Healed

I have to start out describing Brenda, an amazing woman from my old church. She is a big, beautiful and wise African-American grandmother. She just exudes kindness and faith and love and warmth and wisdom. I miss her right now, haven't seen her in a long time. Miss her kind, pretty face and her sweet voice.

A few years ago my friend was having some concerns that her child could possibly be autistic. I asked for prayer for him in a prayer group at church. Afterward Brenda called me over to her and told me I needed to put some blessed oil on him whenever I went over there. I asked her where I was to get the blessed oil and she told me to pray over it with Jason. To ask God to bless the oil, knowing that the power isn't in the oil, that its in God, but ask for his presence and anointing to be in the oil. (Those weren't her exact words, but thats the gist of it.)

So that night I researched oil and anointing and blessing with it and I wrote a prayer. I put some olive oil in a plain glass bottle and Jason and I later said the prayer together over the bottle.

I have to admit I never once put any on my friends child. I thought she would think I was nuts. My new faith at the time was a big change for her, and I thought if I go over there with holy oil wanting to put it on her kid she's probably gonna think I'm insane. So I just continued praying for him. 

(and just so you know he isn't autistic)

I did however start putting it on me. I knew we were going to start trying to get pregnant in a few months. So each day when I got dressed I would put a dab on my abdomen and ask God to bless my womb and let me be healthy and fertile and I'd say a little prayer for the baby to come.

I have had a pretty bad chronic bladder problem my entire life. Since I was about 5, I don't think I've gone a month without some degree of bladder infection. I couldn't go two weeks without it giving me some sort of pain/discomfort. As I kid I went in the hospital for tests and they couldn't find anything wrong so I just had to deal with it.

I can remember one day in highschool when I worked at Champs, being in the backroom and being unable to move my bladder hurt so bad. Sometimes each step felt like somebody was jabbing it with a knife.

I have cried in cars feeling like we would never make it to a bathroom more times than I can count. I peed on the George Washington bridge in NYC in a traffic jam.

And of course I couldn't be on antibiotics all the time, so usually I would drink tons of water and flush it out. Which meant going to the bathroom like every 15 minutes. When I first started at a new job it really scared me that my desk was on the opposite side of the building from the bathroom, and it did end up being a horrible painful issue at times.

One of my biggest fears was the thought of getting pregnant. Normal people have problems with their bladder when they're pregnant, I figured I'd be incapacitated. And I was starting to get scared that my bladder wasn't going to be able hold out like that my whole life. I had fears of having to have it removed. Sometimes in the middle of the night I'd panic a little thinking about it. 

But I'll never forget the day I pulled in my driveway and it dawned on me that my bladder hadn't hurt in like 5 months. I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed before then! I think I am one of the most unobservant people ever. I was about 3 months pregnant.

I wanted to shout to the world that I'd been healed, but I was so scared to tell anyone cause I thought what if it comes back. What if it has something to do with me being pregnant? But as my belly got enormous sometimes in the middle of the night when I got up to go to the bathroom I would get down on my knees and thank God from the bottom of my heart for healing me. Sometimes Gianna would kick and it would hurt my bladder. I would never had made it the way I was before.

The first time I got a bladder infection I started to think oh no, maybe I wasn't healed. But it went away and didn't come back! People with healthy bladders get infections occasionally too!

And now its been 4 years!!!  : )

And I had prayed to God many, many times to heal my bladder, but I think I had kinda given up, hadn't done that in a while. But God does things on his time I guess, not ours! 

I think its funny too that right around the time I started putting on the oil I had gotten the name of a urologist cause I couldn't take it anymore. I totally forgot both appointments. The night before I knew I had an appt in the morning, but both times I completely forgot and drove right to work, not remembering until later in the day. I was too embarrassed to call back for a 3rd appointment so I said forget it.

If I had went to that doctor I would have totally thought whatever he recommended had fixed my bladder! I know now I was meant to miss those appointments.

I have tried the oil on my psoriasis and it hasn't worked. I don't think its magical oil that will cure any disease, but I do know that God had a purpose in it for me!

And I am sooo grateful to Him and so happy I listened to Brenda. : )

Psalm 30:2
O LORD my God, I called to you for help and you healed me.

Jeremiah 17:14
Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.