The Gift of Healing ~ A Gift for All? ~ Guest Blogging Day

When Jesus had called the Twelve together,

he gave them the power and authority to drive out all demons

and to cure diseases, 

and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God 

and to heal the sick... Luke 9:1-2 NIV

There it is. Jesus sending out his disciples to proclaim the Kingdom and to heal the sick.

This was not long after he had first chosen his disciples either. They were still pretty rough around the edges.

But, do WE still have the power to heal? Is that just an old "gift" from the days when Jesus was walking the earth and after his death and resurrection to try to garner more followers?I believe we DO still have the power to heal, and I believe we DO all get called to that privilege as disciples of Christ.

Call me a Jesus Freak...but, I do.Back in 2004, my daughter wasn't even 6 months old and she was lying on a table waiting for her second eye surgery. She has glaucoma, and it was roaring like a lion from the time she was just a newborn.

I had my journal with me that day and had started to "prayer journal" the minute the team took her back to put her under. Here is what I wrote:

Continue Reading on Comfort in the Midst of Chaos...

Wanting to be Well ~ Guest Blogging Day

Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”  At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

John 5:3-8 NIV

Do you want to get well?

It sounds like such a harsh question with an obvious answer; but really, it isn't.  We know a lot of people who actually seem more comfortable wallowing in what they DON'T have rather than looking forward and working toward happiness.

Do you want to get well?

We moved to Nevada over a year ago and immediately I fell in love with Lake Tahoe.

But, during the course of this summer, I have decided that Lake Tahoe is not just my FAVORITE PLACE, it is my HAPPY PLACE.  Lake Tahoe is the place where I GET WELL.

Continue reading on Comfort in the Midst of Chaos...

Words from a Lunatic who Believes

Yesterday in church, the sermon was about Jesus healing an official’s son.  This passage has never quite affected me the way it did yesterday.  I felt suddenly impassioned and inspired, like a lunatic, to show the faith of the official~to show the faith that he had when he took Jesus at his word… 

When the man heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and begged him to come and heal his son, who was close to death.

“Unless you people see signs and wonders, Jesus told him, “you will never believe.”

The royal official said, “Sir, come down before my child dies.”

“Go” Jesus replied, “your son will live.” The man took Jesus at his word and departed.

John 4:47-50 NIV

Having recently read through our Caringbridge journal from when Evie had cancer, I realized that, I kind of DID show faith like that back at the time of her diagnosis as her doctors sorted through the information they were gathering and tried to determine the appropriate course of action for treating Evie.  Below is my entry from September 23^rd of 2005…I have left it as the original as I don’t want to add words to it even if just to correct any grammatical errors.

I know that the prayers being lifted up on Evie’s behalf changed the landscape of her treatment and battle with cancer.   

When all the outrageous circumstances surrounding it are considered, I can almost hear Jesus saying to us in the hospital:

"Go, your daughter will live…"

Chapter 2-- In Which Evie goes to the Hospital and has Nothing much Done...(A Pooh Tale)

Well, after reading all of the entries and prayers and scriptures, I have no doubt that there was some divine intersession that took place today. Literally as the baby crib was being wheeled out, and as we followed the nurses who were taking us to pre-op out of the room our surgery was delayed. I have chills right now again thinking of the prayers that were being lifted up and how this struggle was taking place at that very moment.

The oncologist and the urologist have not come to confident conclusion on how to best treat our little Evie Jo. One would like to biopsy her tumor first and then after deterimining it's stage due chemo to shrink it and then do a partial removal of the kidney. The other wants to do the full removal and follow up with chemo. 

I cried--I was already to the "the-room-is-spinning, I'm-going-to-throw-up, our-baby-is-going-to-be-cut-open" point. So I prayed quickly, "Lord what do I do?" and He said, "call Kelly." (For those who are unfamiliar, Kelly is one of our "go to" gals for WAGR syndrome. Thank you, Kelly, for being an obedient servant to the Lord's calling for you.)

Kelly gave me good, no, great questions to ask the doctors. She also gave me good advice medically, spiritually and personally. So, I went back into the room well armed with confidence and we talked to both doctors again. 

Ultimately, what Jeff and I decided was that as difficult as it was to the put the brakes on when we were rolling down a yucky, but decided course of action, we couldn't deny the "God-incidence" that on the same week as our baby was diagnosed with Wilm's Tumor, that there was a fantastic meeting of the minds in Vancouver where several of the doctors who have operated on our WAGR kids to remove the Wilm's are. Dr. Puccetti, our oncologist, wanted to confer with several of them before deciding our course.

So, praise God, we are home. We still know that our little Evie has this cancer in her, so we are asking for the covering of prayer to protect her and get her ready for her surgery next week. Evie was so funny because she was so hungry and we were talking and talking to the doctors and she was yelling at us so I finally said, "can we please give her some cheerios and get that IV our of her foot???" She was very content to sit and eat her cheerios, and wave at us as we discussed the fate of her Wilm's Tumor and how we will ultimately destroy it. :)

As we drove home, my mom sat in the back seat calling people, Evie was waving, and I was listening to the radio. The song "Held" came on and Natalie Grant sang, "Can you not wait for one hour for your precious Savior?" I thought, yes, we can wait. Lord if you are using this time to do an incredible thing, than we will wait. Those prayers that interceded on our part literally changed the course of Evie's life and our lives this aftermoon. 

 

I have called our church and asked to have a prayer meeting on Sunday afternoon for Evie and they are arranging it, I figure, God gave us time, so lets get some good praying done.

Meanwhile, we're back at home. Evie is a happy little girl and we will be happy to be sleeping in our beds tonight. 

I plan to call the doctors on Monday to check in and see where we're at. Keep praying--obviously God has something fantastic He's working on and just needed a little more time :)

Love you all, Tammie, Jeff and Evie

I recall people saying, "Oh, it will be a long weekend for you at home..."  But it wasn't. 

God was working, God was moving...I had an unexplainable peace, a belief that things would be fine.   

And, look, they are...

I have that same peace with our upcoming move to Reno.  It's mind-boggling, and unbelievable to me that we are uprooting everything here, leaving all the familiar faces, and places~but Jesus is saying, "Go...you are to Go West...I have a great adventure for you there..."

So Jeff and Tammie took Jesus at his word, and departed...