How God spent Friday night

Friday night was the horrors. I am very against giving dogs bones to eat. When I was a student I worked at a vet on weekends (surprised?) and a woman had given her Poodle a bone as a treat and it sliced his oesophagus all the way down! This is why I am so against dogs eating bones and I’m always warning people to not give their dogs any!
Lo and behold. What did I do after having a braai (BBQ) on Friday? I gave each of my three dogs a rib bone. As I sit here I still cannot understand why I did that! How stupid do you get? I think because the bone was very flat and smooth I thought they would safely enjoy the treat. I was wrong!

I stood outside to keep an eye on them when all of a sudden my little dog, Maxine, (who we rescued from abusers) yelped in pain and twisted her neck in a way that indicated this bone was stuck! To say I was horrendously horrified is an understatement. It was stuck alright – so badly that she could not look to her left and would walk skew! I shoved my finger down her throat in the hopes of feeling it but to no avail. Worse, it was late and all the vets were closed!
I would love to be able to tell you that I never wavered and was confident that God would help. No, I completely freaked – so much so that I became dizzy for a sec! You’re going to laugh but I placed my hand on her throat and took authority over the bone in Jesus name and commanded it to not cause any damage to Maxi, to smooth itself out and leave her body without harm.

I made her bed next to mine for the night, fell flat on my face and prayed really earnestly for an hour. The gist went something along the lines of,
“Father, forgive me for what I have done to Your dog, who You have entrusted into my care. Forgive me for being a hypocrite in warning others but I did it myself. In Your mercy please reverse my stupid mistake. Look what I’ve done to her! I know I don’t deserve mercy right now but I know I can ask You because You are a good God. Lord, You know I will never be able to live with myself should something happen to her! Your word says that You raise up those who are bowed down (Psalm 145:14). You don’t even have to raise me up, please raise up Maxi in my place, she has been through so much (as you can see I was pretty desperate). Father I pray that You fix this for me and heal her. However, I do know this is a difficult and trying situation, and maybe it’s something You want me to mature from. To be honest with You this is not a test I want, but, Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. To You Lord, Who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all I ask or think, be the glory (Eph 3:20). Blessed be Your name. Amen.”

I only slept for about 2 hours Friday night, as every time Maxi moved, she would cry in pain and I would wake up, and pray some more.  I was not in any way confident, I felt sick.
I rushed her to the vet as soon as it opened Saturday morning. I had to drop her off and they promised to call me with results. An hour later I got a call telling me to come fetch Maxi because there is nothing wrong with her according to the xray. I charged over.

The vet said to me, “Are you sure she swallowed a bone?”

“Yes! I was standing right next to her from the moment I gave it to her and saw it happen! It was about 12cm long.”

“Well, look here”, she said pointing to the xray. “There is no bone throughout her body. You can clearly identify bones in an xray by how white they are, just like her spine as you can see. There is not even a bone in her digestive system. I don’t understand. She can even turn her neck properly now.” And she could!

I was astounded! I rejoiced! My husband happily said, “Hah! God removed the bone!”
Maxi was perfect, as if nothing had even happened. What a miracle! I just witnessed a miracle! Talk about lovingkindness and tender mercies (Ps 103:4)! Praise You Jesus!

“So, God, how did You spend Your Friday night?”

“Oh, you know, the usual – performed a miracle here and there.”

 

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The Healing Wings

It always astounds me how God shows His beauty and sweetness in difficult times. This particular story showed me how He was not concerned as I was about this problem, but that He is so in control on that throne, that entertaining my baby was more of a priority to Him instead.

When my baby was 8 months old she developed a bad middle ear infection, which resulted in loads of crying, fevers, unwillingness to eat and obviously a lot of pain.
The first course of antibiotics never cleared the infection up, which the Doctors were puzzled about as it was a strong course.
So off we started on the second lot and I really prayed for a healing from God as I did not want to resort to grommets!

Everyday throughout the day, during work and whatever I was doing, I would silently pray for healing for my little one. One verse from Malachi 4:2 I find particularly beautiful is “…the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings…” and I always included it in my prayers. It really conjures up a beautiful picture in my head!

So, the one day, while playing with Jordan, she kept looking past me, upwards and laughing and smiling. When I looked to what she was focusing on, there was nothing there, just a blank wall! I remember thinking, ‘freaky’, but she obviously found something amusing. And I forgot about it.

That night, I had a dream. An angel came to me and said, “Jordan was laughing and smiling because Jesus was showing her what the wings look like!”

Isn’t that most beautiful? Here I was constantly worrying about an ear infection yet God was not the least bit concerned because He had it all under control – His Son did it all! He instead found joy in playing with Jordan! Hallelujah!

How I pray that I can model Christ in this way – to completely leave my troubles and burdens at His feet, and just be free to enjoy Christ for all He is. What a way to get through life’s troubles! While we sit and worry, He relaxes on His throne – we can find joy in His presence instead!
God has it all under control. Lets’ enjoy Him always!

Amen Jesus – thank You for my sweet memories!

Condemning tongues

I have mentioned before how my daughter was born with TOFS. During my pregnancy and her surgery, it took a lot of strength to stay strong in the Lord and not get swept away by fear.

The best surgeon in the country had operated on her – he was over 6 feet tall and had massive hands, I was astounded how he managed to work on such tiny little humans. He operated between her third and fourth ribs too! I had prayed that Jesus do the operation Himself and that He used the Doctors to assist in the op. I take “not looking to man but Jesus” very seriously.
After the operation the surgeon came to me and said that it was quite a tight operation and he really had to pull tissue to ensure closure. His words were, “I’m not actually sure if this is going to take. We will only be able to tell in 2 weeks’ time. She will need to be transferred to Red Cross Childrens’ hospital in Cape Town if this does not take.”

Fear almost got the better of me but I know the serious consequences of accepting something that does not line up with God’s Word or counteracts my faith for what I had been praying for. I had prayed for three hours before the op and for three hours during the op, and that Jesus do the op Himself. There are no mistakes with Jesus. I truly believed that He did a perfect work, and always has. 

As soon as the surgeon left my hospital room, I came against all negative words spoken by him, and rejected them in the name of Jesus. Every tongue that rises against me in judgment I will condemn! (Isaiah 54:17). I pleaded the blood of Jesus over my daughter and her operation and proclaimed the truth of Jesus’ perfect work.

A year later we moved back to Johannesburg. TOFS kids are prone to having food getting stuck in their throat at the site of the operation, due to a narrowing, which then requires dilation whereby the child is anesthetized and a scope is put down the throat while the paediatric surgeon removes the piece of food lodging the throat. A chick pea got stuck in Jordan’s throat, which I should have mashed up. But this turned out for God’s glory to prove to me and my family how beautiful His handiwork is.

When Jordan came out of the dilation, the paediatric surgeon said to me that it all went well and asked, “who operated on her oesophagus? Out of all my years as a surgeon, the operation on her oesophagus is the most perfect and beautiful work I have ever seen done.” 

Yee-hah!

Awesome and wonderful handiwork. There was a shift from doubt to perfection.
I don’t like to accept the negative prognoses and diagnoses from doctors. Doctors are a wonderful blessing from God. They have a degree (and a thousand times more clever than me!) but we are in the world but not of it (John 15:19) and serve a God that reigns on a throne! Declare the wonderful works of the Lord instead! (Psalm 118:17)

 

 

Teeny’s Swollen lip – another healing testimony!

My poor kitty cat just couldn’t seem to cut a break! Just as I started praying for his snuffles and wounds, his lip swelled up, raw and protruding, out of nowhere! There was no injury to his lip and it just seemed to get bigger and bigger. Medication from the vet never helped. I could see that it was quite painful for him to eat.

So I decided to consistently pray for healing over his lip, just as I did with his neck. The healing over his lip took a little longer, but it was gone within 3 months!

Here are pictures of it when I started praying in April (6th, 7th and 12th respectively): 

June: (3rd to 11th) Look how the swelling has come down

 

July:

  

And today, I am God’s very own cool cat!

   

How God healed my kitty- what vets couldn’t do!

Healing is a strange thing, and I have to admit – I don’t get it. I really don’t. I find it all complicated. One person may spend hours upon hours and months upon months praying for healing and they never get it; yet another person can ask once and they are healed instantly. So it’s the one area I battle with.

But! I have two testimonies I would like to share with you, and they are of the more fluffy variety – my kitty cat, Teeny.

Teeny was born with snuffles, which is another name for Feline Upper Respiratory Tract Disease. It’s a disease that affects felines in their eyes, nose and mouth, and of course respiratory area. There is no cure. Many cats don’t make it. When I got Teeny, he would sneeze and his tiny little eyes would clog up so badly with mucous. He was constantly at the vet for medication and treatment.

As Teeny got older, the sneezing got worse and he resorted to scratching himself all over. If he came into contact with any sort of stress then it was really bad. At times he would sneeze blood.
In 2010 his scratching was terrible – he had scratched a huge hole into his neck that just got bigger, even when he wasn’t scratching. The vet gave him a shot as well as medication I needed to dab onto the affected area as much as I needed to. But nothing helped. Sometimes he would walk and blood would drip from the wound! Big patches of fur were missing from his neck, front and back. This carried on for a just over a year and no amount of medication was helping. 

      

Eventually I had had enough. Teeny had eventually shied away from me because I was always coming to him with cotton wool and red liquid! I am the child of the Most High God and here I was struggling with a disease that was placed under Jesus’ feet a long time ago!
One of my favourite Bible verses is Romans 4:17 “As it is written, I have made you a father of many nations, before him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead, and calls those things which are not as though they were”. Here, the Lord changed Abram’s name to Abraham one year before the birth of Isaac, thus confessing that Abraham was the father of a multitude before it happened in the physical.
I find this a beautiful powerful promise to the children of God. Our Bible starts with “calling things” into existence. God called forth light and the light came. He spoke creation into existence, and here we are.

The tongue is a powerfully scary little muscle. I never really took James 3:6 seriously enough until I went through this process. The verse says, “And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell.” If our tongue is that powerful by the words it spews out, what are we calling into existence then? Scary thought!
The whole of creation was made by and responds to words. Our words, when spoken in faith, release either life or death (Proverbs 18:21) and will affect people, things, circumstances, and yes, our pets!

God gave us dominion over creation and I take that very seriously! I’m currently waging war in prayer for our rhino! I wholeheartedly believe that we release power by the words we speak. So, I decided to stop his medication and first took authority over his illness and commanded it to go in Jesus’ name. Every day, every time I would walk past him, I would thank God for Teeny’s healing in Jesus’ name and for what He accomplished on the cross. I would walk up to Teeny and say “Hello Teeny, Jesus loves our little Teeny and has healed you! We thank You Jesus for Teeny’s healing and that this wound will soon be gone all because of You!” Something like that, every day. Proclaiming Jesus’ truth and declaring, and most of all, thanking! I will never expect to see healing without thanking. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, “In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” It is God’s will that we thank Him for everything He has done and is about to do! Always be thankful, I cannot stress that enough!

I also like to pray using scripture a lot. The Word is living and powerful (Hebrews 4:12) and can only fuel your prayers! So, I would also say over Teeny, “Thank You Father for Teeny’s healing! Thank You that You are able to do exceedingly abundantly above all I ask or think for Teeny’s healing, in Jesus’ name” (Eph 3:20)

Teeny’s wound was entirely gone within 4 weeks! After a year and a half of struggling with medication and treatment!

During the whole thing, I never once doubted. It was almost like “Duh! Why didn’t I think of that! Oh well, let’s get this done!” Remember James 1:6-8 “But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does”. Don’t doubt – God has given us this power, so use your God-given authority!

Focus on the good that you want to see, and do not look at what is right in front of you. It shakes your faith. I focused on seeing Teeny healed, not at the huge bleeding sore that looked straight back at me. It was just a temporary wound – temporary because Jesus says it is!
When my daughter was in NICU, the paediatric nurse that was assigned to her was saved and I thank God for her. She became my mentor and she is a wonderful woman of God. One day she came to me and said, “God asked me to give you this verse.” And she handed me a handwritten verse of 2 Corinthians 4:18: “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” 

Teeny no longer scratches or sneezes today, and is wound free! All glory be to God! Who was, and is, and is to come!

Healed! Just in time to attack the carpet!

Do you see in the first picture of Teeny, how swollen his lip was? Click here for that testimony!

 

 

 

Fasting and prayer brings healing to toddler

There was an 18 month old baby in Johannesburg, South Africa in April 2010 that was beaten up to the point of unconsciousness when their home was broken into. She was home alone with the nanny and 3 men beat both her and the nanny up.

From the onset this story struck me hard and to this day I believe the Holy Spirit had nudged me to get involved to pray and fast for this child.

I was truly devastated by this story. I cried for hours and I just could not wrap my mind around the horror of it. I prayed hard for her, and often. Many times the Lord would wake me up at midnight or 2am and tell me to pray for her and her parents. He would tell me to pray at work, in the traffic, while cooking, etc. I also encouraged my Bible study group to pray for her daily. I would know when my prayer session would be over because a feeling of peace would come over me.

One night God sent me a dream.  I was in a church and a lady dressed in white (I couldn’t see her face) asked me to sing. I started singing and these angels appeared all around the church, large, and dressed in pure white. They produced the most divine music I have ever heard, nothing like you hear on earth! I can’t describe it but it was so angelic.

My spirit could sense that the music was glorifying God for something He had done. When I woke up, I just KNEW it was for this baby! The next day I heard that she was taken off the ventilator and improving! Praise Jesus!

After that she was improving tremendously but my prayers never stopped.

However, a few weeks later, it was let known to the country on the news that this child was blind from the attack! Again – devastation! I burst out crying at my desk at work. But I had this supernatural faith the Holy Spirit had placed in me that she was going to be fine. He urged me to fast for her.

I had then called a fast with every saved Christian I knew and urged them to get their churches involved. By the time the fast started on the first day, I had calculated that between 400-500 people were joining me in this fast for her eyesight to return! The fast was for 3 days.

One morning during the fast I woke up and the Lord gave me a vision – I saw a man from the side sitting against a wall. I looked at his eyes and they were white, that white that covers a blind person’s eyes and I heard this voice that said “Watch – these are [baby] X’s (name can’t be mentioned) eyes.” And this man blinked and as his eyes opened again they were this awful, dark, evil black and their shape was that of a reptile’s! I immediately discerned that her blindness was due to the attack – which was an attack of hate. 1 John 3:15 says “Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer”. God equates hatred with murder and all attacks of hatred have demons involved – this was a demonic affliction! That is then what the fast focused on – ridding the demons from her eyes that were causing demonic blindness.

About a month after the fast we heard news from their doctor that this child was regaining her eyesight!!
Today, she has her eyesight restored completely!

Again, Jesus was victorious and I was so honoured that He chose me to see this through! the one thing that stood out for me during this trial was that you have to be obedient to the Holy Spirit’s nudging. Yes, even to pray at 3 in the morning! If you ignore it, it can result in dire consequences.

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!