my foot to stretch, and that was the cause of the pain. I wore a special aircast for 6 weeks to take the strain off my foot so the ligament could heal.

Several weeks later, I went again to the podiatrist and got fitted for special shoe inserts. I was given a list of rules about how to wear them. No flip flops, no high heels (come on I'm short!), I had to wear them all the time, so on, so forth. If I did not wear them, I would have knee trouble like my mom did.

I wore them. They alleviated the pain slightly, but the inserts were a hard plastic and hurt after standing in them for several hours. I resigned myself to the fact I would have to wear them the rest of my life.

Where was my faith? "I'm called to be a missionary", I thought to myself. "How will I be able to travel all over and walk miles with bad feet?". Oh sure, I prayed that God would heal me, but I suppose I never really had the faith I should have had.

Fast forward three years later, to January 2011. We had our mid term revival, originally scheduled for Sunday through Wednesday. God had other plans, however. One week stretched into two, and two into three. On the Tuesday night of the second week, I had come to church with extremely sore feet. Bro. Switzer mentioned in his sermon about healing. he told stories of a woman healed of cancer, of a baby born with no eyes who after being prayed for, opened it's eyelids to reveal the most beautiful pair of blue eyes he had ever seen. Stories of healings reached my ears. I felt God speak to me that, if I had faith, he would heal me. During the altar call, Bro. Switzer asked everyone who needed a healing to go to the middle aisle and pray. I took my inserts out of my shoes and walked to the middle aisle. Holding my inserts in my hand, I raised my hands to Heaven and began to ask God to heal me. I think I quoted every verse about healing in the Bible, haha. As I was praying, I felt kind of discouraged because no one was praying for me. Immediately I thought of the woman with the issue of blood. She was no doubt stepped on, hit, and cursed at as she crawled to Jesus, desperate for her healing. Matthew 9:22 came to mind, " But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour." I began to pray again, believing like I never had before. I felt someone take my inserts out of my hand, and another person lay hands on my feet.

After I had prayed, I noticed the pain in my feet was gone. I stood up and walked around, my feet did not hurt one bit. I was so excited, and I went to tell my mom that I had thought God healed my feet. I could not speak about it without crying. I believed God had healed me! Afterwards, I got up and looked for my inserts, and found them strewn across a pew several feet away from where I was standing. I thought it was odd, but I figured some kid had been playing with them or something.

Faith without works is dead, so I chose not to wear my inserts the next day. Whenever I had not worn my inserts before, I had pains in my feet. I went all day wednesday with no pain. Thursday, no pain. At the end of church Thursday night, my Dad took up testimonies of what God had done for people. I listened to a few, and knew I needed to testify. I stood up and told the story, and my friend Katherine stood up a few moments later. She said, "I was praying for Lisa, and she had her inserts in her hand. I began to pray that God would heal her, and that he would increase my faith. So I took her inserts and threw them as far as I could."

I believe God honored our combined faith and healed me because of it. So many times we as churches HEAR of miracles, but simply believe them to be things of the past. NO THEY ARE NOT! God still heals and works miracles! God is the same yesterday, today, and forever! he never changes! If he healed the lame, blind, deaf, and dumb in the Bible days, why can't he do it now?! In Exodus 15:26 says, "for I am the LORD that healeth thee." "Healeth" is not past tense. It is present! I still happens! We just don't have the faith to see it happen.

During that revival, there were 19 healings. Nineteen. If that doesn't increase your faith and make you want to praise God, I ask you, what will?

I want to encourage you through this post to have faith to see healings happen. I hope somehow I encouraged you to believe God for miracles. What happened to me can happen to you.

By the way, I have had no pain in my arches since that day. 3 weeks and counting!

5 comments:

  1. Lisa, thank you so much for sharing this. It's such an encouragement to read your story, and it's really refreshing! I'm so glad God healed your feet! I'm reminded of the Scripture that tells us to speak about what God has done for us. This is your best post yet :)

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  2. What an amazing testimony, Lisa! God is just so good! Thanks for sharing! :)

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  3. Thanks for the comments, guys! God truly is amazing and I am so thankful for his healing power!

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  4. That's awesome! God just worked in your life like that!

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  5. That's AWESOME! I love to hear testimonies of God's healing! It's crazy that some say that healing died with the apostles. Certainly God didn't tell them that! Great testimony!

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