Sarah had a powerful encounter  with God and came to know Him when she was chronically sick. Jesus completely healed her and set her free. Her passion is to see others come to know Jesus as Healer as well as Saviour. She teaches and ministers healing in churches, and in ladies and youth meeting. She is married to Mark and they have two daughters.

 

This is her story.....

 

I grew up in a happy family but my earliest memories are of feeling ill and not being able to enjoy good health.

My Mum tells me that I was a sickly baby and never fed well.

As I grew up I spent a lot of time missing school and then trying to catch up on the work I had missed.

 

As I approached my teenage years I continued to miss vast amounts of school and consequently felt I was on a never ending downward spiral.

Most of the sickness I experienced was viral, throat infections, and  digestive disorders and although not “serious” I was almost constantly on antibiotics and my immune system must have been very depleted.

I experienced a very severe episode with a dramatic weight loss when I was about 16 and glandular fever for 18 months when I was 18, and therefore had to stay on an extra year to take my A levels.

I had my tonsils out at this time, again nothing went straightforward! I hemorrhaged, had to be rushed back into theatre and had a blood transfusion!

 

I had a desire to pursue a nursing career but because of my ill health had to forego the place at a London training hospital I had. I believe even back then God placed a desire within me to help sick people, little did I know the way He would work it all out!

 

I wrote around to banks and insurance companies and ended up working opposite a very kind and gentle man!

We started going out together and with 18 month we were married.

We had our 2 daughters early in the marriage.

Neither of them slept well and I also struggled with kidney problems through one of the pregnancies and so my health was deteriorating further still.

 

It finally all came to a head the Easter of 1987.

I contracted viral pneumonia, and was put on many courses of antibiotics, which did nothing and in fact just made me even worse.

This time I just couldn’t throw the infection off. I had symptoms in every part of my body, debilitating weakness, blurred vision, tinnitus, head that felt like cotton wool, chronic fatigue, and allergies, rashes and constant stomach upset.

I felt more ill than I ever had and I really felt like I was going to die.

 

Again after many exhausting tests, the doctors thinking it may be a brain tumour or MS because of my lack of co-ordination, I was finally given the diagnosis of M.E or Myalgic Encephomyletis.

They told me that I was the worst case they had ever seen, that I would be in a wheelchair within the year, that I would never recover, but would just get worse. I was also so violently allergic to so many things.

Looking back I really believe I had been ill with this horrible disease all my life but never had it been diagnosed.

 

I was sent home without any follow up appointments, just told to cope with and live with it.

Somehow I did for about a year although I could hardly move from the sofa or out of bed.

My husband did all the housework and helped taking the girls to school and playschool.

 

After the year however, I was at the end, in fact looking back probably suicidal. I just couldn’t stand anymore. I can  remember thinking at  the time that no one could feel so ill and still be alive.

 

I had always believed in God, been to church, weddings and funerals but that was as far as it went.

No one had ever told me that you could have a personal relationship with God, that you could really know Him.

 

One day I was feeling so desperately ill , I was lying on my bed and I said these words, “God, if you really are there, please help me because I can’t live like this”.

That was it, I had come to the end. I didn’t know if God could do anything.

Little did I know . . . . . . . . .!

 

About 2 weeks later I was laying on the sofa and was listening to the radio. A man called Billy Graham was speaking and he said “ If you want to know God, you have to ask Jesus into your heart and life”.

I knew with all my heart that is what I wanted and I prayed the prayer that he prayed.

I did not experience any “ lightening bolts” but I really believed God had heard the cry of my heart.

I began to read the gospels in the Bible through my very blurred vision, only managing a few minutes at a time.

I also began to “talk” to God. At that time I didn’t have any experience of prayer.

 

A couple of weeks later I was in the bath of all places, talking to God. Suddenly I experienced the most amazing feeling of love and joy flooding all over me.

I had had a lot of anxiety and feelings of depression with the M.E but instantly that left me. The only thing I could do was say thank you as I began to cry with the most wonderful feelings of love that were flooding through me.

Then I began to speak in a language I had never heard before!

I knew it was God because it was so real and was so wonderful.

I went into the bedroom as my husband was downstairs and I didn’t know what he would think of what was happening to me!

 

The next morning I phoned the nutritionist I was seeing at the time, I knew by this time that she was a Christian and I thought she may know what had happened to me.

She told me that I had been baptised in the Holy Spirit and invited me along to the House church that she and her husband ran, and also the ladies Bible study midweek.

 

A couple of friends began to take me along, literally carrying me.

I was still reading through the gospels and I was beginning to see that Jesus healed people. Not only did He heal them but I read in many places where it says He healed all and every disease, and also that He never turned anyone away but healed all that came to Him in faith.

I also found an amazing verse in Hebrews 13:8 “ Jesus Christ the same, yesterday, today and forever”.

I had no church background, and as I read the Bible I believed that it mean’t what it said, literally!

So in my simple child like faith I reasoned that if Jesus was the same and He healed all who came to Him in faith then, then He would heal me.

The only thing was I didn’t know how to get that healing into my body.

 

And so I began a wonderful journey with Jesus, I began to learn more and more about Him, I began to grow closer and closer to Him.

I also learnt a real key for anyone needing anything from God.

Although I wanted to be healed, of course I did, the foremost desire of my heart was to know Him, I sought the Healer and not the healing. I believe that was a huge key.

 

I was baptised the Easter Sunday of 1990. On the Easter Monday I was taken to a Christian conference in a local town. There I experienced God moving in powerful ways, it was wonderful to see people being touched by the power of God, and the freedom to worship.

 

God began to take me on a journey through the Bible. He showed me that His heart had always been for healing for His people.

He encouraged me to take hold of the healing verses in the Bible and to write them down. Then to speak them onto a cassette tape and to listen to them daily, in fact to take them like medicine.

He showed me that we go to the doctors, have a prescription for medicine and then take that medicine regularly. As we begin we may not see any immediate improvement but as we continue we begin to improve.

He showed me that many people have more trust and faith in natural medicine than in His Word which is the best medicine that there is!

 

It tells us in Proverbs 4:20-22 “ My son, attend to my words, consent and submit to my sayings, let them not depart from your sight (eyes), keep them in the centre of your heart. For they are life to those who find them, health and healing (medicine) to all their flesh”.

 

I began to read the words about healing, putting it before my eyes, I began to listen to the words on healing and they became into my heart. God promises that His word is medicine to all our flesh.

The other wonderful thing about God’s Word is that it doesn’t cost anything (except time and effort!), you cannot overdose on it, and there are no side affects!!

 

However I would never say to anyone to stop taking any medicine that a doctor had prescribed, but in fact to attack the sickness with the natural medicine and with the Word on healing.

 

I also went to meetings where the Holy Spirit was moving and Jesus was worshipped.

I was also taken to a large Christian camp, and there met up with others who believed in divine healing.

 

As I continued seeking the Healer and taking His Word as medicine, eventually I realised that my body was beginning improve.

Some days were easier than others, but the Bible tells us to fight the fight of faith in 1 Timothy 6:12.

God loves it when we believe what He says even more than what our physical bodies are telling us. That is simply what faith is!

One by one the symptoms left me, until one day not one remained!

 

Around this time we moved house from the South of England to Nottingham.

It was also about this time that I realised that I had been completely healed! In fact I believe that it was more than healing. Healing is restoring the body back to its original condition.

 

I had never in all my life known what good health was. I believe that what I experienced was a miracle. I believe God gave me a complete new immune system.

He did a good job! When God heals He does a good job!

I was healed 17 years ago now, and all glory to Him I  have walked in divine health all that time.

There still is no known cure for M.E.

Some people do have a time of remission but I have been told that they never fully recover.

God can do what the doctors cannot. There is nothing impossible with Him the Bible tells us.

 

He gave me back my life, what else could I possibly do but give my life back to Him.

The amazing thing is that whatever we give to Him, He multiplies and gives it back to us.

 

Ephesians 3:20 says “ Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us”.