After I was prayed with for ‘Baptism of the Holy Spirit’ I began to have amazing responses to my requests from God. When I was expecting our fourth daughter, my winter coat would not close. I wouldn’t purchase another one, because my coat would be fine the next winter. My older sister, a Sister of Charity, visited me and gave me a black cloth coat with a mink lining. I pulled it out of the closet since I needed a coat that fit me for the New York winter. As I did, my husband looked at me and asked where the coat came from. Turns out that he was praying I would get a new coat!
In the Spring of 1975, at five months pregnant, I started to lose our fifth baby and had to stay on the couch for a week. Two of the prayer group leaders came to the house and prayed over me. Some of the older women were kind enough to clean. Well, the tear healed and that little girl was born healthy right around her due date.
When the same daughter was around two years old, her clothing consisted of hand-me-downs from boy cousins. I looked at her one day and asked the Lord to send me some girl’s clothes. About a week later, we received a box from a former coworker in IBM. As I opened the box, I was amazed at the outfits … one more beautiful than the other. Her daughter had outgrown the clothing that was purchased from B. Altman in New York City, her husband’s employer. Up until now the only correspondence with this woman had been through Christmas cards.
There were many other instances of answered prayer, but unfortunately, memory fails. I remember at one point my pastor allowed me to create a newsletter about answer prayer. I called it “God Cares.” Parishioners gave me their accounts of how God answered their prayers. It was quite uplifting.
In 1977, our seventh child, Micah, was born with Down Syndrome. Micah could not be released from the hospital and he remained in a ‘special’ nursery. Two of our older children were ‘preemies,’ so I didn’t like it but understood. A few days later, medical tests showed a heart problem, which was of real concern. Micah was born on a Saturday night and on Tuesday evening, the somber doctor gave me the test results. After the doctor left my bedside, I immediately called Terry because Tuesday night was the prayer meeting at her house. A few weeks later, Terry told me that she was upset with the news, because on Sunday morning, the day after Micah was born, she had thought of me and wondered if I had given birth yet. Immediately, the words, “Mongoloid child” came across her mind. She just dismissed the thought and went on with her day. After my phone call requesting prayer, she felt badly about dismissing any thought about it . As to Micah, we were referred to a pediatric cardiac specialist in New York City. A few months later, a cardiac catheterization showed that his heart had no wall at all … only a membrane separating his good blood from his bad. The medical term is Complete AV Canal Defect. Micah lived 6 years. During that time, I prayed over him in his cradle, then his crib and finally as he went on a school bus to a special school every day. I wrote about this in “The Book of Micah,” so suffice it to say that God taught me a lot during that time. Even though the repair of the heart was successful, Micah died from lung damage.
Healing Services
My first exposure to a Healing Service was when I took a nine-hour bus ride from New York City to Pittsburgh. The woman with the Healing Ministry was Kathryn Kulhman, a Baptist Minister. Time flew by, four hours seemed like one hour. There were many hymns of praise followed by personal accounts of healings as told by attendees . Kathryn never personally prayed with anyone until they said they felt something or could now walk, etc. Then she would pray with them. She wanted everyone to know it was the Holy Spirit doing the healing, not her.
After Micah was born, we started attending Healing Services held by Roman Catholic Priests, Father Edward McDonough in Boston and Father Ralph D’Orio in Worcester, MA. They began with hymns of praise and lasted two to three hours, which just flew by. These services were also immensely powerful. The accounts of these trips to Massachusetts are in “The Book of Micah”.
I encourage anyone in need of healing to seek out a Church that offers it.
Last year, while driving in New York, I started to pray and
then asked, “How do you know who is praying to you?” The answer was immediate! I believe that God said, “There’s a bit of me
in every baby born.” I felt a pang in my
heart as I thought of all the millions of abortions.
Just then, I had a fleeting mental image of Jesus with a tear in his
eye.
Thanks for taking the time to check out my blog.
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