Two Thursdays ago I went with Team Boulders for activation day. We went to visit an elderly woman named Stephanie who had recently recovered from a stroke. Once we got there we talked to Stephanie and her family for a little before we prayed. When we were praying over Stephanie and her family, our translator, Junior, felt like God was telling him that Stephanie’s grandson had a problem with his knee. Sure enough he did. The grandson, Claybon, had been in an accident six months ago and his leg was broken. He still had pain in his leg and the legs were different lengths now because the break was so bad. Claybon was a truck driver who has been out of work for six months, and he showed us pictures of his truck after the accident. The pictures were insane. Everything expect for the drivers seat of the truck was smashed beyond recognition. Claybon said that he believed it was a miracle from God that he survived the crash and because of that he wants to give his life to christ.
So after Claybon revealed what was wrong with his leg, Junior looked straight at me and said that I should be the one to hold his legs and pray for healing. I had no idea why Junior called me out, but I just nodded and said ok. So I went over and saw Claybon extend both his legs to compare lengths. I would estimate that his right leg was a solid inch shorter than his left leg. I leaned down and held on to his ankles to get ready for prayer.
Everyone prayed at the same time, and when all the prayers died down I closed the prayer and Junior translated for me. It was an incredible atmosphere. People in the family were praying with us and some of them started crying profusely. When I finished praying Claybon extended his legs out again. They were almost the same length and he said he had no pain! The right leg was still just a tad shorter than the left. We prayed again, but this time no one closed us out. When we compared the legs this time they hadn’t changed at all, and I got the feeling that I should have closed. So we prayed a third time and I closed the prayer with Junior translating for me. This time when he extended his legs they were the same length! He even got up and walked around without a limp. Junior told me that earlier that day one of the base staff members told him that God had something specifically for me today. That’s why he called me out as the one to pray.
Afterwards, I honestly did not know how to feel about what happened. I kept double checking to see if Claybon really was walking without a limp or if he was somehow faking. I took notice of the fact that he was wearing really baggy jeans which made it harder to compare the leg lengths. I looked to try and make sure that his hips were parallel when he extended his legs just to see if he might be tricking us for whatever reason.
I found it interesting to me that the most challenging part of experiencing a miracle, for me, was how I processed it. God has done some crazy things in our squad so far and we have definitely experienced His supernatural power. I’ve heard so many firsthand accounts of miraculous healings from the people working at AIM or staff at our base or from our squad-mates, but for some reason I had a problem with understanding one example that I had experienced myself. Because I had been called out to be directly involved in this miracle, I became paranoid that I was lying to myself so that I would have a cool story to tell. This is why I waited for over two weeks to actually write a blog about this. I was scared to tell my story of miraculous healing because I was too concerned with being like the false prophets. But God doesn’t give us stories for us to keep to ourselves, and the entirety of team boulders was there as witnesses to confirm that I was not tricking myself.
God wants to use each of us in miraculous ways. The power of God abides in us. God gives us stories to share with others.
