Adventures from the Mission Field

One day I received a phone call from the house manager at the Rescue Mission. I could feel the panic in his voice as he said, “Amber was attacked last night. Apparently she had been arguing with some guys earlier that day. We think one of them came back at night and tried to kill her when she was sleeping.”

“Oh no! Is she okay?”

“The perpetrator used a cinder block. Amber lay unconscious all night wrapped up in a bloody blanket. The guys who found her said they could see her brain exposed through a large gash in her skull.”

“Where is she now?” I asked.

“After we called the police, the paramedics took her away early this morning. I tried contacting several hospitals, but no one would give me any information.”

“Thanks for letting me know,” I said. After getting off the phone with the man, I immediately started calling around. It took about an hour, but eventually I found a woman named Jane Doe who had been admitted for head trauma at Denver General.

Upon entering her room, I could barely recognize Amber. Her face was swollen, and her nose was broken. She had black and blue marks underneath both eyes. The nurses had shaved her head so surgeons could repair the trauma to her skull. The heavy black stitches they used looked like train tracks running across the side of her head in a semicircular pattern.

All during this time I had been praying, “Oh God, please help Amber,” but deep in my heart I lacked the spiritual strength to pray effectively. No one thought Amber was going to live, and before long, I started preparing myself for the worst-case scenario.

To make matters worse, I felt guilty for the way I had left Amber the last time I had seen her. I was dropping off some paperwork a few weeks prior. She was standing on the sidewalk waiting for me, but after spending more than a year trying to help her, I had given up hope. I felt like I was wasting my time. I was mad at myself and disappointed with her progress, so after handing Amber the papers, I drove off in an impatient rush. I could hear her calling out to me from the sidewalk, “Wait Rob… Rob.”

As I stood in the hospital room looking at Amber, I felt terrible and partly responsible. All I could do was stop by and visit her to see how she was doing, but every day her condition grew worse.

I continued to pray for Amber, but my prayers lacked the necessary power of faith. I didn’t think Amber would live, and my negative attitude was hindering my ability to pray for a miraculous recovery. To make matters worse, my heart was hardened. A part of me didn’t want to see Amber back on the streets, causing more problems.

Eventually, I was able to work through my negative attitude and get back into my heart. A few days later, a lady from my Bible study group offered to go with me to the hospital and pray for Amber. We were able to pray with love in our hearts. We interceded on her behalf and asked God to forgive all her sins. I took a bottle of anointing oil along, and when the nurses weren’t looking, I anointed Amber’s head and hands.

After we anointed Amber with oil and prayed the prayer of faith with love in our hearts, Amber started to recover. The next day she regained consciousness and began breathing on her own. A few days later, she could sit up in a wheelchair by herself. Within two weeks, she was strong enough to start fighting with the nurses. On several occasions, the medical staff had to sedate her and strap her to the bed because she tried to leave the hospital with the feeding tube still attached to her stomach.

Six months later, Amber made a complete recovery. God worked a profound miracle. All we needed to do to access the Lord’s healing power as defined in Sacred Scripture...

 

An excerpt from The Healing Power of Jesus