A Pain in the Neck

THIS WEEK I have a story of praise to tell. God is so good! It's yet another testimony to how faithfully He answers prayer. On Tuesday night after the sermon at my church's college ministry, we prayed for everybody who needed healing of any kind. They lined up in front for the speaker and others to lay hands on them. All kinds of pain and anxiety and injury were healed in Jesus' name. This is what the Body of Christ is supposed to do. Insomniacs walked away freed of their anxiousness. Broken hearts received the healing love of God. Particularly cool to me were the physical healings: improvements for a girl's painful lower back and increased mobility for a man with complications of a broken arm. My favorite was the healing of a girl with a bad knee - and the other wasn't great either - and who was having trouble standing straight. She walked away with zero pain. Praise God! We prayed over these people in Jesus' name. The name of the One who bore our sicknesses and lifted our burdens. We claimed His promise that He will answer, and that we'll have what we ask in His name. It works. When I left the church, I was inspired. I feel like I want the rest of my life to be full of that kind of Spirit action. I just love seeing the movement of the Holy Spirit in response to our faith. My mom had come to pick me up from church. For almost two weeks she had been suffering from intolerable pain in her neck, back, and right shoulder blade. She has a pinched nerve from a car accident she had a long time ago. Her fingers were going numb, although her thumb is usually a little numb to begin with. And this hard working lady just kept about her every day business and did what she had to despite the pain, taking medicine and holding bags of frozen vegetables behind her neck. Amazed by what I'd seen that night, during my personal Bible Study I wrote down my prayer for her. Something dared me to go ahead and write it down. I asked God that when my mom would wake up in the morning, she would be healed. All better. No pain. Everybody had begun to pray for her, because her pain had been going on and on and not getting any better. She was getting worse. My mom and I are very close, and when one of us is in any kind of pain, so is the other. We need each other's happiness. Jesus asks us to trust Him with these things. He demonstrated, many more times than the gospel writers could record, that He is the Healer and that He will move in response to our faith. Isaiah 53:4-5 famously prophesies that Jesus would bear our burdens for our freedom. "Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His stripes we are healed." Jesus Himself promised that His name is power in our prayers. John 14:12-13 "Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it." So I asked! The next day my mom came home at 11:30. She was supposed to be at her chiropractor appointment, which she'd broken down and set up the day before when she wasn't getting any better. I asked her why she was home, and she said she felt better. I was so amazed and happy that I brought her my journal to show her what I wrote. God answered my prayers and our friends' prayers for her. She was back to normal. She felt how she'd wished every morning she would feel waking up. She said she felt "like a new person." Her thumb's still a little numb like usual, and I'm still praying she won't get worse again. But no bag of frozen vegetables has been on her neck since. God answered my prayer when I asked in Jesus's powerful name. I am so grateful and excited about this, and I hope and pray I'll always be seeing God do things like this.