So... If you Haven't Heard... I Am Healed!

SO... IF YOU HAVEN'T HEARD... I AM HEALED!

 

At Magnolia Market in Waco, Texas with one of my sisters

I can doll up and put on a smile with the best. It's amazing what make-up, a good outfit, and fixing my hair can do for peoples perceptions. I can push myself hard and do what needs to be done briefly out of sheer tenacity, then revert to the daily reality this past year of inability to walk, talk, think, read or write. You may not know that I would rest for two days to be able to try and appear normal for an hour... then rest another two days to recover. So if you have seen me this past year, and I didn't look THAT bad, or maybe I chatted a bit with you and seemed kinda normal, it was all smoke and mirrors. Half of the time I didn't know what you were saying and if you got a text from me, I had to rewrite it 6 times to get it out correctly as every other word was wrong. I may have been sitting by you nodding my head as you shared, but you may not have noticed that I was pushing my hand into my side to keep it from jerking wildly. I didn't want to freak you out. I was biting my lip instead of screaming out when I felt a sharp pain in my heart or my head that felt like an ice pick jamming in. I didn't want to scare you. I was laughing at your jokes while trying to remember your name or who you are, even though we have been close friends for years. My delayed words were actually me talking a million miles a minute in my head so I could get the words out fast enough to keep you from noticing-noticing that I was horribly ill. 

Me on a rare "dressed and out of bed day" leaning on the wall as I can't stand. Sporting my "Reverse Ombre" I created and did myself in my bathroom, has it caught on yet? - Ha ha! Thought I would do something a little crazy with my hair as I wasn't pastoring anymore.

I have been on a 14-year journey of having "something" happen to me every 5 years or so. The first time I was 33 years old, then at 38 and again at 43; the last one I was 45. It is JUST LIKE A STROKE. It's not a stroke (as my brain scans are clear), but all of the symptoms are the same. As I recover in the Stroke Center of the hospital or in my soft memory foam bed for weeks... months... years... the question has remained... what is this that takes my life away?

A brief insight into what happens, as the last thing I like to share or hear from others is boring detailed medical mumbo jumbo... but, to be able to give God the glory for WHAT He healed me from 1 month ago, I will give a list of the top 10 symptoms to get it over with quickly for your sake and for mine.

Yay! This will be fun! NOT.

1. Heart pain, stabbing pain in the head, bright flashing light like lighting, inability to speak, walk, think, read. I could read a few sentences then it became blurry and I couldn't understand what I was reading.

2. Pain in heart, then head, then blank out for 15 seconds, lasted for months repeating every 5 minutes. This was basically a "Zone Out" every 5 min.

3. Lay in a hammock, lay in bed, lay on a sofa, couldn't talk much, follow conversations much, couldn't remember sections of my life and or people I should know. Confused. Seeing leaves rustle from the window took all my brainpower.

4. Felt like a 1st grader, lack of vocabulary or understanding of what is happening around me. Couldn't make decisions, any. "What would you like?" Became my go-to sentence. I didn't know what to wear so I put on the same thing every day. I didn't eat unless someone fed me because I couldn't choose. 

5. Repeating sentences uncontrollably, like turrets syndrome. Couldn't stop. Rarely happened, but pretty wild when it did. Something was definitely wrong.

6. Arms flailed around while I was repeating words and my body jerked. Juan had to hold my arms down with all his strength so I wouldn't hit myself in the face during these seizure-like incidents. 

7. Hands turning into fists, wrists turning under, arms twisting in. Head tilting to the right while arms & head jerked spontaneously. SO embarrassing. 

8. Communication problems, lack of filter in saying too much, couldn't understand what people are saying with multiple people in a room talking. Couldn't concentrate to talk if there was music or any noise around. It sounded like a roar.

9. Inability to drive, delayed response, flashing shadows on the road caused my brain to check out and become disoriented, lost, afraid.

10. Ten, twenty, thirty appointments & tests (some which take months to recover in bed and can't move) with doctors who give no answers and bill us to the hills. Wiped out all of our savings and put us in deep debt.

Holding Juan's arm while he helps me to walk alongside him on the boardwalk before a day at the beach to sit in the sand, rest, listen to waves, just be. 

In the midst of this, I am pretty proud of myself actually. I stayed calm, happy and thankful for the most part throughout. God was with me and I was thankful to be alive which overshadowed everything with a joy deep in my soul that I would drink from daily. I was alive. 

The bummer is my kids seeing me as an invalid and the burden I was to my husband, not that he treated me that way, he was amazing as usual. This was after all the 4th time this has happened, though this time was by far the worst. I didn't want to be a burden, but I had no choice. We called it our "new normal" to keep going through life as best as we could despite the circumstances. My kids told me they thought I may die and were spending time with me as much as they could as no one knew if this was something that would be permanent or even get worse.  That was sad. My poor kids. 

The view from my bed. Not so bad :) 

On the recommendation of my parents, I went to Mayo Clinic in Minnesota on a credit card with my husband and sat in waiting rooms all day long trying to get in for tests even though I was scheduled to be there. This is the way they work I guess. Sitting for 6 hours in a doctor's office hoping to get in. Juan wheeled me around in a wheelchair because the facility was too large for me to get around. I received very few tests and had meetings with 2 world-renowned doctors. The neurologist there wanted to test me for Huntington's Disease which is a movement disorder that gives a 10-year life expectancy after diagnosis. It is quickly deteriorating and debilitating. Don't look on youtube to see what it looks like, just don't. It's bad. Hearing that possibility was not easy. We couldn't continue to pay for the hotel and stay the additional weeks to get more tests to confirm as it would be too expensive. I learned the hard way from other patients when you go to Mayo, you are supposed to get a one-way ticket and plan to stay for a month to get a diagnosis. Hotel for a month? Waiting rooms for days? No thanks. I didn't feel well enough to do more than a week of that. Besides, Juan had to return to work for our New York City Relief Gala and our airline tickets were non-refundable. I wasn't well enough to stay without a caregiver, so we headed home. Thankfully before we left, our Mayo Neurologist made a "Mayo Exception" and wanted to continue to care for me from a distance by sending me to one of the few places in the country that offer the tests I needed that happened to be in NYC, Columbia University Hosptial. 

I needed to meet with a new neurologist at Columbia before getting the movement study test. But then, this new doctor said after evaluating me that I did not have Huntington's Disease so they would not be testing me. That was great news! But at that point, I gave up. I couldn't keep spending money we didn't have to find out nothing over and over again. To be honest, the possible diagnosis of Huntington's Disease the Mayo Neurologist told me he thought could be what was wrong with me... kept haunting me at night. It could be a slow death filled with suffering. I was hoping this was not in my future, but there was no way of knowing for sure as the NYC doctor didn't do the test the Mayo doctor asked for. I hoped the Columbia doctor was right and that I didn't have it. Regardless, I was done. No more doctors. No more tests. No more. 

AND THEN I WAS HEALED...

As of 4 weeks ago, my arms were turning under and flailing uncontrollably more than ever. All-day Saturday my body and head jerked until I was exhausted. I holed up in my bedroom with the door locked so my sons would not see me and worry. It was SO BAD, worse than ever. A normal person would have gone to the hospital, but I knew there was nothing they could do so I suffered alone in my room all morning and afternoon and night jerking over and over again to the point of exhaustion. 

Then I got MAD. I got really, really, really MAD.

I was so tired of this! I was not going to have it ANYMORE. Sunday morning my sweet husband left early to go preach at a partner church and both my boys went to work. I was alone and determined to pray through this. 

Now don't get me wrong, I had read books (once I taught myself to read again) on healing, I had prayed and received prayer for an entire year. I am a believer in healing. I became a Christian in a mega faith church of 8 thousand and even worked there and at the 700 Club on the prayer lines praying for peoples salvation and healing all over the world as a teenager. But over the years, I had drifted from this stance to a more "balanced" approach to my faith. It is good to be level headed, but in this circumstance, instead of believing for my healing the past 12 months, I was asking, begging, hoping, and when it didn't come, I was accepting the sickness as my lot in life and through it, I would "suffer well" and let God's glory and peace shine through my life despite the hardship. 

I believed 60% wholeheartedly for healing and 40% of me was singing "It is well with my soul" accepting the situation and responding with the fruits of the spirit which are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness and self-control the best I could in my "humanness" -nobodies perfect. Most of the time I felt like I would die soon, or die sooner than most. But at this point, on this day, at the end of June, I was ticked off at the sickness. Angry. Fed Up! 

Short Booklet as an Intro to more books and teachings

I took a healing booklet my female minister friend from Foursquare originally from Nigeria gave me called "Introduction to God Wants You Well - Change Your Mind and Change Your Life" I had read it before, but this time was different I was going AFTER IT. I was going after my healing with a fiery rage against it. I went into one of my many hammocks (I had acquired over the past year to lay in and recover) and read through it with authority, praying, declaring, worshiping... and I didn't stop. I just kept going and going and going. All morning, all day, I prayed, I declared, I changed to different hammocks and chairs outside as I prayed, worshiped and confessed healing verses over myself commanding my body to submit to the word of God.  I started around 8am and continued until I felt a breakthrough at 8pm. 

I immediately felt a difference. I am well. I knew it. I am healed. I knew it. It is finished. I knew it. 

I let my husband know that night who hesitantly listened. I emailed my family the story who expressed worry over my declaration. I knew everyone would have to wait and watch to believe. But I believed 100% - It is finished. 

Now I have been healed before. Years before my friend Pastor Mike Leahy from Liquid Church visited me at the church I was pastoring part-time called Garwood Church. He anointed my head with oil, and I was healed that day. Before that, I could not stand long enough to preach on Sunday mornings so I would use a table and a stool or a leather chair to deliver the messages. I couldn't go up and down stairs without hanging on to the railing and hobbling down. I was getting worse by the day. But after Mike prayed, I was set free. Totally well. His church www.liquidchurch.com even highlighted my healing in a video here: 

https://liquidchurch.com/messages/label-maker-series/sick-to-healed/

Experiencing this miraculous healing was awesome until a few years after... last summer on June 4th 2018... I was "knocked out for the count" again. It was a long year of horrific suffering until Sunday, June 30th, 2019 I declared in Jesus name that I was once again healed. Both times were miraculous. Both times my healing manifested differently. Both times were a move of God-no doubt! If this was a test of my faith, I was going to pass it. I will fight tooth and nail to fulfill all of God's purposes for my life and this time I had to get ticked at the devil. So ticked!  

It has been four weeks that I have been well and everyone is starting to believe it now. I do have shooting pains now and again and I speak to them with anger and authority, get out! It goes. I am in a battle every day, fighting to continue to believe, continue to walk in my healing, declaring life over my body. I have been praying for the sick more lately as people hear my story and then they ask me to pray for them. I am trusting that God will get all the glory for performing His word in my body every day continually. 

Amen - so be it. 

Beach Day after my healing - Point Pleasant, New Jersey with my husband, son & ministry friends from New York City Relief & Helsinki Relief - That's in Finland Yo! 

Here are a few of the truths that I am confessing, 

and commanding my body to believe every day. 

1. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in me.

2. Jesus went around casting out demons and healing people all day long. All over the New Testament, He is just healing people one after the other. If Jesus lives in me, then He can continue to go about healing now, here, me. 

3. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew 17:20

4. "If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes. Immediately the father of the child cried out, Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!" 

Mark 9:23-24

5. Proverbs 23:7 "As he thinks in his heart, so is he."

I am continuing to build my faith in this. I am not perfect, and I struggle every day to continue to believe 100% and declare with the faith of a mustard seed, 

"Sickness - Move out of my body!" Nothing is impossible. And as I think I am healed, so am I. When I doubt or have a pain I pray, "Lord I believe, help my unbelief!"

Looking forward to growing old 

and being an awesome "Mombo" for my future Grandchildren!

Just as God gave me salvation, a new life, holiness, purity, authority, giftings, He has given me HEALING. I just need to WALK IN IT just like I walk daily in His other gifts to me. Just as I am saved by faith, I am anointed by faith, I walk in the prophetic by faith, I preach by faith, I counsel and love by faith, I am just as much healed by faith. I will take my healing Thank You Very Much.

So here I am, walking in it, healed, not just saying it. I REALLY AM HEALED! My hand and arms that would turn in and jerk multiple times every day have not done so since my "day of prayer" 4 weeks ago! I am so thankful and I give all the credit to Jesus who has given His life for me, so I could walk in all levels of freedom: emotionally, spiritually, and yes even physically. 

Two Days Before June 4th, 2018 Incident

If:Gathering Leadership with my Selah Women in Ministry Group at my home

Time to get the "Girls" back together! 

Walking out my Faith - Age 46 - Tracy Lucia Galloway :)