One evening we decided to have a work night here, and so, I texted some of the young people to come help me load the boxes of books from the tract building. Only three showed up and so we worked hard to load all those heavy boxes. I felt bad for the three who came because they were working so hard that we were all getting very sweaty. I tried to make it easier on them by working extra hard myself. I hurt my back during that time. I went on with the work night instead of attending to it. When the night was over, I had really done something in my middle back. I did not sleep that night because of the pain. It wasn't my lower back muscles; it felt like a slipped disc pushing a nerve in my mid-back. I hurt for several days and the pain eased some for a few days but about Tuesday it came back strong. Jason, my husband, and I were concerned that I would not be able to go on my trip to Kentucky that weekend where we had planned a work night with the people there, but I felt I would wait and see because I knew it was my place to go. That night, I had this dream in the early morning hours when I was finally able to sleep:
I dreamed that I woke up one morning late and my sister Bekah and I were living at home. My back was hurting really bad in my sleep and so in the dream it was too. I saw Mama cooking a bunch of stuff in the kitchen and she said a big snowstorm was coming so we were all going to be snowed in for a week or two and most people would be without power. She was preparing for the storm. I asked her where Daddy was and she said that early in the morning they had watched the news and realized that the storm was bad. So they decided to go get their parents from the nursing home to keep them here through the storm. She had already driven to Lexington and back to pick up hers from the nursing home and Daddy had asked Amy to drive him to Grandaddy's hometown to pick up him (Kinston? I wondered). I said, "I didn't know Grandaddy was in a nursing home, I thought he died." She said, "Oh no, he's been in a nursing home a long time...you know that." I muttered, embarrassed, something about having never been to see him all this time and she frowned that I had never gone to see him. I could hardly believe I missed that fact that he was alive all this time. I began to feel so excited to see Grandaddy again.
I wandered into the other part of the house and saw Daddy just getting back. I said, "Where is Grandaddy?" Daddy said, "We took him to his room for a nap." I told him that I really thought Grandaddy was dead and I would have gone to see him if I had known he was alive all this time. My eagerness to see him was obvious and I was thinking about showing him some things while we were together for the week like; the internet, and our web ad, and telling him how we get 20-25 people a day who order the book now (and showing him the book). I wanted to tell him that we get about 10-15 orders a week for the book and tracts. I knew he would be so happy to learn that we can mail out 5 to 10 thousand tracts or books in one night! I wanted to explain to him how we can get the meetings to the people in Kentucky on Skype instead of the long car trip he took so many times. And, I wanted to show him the Ebay store and all the materials we have, and how we have them priced so everybody can afford them, and so much more. But I knew the trip here had been long and I hadn't wanted to bother an old man resting. At the same time, I was a little afraid he might not live to wake up and I didn't want to miss seeing him. I just wanted to lay eyes on him so badly because I could hardly believe he was really here. I knew he would have something good to say to me. Then Daddy said, "Well go on up there and let him see you. You look so different than the last time he saw you...the look in your eyes is not even the same." Oh boy, I was happy he gave me permission to see him and went right up the steps to see him.
When I got in his room, he was lying on the bed with his navy blue sweater and his cap on. He had been so tired that he hadn't even taken them off. And he was so frail and old that I quickly realized he really could die at any minute. He looked older than he ever did in real life. He was obviously over a hundred years old. As I leaned over him, he opened his blue eyes and my blue eyes linked with his as only people with the sweet holy Ghost know how it feels. Although his body was old and dying, his eyes were alive and seemed to be looking right into me. I said softly, "Hey Grandaddy, I thought you were dead. I had no idea you were still living or I would have come and seen you." He sort of nodded and blinked his eyes as if to say, "yes, I know that." Then he slowly said, "Well I'm really old now. I can't do the work anymore. My eyes can't see and my hands can't be still. I am waiting for the Lord to take me. I wake up in the morning and I say, 'Lord will it be today?' and I go on and then it looks like I'll have one more day." He wasn't afraid, only a little sad he couldn't do the work anymore because his days for doing that were over. However, that wasn't his choice so he lived in humble submission to God's will for him every day.
I wanted to say, "Oh but look at the work we are doing etc." to encourage him that the work was getting done and in a big way. But I was starting to wake up and I knew I was leaving him and only had a second more so instead I tried to say, "I need a touch from the Lord. Please pray for my back." Because I knew he had healing power with the Lord but I woke up before I could see his response.
My biggest impression though as I was waking up was how very pleased Grandaddy would have been with all the work we are doing to get this truth to people. He was saying to me, "I can't do it anymore but if I could, if it was still my time to live, I'd be doing just what you are doing, getting this truth out there, just like I did when I was living. It is the best way to spend your life, to make use of your eyes and hands." I am crying as I type this because of the feelings so tender...when I see Grandaddy again one day, I will run to him and tell him how we got this message out there and carried into the next century. How we carried on the work and didn't let it die but loved to do it.
I got up and wrote my dream out on paper then I got back in the bed and my back was 50% better. I was able to get to sleep easily and slept a few more hours until my husband woke up to go to work. He rubbed it and I could tell the pain was down to about 10 percent of it's normal level. The next day it went away completely and I could hardly believe I had really been touched by the Lord through the dream. I went to Kentucky and did another work night. I had no trouble with my back the whole night or riding in the car for a long time. I knew the healing would hold up and was real.
However, there was one more twist in the story. The next Wednesday night I told my testimony about my healing and how it was tried and tested in Kentucky and there was no pain. I could feel it really built people's faith. In fact, that same night Mr. Rob's shoulder was healed at the end of that meeting. I felt that the dream and my healing was a gift to us all, because we have all prayed for those kinds of touches among us. But as soon as I sat down after telling my testimony, a pain came back in that place in my mid-back. It was a little one but I felt it and it really bothered me. I had all sorts of thoughts one of which was, "You are a fraud to claim a healing that isn't real. You feel that pain?" I thought, "Oh Lord what is it going to do to everybody if I end up having to have surgery or something after all?" I thought it was too odd that I should feel a pain immediately after giving my testimony. I was very upset with it and then something just came over me, like a righteous indignation, and I told Jason, "I believe God did heal. I believe the dream. I believe it was right." I went to bed with that attitude and when I woke up there was no pain. I thought that experience was odd and I said, "Lord what was that about?" There was no answer, except feeling like somehow I had overcome something that almost took my blessing, our blessing. So I put it on the shelf.
A few weeks later on our vacation, I had time to read a book I had ordered on Ernest Angley's autobiography. In it, he tells of a time when the Lord healed him on his deathbed. The first time Brother Angley told his testimony about it, he got sick again and he went to the Lord and asked Him what to do. The Lord said, "Tell it again!" So Brother Angley told his testimony again and the sickness left completely. Wow! Somebody had an experience similar to mine. I knew then that I had a choice the night I told my testimony to have complete faith in what Jesus had done, or to let my healing go. I could have let it go and been awaiting surgery as I type this. I know that. But Jesus used my love for the people around me to help hang on to my testimony.
I have read other stories where God's people were healed but they did not have the faith to keep their healing. I even had a dream recently where the Lord showed me someone who was in the process of being healed of a deformed, twisted leg, but because of the person's lack of faith for what God had done, the leg was becoming twisted again. Grace is what the Lord does for us, and Faith is our response to it. When the Lord does something for you or gives you something, hold on to it with all your heart and don't let it go for any reason. It is so precious! Tell about it! Don't let logic or this flesh or anyone else's opinion steal it from you. It reminds me of these scriptures from Matthew 22:
36. Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37. Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38. This is the first and great commandment.
39. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.