Worship had been incredible. Many of us were up front in the space between the platform and the first row for worship, and I was in back part of the group. At one point during the worship, the Lord pointed a lady out to me who was standing on the asile about 3 or 4 rows back. He told me that she had cancer and that He wanted to heal her. I was tempted to stop worship and go to her right then, but I just could not bring myself to break away from worship--His presence was too strong and too wonderful. But worship eventually ended, and they asked us to return to our seats.
As we went to our seats, I saw that the lady with cancer was sitting on the aisle in the center section in the same row where I'd originally saved the three seats. I bee-lined over to her, just as the woman next to her excused herself to go to the lady's room. So while they did the announcements, I put my arm around her shoulders and whispered in her ear. I told there the the Lord had pointed her out to me and told me that she came to the meeting with a fatal disease. She said, "Yes, I have advanced Leukemia." Then I said that the Lord told me He was going to touch her with His healing power in this meeting, and by the time she left it, the leukemia cells would begin dieing and the healthy blood cells would begin multiplying again. I shared the rest of what the Lord gave me for her, about how she would get better gradually instead of instantly, but that healing would start that night and she'd notice an improvement in her strength and endurance before she left the meeting. Then I told her that sometime during the ministry part of the service, I'd come pray for her. She said that she would like that.
I went back to my seat, but wasn't there long before Todd called the ministry team up to the stage and started the healing part of the service. I did precisely what they told us to do in the orientation-- I started by talking to people in line and pulling out the ones with verifiable healings--such as a lady with a note from her doctor, and another lady who had a large lump on her breast disappear one day when she was watching the revival on television and Todd had a word of knowledge about her condition.
Once we'd interviewed everyone, I was free to pray for people. I took the person closest to the front of the line who'd not been healed, and I led her behind the speakers to prayed for her. She was an Asian lady who was legally blind. God restored her sight--not 100% but a drastic improvement. before I prayed could could not even see that where were people sitting in the chairs two rows away from us. After the prayer, she could see the people sitting 8 and 9 rows back well enough to tell me if they were men or women and what type of clothes they were wearing. But she could not make out some of the fine details of their faces, they were still a bit blurry. Still, that was a drastic improvement, and it was exciting.
But the next two or three people who I prayed for were not noticeably healed. I had expected a really strong anointing for healing because of where we were and because of the impartation prayer. But I was seeing about the same level of healings that I saw in my own meetings. I was a little surprised by that--there were definitely a lot of healings that night, due to the sheer number of people attending. But only somewhere between 20 and 25% of the people there seemed to get healed. Still, it was fun praying for them. The one draw back was that the praying kept me so busy that I could not pay attention to what testimonies were being shared on the stage.
At one point, it was a bit less busy and some of the ministry team people were standing around with nothing to do. There were still a few people coming up, but there were more people praying than they needed. I used that time to slip away and pray for the lady with Leukemia who God had given me the word of knowledge for during worship. She was grateful for the prayer, but could not feel anything while I prayed. She hadn't been in pain during the meeting, so we could not measure if pain went down. She did not feel heat, tingling, etc. I did not have any evidence that she received heeling as I prayed for her, but I can't imagine that God wasn't healing her since He'd given me an accurate word of knowledge about her condition.
There is one more lady I need to mention during the prayer time. She was an Asian girl in her early twenties. Her mother was with her, and she was manifesting (demonic manifestations) at the side of the platform. Some other ministry team members had prayed for her, but they did not seem to know how to shut down the demon. They finally left her sitting with her back against the wall, manifesting away. I noticed her a while earlier but did not think I should go over to her since someone else had been praying for her. But we got less busy and she was still there. I figured she must feel very embarrassed to be left to manifest publicly that for a long time. Compassion for her welled up in me, and I decided to go over to her and shut down the manifestation.
One of the first things you do when a person is manifesting strongly is to get their attention, and to get them cooperating with you instead of giving themselves over to the demon's control. It took a while to get her back with me, but when she was, I talked with her to find out what was wrong with her. The physical problem was brain cancer and she'd given up hope because she'd been sick so long and God wasn't healing her. It turned out to be a bit of a complex situation, but it became clear to me that God wanted me to get the devil out instead of just shutting it down.
One of her biggest problems was that she felt unloved (despite a loving and supportive mother who was right there with her). I took my time with her and ministered in love. I think she personally responded more to my love than to the actual deliverance ministry. But the demon left and she stopped manifesting. I had her try doing some of the thing that set off the demon, and she started manifesting again. (It turns out that there was more than one demon). At the end she was completely free of the demon and of the demonic manifestations, but she still had the headache that she associated with the cancer. She asked if it was ok if she got prayer from other ministry team people and I said, "Of course." I told her that she could have as much prayer as she wanted. She went off to seek another person to pray for her (on the other side of the platform.)
Much later that night, the girl's mother (who did not speak English very well) came back to me with an interpretor in tow. She wanted to thank me for praying for her daughter and getting the demons out. She said that the demons were a really big problem and that her daughter manifested all the time. But she had not had any more demonic manifestations since I prayed for her. She thought that the cancer was from the demon and now that it was gone, she expected the cancer would go away as well. I certainly hope she was right, because I really wanted to see that girl get completely healed.
The ministry time lasted quite a while (probably 2 hours or so). But when it ended, it ended very quickly (without much advanced warning) and they started the offering. I had to run to my chair, get my offering envelopes, and then rush over to my assigned section. I got there a bit late, but it was a smaller section, so my partner was able to handle 2/3 of it before I arrived. We took the offering and then I went back to my seat.
Almost the instant I was seated, Todd called for the ministry team to come up front to the stage. He had us line up in front of the stage and then invited people to come up and get healing prayer from the team. They were supposed to form lines in front of each of us and Todd promised that the team would pray for everyone who wanted prayer.
The first lady to come up to me was a Caucasian, but every other person in my line was Asian. It seems like God is doing an Asia thing with me--He seems to send a bunch of Asians to me for prayer no matter where i am ministering. In a way I like that, because in general I see a slightly higher percentage of healings when I pray for Asians and people from India.
The first lady to come up to me had damaged the tendon in her thumb, and could not use it. I prayed, and the Lord completely restored mobility in the thumb.
After that, it was hard to tell who was getting healed and who was not. Most of them were getting slain in the spirit, and there were bodies on the ground all around me. I was fortunate, in that they had assigned me a very competent catcher. [He works for the Benny Hinn ministry and has caught for Benny Hinn on stage a few times.] He was good at the logistics in making sure that everyone he caught was well taken care of, and I felt really blessed to have him paired with me. I did ask him to try and ask people, as they got up, to come back and talk to me. I would interview them to see who had an improvement and who did not. I also prayed a second time for those who had not received a total healing. I lost count, but I think that somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/5 of the people were healed, and about another 1/5 of them got partial healings..
Again, I was surprised to see that the healings were not more than what I was used to seeing. But I was seeing God heal people, and I rejoiced in that.
The very last person I prayed for was a non-English speaking Asian woman. Her teenage daughter spoke fluent English and she translated for me. The mother had all sorts of physical problems including arthritis, digestive track problems and severe stomach pain. Nothing seemed to happen when I prayed for her, so I asked the Lord to show me what was going on. He gave me a word of knowledge about a man speaking curses over her and abusing her. I was not sure if it was her father or her husband. It turned out to be the lady's husband and the daughter's father. Since there wasn't a line behind her, I spent a bit of time on inner healing and deliverance. It wasn't too hard to get the wife to forgive her husband. But after she had forgiven him, she did not experience any noticeable relief in her symptoms. I asked the Lord what the problem was, and He told me that the daughter also needed to forgive.
So I told that to the daughter. It was surprisingly hard for her to forgive her father, and I had to work hard to convince her to forgive, explaining that forgiving the behavior is not the same as condoning it. Once she choose to release forgiveness, I had to walk her through it step by step and it was a huge struggle for her. When she finally got through it, most of her mother's symptoms instantly vanished. The arthritis pain went down substantially and the stomach pain went away.
I thought it was really odd that the mother wasn't healed until the daughter forgave. I am guessing that it was something along the lines of a shared demon between the two of them, who latched on to the daughter's unforgiveness but who manifested health problems and infirmities in the mother. I guess there is still a lot that I don't know about deliverance and I am still learning, because that was new to me.
I was surprised at how many deliverances I'd ended up doing at that meeting. I thought I'd mostly be praying for physical healing, but I guess that Jesus cast out a lot of demons, so I should not be surprised that He had me do a lot of that when I ministered at Lakeland.
It was a great night, but also a very busy night for me. When I finally ran out of people to pray for, I prayed blessing and impartation on my catcher and then I went home (e.g., back to my hotel).
[ Testimony Index Page ] [ Previous Article ] [ Next Article ]