Friday, August 21, 2020

* A miracle deliverance.


Joan Boney ... apostle/prophet of Jesus Christ by the will of God according to Ephesians 4:11-12.


*****

A woman in our church group, told me she was concerned that her father was going to be a burden to her and she asked me to pray about this.  That was sometime in the 1980's.  Today I would have dealt with this matter differently for I have learned some things about prayer and now I would have worked to teach her scriptures about prayer and would have encouraged her to know she could pray and didn't need me to pray on this matter.

I John 5 

14 And this is the confidence that we have in Him (in God) , that, if we ask any thing according to His will, HE heareth us:

15 And if we know that HE hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him.


In the churches I was in during the 1980's people were always coming to me asking me to pray.  I didn't like it but I did it.  

I realize now that prayer was incorrectly used in those church groups.

The individual should have faith to pray without going though me or another preacher.  God hears each of HIS children and we must have faith that God will hear us when we belong to HIM.

But I did pray a very simple, short prayer concerning this woman's father.  I just prayed that her father would not be a burden to her.  

Her dad was in an assisted living home and died a couple of days later.

She continued in our group for the next 30+ years.

She lived in Houston, Texas, and during that time visited me in Clovis, New Mexico (USA) where I was living during my mother's latter years.

Almost immediately I saw something was wrong with this woman.  Up to then, I had only communicated with her by phone and by letter but I hadn't been around her as I was on that visit.

In 2002, my mother died and I moved to Lubbock, Texas.  

Shortly after I moved there, this woman told me she had retired and was moving to Lubbock.  It seemed like a good thing to our church group.  They were former radio audience and lived all over the United States.  None of them lived in Lubbock.  It seemed it would be helpful to have another person in Lubbock where I lived.

But it didn't work out that way.  There was trouble from the first day.  Every time I was around this woman I was grieved and troubled over things she said or did.  I felt very guilty.  It shouldn't be this way, but it was.

When she tried to help me, and she was always willing to help me, things became very difficult.  Her way of doing things made problems more difficult.  I felt very guilty for she was very nice and very willing to help.

In 2010, I fell over a box and broke a hip.  I had surgery and was in rehabilitation hospital for one month.  She willingly came to help me during those months, but it was always so difficult for me to have her there.  I felt guilty.

In 2018, I had two additional falls.  This woman came to help me and spent a couple of nights in my house to help.  Again it was difficult for me to have her in my house.  I felt guilty for feeling this way.  She was very nice and very willing but the way she went about things made it more difficult for me, and I was troubled by "her way".

The second of those falls, in December 2018, required surgery followed by 2 1/2 months in rehabilitation hospitals.  I was basically helpless during that time.  This woman came immediately to help me but again I was troubled by her and  by the way she did things.

After surgery, December 10, 2018, I saw this woman standing at the foot of my hospital bed.  She didn't say a word.  She just stood there looking at me.  Then she turned and disappeared, walking through the wall!

I thought I was having a drug hallucination induced by all the medications they were giving me after surgery.

They moved me to a rehabilitation hospital a few days later.

About two weeks after I was in the re-hab hospital, this woman came to my room, sat down, and said:  "I don't care about anything or anyone any more.  I don't read Bible or blog."

I was shocked and replied:  "But if you go that way, what will happen to you?"

She replied, "I don't want to talk about these things with YOU."   She went into the bathroom that was inside my room.  

At that same time a nurse came in my room to do something.  I called out to this woman asking her to wait until nurse finished with me.  But this woman snuck out of my room and left while nurse worked on me.

She disappeared!

Then I realized that which happened in the hospital after surgery was not induced by drugs.  God had shown me what this woman was going to do in the days ahead ... disappear from me.

She had been in our church group for 39 years.


*****

Now I had no one to help me.  But I was not concerned.  I knew God would help me and work something out for me.  I could not walk at that time.  I couldn't even get to bathroom.  I had no blood relatives living near Lubbock.  I was alone.

*****

Two weeks earlier, in hospital, a nurse brought me papers to sign whereby I would name a person who was to be in-charge of making medical decisions for me should I be unable to make my own decisions.

Sandra, the church woman who lived in Lubbock, was standing there when the nurse came in to get me to sign these papers.

I said: "Pam Padgett is in charge of me."

Sandra was very shocked and replied, "How can Pam be in charge?  She doesn't even live here."

I replied, "I don't know HOW she can, but she is."

Many times during the previous years after seeing the way this woman troubled me I prayed to God saying to HIM, "Please ... never let  Sandra be in charge of me if something happens to me."  I considered her decision making to be very questionable and to me it was usually disastrous.

Although Pam and I  lived in different states, we had worked together for years on the blog and also on the books which I published on Amazon.  Pam did the technical work.  I had experienced Pam's ability to make decisions.  She didn't trouble me.  She turned to God in prayer and heard from God and did what God said and fixed the problem!  Then she often told me what God had shown her and the solution.  She never troubled me and I believed she was truly connected with God and her way was a godly way.

In mid-December, 2018, Pam often called me at the rehabilitation hospital and helped me though she lived 450-miles from me.  She worked things out for me, getting me a cell phone, and arranging to have things sent to me from Amazon.  And Pam spoke to the nurses by phone working out things for me.

I needed to be moved to another rehabilitation hospital during this time.  Pam drove to Lubbock and located a hospital and supervised the move.  Everything went as well as possible.  I was in very poor condition.

Pam came 4 times during the next two months, and once driving from Colorado to help me in Texas.

Somehow (through God) we decided to move me from the rehabilitation hospital in Texas directly to Pam's home in Colorado when I was released February 24, 2019.

As the ambulance workers took me out of my house to take me to hospital in Lubbock, Texas, I heard this from God:  "You'll never see this house again."

I had no doubt that word was true.  It did not disturb me at all though I had no idea where I would be going.  I really thought I might die in hospital.

But based on that word, I put the house up for sale.  Pam worked with the realtor, and then with my contractor to place my things in storage.  She came to Texas another time to work with the person doing the estate sale and to supervise the moving of my personal things which I was keeping in a storage facility where they could later be moved to Colorado.  I was still in the rehab hospital.

Pam drove my 25 year old car back to Colorado and took my Siamese cat to Colorado.  The car was no problem.  The cat was another matter.  It took Pam and 2 other women 3 hours to catch the cat and to get the cat into the cat carrier.  The the cat screamed for several hours as they drove to Colorado.  And when the cat was loosed in the bedroom where I would eventually come, the cat would have nothing at all to do with Pam!

She made one trip from Colorado to Texas to help me get to an appointment with the surgeon in January 2019.  I was in such bad condition that we had to move me back to rehab by ambulance.

On February 23, 2019, Pam flew to Lubbock to assist me on the plane trip to Colorado the following day.  

By that time I had contracted the disease called Shingles and was in constant pain. But I had pain tablets and tablets for nausea.  And the medical people did not consider me to be contagious.

The flight to Denver went well and we drove to Colorado Springs.  There was a problem getting from car into house because of some tall steps.  We later had a ramp installed in garage, which I still use. 

When we entered the bedroom at Pam's house, where I was to live, my cat was behind one of the recliner chairs.  She put her head out to see who was coming in and then sort of froze and stared at me as if to say, "Is it REALLY you?"  Immediately she came to the bed and got on the bed with me and wouldn't leave me.

***

A week or two later, the church woman who disappeared said she was sorry she did that and she felt bad at what she did for she showed no mercy at all toward me.

I told her, "Please don't be concerned.  I'm glad you left.  You've been trouble and a burden to me for 39 years and I am glad you're gone."

I did strongly suggest that she have a medical check up to see if she had a medical problem which was causing her mental trouble.

She did have medical tests and they didn't find much wrong.

I still don't know what is wrong with her but once many years ago she pointed out a scripture to me and said she thought that described her.  The scripture she cited is the following:

Hebrews 3

18  And to whom sware HE that they should not enter into HIS rest, but to them that believed not?

19  So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.



***

We cannot go forward with church people who don't believe.


*****