I have a hard time deciding where to start my testimony. If I start from the beginning, it begins at the age of four when I asked my mom to pray with me to ask Jesus to come into my heart. Mom might say that the beginning would be when a random stranger laid hands on her pregnant belly with me inside.
I think the best place to start is with a report I received in 2007. My response to this report was the beginning of a miraculous chain of events that are indisputably the work of Almighty God in my life.
I was pregnant with my second son, and like in the beginning of all pregnancies, I had blood work done to screen for all sorts of things. At a doctor’s appointment following these blood tests, my doctor nonchalantly noted out loud that I tested positive for a certain condition that could affect my pregnancy and my life. My mind immediate started reeling. How could I possibly have this condition? I voiced my disbelief, and she mentioned that she could re-test. I agreed to the retest, and doubtfully hoped for the best.
The minute I got back to my office I got on the internet and started looking up the validity of these medical tests. After seeing discouraging news about the accuracy of the tests, I began researching this disorder, and what life changes I could make to prolong my life. I was devastated, and still in disbelief. How could I possibly have this happening to me? Would it be passed on to my unborn child? Nothing made sense to me. I wanted to know how. I wanted to know why. And the moment I felt like this condition and my health was out of my hands, I began to pray.
I prayed that the report was false. I declared the report was false. And then I started to believe that the report was false.
Faith in Jesus can achieve great things. His Word says so much about believing and receiving in accordance to his will. It is not in his will for his children to be sick. His Word does not return void.
Days after the testing, I was afraid to ask for the results. My doctor looked at my chart. My eyes focused in on the papers in my file. I couldn’t make anything out from the distance, but I knew lab papers were there. She looked up at me and said, “Your results came back negative. You're perfectly healthy.”
“Thank God!” I exclaimed. I was smiling on the inside, and my soul was rejoicing on the inside. The miracle I had asked for came to pass and my faith soared.
What I didn’t know was that was the beginning of many tests of faith I received that year. It was the beginning of countless miracles. Big miracles.
My beautiful son, Noah, was born, and my marriage was under fire (and had been for most of my pregnancy). During my prayer time, God kept telling me, “I’m bringing your husband back, but after I do a work in him.” God’s timing may not always seem like it coincides with our timing, but it is always perfect. My husband did come back to me, and God did do a work in him. And it was in complete obedience to the Word of God that we restored our marriage.
Now, when God’s children act in obedience, it sometimes makes the enemy mad. We were about to experience a grand attack.
October 1, 2007 I was taking pictures of our boys, Aidan and Noah. The next day I downloaded those pictures at work and just kept staring at my precious boys. I felt so blessed, and they were so perfect and beautiful. It was shortly after lunch on October 2, that I received a phone call from Aidan’s daycare. The director told me that Aidan had gotten hurt, and he wasn’t walking. He wouldn’t put any weight on his leg, and they felt that I needed to pick him up. I spoke with Aidan, and he was crying. He wanted me to come get him. I felt in my spirit that his leg was broken. I immediately left to get him and take him to the hospital.
When I picked him up from daycare, it was obvious to me that his left thigh was swollen. He held his leg as I drove carefully to the hospital, screaming with every brake, and every corner I turned. It turned out that he did have a femur fracture – which is the most difficult bone in the body to break. I wasn’t prepared for the devastation and road to his recovery we were about to take. We spent 11 days in the hospital with his leg in traction, which meant he was confined to a hospital bed – literally attached to the bed with a weight on a pulley device. It was horrible. The time we had to spend in the hospital was making it difficult to heal a newly-mended marriage. It was difficult to spend the night at the hospital while breastfeeding a newborn, and working full-time. But we did it. I had my Bible with me each day, and the days I would stay at home overnight, I immersed myself in the Word.
Although my faith was strong, I didn’t understand WHY my family was being attacked… Why did it have to be my precious four-year-old? Why did he have to suffer? The answer was on its way, in a way that I did not expect.
I had a dream one night while Aidan was in the hospital. In the dream, I was inside a home with a group of people who were worshiping and singing to the Lord. An older man came up to me and took my hands, looked me in the eye, and said, “Read the Book that is the same as your son’s middle name.” I woke up. While my mind was heavy on Aidan, I knew the man was speaking about Noah. Noah’s middle name is Daniel.
I previously had not read the book of Daniel thoroughly. But I was about to experience God talking to me literally, though his Word, to explain what was happening in my life.
Daniel 3 tells the story of Daniel’s friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. They rebelled against a King that ordered them to worship him, and they were punished by being thrown into a furnace. The King was so furious with these boys that he ordered the furnace to burn seven times hotter than normal, and when the friends were bound and thrown in, some soldiers that threw them in fell to their deaths due to the heat of the furnace. These three believers, however, were not killed. The king saw not three, but four men in the furnace – one looked like a god - and the friends walked out, alive, and did not even smell of smoke. Upon reading that, the Lord showed me that I was in the fire. But I was not alone. And I would come out of this trial, and I would not “smell like smoke.” This gave me great comfort and courage. It was further revealed to me that in the way fire purifies gold, I am being “purified” and made perfect through the trials in my life.
This revelation didn’t just comfort me – it gave me great gumption and passion for Christ. I literally told my family that, “The Devil is going to be sorry he messed with me!” I grew passionate about leading people to the Lord.
My passion for leading people to Christ was not motivated so much about living our life on earth, but more motivated by living life in Heaven. I wanted (and still want) more than anything for all of my family and loved ones to be reunited in Heaven one day. When I enter the gates of Heaven, I want to be greeted by the people I love most, and if you’re reading this, you are one of those people.
I read the book 90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper, and was so moved by his experience. I’ve always believed Heaven was real, but to have it described by a ‘common man’ changed something in me. I started to realize that this life on earth is not “what it’s all about,” but “seeking first the kingdom of God” is what is most important, and has become a mission for me.
While my passion for the Lord was on fire, my personal “fire” was not quenched yet. Shortly after Aidan was released from the hospital, he went for a follow-up appointment at his Orthopedic Surgeon’s office. They x-rayed his leg, and found that the bone had slid to an improper position. His doctor scheduled surgery for the next morning. He explained to us that one of two things would happen… he would try to pull the bones apart, and put Aidan in traction again for 10 days, or if he could not pull the bones apart, he would have to surgically insert pins into his bone and put Aidan in a fixation devise to ensure proper healing of the bones. That morning, we hoped for the best and prepared for the worst.
There was a third option, however, that had not been banked on. When Aidan went in for surgery, I left to spend nerve-racking time at work. I am the type that needs to keep my mind busy in times of stress. I called my employees to let them know I was on my way and I was describing to them what we were expecting. And then something happened.
I was speaking with an employee who is a fellow Christian, and I described to him “option A and option B.” I then mustered up all the faith in my being and I declared in the name of Jesus, my option C, “They are going to take his cast off and decide that he’s fine, and just slap a new one on him.” My employee agreed.
That’s the great thing about faith. God’s word does not return void. When two or more are gathered in the name of Jesus, their prayers are answered according to His will.
I pulled into my office, and received a phone call from my husband. The words coming out of his mouth were nothing short of a miracle. “Aidan’s surgery is finished. They put on a new cast.” I was shocked. My heart leaped for joy and I wanted to laugh and cry and praise at the same time. I began sharing the good news with everyone around me. I couldn’t call my family fast enough to share the miracle that had occurred.
I still wasn’t out of the fire, though. That week I learned that Jake needed to have back surgery. I had the burden of a newborn, a son in a wheelchair, and a husband who was about to endure a back surgery to fuse two lower discs in his spine. It was difficult to see my husband’s anxiety turn into desperation in the minutes before surgery. I knew he was going to be okay, but I wasn’t the one being cut into. Back surgery is major surgery. His surgery lasted nearly six hours for the surgeon to carefully pull out shattered bone fragments from his spine, and screw the cages in for his fusion.
Prior to his surgery, I received in the mail a CD I ordered from Jesse Duplantis Ministries called “Close Encounters of the God Kind.” I listened to this CD, and was so inspired by his testimony. I could relate to some of his experiences, and stood in awe as I listened to him describe some truly amazing events he experienced. He spoke of seeing angels. I had never seen an angel. I prayed at that moment and asked God to allow me to see an angel of the Lord.
The first night following Jake’s surgery, I stayed with him. The following nights afterward, I stayed at home to care for the baby and Aidan. It was the third or fourth night after his surgery that I experienced something that I will never forget.
I fell asleep early that night, with the baby by my side. I awakened, and felt something in my spirit say, “this is it.” I opened my eyes, and at the foot of my bed was a huge angel, standing quietly with his arms extended towards me and his head tilted to the side. He was wearing white, but he was glowing gold. His hair was golden blonde and his eyes were large and blue. His wings extended to the sides of him, and his presence seemed to be as wide as he was tall. His gown draped over him like white curtains. I was frightened, and clenched my eyes shut and started praying, “I’m not ready, I’m not ready, I’m not ready.” I opened my eyes again and he was gone. I closed my eyes again, and when I closed my eyes I could still see the light imprint of his image – kind of like when you look at a light and then you look into darkness, or close your eyes, you can still see the light imprint. That became evidence to me that I was not dreaming. It’s hard to describe something so miraculous. I could “hear” his presence – even after he was gone. It was like a warm and soft ringing in my ears as if someone were rubbing my face with a blanket… but that doesn’t even describe it accurately. It’s hard for me to describe what I saw and how I felt. It’s as if our English language does not have the right words to give the experience justice. I started to feel as if I were being filled with warmth. It felt as if someone literally opened the top of my head and filled by body with warmth. I could feel it from the bottom of my toes, and rising, rising until the warmth poured out from my fingertips, and overflowed from the top of my head. My heart was leaping with joy. I immediately called Jake and told him what I saw.
The next day I woke up and got ready for work. I felt as if I were given a new body. I felt absolutely fantastic. I called my parents to tell them of my experience, and I found that day that whenever I shared the experience, the warm tingling returned.
In the days following my “sighting,” I began to question what I saw. Why was it a man, when most angels we see on top of Christmas trees are women? If you go to a Hallmark store, pictures of angels are usually women. If you look up angel pictures on the internet, you will mostly see angel “women.” I researched this and found that EVERY angel of the Bible was a “male,” although experts on the subject indicate that angels are neither male nor female. The only exception to this “rule” is in the Bible where it says in Hebrews 13:2 Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it.
Since then, my life has been so blessed just knowing that the Lord has provided me with so much evidence of his existence. I love sharing my testimony and hope that it provides hope for others!