On several occasions I have needed and received healing
from the gracious hand of Jesus. One incident took place about ten years
ago while I was working in Kennebunk, Maine (U.S.A.). For a couple of days
I had noticed that when I took a deep breath it caused pain in the right
side if my chest. The pain of breathing grew much worse by the evening of
the second day. Upon going to bed I found that anything other than the shallowest
breathing caused great discomfort. The extra breath needed just to turn over
in bed was enough to produce very sharp pain. I tried to lay still
and slept very little that night. About 4:30 AM I knew I needed to try to
get up and see if I’d be able to go to work. I could breathe very little
without pain, and the breath required to get out of bed caused pain so severe
that it took my breath away. I dropped from my bed to my hands and knees
on the floor and found that I could get some relief in this position, at
least enough to try to think, and pray.



On my hands and knees in the dark I tried to remember scriptures that had
built my faith in the past. I thought about Abraham in Romans 4:16-22.
“…before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth
those things which be not as though they were. Who against hope believed
in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that
which was spoken, So shall thy seed be. And being not weak in faith, he considered
not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither
yet the deadness of Sarah's womb: He staggered not at the promise of God
through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God; And being
fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform”.




 In my thoughts I tried to thank God for his promises in the Bible of
deliverance and healing. After a while I could breathe enough to crawl slowly
on my hands and knees to the table where I had left my Bible the night before.
In the dark I reached up and took my Bible from the table, opened it, and
pressed it against my chest. All my hope was in the power of God’s Word to
heal me.  I kept repeating in my mind, “He sent His Word and healed
them… He sent his Word and healed them.” With what little breath I could
get, I tried to whisper praises to God for his healing, remembering David’s
prayer in Psalm 146:2, “While I live will I praise the LORD: I will
sing praises unto my God while I have any being”.



After ten or fifteen minutes I could cautiously breathe enough without pain
to support myself upright on my knees alone. Normal breathing still caused
sharp pain. Keeping the Bible against my chest with one hand, I tried to
lift the other hand to the Lord to thank Him for his deliverance, which I
was beginning to experience. I just kept believing God had sent his Word
and healed me. After a while I had relief enough to move on my knees to the
light switch about six feet away. I found the switch and turned on the light.
I took the Bible down from my chest, hoping to read something that would
further strengthen my faith in my Healer. The page I had opened to in the
dark and had been holding to my chest was Psalm 107. My eyes fell
on the underlined words of verse 20, “He sent his Word and healed
them, and delivered them from their destructions”.



This very much encouraged me to see that God had acknowledged the very scripture
I was clinging to. I was able now to carefully lift both hands to God. After
awhile I found that I could take slightly deeper breaths before the pain
cut them off. I slowly got to my feet, praising God in my heart, and began
to walk very slowly around the room. After  another ten minutes or so,
I could slowly begin some normal activity without the sharp pain. I began
to carefully wash, dress and eat, and left for work at about 7:30, arriving
on time. Deep breaths were still painful, but I could speak and regulate
my activity at work so that no one would have known I’d had a problem. How
amazed I was at what the Lord had done for me, though I still didn’t know
the cause.



At church that night I testified of how God had sent his Word and healed
me. After church a lady told me she had suffered the very same symptoms several
years earlier. She was rushed to the hospital where she was told she was
having a gall bladder attack and they would have to remove her gall bladder.
During the next two days the pain of taking deep breaths continued to decrease.
By the third or fourth day I could breathe just as easily as ever, and have
had no such symptoms in the years since that time. I’m so thankful that the
Lord had taught me how to know and trust in his Word before, so that when
my “time of trouble” came, He could truly be “my very present help”!
Praise his name!