Monday, February 27, 2012

Knee, Back & Throat Doctor

Knee Specialist
Hannah & Brandon
There's not a profession that goes by that name, but you can't name a part of the body of which Jesus is not the Specialist. Shortly after playing her last high-school basketball game for the Lady Crusaders, Hannah, my niece, was complaining about her knee again. It had swollen up, as it usually does since being injured, and was painful to walk on. In fact, right after the game she couldn't put any weight on it at all without cringing. The next day, it was still swollen and painful at my mom's where we all had gathered to practice one last time before the show, Saturday (25-Feb-2012). I don't know who it was, but someone yelled at me from the living room and said, "Greg, get in here and pray for Hannah!" So I did.

Hannah showed me its "squooshiness" and demonstrated the pain. After getting a good measure of where we were, me & my oldest sister, TammyC, laid hands on her knee and commanded its healing. Nothing much happened. Again... nothing much. A third time... nothing much. Hmmm... OK, left my hands on there quite a while and commanded again. This time she felt something move. The pain shifted from under her kneecap to the side of her knee. Strange. I then remembered something I'd heard Curry Blake say about localized pain moving around when you pray. He said when this happens he immediately goes for a "spirit of infirmity." Made sense. So, this time I pointed to the knee and said, "You spirit of infirmity, I command you, in Jesus Name, to leave Hannah's body, right now." Hannah immediately let out a little squeal in pain. "What's wrong?" I asked. She said, "As soon as you said that my entire knee started hurting really bad." But in about 5 seconds it stopped and then when she checked it, there was no pain whatsoever! Weird!

It was still swollen, so I laid hands on it and commanded the swelling to dissipate. After about 5 minutes or so, there was no swelling! She showed us how she could jump around on her knee and how it now looked like her other knee.

I have to chalk this up to my first very apparent lesson and encounter with a spirit of infirmity, even though, I'm not sure what to think about it.

Back Specialist
TammyC & Karahann
After that, my oldest sister said, "While we're at it, my back has been hurting me. Let's let Jesus work on it too." Excellent. Jesus loves to heal. It is a normal expression of His presence. I asked, "Where?" She said, "You tell me." This was actually a challenge... LOL. OK, that's easy, when I lay hands on her back, the part that Jesus will work on will normally get very warm, and in some cases, hot. So, I put my hands on her back and thanked Jesus for healing, and commanded it to be healed. Then I moved my hands around until I found the hot spot. "Middle of the back, right there," and I pointed to the particular vertebra that was getting hot. "Yep, that's the very spot." Jesus knows. This stuff is real.

Her back stayed hot a good 20 minutes on its own. It even cooled down once and started up again. She said it was like a heating pad. Afterward, she couldn't make it hurt. And the next day she said her back was sore. I guessed it was because after the adjustment Jesus made on it, the muscles had to readjust.

Throat Specialist
Billie
After the show Saturday night (25-Feb-2012), TammyC had to come back by my house and drop the big "dog-house" bass off. One of her friends, Billie, who is like a member of our family, was with her. After unloading the instrument and some conversation, TammyC said, "Hey, Billie's throat is really sore, can you pray for her before we go?" Sure! She said only one side was very painful when she swallowed. After laying hands on her throat for about 10 minutes, finally she felt relief begin to happen. We got her glasses of water so she could keep testing it. She said, "Now I have to go to the bathroom." LOL! Before she left, the soreness, she said, was gone by about 75%. I told her I believed it would continue to get better and be gone probably the next day.

The next day, while me and my family were at the aquarium in Gatlinburg, TN, (with my grandson, Gunnar), I got a text message from her that simply said, "95%!". Nice! And then about an hour after that another one that said, "100%!" 

Yep, Jesus continues to work even after we kickstart the healing and only see partial results.

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Arthritis Can't Stay

My Mom
Last night (Tue, 21-Feb-2012), my family and I went to my mom's (Janice) house for music practice. Every year about this time, me and my siblings and our children get together and polish up on a few select songs that we will perform on local TV and at an annual event held in honor of my late dad (Leon Kiser). The event is called The Leon Kiser Memorial Tribute and it occurs annually in February each year after my dad's death. The show is to honor both living and dead folks who have locally contributed to the local mountain musical heritage (mostly bluegrass musicians).  All the proceeds from ticket sales go to a local college scholarship for some chosen individual in their Mountain Music program.

I was in the kitchen heating up some homemade potato soup for my youngest daughter, Kayla, who had arrived a bit late from work, when my mom approached me and said, "I need for you to pray for my finger." She showed me her left pointer finger, last knuckle, was very painful, and she couldn't bend it as far as her other pointer on her other hand. She held them up and showed me the difference.

So after the soup was hot and I had handed it off to Kayla, we sat at the bar. My youngest sister (Jennifer) and her oldest daughter (Hannah) were watching. I laid my hand on mom's finger and commanded arthritis to leave and pain to go and for the joint to be healed. Mom felt nothing. I felt a very slight tingle; almost unnoticeable. After a few minutes of just leaving my hand on her I asked her to test it. "Wow, look!" she said. She immediately could bend it all the way like her other finger! "Does it hurt any?" I asked. She said, "Well, yes, just a little when I bend it all the way." So, I laid my hand on her finger again. No words. Suddenly, the skin, and tendons began to slightly jitter. "Are you doing that?" I asked. "No!" Jennifer and Hannah were surprised! Hannah said, "Nana look at your hand! It's jittering all by itself." It was really funny!

When I removed my hand this time and she tested it, she could bend it all the way like her other finger and there was no pain. She immediately said, "Praise the Lord. He is so good to us." 

Amen. Jesus is amazing all the time. He is forever faithful and it doesn't matter whether you feel like praying or not, or whether you've had a bad day or not, or whether you've failed that day or not... He is still full of grace and kindness and His mercy is over all His works!

Monday, February 20, 2012

Torn Shoulder Healing


For a while a friend of mine (Scott) had asked if I could lay hands on the husband of one of his coworkers, Tina. The man's name was Doby. We had some trouble synchronizing our schedules, but finally on 30-Jan me and my sister (TammyC) were able to meet Doby at my sister's place of business after work. Doby is a kind fellow that is certainly not afraid of hard work. He is humble almost to a fault. He believes strongly in God and the Lord Jesus but doesn't consider himself well-studied in the scriptures and even expressed he should be a better person than he is. Of course you know what Jesus thinks of that... hahaha. Jesus unequivocally loves Doby and doesn't count his faults against him and I told him that in not so many words. We chatted further about Jesus and His kindness toward us and I was quick to point out that Jesus wanted him healed and He was going to at least start that healing in just a few minutes. Doby was worried that nothing would happen because he had doubts, so I assured him that he really DID have faith (the size of a mustard seed) or he wouldn't be here in the first place. I told him the only faith most folks showed toward Jesus healing them was that they just came to get prayed for, that's all. That's not great faith, but nevertheless it is enough to move a mountain and get healed.

So I asked Doby to tell me what was wrong. He explained that he had a messed-up shoulder, that there were some ligaments torn away in his shoulder that caused terrible pain at times. It was mostly noticeable to him when he lay down to sleep. He had been to the doctor several years ago for something similar in the same shoulder and had had surgery. The recovery time previously had been 4-6 months and it was pretty good for several years afterward. But then it started hurting again. He went back to the same doctor who told him he had tears and disconnects again and that it was going to take surgery to attempt to fix him back again. 

The way the doctor demonstrated to Doby that he had specific tears was a very specific motion that Doby found he couldn't do: Place the back of his right hand in the small of his back and try to push straight backward away from the body. Doby demonstrated to me that he couldn't do it. He even had me place my hand on his hand while he attempted to push... I felt next to nothing while Doby's face grimmaced in pain. Then he put his left hand there and showed me how he could move it easily back and forth really fast. Good! Now we had a measuring point to start.

Me & my sister laid hands on him and immediately felt tingling, movement and localized warmth. At first Doby didn't feel anything, but after a few minutes he said he felt tingling going all the way down his left arm. His pain diminished immediately, he said. I encouraged him to try to move his shoulder around and make it hurt. He found one more spot of pain. I laid hands on it and commanded it to leave and immediately asked him to try again... he couldn't find any pain!

Next, I had him test the small of the back movement. Much to his surprise he could move it perfectly like his other hand! Doby said, "Guys, unless I'm crazy, I don't think I could do that when I came in here, could I?" His mind was reeling and not wanting to accept what just happened to him.

All in all we spent about 45 minutes with Doby, and all he had remaining was some "tightness" but no pain, and he had freedom of movement. He was scheduled for surgery 15-Feb-2012 and we tried to get back together with him for some more prayer but failed to sync up our schedules again. But I got the following e-mail from Scott today (20-Feb-2012). Jesus, when given even half a chance through imperfect vessels, does amazing things!
Hey Greg,
Doby's surgery went very well. Guess what? The doctor told Tina that the shoulder was a lot better than he previously expected it to be and he just had to repair some small tears, for a 6 week recovery instead of the 3-4 month recovery he was expecting! The doctor was very surprised because before he had told Doby that he didn't even know if he could get him back to normal this time. Praise the Lord!  
Thanks for praying with him. :-) I wish y'all would have been able to get together a second time, but the first time definitely did some amazing things! 
Now if I could just convince my co-worker Cami to come to lunch with us sometime... she is having some severe back issues. She was off a couple of weeks ago bed-ridden from this, but I can't convince her. :-( She is a Christian but very self-conscious and somewhat skeptical. 
Scott

Pain-free For 2 Years

UPDATE (18-Feb-2012): I was in Wal-Mart getting a gift for a little 3-year old girl to take to her party that my family couldn't attend (they were all out of town at a dance competition). I ran into Jerry whom I had prayed for about 2 years ago (see here). He stopped me and we talked casually. But then he got serious for a second. He said, "I've never told you this, but remember when you prayed for my hip?" I had a flood of memories of the incident (the link above). As I was standing there in front of him with these memories flooding my mind, grabbed my hand with both of his and said, "I just want to thank you again for praying for my hip that day. I haven't had any trouble at all out of it since." (2 years!) He was sincere and I was touched. What can you say, but, a weak "You're welcome" and "Give glory to Jesus, He's the Healer. He loves you and that is proof.