I want to share with you all this week the testimony of a woman that my team and I have had the great pleasure of getting to know and pray for over the last couple of months.
On one of the first couple of weeks that we were here in Guatemala, as we were preparing to do some ATL (ask the lord, aka street ministry/house visits), our ministry host told us about a lady that she knew that needed prayer. She took our group to her house, and that’s when we met Ruth.
Upon our first visit to her house, we learned that she had been diagnosed with kidney failure and that no medicines that she had been taking were working. When we met her she had already begun to show signs of swelling, but she could still get around her house with the help of her husband or one of her children. We gathered around and prayed for healing and restoration for her, she said thank you and that she was blessed by our visit, and then we said our goodbyes and walked out for the very first time.
Then we went back the next Thursday to pray for her again. And the next. And the next. And the next.
Every Thursday since that first week we’ve gone to see Ruth. Every Thursday we’ve laid hands on her and prayed our hearts out for healing for her. Every Thursday we’ve seen her smile light up the dark room that she spent so much of her time in and every time we’re so blessed by her joy and peace in the midst of her suffering.
And yet every Thursday we watched her get worse.
We watched her body begin to swell until she could barely open her eyes. We watched her as she began to be able to move around less and less until she was completely bedridden to her dark bedroom. Every week we watched her smile and her joy dim a little more and her response to our prayers turn from “thank you God, I know he can heal me” to “if I go I go, it’s all in God’s hands”.
Yet still we prayed.
Every week we circled around her, laid our hands on her, and prayed for complete healing and restoration. We prayed with authority and boldness and we all believed that she would be healed before we left Guatemala, but it began to be hard to keep our spirits up when it seemed like nothing was changing.
Until it did.
2 weeks ago was the worst that we had ever seen Ruth. We prayed so hard and I so believed that the Lord was going to heal her, that she was going to be able to get out of bed and walk, but when we asked her to try after we finished praying she said she didn’t think she could. It was like all of her hope had gone, and along with it so did ours.
At this point we still believed that the Lord was going to heal her but it was getting really hard not to just give up. So to bring her spirits up, we decided to buy her flowers Friday morning on the way to ministry and take them to her before our English class. When we knocked on the door, we expected one of the kids to come and open it like usual and lead us to her bedroom.
Instead, Ruth herself came and opened the door for us. Alone, without any help. The very day after she couldn’t even try to get out of bed.
Wow God. What a gift to be able to see that.
But, it’s not over yet.
So naturally we were SO excited that she was feeling so much better. But, she said that she still had pain and she was still pretty swollen. So we prayed for her again, with more hope than ever, and said our goodbyes for another week.
Fast forward to this Thursday, two weeks later since last Thursday was a national holiday and none of the busses were running, and we’re at her house again.
She looks SO much better. She’s sitting up, walking around, talking with us. We get to talk to her husband too and hear more about their family and their story. What we learned is that two months ago, around the time we got to Guatemala and first met Ruth, they gathered as a family and decided that the medicine she had been taking wasn’t working and they were going to put it in the Lords hands. Her husband, Eddy, talked about how hard it was to see his wife in bed all the time and to not have her at church with him. Ruth told us how sometimes it was so hard not to go to the hospital because she was in so much pain. But still they persisted because they committed as a family to leave it all in the hands of the Lord.
What faith. Wow.
When we finished talking with them we asked Ruth if we could pray for her again and just bless their family, so of course we did. When we finished she told us that the whole time that we had been talking with her she had pain in her back and her legs, but that as soon as we finished praying the pain went away.
We had her walk up and down her courtyard.
Still no pain.
It was all gone.
We prayed for her atleast 3 more times. We gathered around her, we put our hands on her, we prayed with authority and spoke total healing and restoration over her. We prayed for the excess water to leave her body, we prayed for her circulation to increase, we prayed for her hips to be restored from laying in bed so much.
We watched her as each time she walked with more confidence and more pep in her step than the time before.
We watched her swelling go down.
We watched her begin to be able to lift her feet higher behind her than she could before.
We watched her smile grow bigger and brighter with every step.
We watched her be healed before our very eyes, body and spirit.
Jesus. Wow. Thank you that you’re healer. Thank you that you’ve given us keys to the Kingdom and we get to bring it with us wherever we go. Thank you that there’s no sickness or pain in Heaven so when we pray for your kingdom to come and your will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, we get to speak that over ourselves and others. Thank you for giving me authority to speak life over people. Thank you for going before me and with me and just inviting me into your ministry because this was all your plan, it had very little to do with me anyways. Thank you for your love and your grace and your tender mercies. Thank you for the testimony that Ruth and her family have and for all of the glory that it will bring to you both here in Guatemala and back home in the states. Thank you for this gift of a life that you’ve given me. Wow. Thank you.
“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord ‘s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn; to grant to those who mourn in Zion— to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the garment of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.”
Isaiah 61:1-3
