Healing Of My Back -- Betty Brice
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We had gone through the Life in the Spirit Seminar and this was the evening we were to be prayed with to receive the Holy Spirit and whatever gifts the Spirit had for us. When the time came, my back hurt so much that I couldn't concentrate on what was going on. I had injured it many years before and, because it was the vertebrae where the nerves went through to my arms, etc., it never healed properly. I eventually had had to have carpal tunnel surgery in both wrists, but even then the symptoms weren't completely alleviated. It would be okay for a while, but with use, the pain would return and continued to get worse and worse until I had to have a series of traction treatments. I prayed a lot for healing, without success, or so it seemed.
My husband and I went on the weekend, which was held at a Camp Fire Girls Camp someplace north of Linden. It was a beautiful wooded setting. There were several bunk houses, a large dining hall, the two story building where the meetings took place, and probably other buildings as well. The meetings took place on the upper floor and the lower level had the rest rooms, prayer room, and other rooms that we did not use.
During one of the talks, I went down to the rest room. On the way back up, a man that I didn't know was coming down and I heard the Lord say to me, "Ask him to pray for you." There was a little alcove halfway up where the stairs turned, so I waited there for this man to come back up. When I told him about my back and that I had heard the Lord tell me to ask him to pray for me, he said that he would get his wife. The couple introduced themselves as David and Elizabeth Rocha and they did pray for me. (They were the heads of the men's and women's group that Doug and I were later assigned to.) Nothing happened at that time and I guess I was a little disappointed.
That evening, it was announced that there was a prayer room and if anyone wanted or needed prayer they were to go there. The lady in charge of the small group that I had been assigned to, seemed concerned about me. She wanted to make sure that I had received the gift of tongues and whatever other gifts the Lord had for me. She suggested that we go over to the prayer room.
When we got there, the atmosphere of the prayer room was so thick that I had difficulty going into the room. I had to force myself to go in and then went just inside the door. There were a lot of people already there and I could see a glow down at the end of the room. It was not from a lamp and I wondered about it. (Much later, I realized that the glow was the shekina [spelling?] glory and that the thick atmosphere I had experienced was the manifest presence of the Lord.)
I sat in a chair near the door, with my back to the rest of the room, and several people gathered around me to pray for me. As they were praying, I found myself praying and entreating the Lord to heal my back. The room seemed really warm and I starting feeling something like tingles going up and down my back on both sides of my spine. It lasted for about ten minutes and all the pain went away and it never really came back. For awhile, my back would get painful, but after resting, the pain would go away. Eventually, my upper back quit hurting altogether. The vertebrae that had been injured was sore for a long time, but even the soreness went away over time.
Unfortunately, I never told anyone about it. Even now, I am sure that Dave and Elizabeth would like to know that they were God's instruments on that weekend.