Truth Number Two:

You Can Move into a Greater Realm of Faith

When you are not so focused on your frailties but rather on the One who can save you from those weaknesses, faith has room to grow and operate.  When you are dead to yourself, it becomes very easy to rely on God and His Word.   You want to hide it in your heart (Psalm 119:11) so that the Holy Spirit can quicken you as to what you should do when you need help or direction and when others need the same.  You fill yourself up with the promises of God because it is all you have to stand on (but it’s more than enough!)  It is what you believe.  It is all you believe.  It is the only rock you can grab onto when no one else can help.  If it was the only source in time of crisis then it is good for all times.

I had been taught from a small child that The Bible said that healing was for every believer. I saw many anointed with oil and healed as a result of the mercy of God and the prayer of faith (James 5:14-15).  But up until I was eight years old, I do not remember exercising the faith for it myself.

In June of 1971, when I was trampled by the horse, I had just been transferred from the Intensive Care Unit to a regular room of Bakersfield Memorial Hospital.  The physicians could only remove the crushed skull and clean the wound.  They gave my parents no hope of my survival, but assured them if I did survive that I would be a vegetable for the rest of my life.   Despite the bad report, I was just fine.  God had already touched me the day before at a Red Cross Post in Ridgecrest.  The nearest hospital that could handle my case was a three hour drive away and “Life Flight” wasn’t available there in those days.  But the Lord reached down in that Red Cross building and totally removed the bruising from my face (which was totally black) and I awakened from a coma and told my dad about the snake.  I believe with all my heart that prayer had already healed my brain, but I still had a crushed skull to be removed, matted hair to be shaved off, and a surgery still ahead.

Days after my surgery, I was being given shots for pain.  I remember I had little yellow stars all over the walls of my room for every time I got a shot without crying.  That day the nurse came in to give me my shot.  Before she could stick me, I spoke up and said very gently, “If you will just lay your hands on me and ask Jesus, He will take my pain away.”

The next day, that same nurse came up to my mom and asked to speak with her.  She told my mom that she wanted to ask her forgiveness.  Mom was baffled as to what the lady had done.  She told mom about what I had said the day before.  She said that she was a believer but was so overwhelmed at my request that she did not give the Lord a chance to work and that she had given me the shot instead.  The Lord dealt with her about her faith.

I never knew what the doctors knew.  I never knew I was supposed to die.  I did know that my head hurt really bad and I was bald as an onion.  That, to me was a desperate situation.  But what little bit of the Word of God that I had been taught coupled with what I had already seen God do in my eight years (which was a lot being raised in a church experiencing the renewal of the 60’s) I knew that Jesus was my only hope.

I remember to this day the presence of God that I felt.  As long as I could feel His presence, the whole five year ordeal stemming from that accident never touched my little spirit. A plate was wired into my head one year after the accident.  After that, I submitted to month after month of neurological testing, EEG’s, and everything else they could think of to try to prove that I could not escape the trauma without lasting complications.

I do not remember worrying about being normal.  God had healed me in that crude Red Cross room in the desert and I never doubted that He did.  He is so good!  The sign of my testimony that I carry to this day is a horse-shoe shaped scar on the right side of my head.  My hair never did grow back on that.  Every time I see it I’m reminded of the goodness of my God.