May
11
2008
Last time I blogged I told you about the meeting we went to where my husband, Steve, was picked out of the crowd and prayed for for healing. We really believed that God had done something amazing in his life. After all, it wasn’t like he had responded to a general word, he was picked out and told exactly what was wrong.
I would love more than anything to be able to blog today and say that he is completely healed. The reality is that he appears no better. He has had a rough week, spent a lot of time in bed, is in just as much pain and feels just as exhausted. Do I understand what is going on? Not a clue. Last week I really believed that God had done a miracle. It hurts when hopes hit the ground - especially when they fell from such a height. Of course we are desperately disappointed. Who wouldn’t be? I have spent the week (as it has become increasingly apparent that a miracle hasn’t occurred yet) working through my disappointment at the same time as answering all the excited friends and people who were at the meeting and want to hear the testimony, and instead I have had to explain that he is not healed yet. By the end of the week I just stopped answering the phone.
It’s been a tough week. Continue Reading »
May
06
2008
Healing and miracles seem to be very much on God’s agenda at the moment! Not only the ‘outpouring’ in Florida which I blogged about a few days ago, but all over the place there are stories of people being healed miraculously by the power of God. It’s exciting stuff, and like so many others I am so desperate to see God doing more
Like the kind of stuff He did at a meeting I was at this Sunday. It was a ‘City Vision’ Celebration. All the Churches (who wanted to) in the city met up, the praise and worship lifted the roof and the presence of God was very tangible. (’Where there is unity, the Lord commands a blessing’). Then the visiting speaker got up. An interesting guy, Free Methodist by ‘denomination’ (not that that has anything to do with it), very non-emotional, very to-the-point, and so in touch with God it was unbelievable! (I want to hear God like that when I ‘grow up’!!) He is often used by God to bring healing and release to people, and he announced that God had told him to pray for two groups of people before he preached - the first; people with muscular diseases. Continue Reading »
May
01
2008
Healing Revival in Florida! Have you been watching it?
Oxygen tanks left behind on stage, kidneys completely renewed, broken bones with no sign of any injury, cancers vanished! Even the most hardened of sceptics cannot ignore what is going on at he moment. People are even being healed as they watch the meetings online or on TV! (see testimonies below) Continue Reading »
Apr
27
2008
Christians have times of suffering too! There is the temptation sometimes to think that we are exempt from suffering, or difficult times; that God will protect us from anything painful or horrible.
But sometimes he doesn’t.
We live in a fallen, messed up world and we suffer sometimes: sickness, relationship breakdown, injustice, financial difficulties, stress, pain… God does not cause these things. Life happens and sometimes it hurts. We need to respond to that.
Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (whose story is told in Daniel, chapter 3). Three good, Jewish boys, exiled unjustly to a foreign country, stripped of their culture, identity and even their names but getting on with the job. Outwardly they were obedient to their captors, but inwardly their hearts were kept for God alone.
The next thing they know they’re heading for the fiery furnace. Continue Reading »
Apr
24
2008
God has really been challenging me recently through Isaiah 45:3
“I will give you the treasures of darkness, riches stored in secret places”
Which I take to mean that there is treasure to be found when times are difficult and you feel like you’re going through dark places.
There is something about suffering which makes us more receptive to God. Maybe because we are crying out for answers and maybe because there is nowhere else to turn. I know that on the days when Steve just can’t get out of bed and I’m feeling weighed down by the responsibility and difficulty of it all, that I am more open to hearing God. Probably because I need His help so much on those days just to get through. Continue Reading »
Apr
18
2008
I became a christian in the May of the year I turned fifteen. It was the best decision I have ever made.
My Dad was in the army, and I had spent most of my life moving from one army base to another; a new home every year/eighteen months. By the time he left the army, to give us a more stable secondary school education, I was twelve, and I had already learnt not to get too close to people, because you’re always going to have to say goodbye. We moved to a small market town in the North of England, and started to try and put down some roots for the first time.
I didn’t feel as if I belonged. The kids there had known each other since infancy and I just didn’t fit. I was Continue Reading »
Apr
14
2008
There was a time, when Steve was at his illest in hospital, when I wasn’t sure if he would live or die, and when the whole world just seemed black and cold.
I was angry with God - incredibly angry! I felt abandoned and desperately disappointed: I was in the very worst of bad places. I didn’t even really know if I believed in Him any more - but if He did exist then part of me just didn’t want to know anyway. To be honest, I hadn’t been in a great place in my relationship with Him before Steve got ill. Now, it was a thousand times worse. Continue Reading »
Apr
11
2008
If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a thousand times this last couple of years: “You’re coping really well”.
I appreciate the encouragement but actually I’m fed up of ‘coping’.
I want to live again, without this constant feeling of having to battle all the time with the consequences of ill health in the family, the financial difficulties that has brought, the pressures of trying to hold it all together and the many other things which just seem to come one after the other. I know that there are lots of people reading this who feel exactly the same, although your actual situation might be different. ‘When is all this going to come to an end? Continue Reading »
