Testimonies from 2013: Remembering God's Goodness
Winter 2013/14

NO MORE CANCER: FROM JODI

I have had recurring issues with cancer in my reproductive system since I was 17 years old. This past year eight biopsies were done at my checkup and all eight came back with cancer cells. My doctor wanted to do a hysterectomy immediately, which I refused, one reason being my husband received a word from God that we were going to have a baby girl. People thought we were nuts, but we scheduled the outpatient laparoscopic surgery and the same day made a trip to Christian Healing Ministries.

During this time a lot of blessings and answered prayers took place, but few stick out in my mind as much as the prayers for money. We had none. In addition to the surgery costs, I had to ask my church for the financial support to get me to Jacksonville for prayer (which was four and a half hours away). When I left for Jacksonville the projected cost of the surgery was $30,000. Phone calls offering help and discounts poured in during my drive, and by the time I arrived the cost of my surgery was reduced to $2,000. I received prayer and confirmation the entire time while at CHM; by the time I drove home I knew I was healed and had peace.

A few weeks later I went in for surgery. The post–surgical report said that although the biopsies had indicated cancer, there turned out to be only cysts and endometriosis. And get this — there was not even scar tissue from the previous years of surgeries! My doctors couldn't believe it; they ordered follow–up biopsies a month later, which all came back clean!

The day of the surgery my husband wrote a testimony that was emailed to all our friends and family and he ended it by saying this, "Thank you for all your prayers; God is still the God of healing miracles." I couldn't have said it better myself.

CONCEPTION TO BIRTH PRAYER: FROM DOUG & SHERYL

We attended the School of Healing Prayer^® Level 2 class in July, 2012. One of the teachings was about Conception to Birth Prayer. We were able to experience this powerful form of healing prayer for ourselves in the practicum during the week.

A few months later, we were invited by a Christian counselor in our area to pray for one of her clients. During the get–acquainted part of the session the client indicated that he felt he was unwanted as a child; that naturally led to Conception to Birth Prayer. He was very responsive to the questions and cooperated amazingly when asked to share what he was seeing, feeling and experiencing. We were able to lead him through the various stages of his development, through which he received healing and deliverance from a number of abuses, curses and traumas.

The counselor was amazed and told us that this was the breakthrough they were looking for to help him experience freedom from his childhood traumas. God was so good and revealed himself to the client in such tender and intimate ways. He has shared with the counselor and with us that he is feeling a great sense of freedom, love, acceptance and belonging. He has a renewed sense of purpose in his life.

We are so appreciative to CHM for the training you provided us. We love this ministry and we love CHM. Thanks so much. May God continue to bless your ministry.

CLERGY RETREAT TESTIMONY: FROM CRAIG

In John's gospel, he records a time when the crowds were leaving Jesus, because of his hard sayings. As he watches so many of those he loved turn from him, Jesus looks into the eyes of his friends and asks, "Do you want to go away as well?" Speaking for the twelve, Peter responds to Jesus with these words that ring for eternity, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God." It is this response by Peter that I think best describes my three days at Christian Healing Ministries in Jacksonville, Florida.

During the three–day Intensive Prayer Ministry retreat, it was as if I was in the very center of God's presence hearing the words of eternal life whispered to me from Jesus himself. He spoke to me in my spirit, through prayer ministers, in Scripture, and through the teachings of Francis and Judith MacNutt. His words of eternal life entered into me like air filling me with much needed oxygen. His sanctifying truth entered me like blood in my veins. His perfect love entered me like the fulfillment of an impossible dream. His arms embraced me during these three days like the bathing sunlight. I was cleansed by his washing water of life that not only washes but heals too. I feel like the apostle John trying to describe his vision of the multitudes of heaven worshiping the one who sits upon the throne and the Lamb. Words are insufficient to capture the majesty of God's presence and redeeming works. I believe in him more and know more certainly that he is the Holy One of God who has saved me.

Jesus Christ crucified, resurrected, ascended and returning is the center of Christian Healing Ministries. He is the one who receives all of the glory. This is another thing I love about Christian Healing Ministries — the humility that begins with Francis and Judith and characterizes the ministry.

FORGIVENESS: FROM LINDA

During prayer time at a CHM retreat, I was given a vision of a person from my past who had passed away, who I thought I had forgiven. The Lord showed me that this person was hiding behind a curtain and He revealed who the person was. I still had a root of bitterness and unforgiveness in me and could feel a knot in my stomach. The moment this was revealed to me, the knot released and I was healed. Today I'm still rejoicing in the Lord healing me. Praise the Lord!

SPIRITUAL HEALING & ASTHMA: FROM NEIL

I came to CHM expecting a physical healing for asthma. But what it was all really about was a place in me that needed spiritual healing from which the asthma resulted. I believe God is healing me from the inside out each day since the conference. It was truly a blessing to have been at CHM.

LIVER CYSTS: FROM LINDA

Before I attended the Ignite 2013 conference in Albany, NY, I was on a transplant list for a kidney but had also been having pain in front of my abdomen. The physicians had found cysts in my liver, which meant I would need a kidney and liver transplant. Soon after the conference I went in for a liver test, but the test came back with no cysts. They couldn't find the cysts, they're gone! Thank you, Jesus!

by Gordon Dalbey
Winter 2013/14

Late in the fall of 1943, as Nazi submarines terrorized Allied shipping, a young Navy officer and his wife faced a terrible dilemma when he deployed to an aircraft carrier in the North Atlantic.

Living in makeshift wartime housing with an 8–month–old baby girl, they had only the bathtub for washing diapers and no clothes dryer or heat but a volatile kerosene heater in the New Jersey cold. At least there had been time to enjoy each other on a recent Thanksgiving furlough. But now, that joy was overcome by fear when they discovered another child was on the way.

The young woman's parents — already anxious for their daughter and only child — were furious at her husband for this, refused to speak to him, and threatened to disown her. Torn and confused, at her next visit with the Navy doctor the 21–year–old wife poured out her anguish and tears.

DOCTOR'S SOLUTION

The doctor, however, had a solution to her problem. Handing her a small, dark red bottle and scheduling her for an appointment the following week, he explained that he could "fix everything" quickly and easily after she took the pills.

Days later, before the appointment, the young woman shook the pills out of the bottle into her hand and closed her fist. Shaking from both cold and anxiety, she poured a glass of water with her other hand. Uneasily, she hesitated and looked out a frost–covered kitchen window. "What if this is the son my husband wants?" she thought, and waited. She paused, opened her hand and lifted the glass of water.

"Did Mother ever tell you about the time she was going to abort you?" my 17–month–older sister asked casually as we chatted one day 35 years later.

Stunned, I stared at her and shook my head in silent disbelief. My mother did mention it to me briefly later in a letter, but in that moment I stood transfixed as my sister told me the story — which concluded with startling simplicity:

"She told me that at the last minute, she thought, 'Maybe this is the son my husband wants' — and just threw the pills away into the trash can."

This jarring revelation stirred a host of unsettling, lifelong mysteries.

I remembered my recurrent nightmare of swimming frantically underwater and, strangely, breathing while submerged — apparently an amniotic, prenatal "memory." Once, I told a psychiatrist how I felt "trapped" and panicky in close relationships with women. Fears of death had dogged me, and a pervasive, empty sense of not belonging anywhere.

"You were a colicky baby and cried awfully, night after night," my mother had said.

"Gordon's always afraid he's going to miss something," Dad often teased me as a boy.

At the time, I was pastoring my first church out of Harvard Divinity School and, during my ministry about a year earlier, had experienced an upending supernatural encounter with Jesus. Soon after my sister told me about the plan to abort me, I began struggling with headaches and anxiety, and at last, decided to invite Jesus into my fearful memory.

FEARFUL MEMORY

Lying on the floor, I curled up in a fetal position and imagined the kitchen scene 35 years earlier as my sister had related it: myself tightly bound inside my mother's womb as she held the pills and glass of water, pausing over her decision.

As I "saw" my mother lift the pills, I began to shake in terror. "Jesus, help!" I cried out desperately. "Save me, Jesus!" As I lay trapped and trembling, in my mind's eye I saw Jesus come into the kitchen and stand by my mother. With a single gesture, he reached and swept the pills out of her hand and into the trash can.

Amazed, I watched as he then turned to me. "You don't owe your life to your mother," he declared. "It was I who stayed her hand. You belong to me."

A cool sensation of release swept over me. Sighing deeply, I lay quiet.

This watershed revelation freed me to face many unhealthy dynamics in my life — most notably, feeling overly responsible for my mother's happiness and guilty for wanting a life of my own. In the years since, I've gone back into that scene with Jesus several more times to cry out my feelings toward both my mother and father — until I could forgive them in their predicament, sense their genuine love for me, and become current with my heart.

I've identified and cast out from myself numerous demons — from abortion and death itself to worthlessness and anxiety — which entered through my shattered defenses from that prenatal trauma.

Still, the proverbial "survivor's question" yet stirs: Why me? Why was I saved when millions of other children who shared my plight have been killed? Why did Jesus not stay the hand of their mothers? Certainly not because of any righteousness on my part in an embryonic state — nor even, as Jesus revealed, on my mother's part, thankful as I am that she "just threw the pills away."

In my dismay and unknowing, I find direction in Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel's statement, "The role of the survivor is to testify."

To tell the story of God's deliverance saves you from both the presumption of deserving and the shame of undeserving. Better, it can jar others out of complacency or despair to entertain saving power far beyond their own.

In fact, honest testimony trumps both politically correct tolerance and religiously correct dogma. "Jesus saves" is for me not about religion, but reality — as unwieldy as it is exciting.

Today, almost 70 years later, I remain humbled by this awesome mystery, but determined to entertain it. I'm neither obligated to believe nor ashamed to be alive.

I'm privileged to testify. The more I do, the more thankful I am to Jesus, and the more determined I am to see others experience his saving power themselves.

Is that enough to compensate for the deliverance I didn't deserve? I don't know. I only know it's all I can do, and I do it gratefully.

This article is adapted from Gordon's newest book, Religion vs. Reality: Facing the Home Front in Spiritual Warfare.

Gordon Dalbey is a bestselling author and international minister in Santa Barbara, California.

by Lauren Corley
Winter 2013/14

The vision for the CHM Alumni Network is an international community made up of CHM trained warriors. This vision grew legs this past year when five alumni chapters were launched within the U.S: New England, Maryland, Central Florida, Jacksonville, FL, and Richmond, VA. Each chapter is designed with its own personality; however, all include in their agendas the alumni purpose to develop fellowship among CHM School of Healing Prayer graduates and a prayer support unlike any other. They are led by anointed chapter leaders and many have substantially grown within one year's time.

Ken Nelson, Maryland Alumni Co–Chapter Leader, best describes the need for alumni groups and why to join one. "To be honest, when I first heard about the alumni groups I wasn't all that interested. A few people from our healing prayer team went down to Jacksonville for an Intensive Prayer Ministry (IPM) and we talked with members of the CHM staff about how to stay connected with CHM — alumni groups was the answer.

"Our first alumni meeting was eye–opening. We each took a few minutes to talk about our stories. Hearing how God had touched each person and how He was and is working in their lives made me realize that this group is very important. We really are like a big family; we have so much in common, and we love the Lord and want to serve Him.

"The meetings give us an opportunity to praise God together, share information about the ministries in the area, to get to know each other better, and to pray for each other (my favorite part). It really is a great time to be together with one another and receive a fresh infilling of the Holy Spirit."

Fun, fellowship, and friends is a great alliteration that best describes what an onlooker would see at an alumni chapter meeting.

New England

The New England group gathers together at Jesse Lee Memorial United Methodist Church in Ridgefield, CT every other month for a healing service and luncheon.

"In reflecting over this past year of meetings, several things have been significant to our newly formed group.

"During this initial year, we have gotten to know many people who serve in the prayer ministry in their local churches within the northeast. We have prayed together, and some people have had prayer partners. Our meetings remain a time of fellowship, discussion and enrichment. Each testimony we hear gives us encouragement as to God's healing power," said Harriet Mahoney.

Central Florida

Central Florida alumni members meet monthly for prayer, fellowship, and worship. Additionally, they also meet monthly for an evening of soaking prayer. This June, Central Florida members participated in Ignite 2013 (from Albany, NY) through live streaming. Cindy Thurman, Central Florida Chapter Leader, shares her account, "We had 25 plus people join us to view the live stream from Ignite 2013 being held in Albany, New York. It was an incredible blessing. An alumni member and I had both attended the conference last year in Vermont. We both confirmed with each other that we didn't feel we had missed a thing by watching the live stream this year except the fellowship with over 500 people. The group that attended in Winter Park (Orlando area) made it very special, as we felt as though we were right there with those 500 in Albany. We were able to worship with Kelanie before each session, hear and watch Judith MacNutt and John Paul Jackson as though we were sitting right in front of them on the front row, and had times of healing prayer in the afternoons.

"Our times of healing prayer consisted of healing prayers for each other along with a time of prayer led by Judith and Nigel Mumford. We had tears and healing as the prayer was led over the internet."

Jacksonville

Jacksonville Alumni members have started gathering monthly at CHM for a luncheon and time of fellowship. "Tuesday is our day for Open Prayer at CHM, so it seemed a good time to enjoy a meal together and share news and fellowship before the prayer teams went in for the afternoon sessions. We were thrilled that our Co–Founder, Francis MacNutt, was able to join us as well. It was a joy to hear all the chatter among the prayer ministers as we embraced this light–hearted, precious time together. The highlight for me was standing in the presence of Our Lord in a circle, praising Him together, and anointing each other to prepare as prayer teams to pray for those He had sent to open prayer that afternoon," said Gemma Wojciechowski, Jacksonville Alumni Chapter Leader.

Maryland Area

Maryland Alumni Members began the year teaching Schools of Healing Prayer^® within a few churches. They have now expanded to seven different churches. "We held a Generational Healing Workshop, including worship, lessons, generational healing service with communion and several opportunities for healing prayer and anointing with prayer teams. Also, we started five different classes of healing prayer (Levels 1–4) at Calvary UMC Mount Airy in Maryland. My chapter co–leader, Carol Pennington, began Level II in Westminister, MD, the next town over, at another church. Due to our members' involvement with Schools of Healing Prayer^®, our monthly healing service, and the Generational Healing Workshop, we did not have a meeting this summer but did this fall," said Lucinda Nelson, Maryland Chapter Co–Leader.

Richmond

Richmond, VA Alumni Members met for their first alumni meeting in October. The group agreed that in addition to the sharing of information (teaching, training, etc) they would provide a safe place for prayer ministers and leaders to receive prayer, and to establish a confidential ongoing support system to intercede for each others' personal needs. All present expressed a desire to be members of a local network. The group consists of alumni members from the Richmond area, as well as outlying cities.

If you have completed School of Healing Prayer^® Level I and are interested in becoming an alumni member, please visit our CHM Alumni page and register to become a member. It is our hope to launch six more alumni chapters in 2014 and to connect you with other prayer ministers in your area.

Thank you for bringing forth the Kingdom of God by being used as a vessel for His glory. It is the greatest thrill ride one can experience on this side of heaven!

Lauren Corley is Executive Assistant to Francis MacNutt, Public Relations & Alumni Coordinator, and Intercessory Prayer Coordinator for CHM.

by Francis MacNutt
Winter 2013/14

One of our great discoveries has been learning about how much more healing happens when we take more time to pray. Many Christians have picked up on this discovery and now it's often called "soaking prayer."

In soaking prayer we spend more time than usual in praying, which is like putting something in warm water, so that the prayer has time to go beneath the surface and reach more of the area that needs healing. Soaking is a gentle word that symbolizes how prayer gradually transforms and heals the sickness and brings us health. It's like relaxing in a pool of warm water.

To me, soaking prayer takes away some of the impatient desire to see instant results, and it symbolizes the gradual, deepening and relaxing effect of healing prayer. Most good prayer is like that. We are freed from anxiety and we can rely on deepening movements of God's healing grace, gradually transforming us into the wholesome life of Jesus.

To give you a further idea of the different ways that soaking prayer works I would like to share the two cases of Lisa and Teresa.

At the age of two and a half, Lisa showed symptoms of a brain tumor, but after two and a half years of testing, the doctors diagnosed it as a demyelinization of the nervous system. Over a period of six years, the disease progressed until she lost her speech, her sight and her muscle coordination. She was completely bedridden and had to be tube–fed. Her spine was severely curved, causing the left rib cage to protrude and the right leg to be approximately two inches shorter than the left leg.

A few friends and I prayed for Lisa at the conclusion of a retreat in Dallas, Texas, followed by a week of intermittent soaking prayer by her church community. By the end of one week, Lisa's spine had straightened completely, her right leg lengthened, and left rib cage protruded less.

As you can see, Lisa's story is a beautiful example of the power of prayer to gradually roll back what had been the steady progress of disease. A minimum effect of prayer would be simply to halt the progress of the disease. A maximum effect would be for the sickness to be instantly healed. And somewhere in between is what we usually see happen, as in the case of Lisa.

Also, it is beautiful to see the entire Christian community at work in this prayer — and that her mother herself took a large part in it. They didn't have to wait for a well–known minister of healing to come to town again; instead, the dozens of people who prayed had a lively realization that Jesus is at work in his people as a body.

Another thing worth noting is that in this case, although there were many areas of Lisa's body affected, the healing that was taking place centered in the spine. There is no record of her sight coming back or the paralysis of her arms and legs being healed.

Healing often begins in a particular area of the body. It usually takes place in the area least affected by the disease; it makes sense to expect that life first begins to return to those areas least deeply affected. Usually when I pray with someone, I ask after a time if he or she feels anything happening. If they do feel something going on, then I try to continue in prayer whatever it is that God is already doing. Jesus' principle of discernment was: "I do what I see the Father doing." So I try to find out, when possible, what it is that God is doing, rather than to approach a sick person with my own predetermined or preconceived notion of how God should work. Pray for a while and see if anything happens. If it does, continue praying along that line. When nothing happens, you must learn to accept that, too, without necessarily feeling that you have failed, and without putting the sick person under a similar cloud of guilt.

The most remarkable example of healing through soaking prayer I have ever seen took place after a retreat my team gave in Colombia, South America. Towards the end of the retreat, members of our team ended up praying for a young woman with a withered leg. The team called me over to show me her deformed leg and excitedly told me that something had already happened — the leg had grown an inch or more. So I joined them in their prayer. Talking to the young woman, Teresa, I found that she had stepped on a sharp object in a swamp when she was only five years old. Due to the lack of proper medical attention, an infection developed which went to her bone and developed into osteomyeltis. As a result, her right leg had been warped, as it were, from the knee down. It was about six inches shorter than the normal leg and was twisted as well. She also displayed a deep scar where an unsuccessful bone graft had been attempted.

As we prayed gently for two hours, the leg seemed to grow about an inch. About eight of us were praying, taking turns holding her leg (since kneeling down for several hours can be painful). The bishop himself prayed as part of the group.

Then we took a break for supper and came back to pray for another two hours that night. Again, it seemed that her leg grew another inch. Also, the twisted leg was gradually straightening. You couldn't see it happen, because it was so gradual, but by comparing the length every ten minutes or so, we could see a comparative change taking place.

The next day we gathered and prayed for two more hours in the morning and two more in the afternoon. This day the leg seemed to grow another inch (it had grown about three inches the day before), so by that evening there was only about a two–inch difference between her two legs. Most remarkably, though, the right foot, which was flat and had no arch to speak of, grew and changed shape until the arch appeared the same as in the normal foot. The toes of the deformed foot, which were about half the size of those on the other foot, also grew, until they were almost the size of those on the normal foot. In a period of hours the toes on her right foot had nearly doubled in size!

Several other unusual developments occurred which helped us to understand better some of the factors we had already learned about healing. They had to do with the relation between bodily healing and spiritual healing. Twice we came to realize there was a need for a healing at the spiritual level. Both realizations, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, came because the healing and growth seemed to stop. After the first cessation we discovered that Teresa needed to forgive her mother for what had happened after the osteo developed. Because her family was poor, Teresa's mother had to give Teresa up and board her with other people who could afford to get her the proper medical treatment. It was the only thing that could be done in the circumstances, but to Teresa (as a child) it seemed like rejection. Amazingly, when we asked Teresa to forgive her mother and to pray for an inner healing of her feeling of rejection, Teresa's leg again started straightening and growing.

We then continued with soaking prayer and her leg continued to grow until there was only half an inch difference. At one session her foot made a turn until the scar that formed a spiral down her leg became a straight line from the knee to the foot. Now, for the first time in fourteen years, Teresa is walking again.

It's impossible to calculate exactly how many hours of soaking prayer went into this extraordinary healing, or how many people prayed. And there is still need for continued soaking prayer, for the leg still needs more healing. But most of the healing, which required that her leg and foot grow and straighten and be mended (when the doctors had given up hope of any further improvement) has taken place.

When you start praying, you never know — unless God reveals it — how much might happen, or not happen. And it's hard work — at times exhausting. No wonder Jesus referred to his healings as "works" rather than "miracles.""The works I do in my Father's name are my witness" (Jn 10:25).

Seeing the effects of soaking prayer has given me a whole new outlook on healing. It used to be that when I passed a disabled person, I would wonder if prayer would heal him or her. At the same time I would feel that the chances of a cure — although possible — were slim. Now when I see a disabled person, I just wonder if he could not be cured, or at least dramatically improved, if there were only someone who could take the time to sit beside him and pray.

This article is an excerpt from Francis MacNutt's book, The Prayer that Heals.

Francis MacNutt is a Founding Director and Executive Committee member of CHM.