Free Country, Ain’t It?

**This was originally published on Thursday, June 16, 2011, in my newspaper column, “The Old Paths,” in The Stokes News. Due to a website change a few years ago, the publishing company broke all links to our old articles which were archived online. This was a tragic mistake and resulted in the loss of thousands of newspaper articles. Little by little, I am putting my old columns on this blog so that they can be preserved. Each column may be updated to reflect present times when transferred to this blog.**

When someone tells me something I can’t do, I am sometimes tempted to spout off that familiar line many of us have used before: “Free country, ain’t it?!” (And yes, you have to use improper grammar to give it that defiant tone.)

Well, there were days back in 2011 that I wanted to shout out that defiant line.

You see, one of my heroes had been arrested. She wasn’t dealing drugs. She wasn’t driving while impaired or embezzling money. In fact, she’s one of the most God-fearing people I know.

Her crime? She had been compassionately and skillfully helping women in North Carolina have their babies at home. She had been by their side to support them, give them excellent medical attention, help them have their babies in an environment that was the only setting used for thousands of years—their own home.

“What’s so wrong with that?” you may ask. “Grandma had all of her kids at home.” Yes, your grandparents (and maybe some of my older readers!) probably delivered their babies in the comfort of their own beds. Thank God we still live in a free enough country that women are allowed to have their babies anywhere they like without fear of prosecution.

But North Carolina has a dilemma. Homebirth is legal, but having a midwife (one who operates independently without physician supervision) on hand to assist is illegal—not for the mother but for the midwife. Had my midwife friend been assisting with a homebirth in Virginia, it would have been legal for her. Such midwifery is also legal in Tennessee and South Carolina (our other bordering states). Yet North Carolina legislators have thus far refused to legalize this practice which is legal in 28 other states.

Let me clarify that Certified Nurse Midwives are allowed to attend homebirths in North Carolina IF they have a medical doctor willing to act as backup (sometimes a tough thing to find), but Certified Professional Midwives—who are also highly trained and usually very experienced—are not allowed to deliver babies at home.

I just don’t get it.

Before you jump on the bandwagon of saying all births need to be in the hospital for the safety of the mother and the child, I suggest you study the statistical evidence for midwifery in the U.S. Then get back to me.

When I am deciding on an issue, I study the statistical evidence, but I also like to talk to those who have been there, done that. Personal testimony is valid and crucial. So when it comes to the issue of having babies at home, let’s find someone who has been on both sides of the fence.

Hmmm, whom can we find? Oh. Okay. ME.

Yep, I’m coming out of the closet. I have had three children in the hospital and two at home in the very bed my parents bought for me when I was five years old.

Am I against hospital births? Absolutely not. I had some great experiences at the hospital—terrific nurses, a doctor I absolutely adored and relatively good care. I even loved the hospital food. So I’m not against hospital births.

I am, however, for the freedom to choose my birth experience.

As I alluded to earlier, I could pick up roots and move a few miles up the road to Stuart, VA, and have that freedom. But since 1983, homebirth midwifery by CPM’s has been illegal in North Carolina.

I chose my midwife as my pregnancy/delivery/postpartum healthcare provider in 1997. She was a Certified Professional Midwife with extensive education in the field she had felt called to enter. Her experience was massive, her resume impressive.

I heard glowing reports of her skills, although I am sure there were some patients who had bad experiences with her. Lest we think such negative occurrences are limited to midwifery, let us remember that malpractice suits against hospitals and OB-GYNs are big business these days. Nobody who assists with the birth of a baby is going to be immune from what sometimes happens in this fallen world—occasional tragedy—OR what we all face as fallible humans—someone who doesn’t like us or what we do.

But I had nothing but the best experiences with my midwife. She was there in my bedroom when sweet Abigail was born in 1998, and she made it in the nick of time when Malachi made an abrupt appearance in 2004. However, it was not just the actual delivery in which she specialized.

I got prenatal care such as I never got from a standard physician’s practice. Month after month, I made trip after trip to her office where she examined me extensively each time—carefully monitoring my uterine growth, blood pressure, sugar, protein and all of the other factors that must be considered in pregnancy. When she questioned the placement of the placenta, she even sent me for a sonogram.

She made a home visit several weeks before my due date to examine the birth setting and make sure everything was in order, such as me having a birth kit readily available. When labor began, she was Johnny-on-the-spot and never left my side.

As much as I loved my OB-GYN, I labored alone for the majority of my time with my first three children. The doctor came in a time or two for a brief check before finally staying as long as necessary when the nurses said I was ready for delivery. I totally understand that in a hospital, nurses and doctors have many other patients and cannot be attached to a pregnant woman’s side. I am not complaining. But that is one of the perks of midwifery—a steady, comforting presence that is constant, which tends to make for a less stressful delivery.

Had I been a high-risk case, my midwife would have been sensible and recommended that I deliver in a hospital. Midwifes are not stupid. They do not want babies or mothers to die. In the rare case of an unforeseen complication during labor, the midwife will call for medical transport to a hospital. Statistics prove that the typical midwife’s baby/mother loss record is lower than, or comparable to, that of the average OB-GYN.

Legislation has been introduced in Raleigh several times to legalize midwifery, but thus far, no cigar. The 2011 arrest of my midwife prompted friends of midwifery—including some OB-GYNs, thank God—to speak up once again in favor of this ageless method of birthing babies.

At the time of the 2011 arrest, I empathized with my midwife’s patients who were on the verge of delivery. My Abigail—expected on March 29, 1998—was already four days overdue when my midwife was arrested on April 2 of that year. My panic was not something a pregnant woman needs to experience. Thankfully, my midwife was released on April 4, in time for Abigail’s birth two days later.

Abigail is 18 now, and little Malachi recently turned 12. As I taught him about midwifery today, he was astounded to learn that general midwifery is illegal in our state when so many other states have legalized it and are seeing great success with it. He looked down at a picture of the beautiful and caring midwife who helped me give birth to him and then at a picture of me holding him in my bed just minutes after his birth. When he looked up at me after that, his eyes were full of fiery determination.

“Mom,” he said very solemnly, “when I grow up, if midwifery is still illegal here, I WILL take it to court and change the law.” I pray things turn around before then, but if not, I do not put it past my amazing son to find a way to successfully reverse this unfair law.

I worry that physicians who oppose legalizing midwifery are primarily looking at their personal financial picture or feeling that nasty spirit of control which can overtake any of us in any profession. If they argue that it is a case of safety, I will gladly put the statistics for OB-GYN practices and midwives side-by-side and say, “Case closed.”

My first child born in a hospital suffered respiratory distress and complications, due to negligence on the part of the OB-GYN (not my regular one who was on vacation), which resulted in long hospitalization and unnecessary expenditures. My second child—hospital-born—very nearly went through the same traumatic experience. My third child—again, birthed in a hospital—would have had a surgery performed on him accidentally had I not caught the error.

My point is that bad things can happen no matter where you give birth. I do not understand these women I have read about who knowingly chose homebirth, and then when something went wrong for them, blamed the midwife and began lobbying against homebirths. Should I lobby against all hospital births and say all OB-GYN’s should not deliver babies just because things went wrong with my hospital births? How ludicrous.

Since Eve, women on the old paths have been bearing their babies in the comforts of their own homes. Yes, there were losses, but midwifery healthcare has improved by leaps and bounds since those times. Why not let women have the birth experience that they choose—whether it be in a hospital or at home with a dedicated midwife by their side?

Free country, ain’t it?

Or is it?

To read more, check out:

https://www.carolinajournal.com/news-article/parents-ask-state-to-legalize-midwives/

The Old Paths: Are we being boiled alive?

**Published in honor of “Human Trafficking Awareness Day” on January 11, 2016.

*This was published in The Stokes News in April 2013, in my regular column, “The Old Paths.” Due to the fact that all Internet links were broken to our old articles when Civitas Media switched websites, I am slowly but surely posting all of my old columns in my blog so that they will be archived as they SHOULD’VE been on the newspaper website.

Most of us have heard that you can boil a frog alive if you do it slowly enough. The idea is that if you put a frog in a pan of hot water, it will jump out. But if you place it in a pan of cold water and heat it up very slowly, the change is so imperceptible that the live frog will eventually allow itself to be boiled to death.

Whether or not this is scientifically true, the frog analogy of “we do not react to change when it is gradual” is an accurate one.

Take your weight, for instance. When you put on the pounds in a gradual manner, you may not realize just how “fluffy” you’ve gotten. Then you look at an old picture of yourself and are amazed by the change. “How did I not see this happening?” you ask.

Because the change was so slow, day by day, that it was not really noticeable.

I wonder how often this analogy proves true in other areas of our lives. This hit me when I attended my son’s dance competition recently with my hubster. I had been to many such competitions before. But seeing it through new eyes–my hubster’s–was very enlightening to me.

It wasn’t long before he turned to me with startled eyes and asked, “So THIS is what it’s all about?” And suddenly, I saw what he saw–little girls in skimpy outfits doing moves that used to be reserved for pole dancers. I’m not talking teenage girls; these were girls of the barely-out-of-or-still-in-elementary-school variety.

The girls did not belong to my son’s dance school which tries to choreograph more tasteful routines with deep meanings rather than the routines that appeal to the–yes, I’m going to say it–sexual senses. A group of about six dance moms in front of us were “whoopin’ and hollerin’” and yelling, “That’s right! Move it, girls!”

Besides the fact that these moms were downright annoying, it hit me that they were cheering on these dancers to do moves that their grandmothers would’ve fainted dead away upon witnessing. Are these the moms who will dress their pre-teen girls in the clothing line called “Bright Young Things” being marketed now by a major company known for lingerie?

You know, the line that includes a thong trimmed with lace that reads “Call me” on the front, shorty shorts that say “Wild” on the rear end and polka-dot hipsters with the words “Feeling Lucky?” printed on them. When I saw this, I literally felt sick to my stomach.

I am troubled by this trend to brainwash girls with the idea that “Sex sells.” Why are we parents shocked when cell phones are banned in middle schools because our daughters (and sons) are taking nasty pictures of themselves in the bathrooms? Why are we stunned when our kids are having sex regularly throughout high school and girls are becoming pregnant out of wedlock at younger and younger ages?

I feel sorry for the little girls who are being fed a double-minded message here. “We’ll allow you to wear itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeny bikinis while parading around the local pools, and we’ll dress you in skimpy black leather for dance competitions where you do pelvic-thrusting moves, and we’ll buy you short shorts with provocative phrases on the rear end, but no boy better touch you!”

I also feel sorry for boys with raging hormones–a teenage fact of life–who are confronted daily with such clothing or lack of. My 17-year-old son confided in me that boys his age are sometimes tormented by a girl’s scanty clothing. Skimpy and/or tight clothing laden with “Come hither” screen-printed words seem to be designed to attract a boy in a way that unfortunately increases his appetite, and I don’t mean for fried chicken.

(And no, I do NOT believe that a girl in such attire who gets raped or assaulted asked for it. Men have a responsibility to control themselves regardless!)

This is not a Sunday School lesson nor a religious commentary. I won’t even mention the Bible or God. Whether or not you are religious, this should be an issue that you ponder carefully in a world that is seeing more and more sex trafficking.

Did you know that an estimated 12.3 million people right now are considered slaves–most of them sex slaves? The average age of a sex slave is 13, and the majority of them are girls. And no, it’s not just in the former Soviet Union. Our nation has a huge sex trafficking problem. In fact, many legitimate organizations rank my home state of North Carolina in the top 10 for this problem.

“Sex trafficking? Oh, that’s farfetched stuff!” you argue. Well, the increase in child pornography isn’t. With easy access to the Internet, the viewing of pornography has escalated to epic proportions. Statistics say that every second, 28,258 people are viewing a nude picture of somebody’s daughter.

Are we like the frog that has had the water heated so slowly that we don’t even know it? Just 50 years ago on the old paths, much of the dancing in today’s dance competitions would have been seen only in strip clubs. Meanwhile, the little girls of that day wore saddle oxfords and mid-shin-length dresses.

But little by little, the water heated up, and the change was so subtle we didn’t realize it. Now it’s here, and we accept it as normal in our culture.

My son dances fully covered and doesn’t do the risque moves that predominate the female dancing, but even so I am going to have to heavily ponder his situation. I don’t want to be boiled alive. Let’s jump out of the pot, shall we?

Our Miracle of Healing! Pt. VII: Keeping the Faith

(This story is much too long to share in one blog post, so I have divided it into parts. Be warned that it deals with a sickness that was so severe I must occasionally delve into graphic descriptions of the symptoms. This is necessary for the telling of the story.)

The kids and me just 3 months before the parasites struck. (See a picture of us NOW at the end of this portion of the story!)

On that Monday, October 26, Keith stayed home with us all day and fielded phone calls for me, since it was ringing off the hook. Finally Vicki called. Again, she had been reading something in the Bible that was meant just for us at this time.

BEFORE the healing, I kept asking her, “So what is God telling you? Are you coming across anything in the scriptures?” She had been puzzled because all she kept reading involved false idols and how God’s people needed to get rid of them. That didn’t seem to fit at the time. But after my experience the day before the healing when we had to purify our house from ungodly movies, tapes and even things like totem poles and certain Native American memorabilia, I knew now why those scriptures about false idols DID apply.

(NOTE: Keith and I both have considerable Native American blood and are proud of our heritage. But some—not all—Native American items purchased in the modern marketplace are representatives of heathen gods or are tied to religions other than Christianity.)

Now on this beautiful October Monday morning, Vicki told me she had just finished reading in John. As she closed the Bible, she felt led to open it again. She told the Lord she would open it, and He could direct her to what she should read. She opened immediately to II Chronicles 29. The first word she read was “Hezekiah,” and she smiled. Aha!

This chapter told of Hezekiah sanctifying the Temple, throwing out idols and cleansing the sanctuary. She couldn’t help but think of Keith furiously throwing away anything even questionable. Then she said, “Leslie, when Keith purified your house, what day of the sickness was it?”

I did a mental calculation and said, “The 16^th day.”

Vicki began to laugh and then read aloud verse 17 (there’s that 17 again!): “…so they sanctified the house of the Lord…and in the sixteenth day…they made an end.” I nearly came off the couch! I told Vicki I was going to have to run or shout or something. That was amazing!

Then she told me how that, after the Temple was sanctified, people began to bring thank offerings. She said the Lord told her to tell us that people were going to bring thank offerings to us and that when they did, we were not to say, “Oh, you shouldn’t have!” or anything apologetic like that. We were to simply say, “Thank you.”

This seemed strange to me. Thank offerings? I didn’t see why anyone would bring us anything. I said, “Have you talked to someone or something?” Vicki said no, that’s just what the Lord told her to tell us.

Then when I told her how I had awakened and was told at 1:11 a.m. that I would be tested on this, Vicki laughed again. She had finished her Bible reading this morning with the portion of scripture that told how—after the wonders were done in the Temple after sanctification—God left Hezekiah for a time to try him to see all that was in his heart. Now I was even more determined to prove to God that I trusted Him.

I had just hung up with Vicki when my mom called. She was thrilled to hear the news (Keith had told her this morning), and she totally believed. She said that my Great-aunt Fannie (whom I don’t see very often) had brought over a gallon of homemade chicken soup and just felt as if she wanted us to have it. I was stunned.

But the thank offerings had just begun. Someone else came with money for hospital bills. Then Mike Lane called to tell us the church had taken up a love offering for our hospital bill, and he’d bring it to church Wednesday night unless we needed it sooner.

Cordelia Hairston from my church called to say what a miracle it was and how it happened to strengthen our faith at Christ Temple. Then our church friend, Nancy Bullard (Jody and Joy’s mother), called to tell us that the miracle had helped spur a revival of miracles at our church. She said, “Rebuke Satan if he tries to bring something on you to make you think you’re not healed. Bind him.”

My Aunt Darlene Heath from South Carolina called to say, “No weapon formed against thee shall prosper.” I needed that at the moment, because Tracey and I had just been talking on the phone a few minutes before about people voicing unbelief. The last thing she and I had discussed had been how the prophecies seemed to be for Elijah Blue only. Some people had already called her and discussed this.

Darlene knew none of this, yet she said she felt strongly she must tell me that Meghann, Chelsea and I were ALL healed. Every time I had talked on the phone that morning, I had ignored the beep that told me another call was coming in. But for some reason, when Darlene beeped in as I was talking to Tracey, I answered the call—without even knowing who it was (no Caller ID). Thank God I did!

I started to wonder throughout the day what else was going on, because I kept noticing strange things that seemed totally unrelated yet pertinent somehow. For example, the birds had completely left our backyard feeder some weeks before, but suddenly today, I heard their chirping and knew they were back. Then I found a ladybug in the house. They, too, had been gone for a while, and now the first one was back in our den where they like to congregate.

Meanwhile, the phone kept ringing. I couldn’t get all the calls, so some people were calling Vicki and Tracey to check on us. I kept thinking about those scriptures in Hebrews that Joy had read to me on Sunday afternoon about rest, and suddenly, I wanted so desperately to get away and rest. We had been penned inside for so long. But I knew it wasn’t time. I needed to stay home and accept my thank offerings!

A sister in the Lord came and brought so many bags of groceries I didn’t know where to put them all! I had to go to the basement and store many things on the shelves down there. Keith had gone out for a brief time when she brought them. When he came back and saw the multitudes of groceries in the kitchen floor in bags, he said, “We’ve got enough to eat and a bunch more!”

Immediately, I thought of a portion of the scripture Vicki had read to me just that morning about the purification of the Temple. I ran for my Bible and read it to Keith: II Chronicles 31:10—“…Since the people began to bring the offerings into the house of the Lord we have had enough to eat, and have left plenty: for the Lord hath blessed his people; and that which is left is this great store.” We both started laughing. It was so true!

Tuesday, October 27, dawned—another lovely fall day. Again, the phone was consistently ringing. I called Vicki for a word of encouragement since Chelsea, who was feeling better physically, was still fighting a mental battle. Vicki said she was sitting with the Bible in her lap, waiting for me to call. She knew she had to read Psalm 105 to me. She read it, and oh, what a comfort! It spoke of giving praise unto the Lord for His marvelous works and how we should talk of these works and make them known among the people.

Vicki told me that this morning she had been wondering why Chelsea, at only 8 years old, was the one having to fight this battle of faith. Then Vicki’s mom, Betty Blansett, called her and out of the blue started talking about a dream she had when she was only 8 years old—a dream of two roads—one so well-travelled that dust was rising from it as if it was a cattle trail and the other one narrow but green and shady and refreshing.

Then Betty looked up and saw the skies part for the Lord to appear. The dream terrified her so badly she slept with her grandmother for a while afterward. She didn’t totally got over it until she received the baptism of the Holy Ghost when she was 12 years old. When Vicki heard this dream, she realized Chelsea was certainly not too young to have spiritual things happen to her.

Then my Aunt Sammie Bray stopped by. She “just happened” to have some yard sale clothes she had bought, thinking of my kids. They “just happened” to fit Chelsea—an expensive pair of Nikes, like the ones Meghann had gotten for her birthday, and four cute turtlenecks. I simply said, “Thank you.”

I told my aunt the story of our healing, and she became teary-eyed. She totally believed. Nancy Bullard then called and said she had some cute shoes that her granddaughter had outgrown and that Chelsea might be able to wear. I felt this was a definite confirmation that God was sending thank offerings to Chelsea in particular.

People kept calling, telling us how this miracle had totally changed them. Heather called to say people had told her they were so moved by the miracle that they had made vows to God to give up things that would be difficult to sacrifice. She didn’t mention these people by name, of course, but I was touched just the same.

Parents/relatives of backsliders called to say these backsliders had heard about the miracle and were pricked in their hearts. What if they should need a miracle? Would they have the right to ask God? Some who had shown no interest in God for years suddenly wanted a tape of Sunday’s service. A fairly new believer in the church called someone else to say, “I don’t know why they had to bear this, but this was for the church.”

And still the manifestation of the healing amazed me—no more vomiting, diarrhea or sleepless nights for any of us. Elijah’s bowel movements still became more solid and normal. It was fascinating just to watch the progression! (Yes, it’s strange what things you’ll take pleasure in after you’ve escaped a near-tragedy!)

Vicki called again to say that she had been humming a song all day and had just thought of the name of it: “You Can’t Make Me Doubt Him.” That became my theme song. Then when I told her Keith had just brought me Mexican food from “Mi Pueblo,” Vicki laughed. She had stopped by the same place to take food to the hospital to Robin who had travailed in natural labor while we travailed in the Spirit.

Vicki had told me earlier that morning to anoint my phone so that only those calls that would be uplifting and not doubtful would come through. Then when she went to the hospital later, she found that Robin had been placed in a confidential room—the number of which would not be revealed except to those who absolutely needed to get in to see her. The parallels were incredible!

Wednesday came, and we were so excited about going to church. A faithful saint of God called to say that as she was praying, she felt the Lord told her He had healed us from a parasite—a worm—to show that He was going to restore what the cankerworm and the caterpillar and all those parasitic worms had eaten and stolen from the church. That sounded good to me.

Several people called to say I needed to be writing this down, and I assured them I was taking good notes! I, too, had felt a huge compulsion to write about the experience.

Suddenly I remembered a strange dream I had dreamed the past August—a dream I had recounted to Keith and Vicki at that time because it had such an effect on me. I had been standing in my living room talking to our Stokes County 4-H Agent, April Bowman. As we chatted, snakes began to crawl from my walls and run toward the open front door. I was astounded that April never saw the snakes. As I looked more closely at them, I realized they weren’t snakes, but huge worms. (When I reminded Vicki of this dream, she reminded me that I had told her two months earlier that the worms in the dream had teeth and monster faces like the strongyloides Keith saw in the microscope!)

In the dream, after the 4-H agent left, I went into the bathroom to—guess what? Give Abigail a bath. I couldn’t because the bathtub was dirty (just as it was the night God revealed the parasites to us)! So I went to the back door which was also standing open and looked out at the rolling hills with beautifully-colored fall foliage at the peak of the leaf season. Then I woke up.

I had dreamed that in August. Now here it was October, the peak of the leaf season, as well as the week that ended our official 4-H year (April leaving our house in the dream). And all of these things had happened!

Recalling this prophetic dream that I had forgotten until this day gave me total confidence that the parasites were not only gone from our bodies but from our home as well. I had seen them crawling out the door in the dream.

As I sat on the couch that afternoon just before getting ready for church, I was thinking that the thank offerings had been nice but that they were over now. At that moment, the phone rang, and it was Dee Dennis from church, asking if she could bring our supper to the service that night. As instructed by Vicki, I once again simply said, “Thank you,” just as I did the day before when a 4-H friend brought my lunch and my sister brought my supper.

I smiled as I hung up the phone and then suddenly froze in disbelief. I heard a sound that I had not heard in a while—raindrops. The entire time we were sick, there was no rain at all. The meteorologists kept making a big deal out of the consecutive number of days with no rain. We had noticed how the drought days matched our sickness days. The last rain had come on Thursday, October 8—the very day we started feeling strange before we woke up sick on Friday, October 9.

Now I looked outside and saw that a brief shower was passing through. There was no rain at the airport that day, so the meteorologists didn’t list the trace of rain in their weather record books. But at my house, it truly rained on that Wednesday. I couldn’t resist calling Tracey to tell her that I could hear the sound of an abundance of rain—the latter rain.

God had been faithful and true and right on time once again.

Me with the kids today—with a new child, Malachi, added since our miraculous healing 17 years ago! (Baby Abigail—far left—is now taller than her sisters Meghann and Chelsea—far right!)

Our Miracle of Healing! Pt. VI: The Visible Miracle

(This story is much too long to share in one blog post, so I have divided it into parts. Be warned that it deals with a sickness that was so severe I must occasionally delve into graphic descriptions of the symptoms. This is necessary for the telling of the story.)

My kids just out of bed about a month or two after the divine healing–never another sign of the parasites, praise GOD!

Assistant Pastor Mike Lane was preaching that Sunday night, and we didn’t want to disturb the service as we had that morning, so we settled down to wait at the side hall door. I couldn’t quit praying in the Spirit even though people were coming and going and staring at me. I knew if I let up on my faith and prayer and started conversing with people, I’d lose my train of thought and my focused belief that something supernatural was about to happen.

I kept staring through the windows in the door, determined to go in as soon as Mike gave the altar call. I was afraid to move for fear I’d get sidetracked and miss the opportunity to be first at the altar. Because I was so much in the Spirit, I didn’t realize the people inside the sanctuary could see me and were beginning to worry about me. Finally, an usher came and said he had been asked to move me from the door.

It was then that Elijah began to scream. He was screaming for the thermometer. Somehow he had developed the belief that the thermometer would make him feel better—as if taking his temperature was some sort of treatment. He was in obvious pain and smelled absolutely rotten—a characteristic I had noticed for a few days. Whether he was able to go to the bathroom or not, he had developed an awful smell, even right after a bath. His very breath smelled like decay and rot. Now it was particularly noticeable in the hall.

Finally, Elijah got so loud we were forced to take him to the back foyer. He was screaming for a bowl, which was a sign he needed to throw up. Our close friend, Sandra Strupe, came out and said, “We need to get someone out here to pray.”

I was on the floor, already praying, when she came back with Joy’s brother, Jody Bullard, a fiery young preacher. He began to anoint Elijah and pray, but the child kept writhing and screaming in pain. I finally said, in utter desperation, “Why can’t we take him into the church?”

Jody looked at me calmly and said, “Well, why can’t we?” And off we went, Rusty carrying the little buddy to the altar in the midst of the preaching, with Keith, the girls and I close behind. Again our beloved church friends gathered around us immediately and began to pray as if the house was on fire. The whole time, Elijah was crying and/or screaming.

Mike Lane especially called the young people up closer to pray for us. I’ll never forget the fervent prayers from these youth—especially those of young Josh Elkes laying hands on Elijah and praying with as much anointing as I’ve heard many a preacher have. Nothing seemed to be happening still.

As the volume level began to subside, Jody—bless his soul—took the microphone and pleaded with people to stay at the altar and pray. He told them we had been at the hospital, and we had a parasite that couldn’t be diagnosed. That did it for awhile. The volume of prayers swelled once more.

After a while, things tapered off again. I kept thinking, “The Lord told Vicki we need to travail. Forget these normal little ten-minute prayers.” Then I had to leave the altar for a short time as the leaders asked me to come talk to them up on the platform. While I was gone, Keith also walked away with Elijah because he was crying so loudly.

People began to talk to me, and again I felt a confusion I didn’t like. Suddenly I felt absolutely dead inside and out. All the life and hope seemed to be seeping out of me. I’m sure that to those looking on, my whole body appeared to slump. Sister Teddi led me to the chairs on the platform and had me sit down. She said, “You are worn out.” I could barely answer her through my confusion.

After a while, I walked off the platform, down the steps to where Keith had been talking to a lady, Brenda Henry, who worked in a pathology lab. She was astounded that the doctors had treated us the way they had. I was too heartbroken to even converse with them.

As I tried to make my way through the crowd toward the back of the church, Barbara, the herb lady, walked with me. She was trying to tell me to give him a garlic enema since he needed desperately to move his bowels. She said, “Leslie, do you think you can do that?” In her desperation to help us avoid a hospital stay, she was attempting to buy us more time, thinking the enema would prolong his life until we could receive our healing. Thank God for her compassion!

Like a person in a drunken stupor, I just stared at her and shook my head. “No, I can’t do that,” I sighed a sigh of resignation. “I guess we’re on our way to the hospital now.” Looking back on that statement, I’m so disappointed in myself. God had given me so many clues that He was going to do something miraculous if I’d just hang on a little longer, and now I was giving up.

So many people had implied to me that the child needed to go to the hospital that I began to doubt what God had told me. I’m so ashamed that my ears were not tuned directly to Him and Him alone. And again, it’s not that there’s anything wrong with hospitals. If a person is severely injured in a car wreck, let’s pray for them while we rush them to the hospital.

But this situation was different. Elijah would’ve been dead before they finally proved he had strongyloides. I’m sure of that. And besides, God had dealt with me so strongly even before Elijah was conceived that I would indeed bear a son one day; that had seemed impossible at the time, considering the long span of infertility I was in the midst of. But of course, His Word came to pass, which made it easier to believe His next directive to me about Elijah, as noted previously—that he was not to be trusted to man but rather unto God in this last day.

This is why I had clung so tightly through so much suffering to all of the evidence God had given me that Elijah would be healed of the parasite. Yet late on this Sunday night—my mind wearied from all of the advice that seemed to go against my gut feeling, my body weakened by weeks of malnutrition and sickness and exhaustion—I was too far gone to hold on any longer.

BUT GOD! Once again, my God proved Himself faithful and true and RIGHT ON TIME!!! Just as I walked away from Barbara in total despair, my choir director, Patsy Todd, began to speak a message in other tongues. Everyone immediately became totally silent. I fell to the floor on my knees with my head touching the carpet. Patsy spoke for a while, and then we waited breathlessly for an interpretation. When it finally came, she ended with, “Just praise God. He is healed!”

That place went absolutely haywire with joy. I began to sob but somehow couldn’t get up. A dear friend and neighbor, Sherry Richardson, was there, sobbing with me. She had her arms around me. Later she told me she had felt my pain as if it was her child and he was about to die. I believe God gave her some of my pain, because otherwise I could not have stood it.

Rusty was watching the proceedings from the back of the church where he had retreated to as we left the altar. He recalls that he saw Patsy rise up tall as the Spirit came upon her, and she began to speak. He said the Holy Ghost was upon her with such force and power that when she finished, she crumpled and sat down, as if being used that forcefully by the Lord had sapped her strength. He, an admittedly backslidden person at that time, was totally convinced that what was going on that night was absolutely genuine.

Still I could not get up. I seemed to be waiting. I didn’t even know where Elijah was, much less whether or not he was improved. As if to drill it into my head that He is always on time, God moved again just in the nick of time.

I had finally risen to my knees, thinking I probably should get up now, when Jody, who had also been down on his knees on the platform, began to deliver another message in tongues. This was something I had never heard him do, but it was sure enough legit right now. This time I fell to the floor, totally flat on my face as I listened.

He spoke for a while then interpreted. The interpretation was forceful, all about how God had done this healing—even though there was doubt and unbelief—that we might be in unity. God said this was but the first miracle of others that were to come. My favorite line was, “Who is the devil?” as if to scoff at the enemy.

God had spoken by the mouth of two witnesses, and I felt complete again. I was able to get up, but I felt strangely light on my feet. People were laughing and crying and telling me I looked drunk in the Spirit. I felt very happy but far away from everyone.

Heather came over and put her arms around me. God had told her over and over again to come to me and speak these words: “Hold fast to what thou hast, and do not doubt. For what I have said, that will I perform.” Those words were to comfort me much in the coming days.

I turned to see Elijah in the back of the church, playing with the teenagers who had swarmed him. Keith said that a minute or two after Patsy finished speaking, Elijah suddenly quit screaming and got down from his arms to go to a young girl, Ashley Flowers—at which time he started asking for pizza and to go to the youth game room to play. People were crowded around, staring at him, while others fell all over themselves to bring him orange drink from the kitchen—anything they could do for this child they had seen almost literally rise from the grave before their very eyes!!

The thing I noticed most was that he didn’t smell bad anymore. The smell of death was totally gone. That absolutely blew my mind. God had done just what Heather had told me He would do—something miraculous to set the church on fire. He was right on time!

We celebrated that night with pizza at Rusty and Vicki’s with a whole gang of people. After a while of joy and laughter, I escaped to the bedroom where all was quiet to nurse Abigail. As I lay there, pondering the events of the night in my mind, suddenly I realized everyone had been focused on Elijah Blue. What about Meghann, Chelsea and me—all of whom had also suffered from those nasty parasites? My blood felt as though it began to run cold as I thought, “Hey, maybe just Elijah was healed.”

Then God spoke to me in a gently-laughing yet loving manner, “Will I not heal thee also?” My whole body suddenly relaxed and became peaceful again. Of course!

As we drove home that night, I was still worried that Elijah had not gone to the bathroom in so long. That was my next prayer request. We had no sooner entered our house than he looked at me, his eyes big, “I gotta go potty!” We barely made it to the bathroom before he relieved himself quite fully. For days and days, his bowel movements had been more like pure green liquid. Now they were already beginning to firm up and change color. I was so relieved! He slept peacefully the whole night through and NEVER ONCE had another sign of the sickness.

But peace was not to be mine that night. Everyone had said, “I know you’ll be glad to finally get a good night’s sleep at last.” And I did fall off to sleep quite easily. But then I woke abruptly, and these words were spoken to me,  “You will be tested on this.” I looked at the clock, which said 1:11. I immediately thought of the oneness of God and His power and immediately fell back to sleep.

An hour or two later, I heard little feet running to the bathroom. It was Chelsea, who was crying that her belly hurt. Now, if God had not awakened me and told me I would be tested on this, I probably would’ve panicked right then and there. Instead I was ready. I felt strong and full of faith. I smiled at her and comforted her and told her to go back to bed. I reassured her that she was healed of the parasites, but that Satan might try to bring something else on her to make us doubt.

Chelsea went back to sleep but still battled the next day. She kept feeling that she was going to get sick, although she never once did. Again, I was calm and kept encouraging her. Suddenly I had an idea. I asked Chelsea to let me check the sores that just yesterday had been festering on her backside. Glory be to God—they were already closed and healing rapidly! That was my proof that she was going to be just fine.

Elijah woke up feeling great, wanting food. He was still pale and weak, but that was to be expected after three weeks of virtually no nutrition. I began my job of fattening him up!

TO BE CONTINUED…..See Part VII at https://timesofrefreshingontheoldpaths.wordpress.com/2015/10/21/our-miracle-of-healing-pt-vii-keeping-the-faith/ .

I just realized tonight that there will be 7 parts of this story. I did not plan that; it “just happened” to end up as God’s perfect number 7. I simply divided it up into readable increments, and this was the result.

Our Miracle of Healing! Pt. V: In the Stillness Before the Miracle

Elijah, age 2–healthy and happy just a few months before being stricken by the parasites.

(This story is much too long to share in one blog post, so I have divided it into parts. Be warned that it deals with a sickness that was so severe I must occasionally delve into graphic descriptions of the symptoms. This is necessary for the telling of the story.)

Then came the confusion.

People began to gather around me and question me. Some said, “You’re going to have to do something.” Others said, “You need to take him to the emergency room.” The Huddleston’s cell phone rang, and it was my mom. Her friend who is a nurse had told her frightening tales of strongyloides and said to let her know if I decided to go to Duke or Baptist Hospital because she knew some people who could possibly help. My parents were very worried.

I sat on the pew in a daze, seeing an ocean of concerned faces above me, all offering advice. They loved me and were only trying to be helpful, but I felt so confused, so dizzy. Tracey sat down beside me and touched my hand. She, too, felt the confusion and knew I must be about to go crazy. She said softly, “Why don’t you go on over to Rusty and Vicki’s?” She felt that I should get out of there immediately.

Joy sat down behind me and put her hand on my back. She began to whisper, “Lord, give her faith. You are not the spirit of confusion, Lord. Help her be strong.” Those two calming hands on me—Tracey’s and Joy’s—were what I needed right then. I stood up and said, “I’m going to Rusty and Vicki’s.”

As I walked to the back door, I paused to read some pages Polly had printed off the Internet regarding strongyloides. When I got to the part about the itching sores in the hinder parts, which is where the parasites make their exit in the night hours, I stopped in my tracks, my eyes large. I grabbed Chelsea and yelled, “Keith, come with us to the bathroom!” The three of us nearly filled the tiny nursery bathroom. We examined her and found the evidence of the parasites in open, bloody sores—just another sign that the original lab technician was right about his diagnosis of strongyloides.

Everything in the paper fit us to a tee—nausea followed by a remission followed by more nausea, primarily at night when parasites are most active. Strongyloides migrate from small intestine to lungs and lay eggs with each migration in each place. Respiratory symptoms often follow the abdominal symptoms. We had also noticed that very thing in our case.

We spent the afternoon in the peace and quiet of Rusty and Vicki’s house. At last, I felt a calming stillness that allowed me to regain my faith and strength. The children rested while we four adults sat around the table and talked. Our assistant pastor’s wife, Teddi Lane, had put in a call to her doctor in Kernersville whom I had liked immensely when I had met her months ago. We were waiting to see if perhaps that doctor would meet us at her office.

I wanted the ELISA test—a special blood test which detects strongyloides by a blood serum antibody level without all of the mess and time lapse of yet another stool sample. When the call came that only a nurse on call was available, my heart sank again. Elijah was getting weaker and weaker; his stomach was distended with bloating, a sign of the third and critical stage of parasite infestation.

Then Teddi called back with a suggestion. Her daughter, Tanzy, worked for a doctor at Baptist Hospital. That doctor was on her way to the hospital at that very moment and had suggested we take Elijah to the Pediatric Emergency Room to see if the attending physician, whom she highly recommended, would administer the blood test. My interest was sparked. Elijah could simply go in, have blood drawn and come home without being admitted and used as a guinea pig.

Keith agreed and took off with a pale Elijah in his arms. I thought my heart would be torn from my chest as I watched them leave. My little boy needed his mommy with him, but baby Abigail still relied solely on me for her food, so I couldn’t leave.

The rest of the afternoon was a tortuously lonely time for me. Rusty went outside to work on a car, Vicki went to the basement to get some rest and the children watched a movie. Poor Vicki had been up all night helping Robin deliver the baby at the hospital. She had unselfishly come to church that morning just to pray with us.

The whole time we had been at her house, she had been talking about the labor she had just witnessed. At first, I was puzzled. Here we were going through the biggest crisis of our lives, and Vicki wanted to keep talking about a woman I didn’t even know having her baby?!!

Then I realized that Vicki wasn’t being insensitive at all. She saw a genuine parallel with the labor and our situation. When Robin’s epidural wouldn’t take, and the pain was intense, she had to travail for the entire night. When Vicki prayed about our sickness, the Lord told her to tell us to push on through—no matter what.

He also spoke to her saying, “What will you do when the epidural won’t work?” Like Robin, would we keep pressing on through the pain toward deliverance or give up? Tears welled up in her eyes as she told us what the Lord wanted us to do. Here was all of this proof that God wanted to do His sovereign work; my faith was increasing steadily.

As I sat upstairs, all alone, the phone rang. It was Keith, and he was upset. They wouldn’t even let him go back to the Pediatric ER without full admission to the hospital. He told me to call Tanzy and see if she knew what the deal was.

Tanzy was puzzled; she said Elijah’s name had been given to the attending physician who was waiting for their arrival. When I called the hospital back, the Pediatric ER nurses told me this was true; they had my son’s name and wanted to know where he was. And still the front desk people wouldn’t let Keith go back to the nurses until he went to registration and admitted the little buddy.

I was again stunned! We were being hindered everywhere we went. As I hung up the phone from talking to Keith, whom the hospital had located for me, he sounded resigned and said, “I’m headed to registration to admit Elijah.”

At that moment, a van pulled into the driveway. It was my herbalist friend, Barbara Whaley. We sat on the front porch and talked awhile. She had brought me some herbs that could possibly help us feel better. As we went inside to the dining area, I suddenly got an overwhelmingly strong feeling in my gut.

“Barbara,” I said, “I just talked to Keith at the hospital, and he’s in the process of admitting Elijah. I don’t want that. I want the blood test and that’s all. I don’t want him in a hospital bed in a room without me there, with him so sick and hooked up to machines.”

Barbara nodded in agreement. “Call him back,” she said, “and tell him to get Elijah out of there even if he has to boldly pick him up and walk out.”

Instantly the phone rang. It was Joy. She read me some scriptures in Hebrews that spoke of rest; I was comforted. I asked her to help me pray and explained to her that I was about to call the hospital one more time. She agreed to pray. As I dialed the Baptist Hospital number, Barbara sat at the dining room table, praying in the Spirit as hard as she could pray.

When the front desk finally located Keith, he had already admitted Elijah and was waiting in a room for the doctor to come in. I told him to insist on the blood test and not to let them keep him, no matter what. He agreed. Hanging up the phone, I felt relieved. At least I had done my part to bring Elijah back home.

(NOTE: I am not against hospitals; thank God for the purpose they serve and for the many great doctors/nurses there! I cannot explain why we were led this way in this case, but when you feel a strong leading of the Spirit of God, you need to follow that—no matter what.)

After Barbara left, Vicki woke up from her short nap. I decided to pray in her bedroom while she got ready to take her daughter, Ashley, to church for youth choir practice. Vicki and I had decided to wait for Keith to get back from the hospital before going to church ourselves.

I had prayed just a little while, asking God to guide us, when Vicki knocked softly on the door. She came into the room, looking apologetic for bothering me. She said, “I felt like there was something I had to tell you, but since you were praying, I decided to take Ashley on to church then come back home and tell you then. But when I passed this closed door, I felt I needed to tell you right now.”

Needless to say, I was intently listening. Vicki smiled and said, “When Robin was laboring early this morning on her hands and knees, determined to finish having the baby with no more medicine, the anesthesiologist came in and said, ‘I recommend you have a second epidural.’ Robin, in intense pain, said, ‘No thanks.’ After a while, the anesthesiologist repeated firmly, ‘I think you need another epidural.’ Again Robin replied, ‘No thank you.’ She was weak but determined to travail to the end.

“When Robin’s doctor entered the room, the anesthesiologist, probably thinking she now had an ally in this effort to get Robin to take the medicine, said arrogantly, ‘It is my recommendation, Doctor, that she have another epidural now.’ The doctor looked calmly at her and said, ‘Thank you, but we won’t be needing your assistance.’”

Just as Vicki paused with a smile on her face, the phone rang. The timing was perfect. It was Keith. He said, “The doctor thinks Elijah is in bad shape and needs to stay here overnight with I.V.’s and the works, even though he admits we’ve done a good job of keeping Pedialyte in him, and he’s not dehydrated yet. When I hesitated, he left the room and came back with two other doctors, including the head of the department. They recommend that Elijah stay here and be turned over to the infectious disease specialist who will be in on Monday morning. They don’t know anything about strongyloides and don’t even have the ELISA test. Leslie, the pressure is on me. What do you think I should do?”

I quickly told this to Vicki. She merely smiled and said, “Tell him to tell them, ‘Thank you, but we won’t be needing your assistance.’” I then hurriedly told Keith the story about Robin and the epidural, but he was too stressed to really listen.

He said, “Pray for me. I don’t know what to do. I guess I’m coming home. I’ll tell them if Elijah isn’t better after church tonight, we’ll be back tomorrow morning.” I hung up the phone and sighed. There seemed to be stumbling-blocks every way we turned. Little did I know, the doctors were stern with Keith and made him sign a paper saying he was taking Elijah home against their recommendation, and they were not to be held responsible if anything bad happened to him.

While we waited on Keith to come back, I got on the phone to Chapel Hill and then to Duke. Neither of them could do the ELISA test in-house. They would have to send the blood work to the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta and wait perhaps a week for the results. For some reason (probably the fact that I wanted to go on Oprah Winfrey’s show to tell how our doctors misdiagnosed us so that others with parasites would take heed and get help), I was determined to find someone to do that blood test.

Rusty was back inside by now and sat silently at the table. He had indeed been at church that morning and had been very much affected by what took place as we went to the altar with our family. For the rest of the day, he had been extremely quiet. I suddenly desperately wanted him to go with us to church that night. I began to beg while he shook his head no. I followed him around the house begging, even when he went into the basement. I was crying and desperate. I knew that tonight was the last hope for us. My little boy was possibly dying.

Finally Rusty shook his head yes. He’d go with us to church, but he wouldn’t carry Elijah to the altar as I was also asking him to do. As he went into his room to get dressed, I went into the kitchen and fell to my knees at the table. I had never been more desperate in my life. Keith and Elijah were back, and everyone was waiting for Rusty. It seemed to take forever. As we walked out to get into the car, I tearfully asked him one more time to take my son to the altar. He didn’t answer.

To this day, I’m not sure why I felt that Rusty had to carry Elijah into this second service. Perhaps it was the ultimate act of humility on Rusty’s part—a man who was running from God at that time—which would help remove hindrances to our healing.

All the way to church, Keith and I prayed in the Spirit. The night service had been going for a good while, so we felt the need to hurry.  As we all parked in the back parking lot, I was still crying and praying. No one knows desperation like a mother, at the point of total exhaustion, who feels she is about to lose her child. As we approached the door, Rusty quietly said, “Give Elijah to me.” I thought I’d faint right then and there.

TO BE CONTINUED…..See Part VI at https://timesofrefreshingontheoldpaths.wordpress.com/2015/10/21/our-miracle-of-healing-pt-vi-the-visible-miracle/ .

I just realized tonight that there will be 7 parts of this story. I did not plan that; it “just happened” to end up as God’s perfect number 7. I simply divided it up into readable increments, and this was the result.

Our Miracle of Healing! Pt. IV: Hindered But Not Halted

(This story is much too long to share in one blog post, so I have divided it into parts. Be warned that it deals with a sickness that was so severe I must occasionally delve into graphic descriptions of the symptoms. This is necessary for the telling of the story.)

Chelsea, Elijah and Baby Abigail–just weeks before the parasite crisis began.

Somehow, I forced myself to go to bed, but there was to be very little sleep for me. I lay in bed alone; Keith was sleeping on the couch in the den. My body was so tense that every move the kids made, I jumped. For 17 days, I had heard little feet hit the floor and go running to the bathroom to throw up or have diarrhea. The habit of listening intently for those running footsteps was a hard habit to break—one I had trouble with for weeks afterward.

But the night passed quietly. I prayed almost nonstop, strangely enough not asking for the healing of my children but for the peace of my children. At the same time, I felt the need to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. (Strange, I’ll admit.)

When morning finally came, I was up and on the phone. I began calling the lab to see if the pathologist had arrived yet to look at the parasites. “No,” they continually replied, “he’s not.” One lab tech (the helpful ones from last night were off-duty now) was very arrogant with me and said, “How can anyone prove those parasites in your bathtub really came out of you?”

Well, DUH! In all of these years of my life, I had never found parasites in my bathtub. Now, just when we have what seems to be a parasitic illness, we find them, and the lab says, “You can’t prove they came out of you.” It made no sense whatsoever.

I had even called “Joe,” the friendly lab tech, in the middle of the night to ask him once more, “Are you sure those are strongyloides?”

He said, with no hesitation, “Yes.”

Keith had looked at them under the microscope and said they had horrid teeth and monster faces like something out of “Star Wars.” He helped the lab techs look through their books and charts and compare the worms to the pictures and descriptions. He, too, was sure they were strongyloides. Now if you found strongyloides crawling in your bathtub where you had been cleaning out the bowls you had thrown up in, wouldn’t you say chances are good the parasites came from your body? They are primarily an animal parasite, and we had no animals in our home.

I spent at least one hour on the phone that Sunday morning, calling all around just to see where the medicine Ivermectin could be found. I was determined to go to church that morning, even if we had to be carried in. I was believing God for a miracle, but at the same time, I wanted to know where the medicine was—in case we needed it later. (Some faith, huh?)

Meanwhile, God saw my doubts and began to systematically close every door I tried to open. I called every pharmacy in the area, including the ones at all hospitals from Winston-Salem to Chapel Hill to Duke to Raleigh. No one had Ivermectin nor could tell me how to order it. One pharmacist finally told me I’d have to get it from the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta. I even called there, but they said my doctor would have to call with a prescription. I felt so helpless, knowing that my doctor wasn’t about to call.

My cousin, who is a pharmacist in Walnut Cove, said he was giving his horse Ivermectin for strongyloides right now. If horses in Walnut Cove can get them, then they are definitely in our soil here. Our pastor even thought that was what his dog had had some years ago.

When the time came to leave for church, the pathologist was still not in the lab. We didn’t have a cell phone in those days, so we left Mike and Annette Huddleston’s mobile phone number with the lab so they could contact us at church. Annette, a close friend for many years, had called me earlier that morning, quite agitated. She had been praying for us when God told her to call and read Ephesians 6:12 to me: “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against wickedness in high places.”

Annette didn’t know why I needed to hear that, but I did. I, like Pastor Eaves in Mississippi, and the friend who had called to ask if we had taken anything into our house since the sickness began, felt an evil stronghold here. This was more than just sickness; there was a demonic component. You may laugh that off, but if you had been walking in my shoes since October 8, you would believe it.

We dressed the children as best we could. We were all so weak that we looked fairly pitiful, with Elijah in purple sweatpants and a Lion King sweatshirt. I was pale and plain, but at this point, fancy clothes and makeup didn’t matter to me. I needed the Lord to move for us, and I needed it NOW.

We crowded into our little blue car, kids stacked on top of each other in the backseat–towels and throw-up bowls in hand—and off we went. Because of my last phone call with the lab, we were running behind schedule. Suddenly, about five miles from home on an empty country road, there was a roadblock. I couldn’t believe my eyes! They were doing roadwork on a very minor road on a Sunday morning. To my memory, this had never happened to us before on a Sunday.

I began to panic, but Keith was strangely calm. He just looked at me and said, “I expected this, so calm down. We are going to be hindered getting to church. It’s not over yet either. But don’t worry. God’s timing is exactly right.” Finally, the man in charge let us drive on through.

We went another five miles on our usual route and suddenly saw a big sign that read: “ROAD CLOSED. MUST DETOUR.” I looked at Keith in total disbelief. Since he had felt this was coming, he just smiled. We had to hit Interstate 40 and go a totally different route. By now, I was certain we would be late, but I finally had confidence that God would be right on time.

The closer we got to our church in Winston-Salem, the harder we prayed. When, at last, we saw that huge white steeple stretching high into the sky, the relief was intense. I began to cry, sobbing, “I have never been so glad to see that church.” I had always loved Christ Temple, but now it seemed like such a refuge.

I knew service had already started, and for that reason, I dreaded walking in late—just us alone. Thank God, when we pulled into the back parking lot, our friend, Lisa Stevens, and her family were pulling in right beside us. They had been praying around the clock for our family for days, sometimes even getting up in the night every hour to pray, setting their alarm clocks to remind them. When I saw them, I began to sob even more—out of pure relief.

As we opened the door to the church, we could hear the music swelling and voices raised in singing. It was a beautiful sound, and we all began to weep even harder. We opened the door to the sanctuary and marched up the aisle, Elijah laid out in Keith’s arms like Isaac in Abraham’s.

Little did we know, something supernatural was going on with Tracey. She had been worshipping God with all of the others for about 10 minutes. Suddenly, she began to pray for God to dispatch His angels to the altar—that it was time. As she opened her eyes, we walked by her to the altar.

Needless to say, even with all the detours that morning, God was right on time.

As Keith laid Elijah on the altar, pretty much the entire church left their pews and gathered around us, praying with heartfelt fervency. I fell onto my knees on the altar steps as the preachers anointed us. Our praise leader, Steve Marler, led the praise team in “I Have A Friend” and other worshipful songs to help usher in the presence of God. We prayed for a while, then gradually people returned to the pews so the service could move on. Our friend, Sarah Widener, in tears, whispered in my ear, “God told me Wednesday that something marvelous would happen today.”

Periodically, I had to leave the service to answer a call on Mike and Annette’s cell phone. At one point, the doctor’s office called to say that the pathologist wouldn’t even look at the parasites because there was no written order to do so. They were faxing one to the lab at that moment. I was so flabbergasted. This whole thing was like a twisted and sick comedy.

I sat in the hall just outside the sanctuary, mouth open, phone in hand—unable to believe the hindrances set up against us. At that point, I felt hope oozing out of me. We had pushed ourselves to come to church, obey God and lay our child on the altar. Yet it seemed that nothing had changed.

Suddenly, the special singing group for the morning, led by my dear friend, Tammy Crawford, began to sing. Tammy’s voice rang out: “If when you have done your very best, And it seems you just can’t stand the test, Keep holdin’ on, The darkest hour is just before light, God said He would make things all right!” That was the very song they had sung in December 1995, the first service I attended after Elijah’s birth. I had been very down at that time (postpartum blues), and that song seemed to heal some of the hurt. Now, October 25, 1998, they were singing the same song, and I took it as a welcome sign.

(NOTE: Click on the link below to hear Tammy singing this song, backed by my daughter Meghann and me, at the healing service we held on Saturday night, Oct. 24, 2015, as commemorated the 17th anniversary of our healing.)

Keith sat on our pew with a still-sick Elijah in his arms. The girls sat wanly beside him. Then came the call from the doctor that the pathologist couldn’t positively identify the parasites, but that he didn’t think they were anything to worry about and probably hadn’t even come out of our bodies. I sat in stunned silence then asked, “So what are you going to do?”

“Well,” said the doctor, “bring Elijah back tomorrow, and we’ll start all over—maybe some new stool samples.” I smiled grimly as I hung up the phone. The medical field was closing all doors on us. I had never seen anything so ridiculous in my entire life.

The physician’s assistant who had called Keith yesterday to check on Elijah had already seemed upset with us that we didn’t immediately start the antibiotic and Zantac. Now they were telling us they wanted to start all over again. The girls and I probably had time to start over; Elijah did not. If we had given him the antibiotic, he probably would’ve been dead already, since Septra would’ve killed the few good bacteria that were left lining his intestines. An antibiotic can’t differentiate which is good or bad bacteria, so it wipes them all out. And who knows what Zantac would’ve done to Elijah had we given it to him?

Just as our pastor, Bob Williams, was starting the sermon, I walked back up to our pew and whispered the doctor’s news to Keith. He just stared numbly at me. The doctors were no help, and none of us seemed healed yet; what more were we to do?

Then we stood with the congregation to read the Scripture, II Kings 20:1-11. When I heard the name “Hezekiah,” I perked up, then began to smile. It was too uncanny. Our pastor was preaching on Hezekiah being sick unto death, and Pastor Bob had stated that this was something he had been planning to preach for a while. In other words, it had nothing to do with our situation. (Oh, but it did!)

As the Word spoke of Hezekiah turning his face to the wall to weep and remind the Lord of how he had been a faithful servant, Bob pointed to us and said we had the right to ask for healing. I knew he was right. We had not been perfect, by any means, but we had diligently tried to serve the Lord all these years.

I kept reminding the Lord that today, October 25, was a very special day for me. Seventeen years ago that day, He had baptized me with the Holy Ghost. I kept saying, “Jesus, this is my Holy Ghost birthday. I want healing as my birthday present.” As I sat there praying that, I thought how Elijah had been born on the 17th. This was my 17th “birthday.” This was the 17th day of our sickness. Then Bob told of how Hezekiah asked for 15 more years. I realized that Elijah was two years old and in 15 more years would be 17. All of these seeming “coincidences” were gathering together in my mind to increase my faith. (Note: It hit me as I began to publish this blog in 2015 that it was going online for the first time ever at the 17th anniversary of the healing. Another 17!)

Then we read verse 7. Isaiah the prophet told the people to place figs on Hezekiah’s boil. I almost gasped aloud. I had just read that figs are one of the best foods to combat parasites. This was too much to deny!

Then came verse 8 where Hezekiah asks, “What shall be the sign that the Lord will heal me?” Isaiah said that since it was a hard thing for the shadow to go backwards, that would be the sign. I nearly came out of my seat in astonishment! This day, October 25, was the day that Daylight Saving Time had ended, and the clocks were turned backwards one hour. This was absolutely not coincidence! I was flying high now. These things HAD to be the sign of our healing.

But still I didn’t know what to do. When altar call came, I walked to the front and sat on the front pew. I bowed my head and repeated over and over again, “I need you to talk to me, Lord. I need you to talk to me, Lord.” Then our organist, Chuck Lewis, began to lead the praise team in the song, “We Need to Hear From You.” I began to weep with the knowledge that even the altar song fit exactly what I was praying at that exact time. Everything was fitting together like a beautiful jigsaw puzzle. Surely the healing was coming!

TO BE CONTINUED…..See Part V at  https://timesofrefreshingontheoldpaths.wordpress.com/2015/10/21/our-miracle-of-healing-pt-v-in-the-stillness-before-the-miracle/ .

I just realized tonight that there will be 7 parts of this story. I did not plan that; it “just happened” to end up as God’s perfect number 7. I simply divided it up into readable increments, and this was the result.

Our Miracle of Healing! Pt. III: A Breakthrough At Last

(This story is much too long to share in one blog post, so I have divided it into parts. Be warned that it deals with a sickness that was so severe I must occasionally delve into graphic descriptions of the symptoms. This is necessary for the telling of the story.)

Elijah and Abigail about 2 months before the parasites struck.

We spent a while packing up our things, including sleeping bags and pillows. Keith was finishing up last-minute cleaning around the house, and I was anxious to leave. The three sick children had been bathed, but I had decided to wait until we got to Vicki’s to bathe baby Abigail.

Just as Keith began to pack up our little blue car, the phone rang. It was a very disturbed Vicki. She said, “You’ll never believe this, but the lady I’m going to be coaching at the hospital has just gone into labor. I’ve got to go to her home to help her.” I was stunned. What timing this was! Vicki said, “You can come on over if you’d like. Rusty will be home later, and I’m sure he won’t mind you all spending the night.”

I hung up the phone in a daze. When I told Keith, he immediately said, “Then let’s stay here. I didn’t want to leave in the first place.” Normally I would’ve fought him on this one, but strangely enough, I pondered the situation for a few minutes then agreed with him. We’d stay here one more night. I was disappointed that we wouldn’t be able to spend the evening with our friends, but I felt an unusual peace about staying home.

I arose from the couch with a resigned sigh and said, “Well, I guess I’d better go ahead and give Abigail a bath. Watch her for me while I clean out her little baby bathtub.” She had been bathed by other methods for the duration of our sickness, so her little baby tub had been unused for some time. It was stored in the regular bathtub when the shower was not in use. Since we had been cleaning out our throw-up bowls in the tub, I was afraid that the baby’s bathtub had perhaps been contaminated by all the splashing. I knew I’d better Clorox it before putting her into it.

As I walked into the bathroom, a feeling of helplessness swept over me. I looked into the mirror, lifted my hands and said, “Lord, you’ve got to help me! You can show me what is wrong with us!”

I walked over to the bathtub, opened the shower door and picked up Abigail’s little white tub. In the foam backing, which was still damp from the constant rinsing of bowls in the bathtub, were tiny black worms, burrowing into the foam. Where the backing had dried out, the worms were dead; where there was moisture, they were alive and trying to burrow. I gasped in absolute shock. I ran into the den, telling Keith, “I know what’s inside of us!”

He looked inside the tub and said, “Oh, my!” His eyes were huge with amazement. I immediately picked up the phone and called my pediatrician. Since it was Saturday night, I only got the answering service people. I told them I needed to speak to a nurse ASAP.

Meanwhile, the wheels in my brain were turning. I called the laboratory where Elijah’s stool samples were being monitored. The lady at the front desk, by the grace of God, connected me to the lab technician in Microbiology, something not ordinarily done. I talked to the man whom I will call “Joe” to preserve his anonymity. I told Joe all about our case and how I had just found these parasites in our tub. He was extremely interested.

Since the lab policy is to act only on a doctor’s written orders, he advised that I call my pediatrician. I hung up the phone, very disheartened. Still the nurse did not return my call, which I was to find out later was divine intervention.

In my agony of indecision, I had a sudden brainstorm (Spirit-inspired, I’m sure). I knew the doctors would tell me to wait until morning, and I knew I needed to try to sidestep them. I called Tracey and asked her to pray quickly with me that when I called the lab back, Joe would agree to look at the specimens I had found.

I took a deep breath after prayer and dialed the lab number once more. This time I knew the lab technician’s name, so I asked specifically for him. I told Joe that my doctor had not called me back, and I asked if we could please run the worms out there for him to look at. He hesitated, knowing it was against policy, then he said, “Sure, bring ‘em on out.” I was overjoyed! Keith left immediately.

While he was gone, the doctor’s office called back, and I told them what had happened. They said a doctor would call me back shortly. I called around to a bunch of church friends and told them how God had answered my prayer and let me see the parasites in the bathtub.

Then I walked the floor and prayed. The children were in bed, sleeping well for a change with no obvious sickness. Of course that usually didn’t come until the wee hours of the morning. All I could do was pace and pray.

About an hour later, the phone rang. It was Keith from the lab. He and Joe were looking at the parasites under the microscope. He said “Well, we’ve identified it. It’s strongyloides.” I had just read about that particular creature in the parasite book Joy had loaned me! Then his next words threw me for a loop: “They can be fatal.”

My heart sank, even as I tried to have faith. He assured me that the lab tech was on the other line even as we spoke, talking to our doctor. He’d be home shortly, presumably with medicine. At that point, I was ready to take medicine, even though I knew in my heart this whole thing had been orchestrated somehow to teach me something about faith.

I picked up the phone and immediately began to call the faithful prayer warriors who had not let me down thus far. I prayed as best I could while the phone rang over and over again. Polly called after she researched strongyloides on the Internet. She was very solemn. “This is dangerous,” she said.

After so long, she told me, the bowels close up and the intestines rupture, thus opening the door for septicemia—deadly blood poisoning. We discussed the different drugs used to treat the parasite, the best one being Ivermectin. I was just sure Keith would come home from the hospital with it.

Time passed rapidly. My pastor called a few times, worried about us. My mom kept calling to see if Keith was home yet.

Then Heather called, nearly in tears. She said she had been on her knees praying ever since I called to tell her what the parasite was. “You’ll think I’m crazy,” she told me, “but when I got up off my knees, the Lord told me to call you and tell you that He’s RIGHT ON TIME—not to worry about your children—that He is going to do something miraculous that will set the church on FIRE!” Then she began to cry, and I did too. I was so blessed by that.

At that moment, my call waiting beeped. I said, “Hang on, Heather.” It was Joy on the other line. I told her I’d call her right back. Heather and I talked some more, then hung up.

I called Joy back, and she was all excited. She said that as she got up off her knees from praying for us, the Lord spoke to her. (Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?! This probably happened at about the time God spoke to Heather.) He told her to go to the Word—James 2, to be exact. She read it once, and it was about not having respect of persons and about faith. She didn’t understand. She said, “Lord, is it that we don’t have faith, or what?”

Then she reread it. When she got to verse 21, the words jumped off the page at her. She knew she had to call and read verses 21-22 to me for some reason: “Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?”

When Joy read these verses to me, I nearly came unglued with excitement. All day I had been visualizing taking Elijah Blue to church the next morning and carrying him to the altar, not upright, but lying down in Keith’s arms. I knew we were to lay him out on the altar as a sacrifice. I had told no one this, so Joy reading me these verses hit me very hard. Abraham laid his only son upon the altar, and his faith shone true.

I said: “Joy, if the ram in the bushes had appeared too soon, Abraham’s faith wouldn’t have been tested. Had it appeared too late, Isaac would’ve been dead already. Would you say, Joy, that by God putting the ram in the bushes at exactly the moment He did, He was right on time?”

Joy replied, “Absolutely. He was right on time.”

I continued, “When you called me, Heather was on the other line, telling me that God had spoken to her during prayer and told her to call me and tell me He’s right on time.” We both nearly went wild! By the mouth of two witnesses, the Word came, and I can’t adequately express how much it encouraged me.

I hung up from Joy to call Rusty to see if there was a way I could reach Vicki. I had spoken to her once earlier while she was at Robin’s house, helping her labor before going to the hospital. But now it was too late. They were already at the hospital. Little did I know, Robin’s labor was to parallel our healing process.

Meanwhile, I told Rusty the whole story, and I believe it very much moved him. I said, “You’ve absolutely got to come to church tomorrow morning, even if Vicki is still at the hospital. You don’t want to miss this. Something great is going to happen.” At this time, Rusty was not a churchgoer, although he believed firmly in God. He wouldn’t give me a concrete answer, but I knew he was deep in thought about all of this.

I had been in contact with Pastor Kenneth Eaves in Mississippi earlier in the day. He and his church were in prayer for us. He had promised early on that he would go before the Lord with prayer and fasting. He had noted that October is a month when Satanic powers are at a peak due to Halloween. He had advised me to have Keith take authority over this demonic infestation, because he felt strongly this wasn’t just a physical sickness but a stronghold of some sort. He had prophesied that when we came out of this, we’d be more on fire than ever before.

I called him on this breakthrough Saturday night to tell him the disease had been identified. He assured me we’d be all right and that he was earnestly praying.

Kristi, Joy’s sister in South Carolina, called to encourage me and let me know she and some faithful prayer warriors at her church were binding together for us. They were praying around the clock. Heather had posted the situation to an online Apostolic prayer list, and people were praying around the country. I was so lifted up and encouraged by the fact that these people who barely knew us—or didn’t even know us at all—were actually fasting and praying for us. It’s hard for me to fast even for my own needs, much less the needs of someone I don’t know. What good saints the Lord has!

Then I heard Keith pull into the driveway. I met him at the door, but he just shook his head grimly. “No medicine?” I asked, nearly panic-stricken. (Oh, Leslie of little faith!) He shook his head again.

He said that our doctors didn’t believe it could possibly be strongyloides because they’re rare, so they wanted to wait until morning when the actual pathologist came in to work at the laboratory. I was absolutely furious. I immediately called and spoke with the doctor on call, who assured me this couldn’t be what we thought (he had not even seen the parasites) and who said the stool sample from Elijah was still negative.

Joy’s book on parasites informed me that strongyloides were indeed rare, found only in Southeastern Asia and the southeastern United States—exactly where we lived! The book also said they were one of the hardest parasites to diagnose because they cling so tenaciously to the intestinal walls that they rarely surface in stool samples. In fact, in about 70% of the cases of strongyloides infestation, the stool samples are negative.

In my anger, I called another doctor from the practice, who was, of course, deep in sleep by now. I woke him up and told him my situation in a very friendly manner—only to be fed the same hogwash. He even said he must be crazy to be talking to me at 12:30 in the morning. I thanked him calmly and hung up, determined never to visit his office again.

I felt absolutely betrayed. No one would listen to me, much less believe me. (Now of course I see how God was shutting all fleshly doors in order that He might work.)

Meanwhile, Keith was working furiously in his closet in the den. I turned to see what he was up to and was stunned. As fast as he could, he was throwing videotapes and audiotapes into bags. I said, “What on earth are you doing?”

He said, “Cleansing my home,” and he continued to work. Now of course we didn’t have any awful videotapes, nothing pornographic certainly, but we did have a few R-rated movies. He was ridding the house of them all, and I was glad.

He also had lots of music tapes he’d bought to learn better guitar techniques—no real heavy metal or music with satanic lyrics, but a few rock ‘n roll cassette tapes that he felt were too worldly. Gone they were, into the trash bag. I was overjoyed. He said, “What right do I have to ask God to help us when I have this ungodly stuff in my home?”

TO BE CONTINUED…..See Part IV at https://timesofrefreshingontheoldpaths.wordpress.com/2015/10/21/our-miracle-of-healing-pt-iv-hindered-but-not-halted/

Our Miracle of Healing! Pt. II: Going Downhill Fast

Me with Meghann (left), Chelsea (right) and Elijah–just a couple of months before the parasite crisis–down at my parents’ farm which you will see mentioned in this story.

(This story is much too long to share in one blog post, so I have divided it into parts. Be warned that it deals with a sickness that was so severe I must occasionally delve into graphic descriptions of the symptoms. This is necessary for the telling of the story.)

Another Sunday arrived, yet again with only Keith able to attend church. I had suddenly become positive that we had a parasite. I knew it was more than the typical worms that kids get from playing outside barefoot where animals have defecated. We had a serious infestation of SOMETHING!

Back in the summer, a close friend from church, Joy Brown, had loaned me a book about parasites and how incredibly common they are. Whenever Joy gives me a book to read, it is usually for a purpose. In nearly every case before when she had loaned me a book, I ended up dealing with a problem similar to what the book was about. I remember when she handed me that parasite book. I smiled politely but was thinking, “Why on earth is she loaning me a book about parasites?” Then I rolled my eyes and said, “Oh, great! I guess I’m going to be needing this knowledge!” Little did I know just how soon that would prove to be true.

At Sunday dinner at my parents’ house, the kids only ate mashed potatoes and bread, but I ate tiny portions of other food. Although they looked pale and had dark circles under their eyes, my children played outside with their cousins and even walked down to Belews Lake. Meghann did have to carry Elijah part of the way, due to his weakness. Later that night, Chelsea began throwing up again; she had been the only affected person NOT throwing up with us in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

Monday, October 19, followed the pattern, just a minor diarrhea day with weakness. According to this pattern, I assumed Tuesday would be a rough day, and it was—all of us sick in the night once more.

By now, people were calling us, truly worried. My parents knew something really bad was wrong. Our assistant pastor, Mike Lane, came out to pray for us. He anointed us with oil, according to the Biblical example, and we all prayed for healing. He mentioned how Elijah Blue had fallen away to nothing. That was my biggest worry. I was constantly fighting a battle to keep fluids in him. We were going through Pedialyte like crazy!

On Tuesday afternoon, October 20, Keith took Elijah to the doctor. The physician’s assistant sent him home, recommending that we keep him on the BRAT diet and get Pedialyte in him every 10 minutes. I was absolutely exhausted from lack of sleep and nausea, plus having to nurse baby Abigail and continually monitor Elijah’s intake. He was hungry but didn’t want the things he could have. We were all starving….literally.

That night when Elijah had diarrhea, we mixed it with chemicals in three little vials which we took the doctor’s office the next morning to be sent to a lab for stool sample culture tests. There was nothing to do but wait and pray.

Wednesday was a weak day again; we skipped church once more. We were missing everything. The girls had missed dance the day before. We were praying so hard yet felt totally blocked—as if we weren’t able to break through.

Thursday, October 22, dawned with screams from Elijah who was sick again. He even threw up his Pedialyte. I was so desperate that I pumped some breast milk, although I was running low, and tried to get him to drink it, hoping it would coat his intestines with good bacteria. He simply threw it up.

Megh was sick again in the night, too. Two of my dearest friends, Vicki and Tracey Moses, came over and anointed us and prayed for us. It was so good to simply see someone new. Elijah even perked up and sat on Tracey’s lap, talking to her. But once they left, so did the joy. I stood in the driveway on a brilliantly sunny October morning and watched them drive away, wondering if my life would ever be the same again.

I had to call my parents to come up at one point, because Elijah was uncontrollable. He was screaming for spaghetti, of all things. My faithful friend, Heather Hampton, called at that point. Later she called another of our close friends, Lisa Stevens, and told her about Elijah screaming for spaghetti. Lisa felt strongly like calling me and telling me to let him eat anything he wanted, but she didn’t.

Friday, October 23, didn’t give us the break that the sickness pattern usually afforded us. Elijah was very weak and screamed if you even touched him. Keith was working for the first time in a while, and I ended up calling him off the job in the afternoon to get him to take Elijah to the doctor again. They wanted to weigh him and make sure he wasn’t dehydrating.

It was yet another beautiful sunny day, and I wanted so desperately to just see my children able to go outside and play. I carried Elijah to the front porch and rocked him in my rocking chair. His bones were prominent where he had lost so much weight. He screamed to play basketball, so I carried a beach towel out to the basketball goal area and tried to get him to sit on it and eat Rice Chex cereal. He didn’t want any food at this point. He actually tried to shoot the basketball twice but got too weak.

Keith rushed home and took Elijah, with Meghann in tow, to the doctor. I tried to pray the whole time they were gone. I lay in the floor beside Elijah’s little bed and beseeched God to help me somehow.

I had been researching online anything I could think of that had to do with our sickness. One website from a hospital in Iowa said the BRAT diet was not good for an extended period of time—that children only get 25 percent of the nutrition they need from it. The research said there was no basis for the BRAT diet anyway.

I called the 800 number and talked to the actual researcher in Iowa. She was extremely helpful and told me to give my children some real food as soon as possible. I feel as if God let me make that connection, because my kids were slowly but surely starving to death on that bland diet. I determined right then and there to give them real food once again.

Soon Keith was home with our little buddy who had lost a pound since Tuesday and was down to 28 lbs., 12 oz. Still the doctors said, “Take him home. He’s not dehydrated. The stool samples are still negative.”

The physician’s assistant sent home two prescriptions—one for a powerful broad-spectrum antibiotic, Septra, and another for Zantac, an ulcer medication. Keith was all for getting the prescriptions filled, especially the Zantac to line Elijah’s stomach.

All I could do was cry. I didn’t want Elijah to have the medicine, and I didn’t really know why. It was a deep gut feeling of knowing that you know that you know. Keith kept following me around the house, asking me why not and what he should do. I couldn’t even talk about it.

I just kept remembering when Elijah was 11 months old, and we thought he had pneumonia. As I sat rocking him in the nursery, crying and praying to God to send angels and healing, the Lord spoke to me and said, “Do not trust him to the ways of man.” I knew then that I was supposed to trust God and Him alone for Elijah’s health.

That night as Keith held him in the den, Elijah perked up and started waving to something in the corner of the room. His little eyes followed “it” as it rose up to the ceiling. He smiled and waved as it departed. I am sure God sent an angel that only his little eyes could see.

The next morning as I nursed Elijah, he lost his breath from the mucous in his chest and began to turn blue. Disregarding what the Lord had told me, I rushed to the doctor where they sent him for a chest x-ray. His lungs were totally clear, and by afternoon, he had made a turn for the better. I have never gotten over the feeling that I had failed God on that one; He told me not to trust Elijah to man’s ways, and instead I subjected him to needless radiation.

(Note: I am not against doctors and modern medicine; Elijah’s situation is an unusual case based upon a leading from the Spirit of God which I do not question.)

Now almost two years later, I had the same feeling. TRUST GOD. But I felt blocked—as if there was something in the way of our breakthrough. Keith agreed we’d wait until Monday to decide what to do about the medicine.

Saturday, October 24, came, and we all felt rough. Elijah was so limp and weak that I had to carry him even from his bed to the potty then out to the den. He lay on the floor on his pillow and sleeping bag, too listless to even watch a movie. I had been able to entice him to eat by feeding him Ortega’s refried beans. I know that sounds like a strange food to feed an invalid, but that’s what tempted his taste buds, as well as the taste buds of the other kids.

In the afternoon, Mama came to get us to go sit in the sunshine in her yard. She had bought a pedal toy for Elijah to ride. He just sat motionless on it for a few minutes, then went inside to lie in the floor. I fed him a few refried beans, and he had a small diarrhea bowel movement. That was to be the last one he had for a long time, and it was a very minor one.

I could tell Mama and Daddy were extremely worried about us all, but especially the little buddy. He was fading away to just pale skin and bones, with dark circles under his hollowed-out eyes. He was extremely irritable and screamed much of the time. If I asked him how he felt, he’d say, “Not good. My belly hurts.” I was nearly beside myself with worry.

All day that Saturday, my phone rang. All kinds of people called to check. I was so exhausted and numb I could barely talk to them. Polly Marler, Leisa Rollins and others said, “You don’t sound so good.” I was too tired to put up a front. I simply said, “I’m not doing well.”

Some called to say I needed to put him in the hospital, but that brought such confusion to my mind. For some inexplicable reason, I didn’t feel right about it. The physician’s assistant called to check on Elijah and was a bit disturbed when he found out we had not yet put him on the antibiotics and Zantac. He was also displeased when Keith told him we had stopped the BRAT diet.

I frankly didn’t care; I knew the BRAT diet was not what you eat when you have a parasite. And I was positive in my mind that this was parasitic in nature. It fit all the criteria. The sickness came primarily at night or early morning when parasites tend to be most active. We’d have long lulls in the sickness as our bodies tried valiantly to overcome—again, a characteristic of parasites. And our appetites never left us completely.

But still the stool sample showed no parasites.

Then came a phone call that started the ball rolling. A precious saint of God called to say she had been praying and felt impressed to call and ask me if we had taken anything into our house right about the time the sickness came. I didn’t even have to think about it. I immediately said, “YES!”

This was a confirmation of something I had been thinking about that very morning when I woke up. I had suddenly gotten a funny feeling about something we had taken into our house the week of the fair, the very week we got sick. The item was nothing immoral, but I, for one, believe that objects can be accompanied by evil spirits which of course cannot possess Christians, but which CAN work to oppress and hinder them.

Because I had awakened suddenly feeling very uncomfortable about this very object sitting in my house, I knew without a doubt that when the woman called me to ask me that simple question, she was on to something. I thanked her profusely and told Keith to please dispose of that object immediately. Instead of arguing with me and thinking I was being ridiculous, he agreed wholeheartedly—another sign to me that it was indeed the will of God that we rid ourselves of that object since Keith had been the one who had so desperately wanted it.

He got rid of it, then spent the rest of the day doing anything he could to eradicate the source of our sickness—Cloroxing the basement floor, cleaning out a window where a bat had flown into the house and roosted a few months back, laundering rugs, etc. I felt so sorry for him as I watched him feverishly work. He was the only healthy one, doing anything he could to find out what was wrong.

I began to have a little more hope on that Saturday once the mysterious item was gone. My parents were adamant that we get out of the house for a few days to see if that made a difference; they thought perhaps something in the house was making us sick. So I called our dear friends, Rusty and Vicki Moses, to see if we could spend the night in their basement. Rusty was hunting, but Vicki told us to come on over. . .

 TO BE CONTINUED…..See Pt. III at https://timesofrefreshingontheoldpaths.wordpress.com/2015/10/20/our-miracle-of-healing-pt-iii-a-breakthrough-at-last/

Our Miracle of Healing! Pt. I–The Sickness Begins

(This story is much too long to share in one blog post, so I have divided it into parts. Be warned that it deals with a sickness that was so severe I must occasionally delve into graphic descriptions of the symptoms. This is necessary for the telling of the story.)

Me holding newborn Abigail, with Chelsea far left, Meghann far right and Elijah in front–about 6 months before the mysterious sickness struck.

My life seemed to be going just fine when the sickness struck back in the fall of 1998. On Tuesday, October 6, our family went to the Dixie Classic Fair in Winston-Salem, N.C.—enjoying the rides, the food, the petting zoo and more. Wednesday found us tired but satisfied, ready to forge ahead with normal life.

It was the next day that our world flipped upside down, propelling us into a catastrophic free-fall that would forever change our lives.

On Thursday, October 8, I spent a lot of time in our basement, working to clear out clutter. By late afternoon, I ran my hand across my forehead and headed upstairs. I told my husband, Keith, “I’m calling it quits today because suddenly I don’t feel so great. I’m achy and feverish.

In the wee hours of the morning, I woke up, feeling nauseated and queasy. I determined to fight it off mentally, feeling sure I would be able to do that since stomach viruses rarely affect me. (Note: I did not understand faith for healing back then the way I do now, or I would’ve prayed, stood on His Word and claimed His promises for healing.)

It was only a few hours later that Elijah Blue, my 2 1/2-year-old son, woke up screaming with his stomach hurting. We rushed him to the potty where he simply had a case of diarrhea. Throughout the next day, his problem seemed to clear up, as did mine. “We’re simply tired,” I rationalized. But later that night after a supper of pizza, Elijah threw up, although his appetite had been great during the meal.

Another night’s sleep was disrupted shortly before dawn on Saturday when Meghann, my 11-year-old daughter, began to throw up. “Oh well,” I thought. “This stomach virus is going to work its way through the whole family, I guess.” (Note: We do not have to receive such negative thoughts! I know that now.) At this point, we were all certain that it was simply a stomach bug….until Sunday morning.

When Elijah woke up before daylight on Sunday, again he was screaming in pain and had to be rushed to the potty where he began to throw up. This was extremely puzzling to me. He had never in his almost three years had a stomach virus that made him throw up. Only once before had he ever thrown up, and that was due to a high fever from a respiratory infection.

“Okay,” I reasoned. “He has somehow reinfected himself.” So I took extra precautions, washing his bed linens in hot water, sterilizing everything he touched. Keith went to church without us that morning, asking special prayer for Elijah. That night, I attended service without the rest of them; I felt better but not up to par.

By now the pattern was set—never a night’s sleep for anyone! In the predawn hours of Monday, my 8-year-old daughter, Chelsea, was up vomiting. Still, I assumed this was a regular bug that was just passing slowly through the family. Keith and 6-month-old Abigail were feeling fine, although Keith had a sense of dread that he was surely next. He was the one of us most susceptible to stomach viruses.

Tuesday, October 12, was a blessed day for my family. Although we were all very tired and strangely weak, the day passed with no vomiting and just light diarrhea for the four of us affected. The girls even went to dance class and then on to the county 4-H Talent Show in Danbury. (In retrospect, I believe God intervened and gave us that Tuesday free of sickness because the girls had looked forward to the talent show for an entire year. They both performed and placed well, with Meghann being chosen as one of the two best acts overall to go to the District competition.)

Since we had been on the BRAT diet (Bananas, Rice, Applesauce and Toast) for the past few days, we gobbled up some refreshments after the talent show. We were starving for real food again!

The blessed Tuesday was soon over, and as Wednesday crept in, I heard bare feet hit the floor in the girls’ bedroom. Sure enough, Megh and Chels were flying to the bathroom, holding bowls to their mouths. They fought over our one toilet all night, alternating with bouts of diarrhea and a bit of vomiting. All too soon, I heard that familiar scream from Elijah’s bedroom as he erupted with vomiting all over his bed. I, too, felt queasy but managed not to throw up.

By this time, I was worried. Perhaps the girls had reinfected themselves as I had assumed Elijah had done over the weekend. But Elijah reinfecting himself for the third time? I didn’t think so. I racked my brain to think if we had eaten something at the fair that would’ve led to food poisoning. The problem was that we had all eaten from different booths. I, especially, had eaten nothing in common with the children.

Nonetheless, I researched food poisoning on the Internet. Everything I read told me we should’ve gotten sick all at the same time and shortly after eating the infected food.

As we faced the daylight hours on Wednesday, the nausea was gone, and we recovered. But again, I missed church on Wednesday night, staying home with the kids and sending a request for prayer.

Thursday was a better day, and Friday, too. We were unable to do any heavy activities or go anywhere much, but the vomiting had ceased. The diarrhea was sporadic. The BRAT diet had long lost its appeal. I thought if I saw another bowl of rice, I’d jump off the roof!

So I cooked a big supper on Friday night—pintos, cornbread, mashed potatoes. We ate good portions, but no one overloaded. The curious thing about this sickness was that the appetite was not diminished. With a normal stomach virus, food makes one queasy even by thinking about it. Not so, in this case. We wanted food continuously, even immediately after throwing up.

I crawled into bed late Friday night, excited about the coming day. An old-timers’ softball game that I had organized for my dad was scheduled to take place. I had dreamed of doing it for years and had worked feverishly for the past three months to put it together. To see my dad play softball once more with his old team from the 1970’s was something I was yearning to experience.

At 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, October 17, nausea awakened me. For the first few hours, I simply ran back and forth to the bathroom with extreme diarrhea. Soon I was arguing over the toilet with Megh, who had gotten up shortly after me and casually vomited all over the bathroom floor.

Before long, Elijah woke up screaming. I knew this thing was really bad when I finally gave up the fight and threw up—something that had only happened a handful of times in my entire life. Since having a mild stomach virus at the age of 11, I had only thrown up one time since from a sickness-related cause. This time was especially severe. I felt such heart palpitations that I began to worry I was going to quite literally have a heart attack.

With the help of my parents, I was chauffeured to the ball field where I was able to watch the first few games before I had to be driven home. Mama assured me that out in the open air, I wouldn’t infect anyone else. I didn’t say anything to her, but I was almost positive now that we weren’t going to infect anyone; this thing wasn’t contagious and I knew it.

This strange sickness had an all-too-familiar pattern by now. We would be sick in the night, spend the next day recovering, have one or two fair but weak days before waking up sick in the night again. Would it never end? I began to wonder.

That Saturday night, I was supposed to go to our annual Richardson family reunion in Walnut Cove. I felt an especial urge to attend, because of a dream I had had the previous year. I had dreamed that I was at a picnic shelter at a park with many relatives around. As I walked and talked with them, I was fingering a pair of glasses in my right pocket. I knew that I was supposed to be wearing those glasses, but instead I just walked and reminisced with my cousins. The only cousin I remember specifically in the dream was one who attends the Richardson reunion.

Suddenly I heard glass breaking, and I felt the glasses in my pocket shatter beyond repair. My heart was burdened with such a sense of guilt and shame, and immediately I repented to God that I hadn’t put on those glasses when I was supposed to. Immediately—in a single second—with my hand still in my pocket, I felt the glass splinters re-form into a perfect set of glasses once more. It was a total miracle.

In the dream, I couldn’t see the faces of my cousins, but I could hear their dear voices calling to me—almost as if we were children again, calling each other to come and play. I reached into my pocket and put the glasses on. They were thick, Coke-bottle-lensed glasses that made my surroundings go blurry. I couldn’t see well enough to distinguish objects even a few feet in front of me, but when I looked up at the sky, everything snapped into distinct focus.

The sky was brilliantly blue, and suddenly I realized that I was seeing colors in a way I had never seen them before. I began to rise into that breathtakingly beautiful panorama. I could see snowcapped mountains to the west. The buoyant feeling was like nothing I had ever felt before. Then I woke up.

God spoke to me later about the dream and told me that at the time of the reunion, He would set my eyes upon Him. Not focus, but SET.

I was desperate to go to the reunion, especially since my mom had called to tell me that for the first time ever, it would be held at a picnic shelter at a local park rather than the usual place. And of my great-grandparents’ 11 children whose descendants rotate annually to host the reunion, THIS was the year that the branch of the family hosting it would be the one that included the only cousin I clearly remember in the dream. And I had dreamed the dream LONG before these decisions were made. It was too uncanny.

As it turned out, I was too sick to go to the reunion, but I see now that it didn’t matter. The timing was what was important. This sickness was one of the most important things that had ever happened in my life. It would truly SET my eyes upon Jesus.

TO BE CONTINUED…..See Pt. II at https://timesofrefreshingontheoldpaths.wordpress.com/2015/10/20/our-miracle-of-healing-pt-ii-going-downhill-fast/

An Abortion Story–well, sort of but not really

“We now know when life begins because the test-tube baby proves that life begins with conception. What do you have in the dish? An egg and a sperm. What do you add to it to get a baby? Nothing.” (Former Surgeon General Dr. C. Everett Koop)

Today, on the 42nd anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade decision to legalize abortion, I don’t want to get into an argument about this controversial issue. But since it is a subject I am intensely interested in, I feel the need to speak out–in love always.

Last night at the church I pastor, The Well, we studied the Biblical view of when life begins. We concluded that the Bible leaves no doubt on this subject. Of course, we read the typical Scriptures in Isaiah and Jeremiah; both of these men of God wrote that God had ordained them to be prophets in their mothers’ wombs, and yea, even BEFORE conception.

“Before I was born the Lord called me; from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name. . .” Isaiah 49:1

“Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, 5 Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” Jeremiah 1: 4-5

Once I got home from church, got the kids in bed and kicked my feet up on the reclining couch, I had some down-time to really ponder the aforementioned verses. They reminded me of my own experience with pregnancy in the case of my third-born child, Elijah Blue. If I was even tempted to accept the idea that life does not begin at conception, what happened to me in that pregnancy would convince me otherwise.

Those two little daughters who were also appointed and anointed of the Lord!

You see, back then, I had gone through a long stretch of infertility. Although I already had two healthy, beautiful daughters, I did not feel complete in my childbearing experience. So every month when the evidence came that I was not pregnant, I would weep in utter discouragement–year after year.

One night in the fall of 1994, I was at my church during a particularly anointed service. As the congregation sang, “Look What the Lord Has Done,” I was praising the Lord with abandon–not even thinking of my troubles or anything negative. Suddenly, I heard the Lord’s voice clearly. He simply said, “Look what I have done.” It was so shocking that I stopped singing abruptly and stood stock-still. I knew that He was talking about my childbearing situation.

A bit puzzled, I looked down at my young daughters sitting on the pew and thought, “Oh, okay–He’s telling me to be content with the children I have.” But immediately that thought was supernaturally struck down, and everything became as clear as Waterford crystal to my amazed mind.

He was telling me I would bear another child.

I know what you’re thinking: He used past tense in His Word to me. Yes, He did. But without a doubt, I knew He was instructing me to stop worrying and trust Him, because to Him–it was already done. He doesn’t exist in time as we do. He sees the future as if it’s already “a done deal.” I was to change my attitude and begin to praise Him for the coming baby because it was already COMPLETED in His mind.

Oh, the rapture that hit me at that moment of revelation! I began to weep with joy and praise Him with a heart of thanksgiving. It didn’t matter that I didn’t get pregnant the next month or the next or the next. No more tears every 28 days. God’s promises are “yea and amen.”

About six months later, I went back to my bedroom for a time of prayer. My “prayer closet” was behind my door at the heat duct so I could be warm in winter. Although this was a spring day, still I knelt behind that closed door out of habit. After a short time of prayer, suddenly I had an experience that I had never had before and have never had since. Out of the blue, a strong anointing flowed through my being as though it were warm, soothing oil. My entire body went tinglingly, numbingly aglow. (I can’t explain the feeling of pinpricks of glowing anointing all over me; I have felt the anointing many times since then, but never again like that.)

Immediately, I knew I was pregnant. No audible voice, no still, small voice–just an unshakeable inner knowledge. I had had no clue–no missed menstrual cycle or symptoms. The 28th day of my cycle wasn’t even close yet. But I knew that I knew that I knew that I was with child.

As I basked and almost dared not breathe in that “glow,” I at last heard God’s voice down deep within. He asked me if I was willing to bear a son (yes, the sex was specified) that would have a very special call of God on his life. Without even thinking, I cried out, “YES!”–weeping with joy.

Elijah Blue has arrived!

Sure enough, I was a few weeks pregnant with Elijah at that time but hadn’t even considered the possibility nor suspected it when I innocently knelt to pray that day. He was born December 17, 1995, and was, from the first, very cognizant of the Spirit of the Lord. Still, I pretty much kept my mouth shut about what had happened during that spring prayer session. I wanted Elijah to exercise his free will, as to his walk with God. I didn’t want to influence him in any way.

In other words, I didn’t want to affect what God could do very well without me.

So although I did train Elijah up in the Word and in prayer, at the same time he grew up as any other normal kid–sports, schooling, dance classes, youth groups. As a homeschool mom, I also prepped him for the typical educational path–do college-prep classes, take the SAT, win a scholarship if possible, go four years to a university, get a good job, live a good life. I even offered to send him to public high school so he could have a better chance in the sports world, but he made the decision to stay at home.

In the past year, my son has begun to move more and more in the power and anointing of God. With some hesitation (fearing my disappointment), he recently confessed to me that he doesn’t necessarily feel he is supposed to attend a typical four-year university. He instinctively and urgently feels a different path for his life–a headlong commitment to Christian ministry/service.

I’m embarrassed to say that when he first told me, my pride rose up, tempting me to urge him to go the normal route that he had been educated in preparation for. How would he succeed in life without that college degree? Were all of those years of pushing the college-prep agenda wasted? Wouldn’t he make such a great leader on a college campus? What if he could walk on to play baseball for a college team?

Elijah opening up the STOKES STOKED Youth Rally at Lions Park in Walnut Cove on Aug. 30, 2014.

But before I opened my mouth to say a word, my gut instincts kicked in. They reminded me of that day long ago in my prayer closet. Hadn’t I known all along deep down that he wouldn’t take the well-worn path but rather the one less traveled by? Didn’t I feel with absolute certainty in my spirit that he was absolutely correct about what he was feeling?

Elijah and I on the evening of his induction into the NC 4-H Honor Club.

Elijah and I, with our friend James, getting ready for the opening blast of the STOKED STOKED Youth Rally on Aug. 30, 2014.

I have thus had to say, “God’s will be done.” And now an intense joy fills my heart each time I think of my son working side by side with me in my hometown of Walnut Cove, as he has indicated he feels to do.

So what does this have to do with abortion? It has a lot to do with the “uncertainty” of when life begins–a critical component of the abortion argument.

The evidence is clear now that God indeed ordained this path for Elijah even before he was formed in my womb. God told me he was coming six months before he was conceived. God told me he was in my womb when he was probably too small to be seen with the naked eye. God told me what his future held–a call to minister. So I cannot believe that the egg/sperm mixture in a womb is a “fetus” that we can choose to either keep or terminate; it is a living child already.

If you don’t subscribe to the Bible, this probably sounds like baloney to you. I understand that. I truly love you just the same because I don’t get mad at people who don’t agree with me; how un-Christian is that?

But if you DO have a Biblical worldview, please consider my point. When I was two weeks pregnant, Elijah was NOT just a nonviable mass that I could choose to have suctioned out of me with an electric vacuum pump if I felt I couldn’t handle a third child. If God was already telling me what Elijah was predestined to do, then that two-week-old “mass” floating around in my uterus was already a PERSON with a future and potential.

Based on my experience, as well as the Bible, I have no doubt of one critical fact in the abortion argument:

Life begins at conception, although in the mind of God, it actually starts BEFORE THAT.

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. . .My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Psalm 139:13-16