Dad's Healing

Let's start at the beginning shall we? Once I finally had the guts to step out, email our preacher, and get a speech prepared for church, I began to read the Bible. I mean read night and day, pray night and day. I really wanted to prepare my heart and be in the right mind set for anyone who came to me following the speech. In all my adult life I had never done this before. I knew that the more time I spent in scripture, the more peaceful I felt; the more my life seemed to go easier. But, for some reason, I kept forgetting this lesson and would let life beat me down again. I think the difference with this was God had given me a direct message. He was going to take this and use it to glorify His name AMEN! When you have the Creator on your side, it's hard to not feel like a victor.


I was planning a trip to see my parents before I told the church about the vision. The day before I was to leave for my parents, God spoke to me. He told me He wanted me to go wash my father's feet while I was there. He told me He wanted me to tell Dad He was going to heal him as well! Now regarding my father, we have not had the best relationship. We have always butted heads with Mom in between. When God told me to do this, the weird thing was I had no remorse about it. The healing, that was another story! I didn't feel I had the gift of healing. I know God can use any of us to do His work, but I still wasn't sure. God had told me in detail what He wanted done. He told me to bring Dad into their living/dining area, in his underwear.(how embarrassing for all of us!) He told me Mom was to prepare the water. I would provide the reading and the kids were to lay their hands on him as we prayed. Now I will do a step out here and say I am not from a faith that is familiar with any of this. God told me to get almond oil to use for Dad. I didn't know what is normally used, so I went to Wikipedia. The search showed olive oil. God then, very sternly said to me, "That is not what I told you to use." The funny thing about this is, almond oil isn't the easiest to find. But, a week prior, my son and I had been at a store and we noticed it there! I knew right where to go get it. On my way to get the oil, God also told me to have my dad read Hebrews 11 three times. Now, Dad just thought I was coming for a visit, but when I texted him, he said he would read this three times. Everything involving this has dealt with the number 3. God loves to use numbers! He had told me to have Mom fill up the basin and put 3 drops of oil in. She was to do this 3 times. She was to say a prayer each time as well. As I said earlier, I am not familiar with how to do this, so I looked up some healing prayers and found a very beautiful one to say while we were there. When the kids got home from school, I told them they had a role to play in this as well. Ethan was so excited he screamed, "Woo hoo!! We're going to heal Papaw!"


When I would read Bible text, especially the story of Moses, I used to think "there is a burning bush talking to you! Do what it says!" Now I understand. Even through all of this, I was still not sure if I should go ahead with what He told me. I was very nervous. I think this is to be expected on your first several go arounds. As we were traveling to Huntsville, I was still feeling the need for conformation. I told Ethan open the Bible to any page and read. He did and the verses weren't sticking out for us. I said, "Ethan, this time pray that God give you the text. Now open that Bible." When he did, the verse he read talked about righteous men traveling to go heal some one's bones! One of the ailments my Dad has is arthritis. It scared us and made us excited all at the same time! I had read scripture that talks about Elders coming to your house to heal the sick. Even though God spoke to me, you ALWAYS make sure it is aligned with scripture. I found two scriptures that I read to my parents before we started. One was Luke 10; the people were not Apostles. God told 72 people to go out, teach and heal the sick. The other scripture was Acts 9. This story speaks of a man named Ananias. One day God spoke to him in a vision and said "Go to the house of Judah. Find a man named Saul, place your hands on him to restore his sight."


With those two scriptures read, I looked at Mom and Dad and said, "I have a message for you. God sent me here today for a reason. He told me to wash your feet, and Dad, He told me He was going to heal you." My face was red, my heart just a pounding. With that, Mom and Dad got up, and said, "What do we need to do?" Do you remember before that God had showed me specifically for Dad to be in his underwear? I don't know about you guys, but that's not something I want to see! On the way up, I had told Tucker, "I think I am going to tell Dad just to be in shorts. We don't want to see Papaw in his underwear." Tucker looked at me and said, "If this is what God said do, then do it Mom!" But, I didn't. I told Dad to go back in his room and come out in shorts. Do you know what he came out in? Yep, you guessed it! His underwear. We sat him down and got ready to begin. After Mom had prayed and put the oil in the water. I got down on my knees and began to wash Daddy's feet. I didn't know then what this had to do with anything. God spoke to me at that moment and said, "This is not for him, but you. You will need to humble yourself. You will need to have a servant's heart. This is your time to let all the past go and forgive!" It was the neatest thing to be hearing from my heavenly Father as I am washing my earthly father's feet! Since then, any area of contention I ever had with Dad, just doesn't seem to be there. All the hurt and pain for both of us got washed that night! AMEN!


After the washing, I told Dad, God wants you to confess your sins. This doesn't mean he has to give us details of what he's done. It was a repentance to God, and had nothing to do with us. Dad did this. Ethan, Tucker, and Mom  then layed hands on him as I said the healing prayer. I put oil on his body, where he hurts, etc. Once I finished the prayer, each person began to speak a prayer over him. Tucker had started and was so full of the Holy Spirit that moment that he thought he was saying his prayer out loud. When he finished he wasn't sure and said, "I hope you all heard that, cause it was powerful!" The last person to pray was Mom. I have heard my Mom pray. She is always very quiet, timid almost, reverent in her words. This time, a mighty voice came over her. She declared him to be healed! She prayed the enemy off of him and the evil ones to be gone! We all just looked at her when she was finished. We didn't know what to say. We had never heard Mom speak this way.


We then starting shouting Praise God!! Woo Hoo!! Praise Him! Everyone looked at each other in the room. Mom and the boys said, "Do you feel that? What is that?" I told them we are filled with the Spirit right now. Finally, my dad spoke. He began crying. He said, "When I came out here, my hips hurt so bad, I could hardly walk. Now, they don't hurt anymore." We started praising God again. My dad has several health issues he deals with. I didn't know which one was going to be healed, or if they all were. One big issue for my father is depression. If you know of anyone who is diagnosed with this, you know there are times where they feel there is no hope. Sometimes they get stuck in that dark hole and they don't know how to come out. I watched God bring my dad out of that place that night!


Over the next few weeks I called Mom and Dad. The first thing I noticed was when I asked my dad how are you doing, he said, "I'm doing great!" I hadn't heard my dad say that in about 15 years. I had a conversation with Mom following and she asked, "Has your dad told you what's been going on?" I said no. She said, "Your dad has rededicated his life back to God. He's able to go to church all the time. The whole church is whispering and asking, what is different about Fred?" When they ask, Dad smiles and points to the heavens. He simply says, "God did it."
~Stacy~