HEALING OF A SMALL CHILD

I want to share with you the recent miracle that took place in my life. When I was 5 months pregnant, my son was diagnosed with two cysts, one on each side of the brain. They tested him for Downs Syndrome and I thank God that all of his tests came back normal.
After he was born, when he was about 5 months old, I took him for a checkup and his doctor wanted to do an ultrasound to see if the cysts were gone. The cysts were still there and she seemed very concerned about this. She said he had several cysts called Colloid plexus cyst. She called a neurosurgeon to look at the ultrasound and he recommended having an MRI done. The MRI was scheduled on June 18, 1999.
I prayed over my son and I fasted the week before the MRI was to be done. On the day of the MRI, my son was to be put to sleep but right before we went in, he had already fallen asleep in my arms. I asked the nurse if they had already given him something to make him go to sleep since they had already put an IV in his hand. She said, no, they had not given him anything, but it was good that he had already fallen asleep because they wouldn’t have to give him as much of the sedative as they would have.
After the MRI had been scanning for about 20 minutes, one of the doctors that had given him the sedative came in the room because Devin had started waking up before the MRI was done. He told me that he did not see anything on the scan. He and the radiologist were in a room viewing the pictures from the MRI. When he told me he could not find any cysts, I felt an overwhelming burst of joy in my heart. God had answered my prayer. I met with a specialist to go over the MRI and he told me that he could not find the cysts that they had seen earlier on the Ultrasound. He said my baby was perfectly normal. I told him that was what I had been praying for and he said, “Well, your prayers were answered.” I thank God for healing my son Devin who will be 1 year old.
I praise God for being faithful and keeping His promise according to Matthew 18:19:
"If two of you agree down here on earth concerning anything you ask for, my Father in heaven will do it for you."
Matthew 18:20:
"For where two or three gather together because they are mine, I will be right there among them."
I want to encourage anyone who needs healing to trust in God. He has been faithful to me all my life. Anytime I have needed healing for my family, He has kept his promise, that He is JEHOVAH RAPHA.

TRAPPED BY SEXUAL LUST

TRAPPED BY SEXUAL LUST

If you’re a believer in Christ and you keep hiding your sin … especially if it is sexual sin … you may have to learn the hard way that there are painful consequences to pay. I speak from experience, in hopes of being used of God to keep others from ending up in prison where I am now.
I gave my heart to the Lord when I was eight years old. We had an evangelist named Cowboy Bill during a Vacation Bible School at the old Calvary Baptist Church. After one of his lessons he asked if anyone wanted to know the Lord. I did, because I wanted to make sure that I would go to heaven when I died. They had me go with a leader one on one, where she led me through the sinner’s prayer where I confessed my sins and asked Jesus into my heart. I felt peace, knowing that if I were to die, I knew I would go to heaven and not hell.
My parents were not Christians but they allowed us kids to go to church. I am the youngest of four children so I was the last to enjoy going to church and learning about Christ. Over the years I was able to encourage my parents to go to church, where they eventually came to know Christ as well. They even came to see me get baptized when I was 15 years old. My mom wanted me to be old enough so I could understand the significance of being baptized.
Throughout my junior and senior high school years I did my best in learning the Bible and understanding the Lord. I graduated from the AWANA club that I was in at church. My parents were very proud to see me learn so many verses from the Bible. Throughout my high school years however, I became very rebellious. My grades suffered and I just barely graduated.
The one thing I was good at growing up was having a gift to listen. I believe that God had gifted me with a listening ear. So my friends knew they could come to me if they ever needed someone to talk to, but even with those gifts I was not a strong Christian.
After I graduated from high school I moved to Texas for a year and a half. But things were even harder there. I lost my uncle and my grandfather from my dad’s side.
After seeing how distant they were with each other before their deaths, I swore that I would not let that happen to me and my dad, so I decided to move back home to be close to my parents. When I got back, I quickly found a job and went back to church. However … I was playing secretly with sexual sin, and God allowed me to get trapped by it, which landed me in jail.
For eight - nine years, my greatest weakness was sexual lust. I had gotten into pornography really bad and that led me into cheating and ruining two marriages that actually had a good chance of being happy and successful. It also ruined a great relationship with my high school sweetheart, so you can see the consequences of sin if you don’t surrender it completely to God. All the counseling in the world doesn’t mean a thing unless you are truly willing to give your heart completely to God. It’s all or nothing when it comes to God to be set totally free from sin. Like He says in His Word, “I am a jealous God.” (Deut. 5:9). In my life, my “idol” that I “worshipped” or paid more attention to was pornography than God. Many days and nights I prayed for the strength to overcome my addiction but my spiritual walk with the Lord was so weak that I didn’t have enough discipline to make it happen.
On the outside, I came across as a loving dad and husband. On the inside, there was a sin that had ahold of me, and behind closed doors I had this obsession that eventually would make me lose just about everything.
Thank God, at least I still have my immediate family and some friends from my home church. I caught my case in 2002 but it happened two years prior. I won’t go into details except that I am now taking my earthly punishment. I’ve been locked down for 2½ years now and I have had a LOT of time to reflect on my past sins and to see how by the grace of God His love has brought me thus far. Had God not allowed my sin to be exposed, only He knows how many more lives I may have hurt if I had been allowed to stay on the destructive path I was on. Sexual lust, like all lust, is simply a heightened state of selfishness. Sexual lust will almost always look for greater thrills than constant, incessant masturbation. The only thing that holds it back is a guilty conscience before God, and getting caught and punished. Once others are contaminated by your sexual lust, it begins to slowly keep spreading like a wildfire out of control, scorching everything in its path.
I can honestly say that for the first time in a very long time, that my heart and mind is the clearest it’s ever been, thanks to God. I am not perfect, and I won’t be until I get to heaven above. Satan does and will attack me, even here in prison, but I know that in Christ I am free. He paid the ultimate penalty for my sins way before I ever knew, but I can proudly say that I am His child and He watches over me. There are days when I have a rough time, but that’s when I turn to God and trust in Him more than I have before. As I read my Bible everyday and spend time with God in prayer, my spiritual strength grows more and more. By the time God lets me go home from prison I will be more than ready to be in God’s army. I will also be well equipped to live the life that I was supposed to have had before.
I want to encourage you, my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, to stay strong and keep in the Word because in the worst of times that is where you will get the encouragement and strength to turn to God. He is always there but it is up to YOU to ask Him for help, then to accept His help.
I also want to warn anyone reading this that if you are a Christian and you are struggling with sexual lust of any kind, and you refuse to say no to it, or refuse to seek Godly help to stop your addiction, you are playing with fire. Lust of any kind is the bait of Satan. Lust for fame – lust for power – lust for money – lust for drugs and alcohol - lust for unhealthy food – lust for sexual gratification that is usually fueled by pornography … Satan wants to entice you into constantly gratifying your lust. Why? Because he knows that sooner or later, God allows judgment to come upon those who practice on-going sin. Judgment always involves pain in one degree or another, and Satan is into inflicting as much pain as he can upon Christians.

HEALING FROM A SICKENESS WITH AN UNWAVERING FAITH

I grew up with atypical absence seizures, the kind you get the aura . . . then stare out . . . but they never went away. I grew up taking Phenobarbital. I also grew up in a family that didn't know Jesus. I got married when I was 19 - and after we got married he pressed this Jesus thing on me and I rejected it. Our marriage was always off and on . . .
Then, in my early twenties, an odd type of seizure kept trying to show up during stressful times . . . and I wrote it off. Mind you, it was twice as stressful, for I still wasn't into Jesus. Then, I was blessed with my being pregnant with my daughter, Tory - in kind of a rocky relationship. Soon after, during the pregnancy, my seizures got worse. And they never got better. And my neurologist in Alabama kept increasing my dose of Phenobarbital. When I had my daughter, the seizures still never got better. And neither did the relationship. I went back to Arizona to find a neurologist who could do something else. In time, my husband, felt he had to as well.
I had my first brain surgery in 2002 at the Mayo Hospital . . . I wasn't into Jesus yet . . . it was painful . . . but I was seizure free. I had, oddly, bought a cross right before the surgery - not sure why. Then, two months after my surgery, we had to move to Texas where my now ex-husband was stationed with the Army. Four days after getting there, the first night in our apartment, he beat me. The Army pulled him out, and in time my daughter and I went back to Arizona, where I was in dire need. I was in tears . . . and turned to overdosing on Phenobarbital, my medicine, to numb the pain. I knew I needed something else.
I somehow found this purple sign that said "Cornerstone." It became my church on Feb 9, 2003. Since then I have been there. I sought Him that year, finding wellness. I almost didn't make it once . . . and that was when I turned for good, knowing I'd never turn back.
I have been on fire ever since. And He has opened doors for my health since, such as a second brain surgery in 2005 that was fabulous. I have had every test you can imagine and been on every drug you could have questions about, along with knowing that if you don't have faith in Him . . . seizures tend to climb back up. Seizures were controlled for a while but then I had more than several medication changes . . . faith tests. When you get very ill it is hard. But you must look up to Him knowing He will hold your hand through it all. They found I had a kidney that doesn't work right - only 12% functional, air in my salivary gland that stings, TMJ, RLS - and for a couple years had some signs off and on of MS. Then they set in harder this year - and they're really hard right now - and I am praying it lets up.
I went in for testing. We will see. God has reasons for everything and will see me through. If He helped me find Him . . . He will help me live for Him! He is amazing. I pray my family comes to Him. Nobody has. We weren't raised to know Him. So I feel blessed with all I went through and praise Him for the trials. I will never regret them. I am thrilled to serve Him!
In His Love,Hetty Siebens
Don't worry about anything; instead pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done. If you do this, you will experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.Phillipians 4:6-7