I was driving down the road on Highway 7, outside Tacoma, when my phone rang. A lady from Spokane asked if I would go and pray for her brother, who lives in a trailer park. He was seriously ill. I said I would. About two weeks later, I was driving down the same road, and the Lord spoke to me, saying, "You said to that lady that you would visit her brother, and you have not done it. It would be a good idea if you did that." And so I did, and I thought I would make a quick stop. I would go in, pray, then leave.
When I got in there, the man was in bed with a morphine bag. He was very definitely sick. He said to me, "I do not need your prayers, thank you very much."
And I said to him, "Your sister asked me to come and pray for you. I am not leaving until I do."
"All right," he said, "if you must."
So we went out into the kitchen. He could barely walk. And we sat--I sat on an orange crate while he sat in the kitchen nook. And I took out my Bible to orientate me to the healing Scriptures. And I just had this instant understanding that somehow God was going to intervene and even heal this person. Far-fetched as it seems.
As I was praying, I had an instant understanding that the Lord was going to heal this person, and it changed my whole outlook on how to be there for someone who is suffering or in a crisis and how to talk to people in crises and allow us to intervene with those caught in a crisis or suffering from some traumatic event.
There are people who need your intervention. One does not press religious preferences even though one may blame God for one's situation. The people who have no one do not ask. And it changed my life.
Then suddenly, within a couple of weeks, something extraordinary happened. I asked the man, whose name was Gary, if he could bring some proof, like an X-ray from the doctor, if the tumor that he had was gone. And so he did. He brought it to church, and I held it up for all the people to see. There was no tumor, and of course, everybody rejoiced.
God really does want to reach out to people who are hurting and in crisis. They are having severe problems. Yes, and always his ways are past finding out, as it is still a mystery to me why some can be and are healed and others are not. And that is what I have decided to do for the rest of my life. Yes, God intervenes sometimes, and he does it through people. He blesses us by giving us the opportunity to serve others and then help us, no matter what situation we are in. This and other situations proved to me that it is not how much you know but how much you care. Oh, it is still going on. Far more people need intervention than those who can or will respond.