Jerry, Cripples DO Walk!

adapted from Chapter One of the book,

GOD is GOD and We Are Not!

Monday was flat-on-my-back time after another grueling week and a full day of church on Sunday. All of my muscles were exhausted…again. My legs wouldn’t work, my neck wouldn’t hold my head up, and my hands wouldn’t grip. Nothing worked. The condition I didn’t want to acknowledge was getting worse.
Lying in bed, I prayed, “God, I know You’ve called me to be a missionary, but how can I do it flat on my back?” (Women in the denomination I was in at the time could either tend the nursery at church, or go to Africa as missionaries.) Finally, I prayed a prayer God could answer, because my heart was to build His kingdom rather than mine.

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.

The diagnosis was Charcot-Marie-Tooth, the same diagnosis that my dad received 33 years earlier.
The doctors warned my family that CMT, a disease that causes progressive muscle atrophy, was inherited and that two of Daddy’s four kids would get it. The prognosis was grim at best.

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?”

In the Realm of the Miraculous,
Jesus makes “House Calls!”
There was such resurrection life in His words that I stood up and declared to the doctor, “God’s going to heal me! I’m going home. No more tests.”

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.

In the Realm of the Miraculous,
Visions Still Happen!
“Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” (Proverbs18:21)

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.”

We’re all dying anyway, aren’t we? Why don’t we just do what He says?
I believe we all have crippled places in our lives that God wants to heal; some are just more obvious than others.

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!

In the Realm of the Miraculous
There are NO LIMITS to what God Can Do!
I called Jerry Lewis to tell him I wouldn’t be on the telethon again, because, “By Jesus’ wounds, I’m healed.” (Read Isaiah 53:5 and I Peter 2:24)
In the Realm of the Miraculous
God’s kids go FREE!
Before the Lord miraculously healed me, I couldn’t go beyond where my withering muscles would take me and what little hope remained. Suddenly, I had to reevaluate everything about my life. I had come face to face with a God so big that the word He spoke activated my faith. Now it was up to me to LIVE my faith, like the Bible says, “The righteous man shall live by faith” (Habakkuk 2:4, Romans 1:17).

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.”

I went to my favorite store on my way through Little Rock; a large department store with two floors. I knew exactly where to go, so it wouldn’t take long to run in, get what I needed, and run out. As I was leaving with my purchase, I spotted Joyce. In a 30-second window of time, our paths miraculously crossed.

“Joyce, look, I’m healed!”

She said, “I never quit praying.”

In the Realm of the Miraculous
Faith is Confirmed!
I’m STILL walking, years later, on Joyce’s prayers. Praise God! Today, no one in my family has muscular dystrophy, nor will they. The generational curse is broken and we have escaped.
My healing was the “working out” of a miracle. I had to do my part, then God did His.