The presence in his room weighed heavy on me.
Even before all of the details of the events that preceded his
hospitalization were put together, my heart was burdened for him.
It could
have been the severity of the situation;
The look
of fear & pain in his eyes;
His
young age;
His
strong & big muscles accompanied by complete helplessness.
The
tears in his eyes as his brother explained the situation to us.
Or his
brother, whom after hearing why we were there, wept in my teammates arms
because we were a direct answer to his prayers.
…
maybe a combination of it all.
Regardless, we spent over an hour of our hospital visitation
praying for William.
And God showed up.
William accepted Christ as his lord & savior.
Swelling in his chest went down visibly at least an inch, if not
more.
Pain in his chest was minimizing.
Shortness of breath was going away.
Talking was less of a painful labor and more natural.
With help from his brother, his legs were bent and he sat up for
the first time in 3 weeks.
You see, 3 weeks prior William, 20, had been mistakenly blamed
for stealing a phone.
His friends proceeded to beat & torture him for hours.
For 3 weeks he laid in agony at his house, with stiffness
running through his body to the point that he was unable to move more than his
fingers on his own by the time they arrived at the hospital.
As we left that day, hope was running through my veins.
Hope of complete healing.
Hope that God was going to continue moving powerfully in his
life.
So we went back the next day to check-in. We arrived and found
him smiling in bed enjoying some breakfast.
A little while later he was sitting up on the edge of the bed
independently.
Then, with assistance from his brother, he stood up.
As exciting as that was, there was more. He began to take steps towards us.
We praised the lord!
I cried tears of joy!
We encouraged him & talked with him about the healing power
of Jesus.
Want to know an interesting part of this whole encounter?
I didn’t want to go visit this 1 last room that day. We had 15
minutes before we had to go home for lunch & I was just ready to go home.
Faithfully, though, our translator led us back there. Our 15 minutes turned
into an hour.
As we left that day I was reminded of the phrase from Mike
Pascall, “if you don’t want to do it, then do it.”
In going against my fleshy desires and trudging unhappily
to that room, God used me to begin a healing process in Williams body &
heart.
It’s
humbling that God still chooses me, even when I operate in the flesh, to bring
his kingdom to earth through displays of his mighty power.
