Doubting Woman Surprised by Miraculous Intervention

When Elizabeth was young, she was taking skiing lessons when she noticed something wrong with her balance. A visit to the doctor brought a disturbing diagnosis.

“The disease is called FSH, which is Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy,” she explains. “It causes weakness in your face, in your shoulders and your hips. The muscle tissue just atrophies and it doesn’t regrow like it does in normal human biology.”

Elizabeth also learned that the disease was hereditary. As she got older, she began to experience symptoms similar to her mother’s. “I always had pain. I thought it was normal. I always had sore shoulders. I always had pain in my hips--those kinds of issues, and this incredible fatigue. So I’d have to watch my rest and when everybody would be out and about, I’d be ready for bed so that I could function in my job the next day.”

Elizabeth and David married and had two children. As time passed, her  symptoms grew worse. “It was always daily adaptations and thinking around how to get around.”

David recalls, “I had to get her up out of bed in the morning towards the latter years to get her into the shower to have hot water come on her. We were trying to figure out if we should sell our home to eliminate steps. I knew that the latter years of my life were going to be pushing a wheelchair unless the Lord healed her.”

Elizabeth was raised a Christian and often prayed for healing. However, by her late 40s, both she and her husband began to doubt it would happen. “My mother had a saying: ‘this is our cross to bear.’ And she made it almost like a family thing, so that probably was a part of my thinking.” David remembers their discouragement: “There comes a moment where you pray and you pray and you pray, and it was a 20-year prayer, where you just stop. And we did.”

One Sunday in 2009, the couple attended a service at their home church in Canada.  A guest pastor was preaching. ‘”The guest speaker was speaking about his sermon topic, and then he sort of simply stopped,” Elizabeth remembers. “He said, ‘Someone here has weakening face muscles, is extremely fatigued, has shoulder pain, sagging shoulders, sagging back. Their hips are weak, and that person will end up in a wheelchair if the Lord doesn’t intervene, and that person, I am here to say, is healed in the name of Jesus.’ Well, my husband looked at me and I looked at him, because this gentleman had just completely described my symptoms.”

The guest pastor returned to his sermon. “As the sermon finished, there was this beautiful praise song and at that moment I found myself able to lift my arms above my head to praise the Lord, “ she says.

“To see her arms go in the air…” David recalls, “…my jaw dropped. I was in awe. I was flabbergasted, and then, of course, the whole church watched it.”

“I was in awe and thankfulness. It was a great, joyful day,” says Elizabeth.

Elizabeth went home that day to prepare a meal for her family and some guests--with no pain. “I was in the door first and headed off to my kitchen and started to prepare lunch and get the final hot food out on the table,” she says. “Pulling things out of the fridge.” David adds, “She started picking up heavy objects and putting them on top shelve. You are in absolute suspended belief followed by a marvel.”

Since that day, Elizabeth has been pain-free and has complete mobility. “I don’t understand it. It’s mysterious,” she says. “Physical healing has an element of holy mystery to it that I don’t think we’re ever going to really understand. I always believed that the Lord’s power was there to heal. Experiencing it yourself places things on a totally different level. I understand His grace in a more powerful way than I ever have before. I know that I know that He did this. That can’t be shaken and that’s a gift; that’s a great gift from my savior who loves me.”