Part V – God’s Miraculous Healing of the Volleyball Player

Miraculous Healing Testimony: The Volleyball Player (Continued)

Back to my daughter’s situation… Meanwhile, my dear sister in Christ who had driven us to the volleyball tournament had occluded the front windshield with an opaque sunscreen, left the motor running so we’d have air conditioning (it was summer in South Texas!), and had quietly put her small Bible in my hand. She and her daughter then went into the gym with the rest of the team and their families.

While my daughter lay absolutely still without making a sound in the back seat, I sat in the front seat pressing into the Lord and knowing His peace with all of my being, calmly turning from one Scripture to another as the Holy Spirit led me. I began quietly speaking some of my favorite well-known truths about His healing aloud over her, but she weakly insisted that I be silent – the sound hurt her head.

Having heard what was happening from my friend, many of the saints from our school were praying for her on the bleachers inside the gym (praise God for such fellowship!). Two such parents came out of the gym eager to help in any way they could, offering to provide over-the-counter medications or essential healing oils. Leading them away from the car so as not to disturb my daughter, I thanked them for offering to help, and assured them they would be a tremendous blessing by joining me in interceding by knowing God’s word on healing, praising Him for it, and declaring it forth.

Praise God, that is what we did! One of the two parents is a pastor, so he began our prayer gently asking the Lord to heal her. Led by the Holy Spirit, I recall changing the character of our prayer from supplication to praising Him for having already healed her and declaring some Scriptures that state that. After praising the Lord, I began speaking His word of healing forth like so:

“Lord God Almighty, Your word is truth (John 17:17b), and in 1 Peter 2:24 You assure us that by His wounds [she] has been healed 2,000 years ago. Thank You Jesus! We receive this glorious truth on [my daughter’s] behalf. Romans 8:11 says that if the Spirit of him who raised Christ from the dead lives in [her], which, thank-You Lord, You do, then he who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to [her] mortal body, through his Spirit, who lives in her.“

I do not remember the rest – there was a bit more – but you get the point: I  knew the truth, spoke it forth / declared it to be so in one accord with other believers, and praised and thanked Him for having already accomplished it. Note that  “naming and claiming” is trying to believe by speaking – ENTIRELY different. This was truly believing His word on the matter, declaring it, and rejoicing as we figuratively held the title deed for the healing up in our outstretched hands.

Now, here comes the humorous “I-can’t-believe-I-did-that” part. After our prayer/declaration, they went back to the gym, and I returned to the car with my daughter, her physical status unchanged. I rested in the Lord. Probably ten minutes later, another parent came out to the parking lot. This time I remained in the car and rolled the window down to hear, trying not to disturb my daughter by opening and closing the car door. “Coach is calling for the team to warm up now,” they whispered. “Will she be able to play?”

Without pausing to sense the Lord’s leading, I responded as someone OF this world would: “Oh no, it’s a migraine, and she’ll be out for a few hours. She won’t be able to play, let alone handle the bright lights and all the noise.” (Can you believe I said that?! I have to laugh at myself!)

The Lord then blew me away: He caused my until-then deathly silent and unmoving daughter to sit upright in the back seat and say very determinedly, “Oh no, Mom! I came all the way here to play in this volleyball tournament, and if it’s time to play, I’m going in to play!” I was utterly amazed in that very moment, not unlike the disciples who prayed for Peter to be released from prison and then did not believe it was him as he knocked on their door (Acts 12).

Praise God, my daughter improved rapidly over the next 20 minutes, first walking slowly from the car squinting her eyes in the late morning sunlight, then entering the bright and exceedingly noisy gym packed with many high school teams awaiting their time to play in the tournament (with the loudest buzzer I’ve ever heard!), to assuring her coach that she was up to competing, to warming up with the team, to PLAYING a very aggressive game of volleyball, and then, yes – WINNING the game!

I cried tears of joy, praising the Lord as this transpired, thanking the other parents on the bleachers for having prayed for her while we were outside, and avidly testifying to everyone around me that they had just witnessed a miraculous healing of a migraine headache: Jesus Christ is Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who heals you (Exodus 15:26).

Before ending this testimony today, I must emphasize that although some sicknesses or demons may be healed or driven out quickly, others will not. Recall that when His disciples could not drive an epilepsy-causing demon out of a boy, the Lord explained “if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you. But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.” (Matthew 17:20-21). It is important that you know that the requisite “prayer and fasting” in this case (and the case I will report in Part VI) was the years this physician spent at Jesus’ feet being a Berean, researching His word on the cause and eradication of disease under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, desiring and allowing myself to be transformed by the renewing of my medically-trained mind with the word; it was the years of gaining experiential knowledge of His faithfulness through trial after trial as I habitually choose to deny my “soulish” desires and submit to His unconventional ways, despite the lack of understanding of most everyone around me. THAT is what eventually enabled me to drive the invisible subtle demons of unbelief and intimidation out of myself (please see This Kind Does Not Go Out Except by Prayer and Fasting).

There is a tremendous cost of being a disciple: many trials of unimaginable kinds, and our very lives – figuratively for most of us, but literally for the martyrs. Praise God, partaking of the divine nature and dying to our already crucified fallen nature so that others may know such indescribable eternal LIFE in Christ Jesus far outweighs all our afflictions combined.

In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple – Luke 14:33

However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and finish the task the Lord Jesus has given me – the task of testifying of the good news of God’s grace. – Acts 20:24

Link to Part VI