No Longer Skating on Thin Ice

For people growing up in the northeastern U.S., ice-skating is a way of life, and Rachel Pickering was no different. “I think I started skating when I was about 10,” she says. “Everybody used to go skating. We had a little rink.”
                             
So she couldn’t resist when a friend invited her to go skating in 2009. “I hadn’t been skating for probably twenty years, but I put my skates on,” she says. ”I was doing pretty good, and then this little girl was coming right towards me, so this only thing I could do was just fall, and I fell on my knee.”
                             
Rachel still remembers the pain. “It was hurting. It was really hurting bad. And I looked to see if the little girl was OK, and she was OK. This kid came over and he said, ‘Are you all right ma’am?’ and I said, ‘Well, I think I killed my knee,’ and so he helped me get up,” she remembers. “I went to the doctor probably the next day because it was hurting so bad. I thought I had broken something, but they said it was just a really bad bruise. They took X rays and everything, but it wasn’t broken.”
 
Rachel took Tylenol and expected it to heal in a few days, but it didn’t. “I couldn't bend down. Every time I would sit down, it would hurt,” Rachel says. “Every time I would get up, it would hurt, so I didn't really know what to do.”
                               
Several years passed and all the doctors could do was prescribe pain medication, but Rachel continued to pray for healing. “I didn't want any painkillers,” she told them. “I said, if anything, God is going to heal me.”
                               
On July 1, 2014, Rachel was watching The 700 Club when something caught her ear. “There’s someone, you’ve been experiencing sharp pains in your right knee, and God has just healed you,” Gordon Robertson said that morning.  
                               
Rachel was ecstatic. “When he said that, I said, ‘I claim that. That’s for me!’ I said, ‘I’ve been waiting a long time to hear that.’” Gordon then added, “He’s able to do what the doctors say can't be done. He’s able to restore you in Jesus name.”
                                     
Rachel recalls, “The pain went away. Right away!” When Gordon said, “Now in an act of faith, what you could not do before, try it now, and see what God has done for you,” Rachel got up.
                                
“He said, ‘Get up and do what you need to do, and I got up and I started dancing. I was like, ‘Thank you God, Praise the Lord!” I was just so happy.”
                               
Today, Rachel lives an active life with her husband in Maine, and has been pain free since that day. “I haven't had any problems. As a matter of fact, I’d like to go skating again!” she says. “God can heal anybody anytime He wants to. All you have to do is ask Him.”