Today I’m celebrating 14 lessons since God healed me of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. My doctor confirmed my miraculous healing.
Sixteen years ago, the Holy Spirit let my husband and me know that healing was coming. Two years before He healed me. Our prayers changed. We began thanking God for the healing.
But the medicine stopped working. I steadily got worse. Special diets, new medications, and risky medical treatments became the routine.
“Did we misunderstand You, Lord? I thought You gave me a ministry at my job. I thought You were going to heal me.”
My doctor urged me to resign from my job. But I persevered until there was no hope. Finally, I decided to resign. I thought my ministry would be praying from my bed.
I found myself with no hope left.
Until Jesus!
Jesus healed
One Sunday evening we found ourselves worshiping at a healing service. We watched as friends were healed, but saw others weeping because they weren’t healed.
“I don’t care about the healing any more, God, I just want more of You!”
“Is there anyone in pain?” the pastor asked. “Come forward for prayer.”
Keith grabbed my arm and marched me down the aisle. A brief prayer. Smiles. No pain. Healing! Friends could tell I was healed without me saying anything.
Joy flooded me.
The next day, my doctor said, “This could be good, Karen. What do you want to do?”
“I want to go back to work full time and start weaning myself from the medicine.”
He agreed for me to stop some medications. We talked about weaning me off the others if in a month I returned feeling well. A month later, he took me off the other medications and declared the healing a miracle.
14 Lessons
- Heart matters
“You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.”
Jeremiah 29:13 (ESV)
Keith and I longed for healing. He was my caregiver. I had tried everything to heal myself. Some things worked for a while, and then I ended up worse.
I thought I had a mission from God, and I was determined to fulfill it–on my own. Until that night.
Now, my cry was, “I want more of You, God.”
I believe that God healed me of fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue because of that prayer and because of Keith’s faith as he marched me down the aisle.
- Thorns remain
“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
2 Corinthians 12:9 (ESV)
I wondered if God had healed me of celiac disease, too. So my doctor gave me permission to go off my diet.
Nope.
I still have celiac disease. If I remain on a gluten-free diet, I am fine. However, this is a challenge sometimes. Paul asked the Lord to remove his thorn in the flesh three times. God’s answer was that His grace was sufficient. In my weakness, God’s power is shown to be perfect.
- Promises kept
“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.”
Hebrews 10:23 (ESV)
God is faithful to keep His promises. I had begun to waver in hoping for healing. Until Jesus!
As the father who brought his son to Jesus said, “I believe, help my unbelief.” And Jesus healed.
- Courage Steps into the Promise
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9 (ESV)
It took courage to tell my coworkers that God had healed me. Some of my coworkers were nurses.
“Aren’t you afraid to tell us that you’re healed? What if it’s a placebo, and your fibromyalgia returns?”
My response, “That’s why I have to tell you that I’m healed.”
God was and is with me. God is with you.
- God’s Word instructs
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.”
Psalm 119:105 ESV
During the two years that we were waiting for God’s healing, we dug deeply into the Scriptures. It was a time of learning. We learned that some of the traditions of the churches we’d been brought up in did not match what the Bible taught us.
We learned that God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. God does heal today and our ultimate healing takes place in eternity.
- Prayer focuses
“And rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, He departed and went out to a desolate place, and there He prayed.”
Mark 1:35 (ESV)
Jesus needed to get away from the daily distractions of life and the needs of others to be alone with God. To talk with Him. To pray.
As we focus on the majesty of God, our prayers change. Praise comes.
Focused on problems, despair reigns.
Focused on our Most High God,
we joyfully shout praises.
- Memorials created
“… ‘Take twelve stones from here out of the midst of the Jordan, from the very place where the priests’ feet stood firmly, and bring them over with you and lay them down in the place where you lodge tonight.’”
Joshua 4:3 (ESV)
God healed me on November 21, 2010. On January 1, 2011, we were watching the San Diego Kite Club fly their kites on the beach. A stranger came up to me and offered me a huge guitar kite. Wondering if I had enough energy to get it in the air, I thanked him and took the heavy contraption.
After several tries, I hoisted it up, and the wind caught it. The kite and I soared–the kite in the air, me on the beach. An impossibility before God healed me.
A few years later, I created this kite. It is hanging in my bathroom–a memorial of God’s miraculous healing. A daily reminder of God’s grace and love.
- Majesty surrounds
“On the glorious splendor of Your majesty, and on Your wondrous works, I will meditate.”
Psalm 145:5 (ESV)
Memorials help us focus on God’s works. As we focus on God, we begin to recognize Him at work in nature, in other people, and in the work that we do.
Soon, we begin to praise Him for all His majesty, His works, His Word, and much more.
May you focus on God’s majesty that surrounds you
- Waiting strengthens
“but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.”
Isaiah 40:31 (ESV)
Isaiah 40:31 has been my life verse since I was 19 and in the hospital for an extended time.
Waiting, actively hoping, for strength from the Lord empowers us to do the impossible on our own strength. This waiting is active. It is seeking God with all our might and believing or hoping in His promises.
Six months after the Lord healed me, I accompanied Keith on a study abroad trip to Asia. I climbed halfway up the Great Wall of China–halfway because the bus was leaving soon.
I could have never done that with fibromyalgia.
- Testing perfects
“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
James 1:2-4 (ESV)
After the Lord healed, other testings came … challenges that I was just imagining the healing, heavy rains (rain brought pain, fatigue, and brain fog with fibromyalgia) … friction in our marriage.
Keith had been a caregiver. I no longer needed a caregiver and wanted to do more.
We both learned, talked it out, and changed.
Faith tested.
Remember God’s works. Praise Him!
- Wisdom given
“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.
James 1:5-6 (ESV)
With the struggles after God’s healing, we learned to ask God for wisdom. We learned to ask God what lessons He was teaching us.
“Father, what do you want us to learn from this?”
- God works
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Ephesians 2:10 (ESV)
I felt like I was spinning on a potter’s wheel. Round and round, fast and faster.
I didn’t know how to be well. My co-workers asked, “How could this be?”
Looking back, God was shaping us for the work He had created for us to do through Christ Jesus.
- Mission given
“The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, ‘Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.’ And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.“
Luke 8:38-39 (ESV)
After God has worked mightily in me, I wanted to do something mighty for God.
Jesus freed the man from many demons. The man begged Jesus to become His disciple, but Jesus told him to go back home and into the city that had exiled him to the tombs. His mission? Proclaiming how much Jesus had done for him.
Can you imagine the man’s feelings? Visited by the Lord of the Universe. Healed by the Messiah, Christ, the Anointed One. Touched by Purity.
Wouldn’t you want to become His disciple and do something great?
Go back to the people who rejected you and left you among the dead. Tell them about the Christ and His compassion.
We don’t know the impact that the man had upon the people, but we know that God’s Word doesn’t return void.
Tell what God has done for you.
That commission began this blog. That commission began increased service at church.
- Blessings poured out
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love He predestined us for adoption to Himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of His will, to the praise of His glorious grace, with which He has blessed us in the Beloved.”
Ephesians 1:3-6 (ESV)
Have you found that after a trial, you can look back and see where God was working?
You can see the blessings in the sufferings? A small example: If I hadn’t broken my arm last year, I wouldn’t have met the caregiver who asked for prayer.
Can you look back and see God at work in your suffering?
“Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!”
Psalm 32:11 (ESV)
By Karen Roberts
Passionate about Jesus and her husband of 55 years, Karen lives to point people to Jesus. She serves as a wife, mother, grandmother, adjunct professor, Bible study teacher and writer. Her mission statement is, “To listen deeply, pray intensely, love passionately and bless widely.” Follow her at http://www.
