Seeing is Believing

I'm still reeling.

No, Edward Cullen is still (unfortunately) a fictional character, Heidi Montag is still the biggest joke on the planet, and Michael Jackson didn't come back to life. Something did happen though. Something gigantic and undeniably life changing... in my little world at least.

This past Sunday morning I found myself quietly sitting alone in a church I don't remember the name of in Anaheim, $80 poorer after having taken a taxi out there. Yes, I paid to go to church. You would too if you couldn't drive, didn't have anybody that loved you enough to escort you to faraway places at 8 AM on a Sunday morning, and were about to be healed from an incurable eye disease. Yeah, you read that right. Healed.

Now before you get your knickers in a knot, I must give a disclaimer: I am not (currently) completely healed from this travesty known as retinitis pigmentosa.

But I believe that I will be.

An old friend of mine had been urging me for weeks to find a way to get to Anaheim that weekend as he and a ministry team from Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry up in Redding were gonna be in town for a "Firestorm" as they called it. Knowing that I wouldn't easily be able to transport myself the 35 miles, I laughingly told Chris that maybe I could hitchike out there in the name of Jesus. Clearly not amused, he said that I NEEDED to get there. I still didn't take him too seriously until the night before when his phone call interrupted a rather uneventful Saturday night reverie. He put me on the phone with another dude, Daniel, who first told me -- and very accurately, I might add -- what I looked like ("cool glasses" included), and spewed out prophesy over prophesy about my life. Quickly telling me that my passion lay in drawing and painting (well I knew that one) he poured out God's heart for me, telling me I was a princess in the King's eyes and that He loves my heart for creating. Daniel soon began to pray over me for healing. Well, not too much happened with my eyes, but a warm, tingly, drugged-up feeling happily saturated my entire body as the Holy Spirit immersed me with healing power. My back felt the warmest, and at the end of the conversation, I felt the gnarled muscles that had been knotted up for years due to bad drawing posture and a car accident or two began to unclench; my muscles literally felt smoother to the touch and were pain-free. When Chris came back on the line, he chuckled at my awed voice as if to say, "Well duh. What did you think would happen when you threw God into the mix?" I was sold. I immediately set my alarm, heart pounding, barely able to sleep that night due to the excitement at the possibility of God granting me a miracle upon my doomed eyes in the morning.

See, it's not that I didn't believe in the healing power of the Lord before this night, I just didn't think it could happen to me. I grew up in a church where real healing was a thing of Biblical stories, and although I believed that miracles could indeed happen today through Jesus' name, I had never known anyone to experience a true healing. Little did I know that the same Jesus I thought I had known my entire life was about to come charging in.

I know that many of you who read my blog don't believe in God at all, and frankly, I'm surprised that you've read this far. Truth be told, I've been a Christian all my life, and yet there have been a surprising number of times that I also have doubted the existence of any Creator. Friends, let me tell you right here right now, that God is real. The stories of miracles performed in the Bible are more than exaggerated accounts of a wise man who walked the planet 2,000 years ago. These miracles are happening today, right now. Want a firsthand account? I would too. I'd be happy to oblige.

So there I sat in this nameless church, dutifully waiting for God to show up. The charismatic service passed uneventfully, and the Bethel team made their way to the front to face us lowly invalids in the congregation hoping for miracles. My eyes searched for Chris and Daniel, and my excitement mounted as I wondered what it felt like to be healed, if I would experience that same tingly, almost drunken sensation. Unexpectedly, I found myself staring into the eyes of a lovely woman a little older than me with a most delightful British accent. She had a prophecy for me, and was asking if I'd stand up in front of the entire church to receive it. I immediately bounced up, eager for more of the wonderful "your artwork will be valued by those all over the world" type things I'd heard the night before. "Do you cook?" she asked, smiling. Well, not really, but I've always wanted to! "Yes." I replied, thinking that spaghetti and scrambled eggs counted. She went on to tell me that my cooking will bless others, that I'm a woman of integrity, that... "Wait a minute." a voice interrupted her. It was Aaron, the head of the team, staring hard at me. "Hold out your hands." I did so, a little worried. "You have the fire of healing in your hands. People will be healed before you even begin to pray for them." What?! Me, the gift of healing? I thanked the two of them, sat down in shock, and began to marvel at what I had been just told. It WOULD be like God to give me a gift of something that I barely believed in, sans a recently healed back perhaps not believed in at all...

After the service was over, people began to eagerly make their way towards the Bethel group to receive healing for their various ailments. Daniel approached me out of nowhere (curse this bad peripheral vision) and asked if I wanted to join in the prayer. Without thinking, I replied yes. Without thinking even further, I allowed myself to be led over to a woman who had been suffering from a painful dislocated shoulder for almost a year. Without really knowing what to do or say, I awkwardly placed my hands on the woman's shoulder and began to pray that Jesus would heal her shoulder and bring back mobility. Within seconds, we heard an audible *pop* and she was waving her arm all around, ecstatic that it was completely better... Daniel looked over at me, lazily smiled, and said as if he were commenting on the morning news over breakfast, "See? There ya go!"

As if in a dream, I asked the woman if there was anything else wrong. She mentioned that one of her legs was longer than the other and it gave her back pain. Sitting down, I stretched her legs out and prayed over the right foot that it grow as long as it's twin. The words hadn't even left my mouth when I felt the leg move and grow towards me. The woman remarked casually, "Well, that's an interesting feeling!" We watched as the foot grew out until the two legs were even. She began to walk around, immediately aware of the significant difference, happy as a clam.

The shock began to wear off and metamorphosize into utter joy.

Needless to say, I felt so richly blessed by my new friends at Bethel that I was eager to spend the day with them. We spent the gorgeous afternoon in Laguna Beach, and I was prayed over many, many times. Each time, a warm, tingling sensation flooded my eyes, and my eyelids uncontrollably fluttered as if I was having a seizure. My peripheral vision didn't seem to change much, but my sensitivity to sunlight was greatly diminished, and became almost extinct in a matter of a few minutes. Praise be to the God of all creation! The undeniable power of God was so clear and evident to me; it lay before the naked eye. I believe that my eyes are gradually healing, which, as it was assured to me, is very common. I'll take that.

We Christians are called to live a life of faith in a world that scoffs at the existence of anything inexplicable or supernatural. Jesus said that those who do not see His body in the flesh and yet still believe are blessed. Sometimes we get so caught up with our faith walks that we find it hard to believe when a very real miracle stares us in the face. This week as I was rereading the passage in Mark where Jesus healed a blind man, it struck me as interesting that this man did not believe that Jesus was the Christ until after his healing. Jesus didn't require much faith of this man in order to heal him of his blindness, but after his encounter with the Lord and his eyes began to take focus and recognition in more ways than one, the man was so struck that he couldn't help but believe.

Perhaps the same will happen in your life.