A HISTORY OF HEALING or THE REASON I BELIEVE A DIVINE MIRACLE IS COMING SOON

In 2008 I was healed of a throat ulcer.

In 2012 I was healed of a throat ulcer.

In dealing with the major health issues I currently am, it would be reasonable to believe the only way I will recover is by a healing miracle.

I have had numerous health issues through the years, all of which God has been fully aware of and fully capable of addressing.

For the most part I can recall He has given me grace to walk through difficulty rather than Heaven touching my body.  That is not to say I can comprehend what He was doing in me as doctors or medicine played a part, but it wasn’t an all of the sudden miracle.

Many times it was following wisdom and choosing life instead of chili dogs.  I know for a fact that walking in Divine health is not abusing your body. I have loved when the Lord directed me in a way that I got better by using wisdom.  It was walking in fellowship with Him.

But there are 3 instances I can remember that I know for a fact I encountered Jesus.  The real Jesus from the Bible, not the philosophical communist Jesus of unbelievers, not the all figured out Jesus of the hard line cessationist. 

The Jesus that Peter speaks of in Acts 10:38-how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.

I cannot be argued out of believing anything less about my Lord, because I have met Him personally on 3 separate occasions where He touched my physical body and I was made well.

In 2008 I developed a throat ulcer. It was so painful and it hurt to eat or drink anything. I went to the doctor twice and got different medicine. I tried every home remedy, took so many different vitamins. I had this for two months.

Then God started moving at my church in an incredible way. People really started believing for healing. In May of 2008 I was at church and went up for prayer after service on a Sunday morning. I told the people approached that I had this painful throat ulcer, and this lady got really excited. She told me to wait for a second and ran across the room, leaving me to wonder what the heck was going on. 

She brought another older lady who had fire in her eyes to me.  This older lady said “I heard the Holy Spirit tell me I was going to pray for someone with a throat ulcer this morning!” These ladies laid hands on me and prayed simple, life giving Jesus exalting prayers. I had been prayed for many times in the weeks before that, it wasn’t so different.

Then my wife and I left church and grabbed lunch. We had to go back to church for a missions trip meeting we had, so we got food to go. At the church we sat with all our friends and ate our food. I took a bite, expecting it to hurt like usual. I felt completely normal for the first time in two months. I started to cry, realizing God had touched me. I had faith to see God touch others and prayed for people’s healing often, but had never experienced it for myself. That summer I fell so in love with Jesus. Months later my wife and I were launched into full time ministry.

In 2012 I was a jr. high pastor in south Denver. I ripped a hole in my throat when I threw up a bunch of stomach acid one night, reinjuring the previous wound.  Again this was incredibly painful for a matter of weeks. I cried out to God to touch me and felt I was being ignored. 

I went to a youth meeting that wasn’t at the church I worked at. A 9th grader full of faith laid hands on me and the skin in my throat covered up the sore immediately, I knew I was healed.

I celebrated by going out with the leaders and ate pizza to the glory of God.

The last great miraculous story I can recall from my personal life happened over a number of years- from 2004 to 2011.

I had a degenerative eye condition called keratoconus, where my corneas are misshapen. When I was in high school they told me I would have 10 years before I would have to get cornea transplants.  

My eyes rapidly got worse in the coming years, I suffered from chronic headaches. I got super tired as I read, it made studying very difficult.

When I was engaged to my wife AdriElle in 2007 I had to start wearing hard lens contacts, and switched contacts every few months. It was impossible to find anything comfortable and functional, I mostly opted to have weak eyes.

In 2009 we launched into full time ministry in Green Bay Wisconsin.  It was a beautiful, trying and very formative time for us. We grew our family and our ministry together through a lot of trial, we can now see how much God was at work in our lives. One of the great surprises in store for us was how God was writing a long form story over my life that had to do with my eyes.

As we tried to build a ministry and I worked at a sandwich shop to supplement my income, my eyes rapidly deteriorated, it seemed quicker than before.  I found an eye doctor who was compassionate and willing to work with me in the complicatedness of keratoconus. 

In the summer of 2010 a new problem developed; I began to get cold sores on my eyeballs. Putting in contacts felt like dumping Tabasco in my eyes.  It just so happened that AdriElle was going to leave and go see her family in Colorado a couple days after I developed this radical ailment.  I was so blind that I couldn’t read.  I couldn’t drive and could only see shapes- and was all alone.

I walked to work for a week. Unable to deliver food and make money to feed my family, I stayed in the sandwich shop and cut meat.  When I showed up to church on Sunday, I was like a wombat reading announcements.  It was deeply humiliating; I loved that time.  The Lord drew me in so close and loved me in the depths of my insecurity.

The cold sores eventually passed, we kept scrambling in taking care of my eyes.  I changed prescriptions frequently, but it was inevitable that something more drastic needed to be done.

My mom saw some report of an a experimental surgery for keratoconus called ‘intacs’ was being done in Beverly Hills; she told me that she and my dad would pay to have it done for me.

I mentioned this to my eye doctor.  Remember- we moved to Green Bay, Wisconsin from Loveland, Colorado to become pastors, a nice eye doctor certainly was nice but not the point.  My eye doctor floored us when he said he was not just familiar with the surgery, but that his colleague was the other guy in the country doing experimental trials, in Appleton Wisconsin, 20 minutes away.

In a matter of weeks everything was set in motion (including my parents paying for the whole thing) for me to have this surgery.  They would have to do one eyeball at a time with 6 months in between surgeries.

I never once stopped praying and believing for a miracle.  I was terrified of this surgery- I would stay awake as they stabbed me with needles in the eye and inserted two plastic rods.  At this point the surgery didn’t have some winning track record yet, I was the test.  Surely God would not make me see this through.

The night before the surgery we had youth group, and God had been moving in a crazy fun supernatural way recently.  We had poured our lives out for this group and it was slim pickings for the first 18 months, but the harvest came and kids were getting rocked by Jesus.  That night faith filled teens laid hands on me and contended with me for a divine healing miracle, that I would get to go home without getting stabbed.  I believed I had what I needed.

The next day as they operated I felt fear and disappointment.  I felt like an ungrateful brat not being thankful for the safety I was in, the provision I had, the chance to have my corneas restored.  I wanted the miracle.

It would take 6 months to see if the surgery worked.  If it was a success then they could operate on the other eye.  In that time I got youth pastor job in south Denver and moved my young family back to Colorado.  I had to find a new eye doctor, someone who understood keratoconus and intacs.  

The guy I found had the only machine of it’s kind in the state that could see the eyeball and correctly assert what keratoconus was doing.  It was exactly what I needed- to know if the surgery worked and if I was to have another stay awake stab fest.

The doctor scanned and took pictures.  He sat with my wife and I and showed us what the intac had done to my right eye.  Nonchalantly he told me I didn’t have keratoconus in my left eye, it was totally normal. We argued with him about this, multiple doctors had demonstrated I indeed had a degenerative eye condition in both eyes.  We left the doctor believing this doctor was right and I was probably misdiagnosed in the left eye.

It was an entire two weeks later that I relayed this story to my mom.  She stopped everything and started praising God.  She realized that the miracle had totally passed us by.  ‘Don’t you realize what happened??  God healed your other eye!!’

I suggest God is moving on the lives of His people far more often than we realize, but because of our carnality we completely miss Him and forfeit the opportunity to give Him glory.  I almost missed what God was doing; if it wasn’t for my mom pointing it out I would have gotten my miracle but missed Jesus.

I see this in a portion from John 12, where the sky opens and the Father speaks, but it is lost on most.

John 12:28-30 Father, glorify Your name.” Then a voice came out of heaven: “I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.”So the crowd of people who stood by and heard it were saying that it had thundered; others were saying, “An angel has spoken to Him.” Jesus answered and said, “This voice has not come for My sake, but for your sakes.

In the aftermath of my experience I have vowed to give my best to pay attention to what the Spirit of God is doing around me, because the real tragedy is to miss Him when He is present.

I have asked multiple doctors since then if they ever heard of an eye sympathetically healing itself after a surgery, they haven’t.  There is no explanation for what happened, except that God touched my eyeball. 

I don’t know why I had this condition.  I don’t know why I struggled for years and was afforded this incredible surgery.  I don’t know why God would meet me part way and finish it with Heaven having a final say.

I do know that God loves me.  I know that Jesus paid the price for my healing with His precious blood, even if my experience wants to argue otherwise.  Why we have to contend with sickness like we do is frustrating, but instead of living crippled I stand strong in the Lord. 

This brings me to my current predicament.  I did not see the storm coming and was caught off guard.  The curious mass that attached itself to my vocal chords and tried to kill me is an obvious attack on my ministry. I never thought I would have blood and bone cancer to boot.  My clavicle broke under the pressure of the cancer.  I haven’t been able to work or play with my kids.  As I go through chemotherapy I feel sicker than I have ever been in my life.

This is my finest hour.  I am not writing my story, but I know Who is.  It is impossible for the Author to write drivel.  He is doing things beyond me, I am positive its for my good and His glory.  I cannot predict the way miracles will come or what I am even supposed to do at all times, but I am determined to position myself to receive and not miss Him.

I am absolutely sure I am His, and the possibility for glorious outcomes are endless.  I hold onto the Word He has spoken to me personally and look forward in faith.  For all the things that are up in the air I have a confident expectation in who He is.

My prediction is that I am going to receive a giant miracle somewhere in this process.  That this story will be used down the line for many to receive from God.  The process of medicine is already going, but that doesn’t mean Heaven isn’t intricately involved.  I have a call on my life to preach the gospel, lay hands on the sick and see them recover.  

Don’t ever doubt that God wants to heal bodies, Jesus demonstrated the heart of the Father towards those who were oppressed.  He demonstrated His love for us by physically being destroyed, not just ‘spiritually’.  When healing breaks out in our churches the love of God is more realized.  He is doing it and will do it again.

For now I walk with the Lord Jesus in the trial, having my joy restored as many times as it has threatened to wane.  He leads me in a path of righteousness for His name’s sake, I love His leading.  My physical state is secondary to what is happening in my soul, but I have no doubt He is going to renew my body.  

If you are sick, injured or oppressed today I want to tell you Jesus loves you and paid for that infirmity on the cross.  Come to Him with what you have, lay it down and take up the Lord Jesus.

I write all of this as of November 2025, lets see what the Lord will do in the coming months.  I believe for miracles!