It’s always encouraging to hear how God has answered prayer. Several years ago my wife and I returned to Florida to do a Healing Mission at an Episcopal Church where we had ministered several times before.  We attended church just after we arrived and sat in the congregation. I couldn’t help noticing in my direct line of vision, a young blond haired child lifted up in his mother’s arms. I thought to myself what a bright healthy looking child he was. To my surprise the mother came over at the end of the service and said to me, “Do you recognise me?”  I had to admit her face wasn’t familiar.  She told me, “Two years ago when you were here, I asked you to pray for me. I hadn’t been able to conceive and you prayed that the Lord would enable me to conceive.  Well here is the result!”  As she said the words she held up the little fellow I had seen throughout the service.  It was a great encouragement to us as we began a new mission to see how God had been at work during a previous mission two years before.

At the present moment we are in Florida once again to do another (almost) month-long Healing Mission in the same church. The Rector had kindly invited me to speak at his weekly Sunday Forum which occurs before the last of the 4 morning services. As I was preparing to speak I introduced myself to a woman sitting alone. She said, “Do you remember praying with me some years ago?” Again her face wasn’t familiar. (I think I need to develop a photographic memory!)  She went on to say that some years ago she was suffering third stage cancer in two areas of her body. She had asked for prayer and I had anointed her for God’s healing.  She said that subsequently the Lord marvellously healed her. She no longer has cancer. So once again an encouraging testimony as we began another Mission in the same church.

It made me realise that often we don’t come to know the marvellous things God has done in answer to prayer. When I was the Leader of the Healing Ministry in St Andrew’s Cathedral in Sydney, Australia, I had the opportunity to go to many cities and country towns around the nation to teach on healing. I was amazed at the number of people who would come up to me and say that they had been to the Wednesday night Healing service in the Cathedral in Sydney some 5 or 10 or 20 years before and received prayer for healing  and had been wonderfully healed as a result. Only a few of those folk had remembered to write and tell us what had happened.

Sharing a testimony of how God has healed us is never a matter of boasting. Whenever the Lord touches anyone’s life with His healing power, it is always due to the His grace, to the outpouring of His love and mercy on those who need His touch on their lives.  So praising Him for a healing we received is exalting Him and not ourselves.  I was pleasantly surprised at the response I received to my last blog which told the simple story which came from a woman in her nineties. Her story obviously touched hundreds of people around the world. I am told that she was delighted that her story has been a blessing to so many. So even in your nineties God can still use you to His glory if you humbly share what He has done in your life with others.

It would be a great thing for the kingdom of God if more of us were willing to share the good things God has done for us in answer to prayer.  People in today’s world are desperate for hope and are longing to see that God is real. Real healings of real people stimulates faith in those who hear of those encounters. To put it in the wonderful words of Psalm 107, 1  Oh, thank GOD–he’s so good! His love never runs out.  2  All of you set free by GOD, tell the world! Tell how he freed you from oppression (The Message).

Blog 096.  Jim Holbeck. Posted from Florida on Friday 2^nd November 2012