HEALED!!!

Sometimes our lives in Haiti are hard to describe in words.   Sometimes we see things that I really just need to process before writing about them.   Sometimes I can never bring myself to put things out there to the public.  For the past several weeks, I have been trying to figure out one particular event/or maybe process and how to think, feel and write about it.  I have been putting it off for reasons I can’t explain although I know people will want to celebrate this with us!

Its Suzette…

If you have followed our blog over the past year, you’ll know her story well.  If you haven’t please access  my previous posts from the archives about her so you can fully understand this situation.  Beginning with “Canaan” from Dec 31, 2010, “Suffering Can be good” June 5, 2011, “Suzette” Sept 10, 2011, and “Suzette” Sept 27, 2011.

The very first day I sat on the floor of Suzette’s shelter listening to her story these words stayed with me; “I know God wants heal me”.  For me, one of very little faith, these words didn’t stick with me because I expected it to actually happen, but they stayed with me because it was the beginning of Suzette’s lesson for me of what true faith really is.  I believed God could heal her, but seeing how He used her in her suffering, I didn’t really know if God wanted to heal her here on earth.  Looking back now, I see how little faith I had and how much faith she had.   

My last two trips to see Suzette have been completely different than any before.  I hadn’t been to see Suzette for two months, the longest stretch without a visit.  When I arrived with a group of People in April, she welcomed us standing in her front yard.  Me:  clueless.  We then proceeded into the house where Suzette normally asked someone to help get each of us a chair, this time she was getting us chairs.  Me: still clueless.  Next, I noticed the mat she normally laid on the floor was missing.  Me:  starting to finally put things together.  I asked Suzette, “where is your mat?”   She replied with “it’s gone, I sleep in the bed now.  Me, feeling a bit confused at this point, but starting to put all these clues together asked her how she was feeling. 

     Suzette looked at me with a slight grin and explained that her pain and bleeding were gone and she could no longer feel the tumor that had been growing in her.  For three weeks, she had been SYMPTOM FREE.  She explained that she didn’t know if she was completely healed, but she was symptom free.  After picking my jaw up off the floor, I tried to speak, but could only weep.  As I’m trying to pull myself together to just acknowledge God’s faithfulness and give Him praise, something about Suzette struck me; she wasn’t surprised.  She wasn’t surprised at all.  She knew it all along and had patiently waited with anticipation.   I was ashamed of getting to a point after praying with her for almost a year and a half where I didn’t expect.  I didn’t anticipate. 

A quiet whisper spoke into me before going there that day that said “what if we show up and Suzette is better” but I brushed it aside thinking it was just my wishful thinking. But I still didn’t anticipate.  I was also humbled to the ground that God would allow me to be part of something so significant.  Not that he needed me, but that He allowed me to experience it.

Just two weeks later, while running a clinic I looked up out the door of the building to see Suzette walking up the road by the church.  Before that, part of me wondered if the symptoms would return.  I wondered if the healing would only be temporary.  Seeing Suzette that day confirmed healing still.  She was energized, practically jogging up the road.

Another week went by and Suzette’s daughter came to clinic to be seen and asked if we planned to visit her mom, she wasn’t doing well.  She had pain and bleeding again.  All my fears, questions, unbelief came rushing back. Satan used that moment to enhance my doubt.  When we arrived at Suzette’s this time, I expected to see the scene I had been part of for so many months…Suzette lying on her mat in great pain and suffering.  Instead, what I saw was the same scene as the previous visit.  It turns out Suzette had been working in her garden the day before, WORKING IN HER GARDEN and experienced some pain, but it wasn’t the pain she had with the cancer.  For a woman in her 50’s who went from laying on a mat all day everyday to working in her garden, who wouldn’t have some pain????

Suzette proceeded to share with me her most recent dream from just the night before (those of you who have been here know Suzette has dreams often that have messages from God, very significant ones).  Someone in the dream told her to ask Madame Jeff (that would be me, because in Haiti, I don’t have my own name…Jeff thinks this is pretty funny) to give two injections to heal her wound.  It turns out I have no injections what so ever to give her, but I sensed strongly that God wanted me to pray for complete healing for Suzette.  We gathered around Suzette and laid hands on her and prayed.  We prayed for more miracles in Suzette.  We prayed for God’s medicine because we didn’t have the medicine she needed.  Now looking back, there are other times I wish we didn’t have the right medicine for people so we would rely more on the Holy Spirit for results.  For that time and place, it was that simple.   No doubts.  No hesitation.  Only faith and expectancy.    

As I wrote in one of my previous posts, “if God heals Suzette of her cancer, God is God and God is good.  If God doesn’t heal Suzette of her cancer, God is still God and God is still good.  To God be the glory!”

Today I can say, “God healed Suzette, God is God and God is Good!  To God be the glory!”

Thank you to so many who have prayed unceasingly for Suzette both here in Haiti and from your own homes!