“Return and say to Hezekiah the
leader of My people, 'Thus says the Lord, the God of your father
David, I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; behold, I
will heal you. On the third day you shall go up to the house of the
Lord. (2 Kings 20:5)
“And Isaiah said, This shall be
the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing that
He has spoken: shall the shadow go forward tens steps or go back ten
steps?”
So King Hezekiah answered, “It
as easy for the shadow to decline ten steps; no, but let the shadow
turn backward ten steps.”
And Isaiah the prophet cried to
the Lord, and He (God) brought the shadow on the stairway back ten
steps by which it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz. (2 Kings
20: 9-11)
In Old Testament times, when a king's
palace was being built, there was a time piece typically added to the
structure during it's construction. It was a strategically placed
set of palace stairs where the sun's path could be tracked during the
day, hour by hour. One was able to tell the advancing time of day by
how far the shadow of the sun had moved forward
down it's steps....and here was King Hezekiah asking God to reverse
the time of day as a sign that he would be healed by having the sun's
shadow go backward up the palace stairs. I think of all the movies
that have been made about going back in time, reversing time, or
indeed going forward in time too. How awesome it as that God would
reverse time during a particular day to reassure this king of his
healing that was promised.
Along those lines of thought, I'm also
reminded of the biblical term called “redemption”. By definition
to redeem something means, in a general sense, to buy back something
or to bring about deliverance as a result of a redemptive
transaction. Then there's the redeeming of time, or “buying up an
opportunity” where time is a season. I think of redemption also in
the sense of being rescued, a reversal or deliverance out of bad
circumstances, or redeemed out of a situation just in the nick of
time. This is a story of the literal redemption of time in my life
and the healing that was given when it was needed most.
Knowing that I've needed healing and
change in my life on a personal level, part of my journey has been
learning about ministries that teach it. I had witnessed at this
point, many memories of abuse and trauma healed by Christ through a
prayer ministry called Theophostic (Greek for God's Light). Some
years ago, a close friend and I were learning together how to be more
focused in the leading of God's Spirit when praying for others
through this unique prayer ministry. We met together periodically to
pray for each other too. As I sat down with my friend at my kitchen
counter on this particular night, it was with reluctance as I had
been significantly ill for several days beforehand. The exhaustion I
had been experiencing had taken it's toll on me and I had almost
canceled our meeting that evening.
The previous week had been tough.
Suddenly, within just a few days time, I had gained a significant
amount of weight, indeed, a total of three pant sizes worth! I'd
been forced to purchase new pants for my work attire. What I had no
longer fit me. My lungs became congested and filled with fluid.
Breathing had become difficult. I was walking in a fog mentally at
work, and fatigue was plaguing me. As I left work on one of those
evenings that week, I came close to blacking out as I walked out the
front door to go home, and it frightened me. The thoughts of possible
pneumonia had entered my mind, but I'd decided to see a physician at
a later date when I felt I could get away from my work.
As we prayed together at my kitchen
counter in my home and invited God to step into our moments or
memories for His healing and leading where it was needed, an image
came clearly to my mind, and I knew God was moving...I saw myself
running up the side of a large mountain with the goal of laying my
heart on a stone altar dedicated to God, at the summit. The speed at
which I ran in the image was a supernatural one, and also one of
urgency. At the same time, the understanding came to me that I had
held back a part of my heart from the Lord in my life. My heart had
been crushed emotionally as a child through abuse and rejection. I
had learned not to share my heart with others in relationships (and
evidently not with God either in some areas) for fear of being
rejected. A tremendous coldness of heart had became a part of me.
In those moments as I sat there, I knew that I needed to give all
of my heart on that mountain's altar to the living God, and to
forsake the hardening of my heart as well. At the time, I remembered
being perplexed by the speed and urgency with which I saw myself
going up the mountain side in that image.
What happened next as I sat at that
kitchen counter, was unlike anything I've ever experienced before. I
can only describe it as a massive lifting sensation of an incredibly
huge, heavy weight that was on top of me that I had been oblivious
to. The “lifting” I felt coming off of my body and my shoulder
area flowed from me like a mighty, massive river, and seemed to
travel upward through the roof of my home directly above me. As the
impact I was physically feeling began, my friend suddenly sat
backward abruptly in her chair with a look of amazement on her face
and she said, “I'm seeing a vision of a clock. The clock is large
and it's hands are spinning backwards. The hands are spinning
backwards faster and faster and faster....” Immediately after she
had voiced what she was seeing, she began gripping her left arm in
evident pain and also said, “My left arm is hurting me horribly, as
though I'm having a heart attack, but I know I am not having one.”
Neither of us were sure about what was
happening in those moments. God had been moving incredibly, no
doubt, but what did it all mean? Why was He giving a vision of a
clock with hands spinning backwards in time? Why was my friend
physically “feeling” the symptoms of a heart attack but not
actually having one? What was the massive lifting sensation that I
was experiencing? Everything came to a halt shortly afterwards as
the movement and direction of God's Spirit gently ceased thirty
minutes later. My friend and I said eventually said our goodbyes as
she left for the evening. Being somewhat perplexed by the night's
events and exhausted from the physical illness I had been battling, I
retired for the night.
The following morning as I stood in my
kitchen with my cup of coffee in hand, I began to slowly realize that
something was vastly different. The thought came to my mind, “I
feel like I have the heart of a 17 year old!” In my mid-forties at
the time, my heart felt light, young, and strong again. It was then,
in those following moments, that I realized that there was no fluid
build up in my body any more. In fact, it was gone...It had
disappeared. My lungs were no longer drowning in liquid either, they
were clear as though I had never been sick at all.... As I stood
there, it hit me like a freight train...I had gone to bed the night
before critically ill, and woke up the next morning completely
healed.
A quiet, gentle “voice” spoke to
me that I have come to know as God's, and He said, “Look up the
symptoms of heart failure.” Still dressed in my pajamas, I
immediately began to research heart failure via my computer.
Congested lungs and shortness of breath...yes. Rapid fluid and water
retention resulting in abdominal and ankle swelling and sudden weight
gain...yes. Dizziness, weakness, and fatigue...yes. Rapid or
irregular heart beats...yes. It was then that I understood that God
had healed me of heart failure in it's final stages the night
before. The knowing came also that had I not been healed that
evening, I would not have made it through to the next morning.
For many years I'd had a heart
condition that plagued me physically. The condition, known as PAT
(rapid heart rate), was brought under control with the prescription
medication Lanoxin. As a by product of the foxglove plant, it is
actually a poison used in low dosage amounts to control rapid heart
rate conditions. I was eventually switched to another medication for
the problem after several years, and had surgery later to correct the
condition permanently. I am firmly convinced however, that the
Lanoxin was also slowly killing my heart physically from long term
use.
As I marveled at my healing in those
moments and was comprehending what had happened to me, the revelation
came that the vision of the clock with it's hands spinning backwards
faster and faster represented the reversal or redemption of time from
the premature aging of my heart that had brought me into heart
failure. The Lord had redeemed the time for my heart physically and
the aging had been reversed by several years. That was why my heart
felt so young, so vibrant and not weighted down as it had been for so
long.
The realization also came that an
impending heart attack had been taken away as well. The signs of a
heart attack that my friend had felt physically that was not hers,
foreshadowed an imminent heart attack that I was going to have.
God had stopped it before it could come to pass. This
was why my race to the top of the mountain in the image God showed
me, was so supernaturally swift. It had to be. I was dying that
night and did not know it.....It began to slowly dawn on me that what
I had experienced and my friend had witnessed, was a life saving
miracle and we had not understood it when it had occurred. I called
her and excitedly shared what had happened. She was as much in shock
as I was as we both began to realize the magnitude of God's great
grace in saving my life when I didn't even realize it was in great
danger.
I dressed and ran outside that morning.
I ran all over the place!! Running the full length of my property
(½ acre), up two flights of stairs and back down. For the first time
in many, many years, I was not out of breath. My heart did indeed
feel like that of a 17 year old! As I tried to grasp the magnitude
of the miraculous healing I was given, I spoke to God and asked
Him...”Lord, You reversed the aging of my heart! You healed me of
heart failure and took away an impending heart attack. Where in the
bible does it talk about You reversing time for someone on a personal
level like this?” God's whispered reply, “Read the story of
Hezekiah.”
