Inner Renewal Brings Health and A New Outlook On Life
Over the course of five grueling years, I underwent lengthy treatment for a chronic disease, brucellosis. I had experienced attacks for 15 years before I was diagnosed, and a treatment became available. I had relapses after the first two treatments, which were physically and emotionally debilitating. How did I end up at this point?
I grew up in Chicago, raised by an emotionally abusive mother and a daydreaming father who was oblivious to my plight. The years of hatred, fear and rejection still haunted my memories. Despite having met and married a fine man, and then the birth of our three children, I was trapped from that joyous life by my illness. I had received Jesus as my Savior when I was nine. Through the years of adolescence, I clung to the verse in Scripture that says that all things work out for the good of those who are called according to God’s purpose. What good could come out of this torture?
As I lay in bed undergoing a third treatment, I said, “God, if you will heal me, and not just of this attack, but give me good health, I will study your Word every day.” As I look back over the years since then, I must laugh at my prayer. Big deal for God, if I read His Word daily. But, He knew I meant to be useful to Him. God took me up on my declaration to Him; He made a covenant out of it with me. It became the purpose of my life.
That third and final heavy antibiotic treatment finally did knock out the brucellosis, but I was still weakened in body and spirit. As I read His Word daily, I saw promises for an abundant life. But why was I not yet living it?
Amidst my pondering, I heard about a healing service in a town nearby. I never heard a minister talk about a real, alive, Jesus with such conviction or of claiming the Bible’s promises for our lives today. I saw people experiencing physical healings, including several from deafness. The look on each face could not be one of pretense. At the end of the service, the evangelist said, “Someone is having a healing of the heart. Get up and receive it.” I felt like an electric net dropped over me, causing such an impact of heat and loveliness that I knew that God had done something to me. It felt like July fourth sparklers had fallen all over me. “She means me,” I thought. “But I don’t have heart trouble.” Then, I paused. “Oh yes, my trouble was a broken heart. That’s what she means; a healing of my emotional upset, the fears and disillusionment.”
For seven weeks, I got that healing of the heart promised to me. I also received the baptism of the Holy Spirit at the healing service. I received a brand new spiritual heart and a lifetime of continued good health. God can truly work miracles when you turn your life over to Him and ask Him to care for you.
Friends, God loves each of you with that same powerful and total love. It isn’t dependent on you to be loveable because God knows how to rebuild each of us into a loveable, valuable person. I invite you to consider making your own covenant with God. I hope you will be as amazed as I have been at the inner wholeness He has in store for you.
Alice Gravatt is author of Exodus: The Master Plan, a book describing how God revealed His purpose and plan for human life symbolically to Moses through the building of the Tabernacle, described in detail in the book of Exodus.
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