When reading the New Testament, the miracle healings touch my heart, but seem unrealistic in regards to modern medicine. I believe they happened. I believe they can happen. But I didn’t think they happened often. I certainly never thought I’d have a front row seat to a miracle healing.
In October 2013, my younger brother was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lymphoma. They found three large tumors on his spine, hip, and kidney with dozens of smaller tumors above and below his diaphragm. A prayer campaign began and we were delivered a miracle 6 weeks later when his PET scan revealed zero tumors. Not one.
How do you explain a Stage 4 “pink slip” of death turning around to nothing within 6 weeks?
The medical profession was baffled. They thought perhaps they were mis-reading the PET scans, so they ordered them to be accomplished a second time. They continued to have some doubts that this could occur. They explained remaining shadowing on the kidney area as “either a persistent tumor or scar tissue from the original tumor.” They could not believe what they had witnessed. They could not explain it.
I can explain it. It’s super simple.
God is good. God is faithful. God can do anything.
When I saw my brother in September of 2013, he was in visible pain and was having difficulty walking. His doctors had diagnosed him with a herniated disk in June, but the reality was that the cancer had attacked his spine and hip. My best friend since Junior High School, Linina, was with me on that visit. She’s a nurse. A really good one. She told my brother that it was more than a disk issue.
God was working on a miracle before we even knew the issue. He sent knowledge and advice, through Linina, so that we could start the battle against cancer.
My brother and sister-in-law got the diagnosis on a Monday. He called me to tell me on Thursday, as a dress rehearsal for the phone call to my parents. He started chemo that Friday. It was happening so fast that we couldn’t keep up with the information flow.
A prayer campaign was initiated. I recruited every prayer warrior I knew.
Unusual “coincidences” began happening. For instance, on the Tuesday evening after this fateful phone call, I was in a class at church when out of nowhere, the Associate Pastor suddenly stopped class. He said, “I feel like God is telling me to pray right now for someone in class…there’s someone here who has a close family member who was just diagnosed with cancer. We have to pray right now.” He had us raise our hands if we had an immediate family member battling cancer. Out of a class of 40, five of us raised our hands. He had the rest of the class surround us, lay hands on us, and he began to pray for miracles of healing.
At exactly the same time, Erin was at a meet and greet with Matthew West. As one of my favorite Christian artists, she asked him to sign a CD for me. Instead of just signing a CD, he literally stopped the meet and greet…delayed the long line of fans who wanted to meet him…to pray with Erin for my brother’s miracle of healing.
At the exact same moment my Pastor was praying in Washington DC, Matthew West was praying with Erin in Cheyenne, WY!
Within 6 weeks, doctors were scratching their heads in disbelief that there weren’t any visible tumors. Modern miracle healing occurred.
“’Unless you people see signs and wonder,’ Jesus told him, ‘you will never believe.’” ~John 4:48
It was a season of my life, where I acknowledge I was speaking to God more than any humans around me…a season that I grew closer to God than I had ever been previous to that event. A season where I witnessed miracle healing. I saw signs and wonder…and I believed like I never had before.
Have you had the blessing of witnessing miracles? Come to the porch to share with us how God has answered prayers in your life.
~Emily
In Portland, September 2013…weeks before our world crashed with one word: Cancer.
Iron Porch 