The following passage is one that really struck me as I read it earlier and I wanted to share it with you:
Back in 1953 while I attended the Worldwide Evangelism Crusade (WEC)
missionary training school in Glasgow, Scotland, I needed to find a
place to go for the Christmas holidays. I couldn’t return home to
Holland because I had no money, and we weren’t allowed to remain on the
campus.
I had spent much of the fall semester in bed with a back problem, and
I had found solace in the writings of the late Oswald Chambers –
especially his classic, My Utmost for His Highest. I had even
written to his wife, Biddy, about the blessing I had received. In her
reply she had invited me to visit her home in the south of England
sometime. So as the Christmas holidays drew near, I phoned her, and she
told me I was welcome to stay there. I didn’t mention it to anyone; I
just went.
When I got back to school in January and sat down at the dinner table
with the whole group, Stuart Dinnen, the director, said, “So, where’ve
you been, Andrew?”
I said I had stayed with Oswald Chambers’s family.
“What?” he said. “You can’t do that!”“Maybe not,” I replied with a smile, “but I just did it.”
closed until you start moving toward it, much like a supermarket door.
Our God is a God who can make the impossible possible.
“Don’t get attatched, she is going to die” 29 years ago a women looked
into the beautiful little face of her week old baby and promised her
that day that she would indeed live. Her hopes and dreams fading as
her child continued to not take in food, not grow, not thrive. She
would watch at night desperately for signs of life. In that time a
single nurse would sit at the child’s crib and pray.
she never gave up on was me. Throughout my life I suffered from
bladder, kidney issues. Phenmonia, Croup, Bronchitis, and the list
goes on. I spent many days at home in bed, some days in the hospital,
and lived on antibotics. I was the social outcast in gym class, they
didn’t even bother picking on me. I was the kid that wet her pants in
class, because the sub didn’t believe that I had to go every 5
minutes. It was hard on my parents, it was hard on my sister who
lovingly helped raise me, and it was hard on me.
fade into the background. You stop taking risks because you fear you
can’t do it. I grew up in pain physically and emotionally and with
little outlet to release it. Doctors had trouble finding a source to
everything. Some thought I must be faking it “No kid gets sick this
much.” My mom suffered a simular story and therefore was convinced
that it was just my lot in life, and that it wasn’t going to change and
I would end up sick just like her.
of battling mindsets that told me I couldn’t, including my own
mindset. 29 years of walking in a death sentence put on me from the
day I was born. 29 years that Satan has been trying to take me out by
infirmity. 29 years and the battle is won.
tired. I have learned how to live with the pain. I have learned to
ignore it as best as I can and press into my day. I had learned to
except it. WRONG!. I no longer except anything. I woke up today
knowing God had something he really wanted to say. For the last 4
years I have truly believed that I could be healed of all the sickness
that plaqued my body. I thought I was speaking life over me and
believing fully for the healing to come.
came. It was done the day Jesus bore all our iniquities and our pain.
It was over then. It was the battle of the mind. It was taking
captive of my thoughts.
of the heart again and again. I have had God drastically change my
mind, my attitudes, my behaviours, and habits. I have experienced
miracles of healing physically in many area. I grew an inch talller if
you can remember that time. But it wasn’t done, God still was digging
in one big area.
says “life and death is in the power of the tonque” Choosing life,
means speaking truth about yourself. I am not talking name it and
claim it like “I am going to get a new car amen” I don’t want the
things outside the promises of God. But God has given us promises in
His word and He says he will tear down and build up. He will take out
the things that are not of him, that are from the world, the result of
our sins, our words against ourselves and the words of death spoken
from others, and He will break the hold they had on you.
death sentence for my life, and now God has handed me a new life
sentence. A life of walking in his freedom. Today my heart exploded
with a new level of His love so deep, so profound, so overwhelming
that I weep at the beauty of it. It takes my breath away, and I am
so intimatly by my God. The truth is my name is Melissa Betz and I am
fearfully and wonderfully made. I am his daughter and as His daughter
he would go to the ends of the earth to fight for me. The truth is
that I am his, he bought me back from a life of sin and a death
sentence. He randsomed me and I am not bound to a life of sin, lies
and fear. The truth is he didn’t do this for just me, he did this for
you and now he is calling you out to say “hello my name is free”
