A Healing Story

I have a good story to tell you, but it's a long one. I recommend you wait to read it until you have a cup of coffee and a few minutes to spare. By the way, this post is coming fast on the heels of a great post with lots of pictures - so if you missed it, scroll down and see what's up with our Christmas season before you launch into the long story. :)

Last year Jeff and I went to England as part of a trip for our 10th anniversary. We were attending a conference that, among other things, had several ministry times for healing prayer. I personally was prayed for in a dramatic and meaningful way, but this story actually starts long before that night in England.

When I was a freshman in high school, I was babysitting two kids from my church one night. At one point, the boy and I decided to race down the stairs. In order to win - which was imperative at that time in my life - I jumped down the last three stairs. Unfortunately, the floor we landed on was not quite even, and I hurt my ankle. I didn't know what I'd done, I just knew that I had a golf ball size lump on my ankle, and when I tried to walk, it kept slipping out of joint. Makes me squirm as I type to remember that night. I got home late - my parents were already asleep - and as I got ready for bed I took off my nylons and realized just how bad it was. I sat on my bed and cried because it hurt so bad and I didn't know what to do. My dad woke up and came into my bedroom, took one look at my ankle, and gave me the obvious diagnosis - sprain.

Thus began a journey that has been life-long with a "weak ankle." I have sprained that right ankle so many times I lost track. I sprained it walking down the hall at school, playing a game of pick-up basketball, walking down the sidewalk in my college town, warming up for high jump and landing wrong in the pit. . . most memorably, I sprained it when Abby was a newborn and we were dropping off Josiah for kindergarten. With all the leaves I couldn't see where the pavement ended and I stepped half on, half off the side walk. My friend Cassy caught Abby for me as I fell. Actually, I also turned it in the yard one day before Abby was born and fell on my tummy - I've often wondered if she came early because of that fall. Once or twice I sprained my left ankle, but it was never a problem like my right.

Along the way, several people have prayed for my healing - but I have never believed that it was a big enough deal to God to heal. I specifically remember one time when I was 18. I was in Scotland and sprained my ankle playing ping pong or something silly. My friend Kevin prayed for me and it instantly felt better. I walked up three flights of stairs without pain, sat on a couch and thought, "Well, I better put ice on it anyway because it may not really be healed, this just might be my mind playing tricks on me." And with the doubt came the pain, and I found I was not walking in healing. Was I healed? I don't know, but I doubted it, and didn't walk in it, so I didn't live with healing, I lived with pain. Might it have been different? I don't know.

Fast forward 18 years to a cold Tuesday night in November in a suburb of London. It was the end of the first night's teaching at the "Under an Open Heaven" conference Jeff and I were attending, and the speaker, Bill Johnson, had just asked everyone who had an injury from an accident to stand for healing prayer. I immediately thought of my ankle, but dismissed it as being too little to warrant prayer. Truthfully, I wanted to be healed, but I was just afraid that God didn't want to heal my ankle - there was too much history there for me to believe He would do that. So I watched as others, including a woman right in front of me, stood for prayer. Then Bill explained that he wasn't going to do all the praying, that we are the body of Christ and the power of Jesus is at work among us, so he asked those of us near people standing, to stand up, lay a hand on them, and pray for them. I stood to pray for the woman in front of me, and Bill instructed us to pray against the spirit of affliction. As he said the word "affliction" something happened in my spirit and I sensed it was a true word for my situation - that perhaps there was a spiritual battle going on about my ankle. So I took my hand from the woman's back, prayed against the spirit of affliction in my ankle and knelt down to lay my hand on my foot.

Now, I was in a crowd of about 1,000 people, none of whom knew Jeff and I prior to that day. I was kneeling down praying for my right ankle, in the midst of a sea of people, with a tiny seed of faith and a suitcase full of doubt. At that moment Bill spoke a "word of knowledge" from the front. (If you're unfamiliar with that term, it's when the Holy Spirit gives someone knowledge that they could not have had in the natural world. They know it supernaturally.) He said, "There is a right ankle, not just a sprain, but life long injury with permanent damage, and God is healing it right now. Who is that?" Before my doubts could stop me I jumped up, waved my arms and said, "It's me. It's me." Several people gathered around me and prayed for God to continue His healing work in my ankle. As they prayed I felt pain, a tightness, and popping in my ankle. I knew something was happening, but I couldn't be sure what. I wanted to believe God had healed me, and did believe, but felt like the man in the Bible who said, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)

The most meaningful thing for me that night was the fact that God saw me in my weakness and called my name. The word of knowledge could not have been more clear to me than if Bill Johnson had said, "Jennifer Roth, God sees you down there and wants you to stand up so that He can heal you." As I doubted whether or not what had happened was truly a physical healing, I couldn't deny that God had miraculously given Bill a word that spoke into my situation. Nor could I deny that something physically happened to my ankle. I just didn't know that I could ever prove - with x-rays or lack of pain - that I was truly healed. I chose to resist doubt and believe I was healed, testify that God had healed me, and shared the story with several people. I went forward in life, curious to see if my ankle would sprain again, or if it had new strength.

Over this past year I have had several opportunities for my ankle to roll. As a matter of fact, I remember the first time I stepped on an uneven surface and my foot started to roll and my ankle held me up. It caught me and did not sprain. I thought, "Oh, that was close." But then it happened again and again - I would step uneven, and my ankle would support my weight. My fledgling faith was growing, and whenever the enemy of my soul would throw doubt into my head and heart, I would just say, "God called my name because He was healing me, and I'm going to stand on that truth." I came to a place where I fully believed God had healed me completely, but didn't have the confidence to tell the story far and wide because I didn't have what I considered to be proof.

So, today I got a gift that I never imagined. I've been going to physical therapy because my achilles tendons have been really tight. (The bottom line on that story is that I'm 37 and have not done any regular exercise since Josiah was born. I'm not flexible, and the tightness of my muscles, from my gluts right down to the arch of my foot, is causing pressure. I've been going to PT for 3 weeks now, and they stretch my legs and feet, massage my feet and calves, do heating ultrasound and laser my legs. . .) Today she was working on my left foot (the "good" one), bending and stretching it in all sorts of directions, when she said, "Have you sprained your ankles?" I answered that I had, and asked her how she could tell. She said that there was popping and something else and that she could feel that ligaments were missing. I was intrigued, and told her that I was very interested in what she would find in my right ankle. I told her that I had sprained my left only a couple times, but my right multiple times. I also stepped out in boldness and told her that someone had prayed for my right ankle to be healed and I had felt that it was stronger since then. I told her I was very curious to know what she would find. She worked on my right foot for awhile, warming it up and stretching it out and then said, "Well, since you mentioned it earlier, I'll tell you that your right foot feels very stable." As she bent it tightly, it popped just the tiniest bit and she said, "That little pop is all I felt." I asked, "So, are you saying that my right foot feels better than my left?"

With her short answer, "Yes," she could have no idea of what was happening in my soul. God had seen fit to give me the gift of "proof". He didn't have to do it, but in that moment I realized, without a doubt, that the creator of the universe, lover of my soul, had done a healing miracle in my right ankle and rebuilt the tendons and ligaments around that joint.

If you've ever, like me, doubted that God still wants to heal today, let my faith story be an encouragement to you. I still don't understand it all, but I know God heals. I believe He wants us to ask. I believe He heals us because He loves us, not because we deserve it. If the conversation about healing intrigues you, or causes questions to rise, I would love to continue the conversation. I'm still on the journey too, and believe we grow when we travel together.

P.S. I told this story to the boys tonight, and Josiah, with a hint of impatience in his voice said, "Mom, why did you need (what the physical therapist said) to prove that it was healed? You should have just believed it was healed as soon as the (word of knowledge) happened." Realizing how right he was, I humbly answered that perhaps this experience will build my faith for the next time.