I had become progressively weaker over the previous five years. The doctors at the Muscular Dystrophy Clinic in Little Rock charted my decline by performing painful biopsies, shocking my nerve endings with electrodes, and carrying out other tests to see how much muscle I had left.
I had sponsored MDA “Love Runs” for years through my athletic stores and appeared on the Jerry Lewis Telethons, raising money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association to find a cure. With no hope in sight, I was desperate.
“Someone HAS to know more,” I told my doctor. “Where are the answers?” It wasn’t okay with me to be crippled at only 35 years old. I had a life to live and my body needed to “line up.”
My last resort was to go to the MDA Research Center at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City. Two weeks later, the doctor there confirmed the diagnosis I had dreaded.
While the doctor was speaking, suddenly, JESUS APPEARED! I had no idea He made “house calls.” I wanted to ask the doctor, “Do you have a clue Who’s here?” There was nothing in my data bank to prepare me for such a visitation.
Jesus looked down at me and said, “Barbara! When are you just going to trust Me?”
Jesus makes “House Calls!”
I had never experienced a vision before. No one told me “those things” still happened; you know, the “stuff” the first Apostles did. (See Acts 2:17-21, 10:3-17 and 16:9-10)
But I had seen the Lord! His words were clear and I knew by the spirit that God would heal me, so I spoke that declaration by faith.
The doctor looked at me and laughed. I checked out of the hotel, headed back to Arkansas, and told my doctors there the same thing: “God’s going to heal me! No more tests.” They laughed too.
Visions Still Happen!
One day, weeks after my declaration to the doctors in Arkansas, the Lord said, “Start walking!“
“God, this is killing me!” I replied.
He said, “You’re dying anyway; just do what I said.”
I began taking one painful step at a time…then five steps…then ten. I started walking. At times, I was sure it would kill me. I walked, and walked, and walked. Thirty days later, I RAN all the way home HEALED. Praise God!
There are NO LIMITS to what God Can Do!
God’s kids go FREE!
When muscular dystrophy was ravaging my body, my friend Joyce always said, “Barbara, I’m praying for you and God’s going to heal you.”
I responded to her the same way every time: “Joyce, I told you, this is inherited and two of us four kids are supposed to get it; I’m just the first.”
Joyce always declared, “The Bible says that by Jesus’ stripes we ARE healed, and I’m not going to quit praying.”
Years later, as I was planning a trip that would include a stop in Little Rock, I prayed, “God, I would love to see Joyce again and show her I’m healed.”
“Joyce, look, I’m healed!”
She said, “I never quit praying.”
Faith is Confirmed!