If you’ve been tracking this blog for a while, you’ll know how much joy it gives me to hear about your ‘light through the cracks’ stories – and this one comes from an older reader of my blog, but also happens to go to my church.
It’s the end of a Sunday morning service and, hearing my name being called, I turn round to be greeted by a lovely lady, a long-time friend who is in her mid-eighties.
“I’m so glad to see you,” she tells me, with a twinkle in her eyes, “I’ve got a story that you’re going to love!”
“Go on,” I say, all ears to hear it.
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For as long as she can remember, and certainly since early childhood, she has suffered from asthma. (I had no idea!) Her airways get inflamed, her chest tightens and she finds it hard to breathe. Her inhaler is never far from her side. Just in case she has a particularly bad bout of coughing or wheezing.
Just recently, with the arrival of warmer weather and an increase in the pollen count, she has had a couple of unexpected asthma attacks. Always frightening at the best of times, she’s been aware that her advancing age is an exacerbating factor.
“I realised that, one of these days, it could be fatal,” she says, pausing. “I also realised I’d given up praying for healing.”
One morning a few weeks ago, she woke up with a prompt to pull a tome from her bookshelf, which she hadn’t turned to in ages. It was Smith Wigglesworth’s book, ‘Ever Increasing Faith’.
“I knew it was a nudge from the Holy Spirit,” she tells me, “so I made a cup of tea, sat on the sofa, and started reading.”
It doesn’t take long before she is reminded of 1 Peter 2:24: “He [Jesus] himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds, you have been healed.”
“It was that final phrase, ‘by his wounds, you have been healed’, which leapt out to me,” she says. “If his wounds have healed me, why have I not been believing it?”
In the days following, she meditates on this Scripture, repeatedly speaking it over herself. And then, about a fortnight ago, she feels something shift.
“I could feel my lungs loosening in an unusual way,” she says, “and I knew, in my knower, that God had healed me.” She pauses a moment, before adding: “In fact, thinking about it, I’ve had no asthma symptoms since.”
I ask her whether she has had any medical verification of her healing, and she tells me her GP has referred her to the local hospital for tests.
“He was very sceptical about making the referral,” she says, “especially given my age. But I plan to tell every medical professional who tests me that Jesus has healed me – because he absolutely has!”
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As you consider this ‘light through the cracks’ story, let me ask you this:
Are you, like my friend, living with a long-term chronic health condition and/or advancing in years? If this is you, are you still believing that Jesus can heal you? If you have stopped praying for healing, like my friend had done, what would it take to reignite your prayers?
Also, have you ever considered the power that lies in the proclamation of God’s word over ill-health, to bring about healing? If this is you, what word has God given you, and are you holding on to it? And if you haven’t yet got a word, why don’t you ask God to give you one? (You never know! Like my friend, it could be life-changing!)
As ever, your constructive comments are welcome below.
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For more on the proclamation of God’s word over your tough times, I cover this in-depth in the opening chapter of my new book, ‘It’s All About the Light: How to Find God in Tough Times’. So please buy and read a copy!
Also, if you want to read other ‘light through the cracks‘ stories about healing from asthma, there are two on my blog, which you will find here and here.
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Photo by C Nordic via Unsplash
