Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Two Noteworthy Miracles

I wanted to share with you a couple of noteworthy miracles that have happened here recently. These are miracles that have really increased our faith and encouraged us that truly, “nothing is impossible with God!” As we have been sharing them among ourselves and others that we meet, they have brought a “spark” of encouragement to their faith to press in for the impossible to become possible!


DEAF AND MUTE
A couple of weeks ago we had a wonderful woman of God spend the weekend with our church family. Her name is Shampa Rice. She’s just awesome! One family attended the meetings and brought with them their little four year old boy who has severe hearing problems. I’m not sure exactly how much hearing loss he had, but it was bad enough that his speech had been affected. When he spoke, he spoke unintelligibly and only his parents could really understand him. He came in with these huge hearing aids on both ears and it had what appeared to be a drainage tube attached to them. Definitely not something that a little 4 year old needs!

Now here’s the best part.

He, like most everyone else that night received prayer from our main speaker. But after an instant healing did not manifest, several folks in our church gathered around him, asking mom and Dad if they could pray. Little kids, mommies, grandparents and businessmen all pressed in to “take care of this”. So many people from our church in fact that I had to ask them to back away and let the little kid breathe! You should have seen the look on their faces… I would say the look that they had could best be described as “restrained jubilation”. You see, we’ve been seeing LOTS of deaf ears opening up; almost everyone we pray for lately gets their deafness healed. It’s like they all KNEW what was going to happen.

So they pressed in and began all praying for his healing. Someone asked his parents if they could remove the hearing aids and they did. They kept praying and then began to test the little boys hearing, asking could he hear them. After a few minutes, they got the Mom and Dad to speak to him from behind and the little boy swung his head, responding to their calls! You should have seen the face on his Dad!

His dad came in acting calm, cool and collected, but after hearing his little boy call his name clearly and respond quickly to the slightest whisper, again and again, they were floored! Dad was SO blown away that he simply couldn’t believe it. For more than an hour after his child started hearing and speaking, he kept testing his little boys hearing, in total disbelief, each time his child responded. Tears streamed down his face and he worshiped God. I asked him what this did for him and he said, “This stuff is real!”


STAGE 4 CANCER
Just uttering that word, “cancer” and many people have a hushed awe fall over them. To add to it, “Stage 4” in the medical realm is almost a death sentence. There is no Stage 5. Stage 4 is the end of the line, death is near. But there is a name that defeats Stage 4 Cancer; it’s called the name of Jesus and the Power of the Holy Ghost!

So we received a call from a good friend of ours, asking if we’d speak with a friend of his. This guy’s brother in law had recently received the Stage 4 Lung Cancer death sentence from his doctors. He is 45 years old and has five beautiful daughters. When we heard of that, our heart went out for the family, but more than that, a cry inside said, “NO!” This man has 5 beautiful daughters to walk down the aisle and give away in marriage! “NO!” 45 year old daddies and husbands should NOT die of that disease! Even though he lives about 4 hours from our church, we immediately began to plan a way to get to him and see that this disease got off of him!

Spontaneously, after speaking to this gentleman’s brother in Law, my Dad called and said, “Let’s go!” on a Saturday afternoon. Sure it would make for a late night, but what better thing is there to do than to destroy cancer and release an entire family from the grip of this disease? So my Dad and the brother in law hopped in the car and began making their way to the young man dying with cancer. They received approval that it would be good for them to come and pray and on the way, my Dad got the brother in law filled with the Spirit and speaking in tongues for the first time in a long time!


THE DIAGNOSIS
In December of last year, the guy dying with cancer, Steve, began having breathing problems. When he went to his doctor, he received the terrible news that he had serious lung cancer, with a large tumor growing at a tremendous rate in his lung. They ended up going to a Texas oncology unit, apparently one of the best in the country and received the grim diagnosis that he had Stage 4 inoperable lung cancer. The doctors literally sent him home to be with his family and to be as comfortable as possible before he would die. SO he went home. He had long since stopped working due to his failing health and couldn’t even get out there to swing a golf club, one of his favorite pastimes.

So my Dad and the brother in law show up charged and full of faith, defying the diagnosis of cancer and proclaiming that the Kingdom of Heaven is on the earth! They spoke the word of God, released the fire of God and imparted the life of God! Surely, cancer couldn’t abide the LIFE!

He immediately began to feel more energy and strength than he had in some time.

Several days later, he went back to work for the first time in months.

A few days after that, he felt so good that he played a round of golf.

Three weeks later, as he went in to his doctor’s office and in his own words, from an email written just a few days later:

“We went this morning to have the 1st X-ray/scan since we were diagnosed. We did lab work, had the X-ray, and went into a patient room for our exam. “The Doctor” came in, said the blood work looked great, said my lungs, heart sounded great, said my liver, body etc looked and felt totally normal. He interrupted the exam and said "Oh I forgot, you had a lung scan today, let me go track it down." He was gone a minute or two, he came busting in the door and said in a loud voice "Your tumor is GONE!” We said what? He said come and look, it is GONE! He took us to the viewer and sure enough, the primary lung tumor that started all of this appears to be gone. Clearly by his voice and reaction, this was not expected; clearly God could not have given us more clear evidence of His involvement.”

Steve is healed. He will be walking down the aisle with all 5 daughters.

Proof that Jesus is King and cancer is NOT!