Healing (A Testimony)
In September of 2018, God gave me a promise just for me through His daughter, Carrie Evans.
When we met after I completed her class, I told her about my MS. I always told new instructors of mine so they wouldn’t be worried if I tripped during class. I always bounced back up again.
As soon as I told her, her eyes got wide and (knowing I would be going to Revelation Wellness Training the following year) she said, “God just told me you are going to be healed on the mountain.”
The following year was hard. The enemy threw a lot at us. We were hit big financially multiple times and I told Joey, “I can’t go right now. This isn’t the right time. Maybe in a couple years when we recover.” Each time he squared me up, looked me in the eyes, and said, “Remember what Carrie said. You are going to that mountain if I have to physically put you on the plane myself.”
September 2018 through September 2019 brought more than financial stress; the enemy attacked with feelings of doubt over my calling, stress of starting a new ministry and being a leader, busyness and work associated with publishing our book, and intense relationship issues (not me and Joey, we are and always have been rock solid). The enemy whispered in my ear that I wasn’t spiritually ready; I wasn’t experiencing it like everyone else and that meant I was less than. God healed that on the mountain, too, but I am getting ahead of myself.
I was made to doubt my ability to go through this training not only physically but mentally. I didn’t have all the support and confirmation I craved, but I had enough, and Joey kept saying, “Remember what Carrie said. You are going to that mountain if I have to put you on the plane myself.”
Well, in November of 2019 he didn’t have to physically place me on the plane. I got on myself…along with my crew of weirdos I lovingly call mine. We got on the plane, and I don’t think any of us knew what we were getting ourselves into.
That first night, the Holy Spirit moved. During prayer and worship, Alisa said that if she or any of her team felt the Lord telling her anything specific to pray for, she would let us know and if we needed prayer for that thing or to stand in the gap for someone else to raise our hands. Immediately, my heart started racing. “Already? No way, I just got here a couple hours ago!” As I sat there with my head in my hands, physically feeling the presence of God fill the room, every nerve ending and muscle in my body from my core out started firing. I wish I knew how to describe it better, but everything inside my body was electric and there was no ignoring it. So I did the thing we aren’t supposed to do and I know that, I made a bargain with God. I prayed, “God, if you really meant what you said to Carrie. If this is it, if this is when I get my healing you promised me a year ago, then prove it. Tell Alisa to call out MS. Not autoimmune disease, spasticity, muscle spasms, nerve damage, no. It has to be specific, because in a room full of 200 people, the odds are low that MS will be brought up out of coincidence.” And I sat. Nerves and muscles coursing electricity, head in my hands, I sat.
I heard Alisa call out foot issues. Then she called our lung problems. There may have been something else, I don’t remember. Then she said it. “One of my team members feels God calling us to pray for MS. Does someone need to stand in the gap for a family member with MS?” My hand shot up like the lightning that was coursing through me finally had an outlet. She asked if I had a family member with MS, and I don’t know if it was me or Ashley next to me, but one of us told her it wasn’t a family member. It was me. The genuine look of surprise on Alisa’s face would have made me chuckle if I wasn’t already in a daze. She invited me forward.
As I stood in the front with I don’t even know who or how many standing or kneeling around me, it felt like there was no one in that room except me, the tiny little woman I had looked up to for five years, and our Jesus. She placed her hand on me and began to pray. I was so caught up in what was happening inside me that I only caught bits and pieces of what she said. She prayed thanking God for my courage to come, and I felt some of the electricity slow down. She prayed against a fear of paralysis in my future, and I started to be able to focus. Then, she looked me dead in the eyes and said, “God wants you to say out loud, ‘I am a woman of great faith’” and I did. It was barely above a whisper, but I said it out loud.
I went back to my seat feeling the electricity linger, but it felt different now. Instead of hindering my body from doing what my mind told it to do, the electricity was waking up muscles that I haven’t felt well for many years. Connections were healing.
The next four days brought more healing, but not to my body. As I learned more and more and healed emotional and mental scars I didn’t even know I had, my body began reacting different as well. For four days, I worked out more than I ever have. That is saying something for me. Monday morning, I ran for the first time in four years. I had to concentrate because I am training muscles to wake up that I haven’t had communication with in some time, but I did not trip. For the next four days through up to four hours of work outs a day, I had no foot drop. I had no muscle numbness, no weakness, to spasticity, no MS hugs at night, nothing. My body felt different, and I found out when I got home, that by Thursday I was even walking different and didn’t even realize it.
So I came down off the mountain. Returning home, I have had none of those issues since. I also have felt a dramatic improvement in my brain fog, memory, and muscle control. Maybe TMI, but even MS symptoms dealing with my bladder have improved drastically. I feel new.
Apparently, I look new, too. From my husband who sees me every day, to friends I see a couple times a week, to new friends who I have only seen a few times, several people have approached me and said, “You look different. Something is different about you.” Are they seeing the effect of my body healing? Maybe. Are they seeing the effect of my emotional and spiritual healing I also received (that is a testimony of itself)? Likely. All I know is that other people see that a different woman came down from the mountain than went up.
So where does that leave me now? I do not want to make a rash decision based on emotion, so for the past few weeks I have been praying. I have been discussing with Joey. I have sought counsel from spiritual family I look up to. I have prayed more. The more we pray over this decision, the more we are filled with peace. I will be canceling my MS medication infusions. I will continue with my next appointment with my neurologist to explain all this to her (and as I don’t know if she is a woman of faith, I have no idea how that will go) and agree to imaging if she wants. As I prayed, I kept coming back to the idea, “If God wants me to know that I am a woman of great faith, I need to operate as a woman of great faith. A woman of great faith does not have a back up plan when God gives her confirmation.”
This is my story. God knew I needed to have MS as a part of my life for the past nine years. Through my MS, I have learned so many things about faith, humility, patience, and reliance on God. I have learned to accept help from others. Without MS, I wouldn’t have the “Get to, not have to” mentality that has fueled my ministry and my testimony up to this point. I have (I hope) inspired a few people to not let anything be an excuse. I have needed MS for 9 years, but I don’t need it any more. That chapter of my testimony has ended, and a new chapter has begun.
Hear me, God is God to everyone everywhere. Did God have to send me to that particular mountain in Arizona for my healing? Is there something special about that place? Did my healing have to come from the hands of Alisa Keeton? Is there no other way God could have moved? No. God is no respecter of persons, but He knows His kids. I needed that promise He gave me through Carrie to get me on that plane. He knew I needed much more than just healing in my body, I needed introduced to my family on the mountain. He knew I needed that promise to cling to in order to get me there. When God makes a promise, He shows up and He shows off. He chose that place, that person, and that time for when I would be spiritually ready for my physical healing. I am so glad.
I wasn’t ready before. I prayed many times over the past nine years, and I had many other people praying, too. I wasn’t ready for my healing then. I still had lessons to learn through my MS whether I liked it or not.
God healed many parts of me on that mountain that spiritually prepared me to walk out this physical healing. But again, that’s a whole other testimony in and of itself.
3 John 1:2
Dear friend, I hope all is well with you and that you are as healthy in body as you are strong in spirit.
Exodus 15:26
He said, " If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his sight, obeying his commands and keeping his decrees, then I will not make you suffer any of the diseases I sent on the Egyptians; for I am the Lord who heals you."
Psalm 147:3
HE heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds
Proverbs 17:22
A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person's strength
James 5:15,16
Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven.
James 5:16
6 Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.
John 5:6
When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”
3 John 1:2
Dear friend, I hope all is well with you and that you are as healthy in body as you are strong in spirit.