“We started hearing about ministers like Bill Johnson and Randy Clark, and it became clear to us that we had to go see…”
Every healing is special to me because so few people got healed when I prayed for them before. Thirty years I lived like that! My father passed away while I was struggling to stand in faith for his healing—it was devastating at the time. In truth, it was a real low kind of faith based only on sincere desire, which is not the biblical kind of faith. His passing was such a blow that whatever kind of “faith” I had simply evaporated in the disappointment and grief.
But over a decade ago, my wife, Janet, was in an accident, and her knee was damaged as a result. A few years later, while attending a conference where Bill Johnson was speaking, a word of knowledge went forth about her situation. At that time, her knee was radically touched, and that singular occurrence is what started us both down the path of pursuing the knowledge and manifestation of the truth—that God heals today, wants to heal people today, and is asking us to press in with all haste into receiving that healing.
My wife and I for a long time hadn’t walked in these kinds of miraculous displays of God’s power. We started hearing about ministers like Bill Johnson and Randy Clark, and I ordered a bunch of their books. Janet and I devoured each one, and it became clear to us that we had to go see ministers like this in operation.
Our first meeting, we drove several hours to attend a Bill Johnson conference. I remember what he was talking about the first time I heard him speak; I was thinking, This is it! This is what I’ve been waiting for my whole life! This is the way it’s supposed to be. You know, your heart gets stirred at these kinds of events. You have a distinct revelation where you realize your life is never going to be the same, but at the same time you realize you’ve been a bit of a “Christian idiot” for a number of years as well. That part was hard for me to deal with, like, What have I been doing before this point? What a waste!
Bill gave a word of knowledge—somebody in this room was in an accident more than ten years ago and is still suffering the effects of that.
My wife leaped up like a spring, not one bit of hesitation, and this is one of the keys to accelerating healing—don’t hesitate, go for it! Don’t question it at all.
Janet’s knee had been crushed between two cars, years before. There had been severe swelling, and then it was getting better for a while, but then it just got worse to the point that it was chronic. She couldn’t walk for very long without the knee getting all puffy, and she would likely need knee replacement surgery. The procedure was going to be costly, and we were going to have to sell our house and purchase a one-story home because of the difficulty she had going up and down stairs.
But here at this conference, when Bill gave the word of knowledge, she leaped up and exclaimed, “That’s for me!”
“These kinds of miraculous quickenings of the Lord are equally available to all His saints.”
Bill said, “Somebody put a hand on that lady,” and she felt the power of God hit her, and the rest of that night she felt a tingling all the way down her calf. God completely reconstructed her knee. She had chronic pain every day up to that point. From that day on, she has had no pain at all in that knee. Praise God!
That moment of her encounter was wonderful, and she and I will never forget it the rest of our lives. But it’s the “after story” that really shows the changes in our lives. What comes after an encounter like that? How do you respond to such a miracle? Well, for ourselves, I can honestly say it completely transformed our lives.
Ever since I’ve known my wife she’s been a devout woman, but her relationship with God just went to another level after that—seeking Him, sharing about Him with other people. A stranger can’t talk to my wife for more than a couple minutes without hearing about her knee getting healed. She just tells everybody about it. Some people think she’s crazy, like, “Who is this weird lady?” But some people are completely fascinated, and she’s gotten to pray for many of them and seen many, many people healed.
It’s lead her into ministering in the prophetic and training and activating others to hear God and be led by the Spirit—open doors here in the States and overseas that we never dreamed would be available to us. God’s pouring himself out through Janet out all over the place, all stemming from this miracle!
Praise the Lord! She and I were gloriously ruined by that one encounter. I believe a similar “ruining” will happen to you as well if the Lord has not already done so. That’s why I share these testimonies—not to boast as someone “special”—but to show that I believe these kinds of miraculous quickenings of the Lord are equally available to all His saints.