This is a letter that my mother wrote several months before the Lord took her home to be in His arms.
It was very interesting to see what faith that she had and it is something that I hope one day to have learned in the way that she had.
Although it seems that she thought she was going to be healed here in this life the Lord healed her in a different way. I think that it could have gone either way. But I believe that when faced with the ultimate choice at that moment she chose to help us from the other side.
She will never have to worry about the cares and affections of this life and will now be able to fulfill what the Lord has for her in this next faze of her life.

A WONDERFRUL JOURNEY WITH JESUS
THROUGH THE GARDEN OF AFFLICTION

“How can that be?” you may wonder… wonderful because He held me so close and wonderful because He is fulfilling the desire of my heart to be made anew.

Faith for personal healing was one of those things that was far on the back burner; one of those fears that comes to mind occasionally which I would quickly push aside because I didn’t want to face it. Sure, it was one thing to pray for others to be healed or to pray for a headache or if I stumped my toe, but to have faith for a life-threatening situation personally, that was something else. Why? Because in my mind it raised all kinds of questions: Worthiness? Enough faith? I knew He could heal, but in my case would He? Well, the Lord had His plans and this was one area He definitely wanted me to see that “The Lord’s hand is not shortened that it can not save; neither His ear heavy that it cannot hear.” (Is. 59:1)

So, the journey began while we were on our visa trip at the beginning of Aug. when I became very sick and weak. We had trouble getting tickets back to our home city so I had 3 days to rest. When we got back I continued to be weak. A week later I became so weak that I had to stay in bed most of the time. I got a bad cough that kept me from sleeping much at night making the situation worse. We decided that I should go to the hospital to see what was wrong and to see if I had anything contagious. Being the weekend, the doctor on duty couldn’t say what was wrong from the blood test and said to come back on Monday. We knew that something was very seriously wrong, as my white blood cell count was so low that I could not fight any infection. (It was 600 when the normal should be between 4,000 and 10,000).

Monday morning the doctor who saw the blood test immediately had me admitted to the hospital and began doing tests. They took a bone marrow sample and lots of blood. The chest x-ray revealed that I had pneumonia, and the sonogram showed my spleen was enlarged. I had 6 blood transfusions, antibiotics, and drugs of all sorts, but with little improvement. At one point they could not even find a vein to put in the drip needle in my hands or arms and had to put it in my foot. At this point the doctor didn’t think I was going to make it. I also had a high fever most of the 15 days I was in the hospital. After a week they called in a specialist who diagnosed me with a rare form of leukemia called Hairy Cell Leukemia, which attacks the spleen. The doctor said that after confirming tests, the recommended treatment would be to remove the spleen. My husband called a friend of ours in the States who works as a pathologist in a large hospital to see what he could find out. He talked to the head doctor there and from what my husband had told him of the symptoms, that doctor agreed with the doctors here. But our friend also said that he had prayed for my healing and that it was done if we could believe it. (He is also the leader of a home church.)

I had been praying and the Lord showed me that if I went the medical route, (which would involve either removing the spleen, which would not be a permanent cure, as symptoms often recur after 18 months and/or chemotherapy, or experimental drugs), He could help me and heal me that way; but if I was willing to trust only Him totally for healing, without the doctors and the medicines, He would do it and it was something He could trust me with; and also He would be glorified and it would be a testimony to many of His healing power in this day and age. He showed me that going the medical route would be like going for the silver and trusting Him would be like going for the gold (as in the Olympics). Of course to do this, meant really yielding and submitting my all to Him, to trust Him to have full sway in my life; to trust Him whether He chose to heal me or take me Home. Like Paul said in the Bible, “Whether I live, I live unto the Lord, and whether I die, I die unto the Lord; whether I live therefore or die I am the Lord’s”. So, it was definitely not a decision I took lightly.

The Lord showed us that He was offering me the gift of healing if I would just reach out and take it and with it I would also get the Healer. I suddenly realized it was not so much about me, about my worthiness or amount of faith; it was about Him and the wonderful gift of healing He was offering me because of His love—the focus was on Him and not me or what I was or had done or not done or how much faith I had or didn’t have. It was like a wonderful revelation to me as I saw multitudes without face or name that He had healed, not because of their worthiness or great faith but because of His love being shown through His healing touch. It was like a release for me as I believed and reached out and received His gift of love and I knew that I was healed regardless of how things looked in the flesh. For days there in the hospital I would visualize this gift of healing like a little bundle I would hold so close to me.

So, we decided to take the stand of faith and check out of the hospital. I want to include an excerpt here from one of the prophecies Jesus gave us to encourage our faith: “…you don’t need to have great faith, it’s not something you can work up anyway, you just need to have a grain of mustard seed of faith in a great God…real faith is just pure trust in Me that I am in control and if things go differently than you were expecting, faith believes that it is ok, because it is in My hands and you have given it to Me; so what’s happening must be part of My plan. That is what taking a stand of faith is about; it’s not just trusting Me to do a certain thing, but trusting Me enough to say not my will but Thine be done. Then you don’t have to worry about setbacks or things that aren’t going the way you thought they would, because you have chosen to give that up and instead let Me decide the way things will go. My loves, if you can have this faith and this trust in Me, then you can know that you will get the very best, because I will choose it for you. It might not be what you thought, but it will be My perfect plan.”

Jesus told me “Don’t be afraid to jump!” concerning leaving the hospital, as I still had pneumonia and the most recent blood test showed my blood cell count to be lower than the previous one. So I returned home, resting in bed and continued about the same for the first week, which was a miracle in itself that I didn’t get worse. I got a bad itchy rash, which we think was “petechiae”. That is when the blood vessels under the skin burst and you turn red all over, (we are talking almost full body coverage here!) common in leukemia cases, which finally healed up after a couple of weeks. We had good prayer times together and heard from Him everyday. One evening after sitting up for a short time, I felt so tired that I felt I could just fade away and go be with the Lord, but called on His strength whereupon I felt a little stronger and have been getting stronger day by day. Another day, when the Devil was hitting me with doubts and fears, I just started thinking the “what if?” scenarios? What if I died and went to be with the Lord, well that would be wonderful; if He healed me, well that would be a wonderful testimony and victory, too. So either way, it was a win-win situation; and the Devil had nothing to counter with, so that took care of that! Ha!

The Lord knows how to get the most mileage out of situations, so as well as teaching me to have more faith for His healing touch, He is also teaching me many lessons He wants me to learn. Of the many prophecies that have been sent to me from various friends, there is a main theme that runs through a lot of them and that is the Lord just wants my love and to teach me to love Him and others more completely. He said I had failed to love others the way He wanted me to love them. I had seen myself a certain way and in those ways I had felt great fulfillment (in witnessing and telling others about Him), but He wanted me to realize that though my efforts have been pleasing to Him, what is most important is my love for Him and others—my complete abandonment to any will of my own; that life is for learning and the most important thing is in learning to love. So, this seems to be one of the main purposes of this affliction, an affliction where I must totally depend on Him and His strength, and therefore stay very close and very in love with Him, so that “the love of Christ constrains me” (2 Co. 5:14) to reach out more to others, not just out of duty.

Well, the Lord hasn’t chosen an instant healing for me, but in His marvelous wisdom, because of the nature of the lessons He wants me to learn, has chosen to heal me step by step and strengthen me day by day. Because it wasn’t an instant healing, there have been times where the Devil has hit me pretty hard with doubts and fears; but every time the Lord has been faithful to come through with just the word I needed to keep on believing. Developing new habits of total dependence on Him and learning to love Him and others more completely takes a real slowing down from my previous mode of operating and mindset. He gives me strength to do those things He wants me to do, so it is helping me be more faithful to ask Him everything—a wonderful safeguard against my pride and independence, for which I am very thankful. For a while, I was only able to be up and do things for maybe 10 minutes at a time before having to stop and rest; but gradually I began to have strength for hours at a time, thank the Lord. He is doing it His way and in His time and I have no doubt He will complete what He has begun—a situation tailor made to help me learn the things He wants me to learn, to be more useful in my work for Him.

Thank you dear ones for your prayers, love, and support. My prayer is that this testimony of the Lord’s healing touch can help increase your faith that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever” (He. 13:8) and so is His power to help and heal. So, if you ever find yourself in an impossible situation, beyond man’s help, try to remember that what He has done for me, He can surely do for you, if you will just give Him a chance and reach out and receive it. Here is a beautiful promise from Him just to show how much He steps in to help us in our time of need: “You’ll be amazed at the faith and trust that you’ll receive from My hand to be able to go through these times and not falter or fear. I will give you the grace for each step that I will lead you on in the path I have chosen for you.”

Posted on June 4th, 2005 by John
Filed under: A Tribute to Mother