Seizures
God has allowed me to experience different challenges
throughout my life, which have been used to prove the power
of prayer. By the time I was born in December 1947, my
father had already accepted a call to become the pastor of
Beulah Temple and Mom was his biggest supporter. Then when I
was four years old, Mom became pregnant with her fourth
child. The pregnancy went well at first. But in a few months
she became so ill that she couldn't get out of bed. No one
realized she had developed toxemia and that the baby inside
her had been dead for several weeks. Finally my mother
lapsed into a coma. I can still remember the night the
ambulance came for her, can still hear the strange rattling
noise In her throat as they rolled her away on the
stretcher.
My mother delivered the baby shortly after she was admitted
to the hospital. After that her body began to mend but
during the following years she suffered from periodic
seizures that would rob her of her memory and weaken her
considerably. And there was no telling when they would hit.
Sometimes I Would come home from school and find her in the
middle of a horrible seizure. Mom would emerge from these
episodes so dazed that she couldn't tell you her name let
alone the names of her six children. After a few days,
normalcy Would return, but we knew it wouldn't be long until
she suffered another seizure.
Years later, a dear friend and prayer partner came over to
the house after one of my mother's attacks. This was a woman
who was blessed with a kind of immovable faith. "Listen,
kids," she told us, "your mother and I are going upstairs,
and we are going to shut the door and pray. Don't worry if
we don't come down for a while, because we are not coming
out until she is healed."
So Mom and her friend staved in that room all day and all
night. Then another day and night and another day after
that. For three days, they didn't eat a thing as strong
cries and petitions went up to heaven. Finally, Mom opened
the door and walked out. She never suffered another seizure
in her life.
Cymbala, Carol. He's Been Faithful. Grand Rapids, Michigan:
Zondervan publishing House, 2001, p. 46-47.