By Ann Hutchison
A few years ago, I was witness to a miracle that will stay with me forever. I tell quite a few people about this miracle as it's truly remarkable.
I have a good friend called Jess. She lives close to me in Auckland, we met at the church I used to attend, and she reads this blog sometimes. She's my age, well a teeny bit younger, and has three young kids.
One day Jess came to a church evening event looking devastated. She'd been diagnosed with thyroid cancer.
Her kids were preschool and primary school age at the time, and she was in her thirties. You can imagine.
I'm not sure what the prognosis was – She knows I'm writing this, I'll have to ask her — but she needed surgery. She had already had a biopsy that had revealed it was cancer, and now this surgery was to cut it out. Naturally, she was completely traumatized.
Our pastor, Cam, had a particular love for encouraging people to pray for healing in our church. So, one Sunday shortly after Jess had been diagnosed, he gathered a few people together while they were chatting after the service, and said, "Let's pray for Jess."
The group gathered around and prayed for her.
As they prayed, Cam said this: "Jess, I pray that when the doctors open up your throat, they will take the thyroid out, cut it up, not find any cancer, and be confused ."
Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven (Matthew 18:19, ESV).
Where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them (Matthew 18:20)
We always prayed beautiful prayers in that church, and there were big hearts of love for Jess amongst those who gathered around her. And that was that. She went home and duly awaited the operation.
The time came for Jess's operation. She's like me, she hates medical procedures, and so this was dreadful on the highest scale of dreadfulness. I don't know how she coped, actually; well, she told me she didn't.
The doctors put her under, opened up her throat, and removed the thyroid. Jess sleepily came to, and went home. Then it was time for her follow-up meeting to find out what the doctors had discovered.
The doctor frowned as Jess entered the room and sat down in front of him. "Umm.. We took the thyroid out, cut it up and couldn’t find any cancer. We were thoroughly confused.”
!!!
Sorry what?? Jess nearly fell off her chair. Was she hearing things right? Yes she was. The surgeon told her later that he had a pathologist meeting board discuss her case along with others that needed reviewing and they compared the before and after slide to make sure there was no mistake. They had more than one pathologist identify that the first slide showed cancer so they had no choice but to remove the thyroid but the second slide showed nothing.
So, Jess was discharged from any further treatment and declared completely cancer free. Say what??
She now has a wicked battle scar across her whole throat, from left to right, to prove what she went through. She wears that scar with pride and tells the story to people. Some love the story, some reject it, some even get offended by it. But this is my friend, and I know it to be true.
Praise God, is all I can say!
Jesus, name above all names.
Ann
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