It’s been more than two decades since I first met Jackie. We bonded over a conversation about Inca Kola, having both not long returned from living in Latin America, and our friendship has survived the tests of time and distance in all the years since.
Just recently, I receive an unexpected text from Jackie. “I’ve got a little light through the cracks story to tell you”, it says – and here is the story.
***
When a neighbour offers a box of apples, free of charge, from the tree in their garden, Jackie willingly accepts. The neighbour lives just up the road, and they agree a time for pick up.
Before setting off, she does a quick security check around the house. Peeking her head around the door of her daughter’s bedroom, she notices the window has been left wide open. So she heads to close it, navigating various items, strewn across the floor.
“Y’ouch!” she yelps, pain searing through her body, as the edge of her bare foot collides with the wheel of the swivel chair at her daughter’s desk. The force of the impact shocks her. How can such a small body part cause such incredible pain? she wonders, looking down at the little toe on her left foot.
Desperately trying to ignore the excruciating throbbing, she hobbles to the window and pulls it closed, balancing precariously on the heel of her foot.
“I was determined to collect the apples, even though I could see the toe was swelling,” Jackie tells me. So she hobbles the handful of houses up the road, painfully unsteady, weight-bearing solely on the heel of her foot – where she collects the apples, and returns home.
“I spent the rest of the day on the sofa,” she says, “I just couldn’t walk on it and, as soon as I tried to stand, it was agony.”
Later that afternoon, when her husband returns home from work, he takes one look at his wife and immediately expresses concern. “Why don’t you ask next door for an opinion?” he suggests, referring to their neighbour, who works as a family doctor. She comes round straightaway, looks at the swollen toe and is quick to pronounce her assessment. “I think it’s broken,” she says, “but you’ll need to go to the local hospital to be sure.”
The nurse at the hospital comes to the same conclusion. “I think it’s broken,” she says, “and it’s going to really hurt for a while.” Demonstrating with hand gestures, she advises strapping the injured toe to the next one, for a few weeks. “It will probably go purple but, don’t worry, that’s normal. With rest, it will heal.”
***
It’s not until two days later, feeling utterly incapacitated and decidedly down about it, when it dawns on Jackie that prayer might help the healing process. She picks up a Christian book she’s been reading, about power and authority in prayer for healing. The book is full of testimony stories, and she can feel her faith rising as she reads it.
“I started to realise that I had power and authority in the name of Jesus, particularly in praying for healing, which was something I’d never really clocked or considered,” Jackie tells me.
When the author suggests ‘giving it a go’ by finding someone with a joint injury, Jackie figures she might as well start by praying for healing in her toe. Laying her hand on her foot, she thanks God that he heals today, and she commands her toe to be healed in the name of Jesus.
“Immediately, the pain diminished,” she says, “It was incredible.”
Overnight, the swelling disappears. Jackie can put her shoe on again, stand on her foot and walk around again. “I just kept thanking Jesus for healing me,” she reveals. “I knew the broken bone had been mended.”
She repeats her prayer of thanks, whenever she thinks of it, several times a day, for three days. Each time she does so, she notices an improvement.
She makes a note in her journal. “I believe my toe has been healed, as what’s happened isn’t normal,” she writes. “Thank you Jesus. The pain has gone. The swelling has gone. There is no bruising, no purple mark, nothing.”
“When prayer should have been my default response, it wasn’t,” she tells me. “But now it is, because I know that God still heals in the name of Jesus.”
***
If you are a Christian, are you aware of the power and authority that you have, to pray for healing, in the name of Jesus? Why don’t you ask God for greater awareness of this, and then stay open for any opportunities he brings your way to put it into practice?
And if you aren’t yet a Christian, God longs for you to be in relationship with him through Jesus, so why don’t you pray and ask him for this?
As ever, I would love to hear your constructive comments below.
Photo from Francesco Ungaro via Unsplash
