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Statement of Beliefs · Study on
Healing · Newsletters · Testimonies |
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Statement of Beliefs · Study on
Healing · Newsletters · Testimonies |
(c) by Darcy Reinagel
(Reprinted from Harmony Hill Companion, December 1996)
Used with Permission
I have very good news for all of you. God has healed me! What is more incredible, is that I have learned that His healing really is available to anyone who asks Him. I know we have all heard someone say this before. I know I had, yet I had sought healing and did not receive it. I knew God was in my life and loving me, yet I did not receive His healing. I now know why. I now see that God's promises really are sure, and they are for everyone who calls on His name. They are for me and they are for you!
Why was I not healed before? Why do so many faithful Christian believers continue to struggle with illness and continual problems of all description? We have allowed Satan to hide from us our true identity in Jesus Christ. He had stolen this truth from me and I never even knew it. I had accepted Satan's lies that we don't really have access to the promises anymore. I had allowed him to tell me I was not totally accepted by God, and many other lies. The truth of God is: when we accept Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, we become God's anointed children. What does this mean? It means that we are totally loved and totally accepted by God. Jesus paid the price for our sins. On the cross He took upon Himself all our guilt, and sin, and shame, and the hold of Satan upon us, and the curse of the law. What does this mean? It means we are no longer held by sin. Satan has no claim on us anymore. We can come before God's presence without shame--totally loved and totally accepted--because of what Jesus did for us. God has put Jesus' righteousness upon us, regardless of who we are and what we have done, as long as we continue to repent.
Satan does not have the birthright we have. He does all he can to steal God's blessings and providence from us. I had let him steal it from me. But thanks to the loving people of Pleasant Valley Ministries, and others, I now understand my identity in Jesus and am walking out of the curses of Satan and into the wonderful promises of God! What an awesome experience it has been to see God storming the barriers Satan erected between God and Tim and me! Our God is an awesome God!!
I could not come into the blessings until I surrendered to God and became willing to forgive a deep hurt I labored under since I was three or four years old. It grew in me as an anger that I could never quite overcome. It resulted from abuse I received growing up. About eight months ago after being anointed and prayed for by a local pastor, I was leaning over the washing machine and my knees buckled as I heard the words of the Lord spoken to me: "I have forgiven them, you need to." I knew just who He meant, thought I thought I had forgiven them. I just could not be in contact with them anymore. I tried to repent and forgive, but not much happened until six weeks ago.
On August 28th, we were having a prayer and care meeting with a few friends. As the meeting continued I had a growing sense that God was doing something in my life and it had to do with healing. I mentioned this to everyone and we all prayed about it. As the meeting ended the phone rang. It was Pastor Henry Wright of Pleasant Valley Ministries. The call was unexpected. I had left a message requesting their information packet a friend had said they had. I wanted to check them out to see what they taught as I had heard a few EI's were being healed as a result of contacting them. I was a little skeptical as I had heard "health and wealth" preachers that had turned me off. Pastor Henry was so patient with my questions and concerns. Over the next few days I felt more and more drawn to them, so I decided to prayerfully go forward in contacting their prayer line and trusting God to let me know if I should "bail out." Within three days of my first prayer with them, God healed my anger!
It was on a Friday. As the day progressed I felt the Holy Spirit pulling at me to call the ones who had hurt me and apologize to them (I had abruptly withdrawn from them about a year ago). I did not want to call them. They were the ones who were wrong, not me. But I knew I had to call. If you deny the Holy Spirit, you do not know when He will give you the opportunity again to obey. I want God close in my life. I had to let go of myself and do as He was asking me. When I called, the anger was healed. God next showed me that I had to fill that spot with praising Him or the anger would return. I began spending all evening with God in praise. Singing and listening to wonderful worship music. I no longer had a desire to watch TV or do anything else, but to meet with God in this way. I noticed God poured out a spirit of satisfaction on me. I was no longer driving myself to numb the pain of this trial. There no longer was any pain! As I continued to praise God over the course of the next week the presence of the Holy Spirit drew closer and closer. At times God was so close I felt if I could just reach out a little further I could touch Him. It was an awesome and incredibly beautiful experience! At times I just quietly wept in joy over the incredible love God was pouring out on me. It felt as though heaven were opened so His presence could shine down even more. I had experienced God's presence before, but nothing like this.
In about the second week of September, signs began to occur that God was healing my body as well. My chest area began to heat up unexpectedly. At first it happened when I prayed, then it began to continue for a few hours afterward, then it lasted all day long some days. I was filled with a feeling of warmth and strength and lightness and joy. I could breath!! I felt my body gaining strength!! God's healing was beginning to be spread throughout my body!
Sunday, September 29th, as I was praying the Holy Spirit spoke words in my mind. He said, "Rise and walk." I had been struggling the past few days with the question: "God do you heal me and then I go to church, or do I go to church and then you heal me?" I had to assume "rise and walk" was the Lord's answer. I wrestled with it all day, but knew in my heart I had to act on it and go to church. I had not been to church in three years and the last time I had gone I went into what apparently was a partial seizure. I was months recovering from that. It was not something to take causally. At that time, Tim was not yet sure about what was happening to me and how he felt about it. I did not tell him until nearly time to leave for the evening service. I could not have withstood his wrestling on top of my own. He was quite shocked when I told him what God had said, and that I was going to church, and did he want to come? He paused a moment and then said, "You don't think I want to miss this do you?!" Bless his loving and patient heart! We went to church and I was fine! What little symptoms I experienced I just handed back to Jesus and He took them!
Since that time I have been in what the Pleasant Valley prayer line calls "walk out." God is walking me out of the illness and curses, into His wonderful provision and blessings! It has been joyful and amazing, but it has not been easy. Satan does not want us to receive the blessings God has promised. I had to learn how to ward off his attempts to rob me of my newly discovered identity in Christ and the blessings which come through this knowledge.
The Lord was asking me to "walk on the water." I had to keep my eyes on Him and step out of the boat and believe His word. He asked me to act in faith, before He made my healing a physical reality. To just believe and love Him. The strength to believe and love are provided through the Holy Spirit. It was not my own strength or love. Jesus did all that needed to be done. He will live His life in us. Our "job" is to surrender to Him and thank Him for His indescribable mercy and gift He gave on the cross.
I now go to church and out to eat and even to stores and the library. I can eat anything I want. I have new beautiful clothes--what a blessing after spending four years only able to wear the unbleached, undyed organic cottons. We have beautiful colors surrounding us again. I returned all my Library of Congress "Talking Books." I do not need them anymore! God has provided for my total healing, and for your total healing as well. Healing is a reality and is there for anyone who desires it and seeks the Lord for it. Sometimes we need help to break the barriers that prevent healing from occurring. I needed this help. God provided it for me through Pleasant Valley Ministries. I thank God for their loving service to Him.
I have come to a new awareness of God as our Father, our Lord Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. This awareness has brought with it strength I never imagined was available to us. I had come to think the gifts of the Holy spirit mentioned in Acts and I Corinthians were not really active today. I was wrong!
God is still drawing me to Him daily to spend all available time with Him in prayer, thanksgiving, praise, quietness, and learning. I do not know what is ahead. God certainly is working a mighty work of healing in my life and in Tim's. We praise Him for this incredible mercy and love. I thank God for the close presence of the Holy Spirit drawing me to Jesus.