Faithfulness

When I was 10 years old, I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia. I cannot remember a time in my life when I was not in pain. Every moment of every day was at least that dull, annoying ache in the muscles of my back. And when the spasms started up, I was in too much pain to even cry. When I came to the Lord at age 14, I never even considered the idea of getting healed. Fibro was something I just had to live with for the rest of my life. There was nothing I could do for it.

All kinds of people prayed for me. They'd lay their hands on my back, ask God to pour out His healing, and then ask me how I felt. Mostly I just felt like a massive disappointment when I answered "I'm still in a lot of pain". A few months ago I attended a conference about healing. There was a book that listed a handful of illnesses, and their spiritual roots. I was so surprised to see Fibromyalgia listed, let alone with the roots of "lack of nurturing" and "lack of protection by a father". In that moment, God spoke to my heart. He told me that at the culmination of my inner healing, my body would be made whole as well. Upon imagining for the first time a life without pain, I began to weep. It finally seemed in reach.

It didn't take long for even that promise to fade away into the many sleepless nights and days filled with IcyHot and handfuls of Aleve. People continued to pray... and nothing continued to happen. Last night, the group went up to the Tuesday night home group at the Dokka's house. After dinner, everyone seemed really distracted. Upon later reflection, many people were feeling (as was I), that we didn't know how we would make it through worship. But, Bryon started. And I was having an incredibly hard time pressing in (I found out later that a lot of us were). I was singing, but there was not much heart behind it.

Suddenly, John Collins started freestyle rapping along with the guitar. And then, everyone was singing along. Spontaneous rap songs of praise. Then, Bryon began to sing/ask God to break down the doors in our hearts, open the gates, and let His love pour forth. At that, I fell to my knees and began to weep. For some reason, it opened up a deep well of pain in me. I began to remember things from a few years back, things I had never really dealt with. And Christ began to heal me.

For the past few weeks (beginning in Guatemala), the Lord has me going through this cycle. He opens up deep places of pain in me, and leads me through them via many days on my knees in tears. Then, I have a few days of awesome love and moving forward. Then, He brings me through another door that I didn't know existed deep inside of me. So last night, crying into the carpet, I began to pray. My inner healing has really been increased over a short period of time, so I asked God when my physical healing was going to come. And then I moved on. 5 seconds. That was the extent of that thought/prayer.

Worship lasted for quite some time. The Spirit of the Lord had broken out over each of us, touching us deeply. When it ended, Alexis came from behind the couch saying that her hands were covered in gold glitter. Katie's were too! We all began to examine our hands. Everyone in the room had a fine gold dust sprinkled evenly over our palms. Alexis explained to us that this happens to her frequently. Apparently, in Jesus' day, if a man wanted to marry a woman, he would crush up some of his finest jewlery into a gold dust, and sprinkle it all over her. It was a way of saying "You're beautiful. I want to marry you." How awesome!

We watched this video about God healing people in Disneyland, and felt like we needed to pray for healing. We prayed for some needs in our families and friends, then Katie put her hand on my back and began to pray. Ricky joined in. I don't know what it was. Maybe our faith was feeling strong after that video, or maybe it was just God's perfect timing. But Ricky's hand began to feel really hot and heavy on my back. When they finished praying, that entire side of my back was pain free. The other side was spasming and in a lot of pain, but there was absolutely nothing on the left side! I told everyone, and they all laid hands on me again and began to pray. After a few minutes, Alexis asked how I was feeling.

It made no sense! I burst into tears and said "There's no pain!". For the first time in my life, I had no pain in my back. Not even the weird dull achey thing. 8 years of constant pain, then nothing! It was truly miraculous. We all burst into praise, thanking the Lord for His faithfulness. I couldn't believe it! I jumped up and down, did a cartwheel, danced. Upon looking at my hands, I noticed the gold dust had increased significantly. It was now completely covering my hands!

And this morning when I woke up, I still have no pain. It is absolutely incredible and brings me to tears. My hands still had golden dust on them even after a shower today. What an amazing amazing faithful God. What a loving Father. I stand in awe. Wow.