The Gift

I was shaking and had the chills. My vision faded in and out. The living room was on the second floor, and as I staggered up the stairs, I wasn’t sure that I would make it. I collapsed on the top stair, not moving, trying to will the dizziness and nausea away. I somehow managed to drag myself onto the couch, where I lay, every muscle in my body shaking. I was having convulsions. I tried to stop myself from shaking so hard, but when I tried to control my limbs and chest, my teeth began to chatter and my head throbbed. I tried to ride it out. Instead of getting better, it got worse—and I was home alone.

I lay there for an hour, convulsing so hard that my body nearly bounced off the couch. I couldn’t form a prayer. I couldn’t even think. My mind was completely occupied with trying to cope with the pain.

Then there came a voice. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”1 It wasn’t a prayer or a thought, and I know now that it wasn’t a hallucination. It didn’t come from within me. It was a voice, and the instant I heard it my whole body went quiet. I stopped shaking.

As I suddenly lay still, my mind was a blur and I half expected the shaking to start up again, but it didn’t. I was healed—instantly and completely healed! Soon I was able to get up, and I continued with my day as though I had never been sick.

There have been times since when I have been sick and relief didn’t come as quickly as it did that day, but I understand now that healing is a gift. That day when I was as sick as I’ve ever been, when I was so sick I couldn’t even form a word to pray, I received that gift. When I couldn’t even lift a hand to reach out to Jesus, He reached out His and took mine.

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Mark 14:4 NIV Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume?

Luke 2:22 NIV When the time of their purification according to the Law of Moses had been completed, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord

Luke 5:17 NIV One day as he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come from every village of Galilee and from Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting there. And the power of the Lord was present for him to heal the sick.