First Aid

I would love to thank everyone who have prayed for me concerning my last post. I was so down regarding this situation, that even praying and reading the Word was difficult, and I could not find any release. But the day after posting about it, I woke up feeling much lighter and the dark cloud around my head had finally lifted! I could sense your prayers had washed it away.

It reminds me of a situation Dutch Sheets related about his friend, whose son had contracted a critical illness; and the Lord had informed him that it was being caused by a spirit of infirmity. He had spent hours praying for his son but to no avail. Only after asking intercessors to pray with him, the fever broke immediately and he could go home a few hours afterward.
When pondering about this breakthrough, the Lord reminded him of the story when the Israelites had to come to the Gibeonites rescue (Joshua 9 & 10) due to the covenant they had with them. The Lord then said to him,

“Sometimes the covenant of the Lord is released to you through others coming to your aid!”

Thank you so much for your thoughtful prayers, encouragement, reblogs and tweets! The Almighty administered the blessing of the covenant to me, through you.

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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Praying without ceasing! Is that even possible?

When I was much younger, I was quite confused by the command “pray without ceasing” in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. My young mind couldn’t comprehend how we were to even manage that. “But we have to eat and have to go to work…when do we rest?!” I thought.

But the older I have gotten, I have come to realise the beauty of praying without ceasing. I remember once reading Charles Spurgeon say, “It was never the design of the Lord Jesus that our throats, lungs, and tongues should be for ever at work.” The way I have come to understand and live it is that it is to be continually in an attitude of prayer. Just like the health fanatics claim, “it is not about dieting, but about living a healthy lifestyle by changing your attitude towards health.”
Is God like us mortals where He eventually becomes bored with our constant babbling? No – I take comfort and peace in the fact that He never becomes weary with His children’s prayers! Even battling to thread cotton through the eye of a needle He takes an interest in.

Praying without ceasing does mean to make prayer constant and often. But how do we do that? I have learnt to make communication with my Lord intimate and even sometimes casual. This gives me the opportunity to talk with Him throughout my entire day even when I’m busy.
How do I do this? I keep my mind on God during my day. Colossians 3:2 states “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” I see everything as an opportunity for prayer, and as soon as I see it, my prayer is immediate. I involve God in every aspect of my life, even the small silly things, which makes it easier to talk to Him with every bit that passes.

The place of prayer also does not matter. What makes it so great to serve the God we do is that our prayers do not always have to be formal, kneeling on the side of our beds in a posture of stiffness. For example, this morning while driving on the way to work, traffic was a little heavier than usual on this one main road. If you have just one car that is stuck we will be backed up for about a kilometer or two and sets me back by at least half an hour. I noticed that the traffic lights were out but that the traffic cops were directing the traffic. The cops aren’t always there to help, so I was so grateful to see they were there easing up the traffic that I immediately prayed, “Lord, thank You the cops are here to ease the pain of traffic – please bless them because they are doing their job so well.” I didn’t even have to think about praying – it came naturally.

The more I do this, the more open I become to the Holy Spirit’s leading in what I should pray for and when. Eventually, praying without ceasing becomes like breathing. It’s easy and natural and you will find it becomes entrenched into your very being.

As a further example, this was my Saturday morning when I took my kitty cat, Nebraska, to the vet for a check-up. She had an enucleation (eye removal) done in January and I wanted the vet to check on her progress. It was a particularly rough follow up treatment that took me many hours of prayer warring in my bedroom for her healing. I reflected on that morning at the vet and never realised that I was praying so often at the time, that’s how natural it becomes. But this is how it went in the space of half an hour.

Cats will be cats and Nebraska hates the car as much as any of her feline counterparts. I don’t like how uncomfortable the car and cat basket makes them. Her cries of anguish make me sad. We get into the car and she starts crying. I comforted her by saying, “No, don’t be scared my kitty, be at peace in Jesus name.” (John 14:27)
When we got to the vet there were quite a few people with their pets waiting to be seen. While waiting I always pray for the veterinarian and that God guides their hands and gives them wisdom in treating all animals.
 I’m one of those people you see in a vet’s room walking around playing with everyone’s animals. I just love animals. I adore Scottish Terriers and got chatting to a lady who had her own there for vaccinations. She was lovely and we were talking about the breed when she said, “I want to breed them.” As an animal rescue volunteer, I am totally against breeders but I never said anything to her. What would it profit? I prayed in my mind and said, “Lord, help her decide wisely on breeding. I pray You open her heart to this and let Your will be done in her decision.”

Another client had just run in with a lovely cat that looked very ill. When I asked him what was wrong he said that he was worried the cat had been poisoned and he was foaming at the mouth. I offered that he take my place in the queue and suggested he tell the receptionist it was an emergency. While he spoke to her, I prayed softly over the kitty, “I come against any form of poisoning on you in Jesus name and receive your healing in Jesus name.” Kitty turned out to be okay!

There was a young guy sitting close to me with his dog. He went in to see the vet for a while and came out in tears. Through the door I noticed the Vet’s Assistant walk out towards the back with a limp doggy in his arms. His dog had just been euthanized and he was heart-broken. I hate seeing that! I hate seeing a pet owner in pain over the death of his beloved pet. I prayed, “Lord I pray You send Your Spirit to comfort him in his pain. I pray that you bless him and keep him, God of all comfort.”

The vet confirmed that Nebraska was just fine and has recovered nicely! I said a silent prayer of thanks to the Lord for always giving me the funds to ensure my pets have medical care.
Besides being well, that fact never helped Nebraska in the car on the way home though! On went the meouws and exaggerated feline moans of torture from being in a car, and I exclaimed, “Don’t cry kitty cat! Rejoice! For Jesus has healed you!”

God made praying without ceasing simple and lovely!

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!