Recently, I watched a Facebook video where John Tesh shared his testimony about talking to his disease about God. It reminded me of one of my own testimonies, and I share it here to encourage you. It is only one example of how God brings healing to those who hope in Him, whether we are broken in body or heart.
We moved to Texas in 1992 for my husband to attend university. Some time after we arrived, I tried to help him set up a new bed. Somehow, in lifting a part of the bed, I pulled something the wrong way and felt excruciating pain in my right shoulder. It stayed for weeks. I couldn’t lie on my right side to sleep without increasing the pain. Even resting on my left side or my back was difficult, and I spent nights my nights carefully moving back and forth between the two positions I could manage.
I was teaching at the time, and often a fellow teacher would ask, “Are you okay? Would you like me to massage your shoulder?” That would last just a couple of seconds before I would tell them to stop. When I’d get home from school, my teenage daughter would try to massage the shoulder as well, but it hurt too much.
I self-diagnosed, and thought I needed a chiropractor’s help, but decided we couldn’t afford what I assumed would be multiple visits. However, I knew to focus on healing scriptures and to speak them out, so every day I would say, “Thank you, Jesus, that my shoulder is healed according to Isaiah 53,” and “Shoulder, you are healed,” or, more often, just, “Thank you for for my healing, Jesus.”
One Sunday several weeks after this began, I was at church. There was a three-sided prayer rail between the congregation and the pulpit area, and early in the service the pastor would invite anyone who needed prayer to come and kneel on the padded velvet bench, facing the pulpit, and he invited others to come kneel on the other side and pray. This was not part of my usual church tradition, so I wasn’t about to go up. Then I heard that still small voice say, “Go for prayer.” So, reluctantly, I admit, I did. After, as I walked back to my pew, that voice said, “It’s done.”
But I still hurt. Badly!
That was Sunday. On Wednesday evening I watching TBN and Richard Roberts was hosting. A few minutes in, he interrupted the interview, turned to the camera and said, “Someone has a torn shoulder. God is healing it now.”
I answered him, “That’s me!”
I don’t know what I expected, but I immediately felt warmth spread from the top of my right shoulder to the bottom of the shoulder blade. It felt like warm honey falling down over my shoulder. Right then, the pain left and never returned.
Fast forward to 2001. I was getting the results of an MRI when the doctor said, “You had quite a shoulder injury a while back! What happened?” I asked how he knew, and he said, “The scar tissue in the muscle shows a huge rip.”
A huge rip. A torn shoulder.
In recalling this story today, I thought about how very often we are at a loss, trying to figure out how or where to find help when we have no ability of our own to do what needs to be done. We feel helpless and frustrated. Afraid, perhaps. But the truth is, no matter what circumstance we find ourselves in, we can always be assured of this: God has ways and means that are greater than our own. They might be beyond our knowledge, but never beyond our reach. He is faithful; his word is good and his promises sure.
As John Tesh did, let’s talk to that problem about our God.
“The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show himself strong in behalf of those whose heart is perfect toward him,” (2 Chronicles 16:9).
FAY ROWE 