True Stories - Arthritis
In the mornings my fingers would always be locked up and my husband, Eddie, would have to rub them until I could move them again. Whenever I was doing anything with my fingers I would have to stop regularly to let the pain subside. By 1998 it was spreading around my body and started to affect my hips. I used to enjoy walking in the mountains but this became increasingly difficult and I would be unable to get up the following day. It was always worse when the weather was damp and I never looked forward to the winter. I would visit the doctor who prescribed numerous remedies but none of them seemed to make any difference. Sometimes I would go to healing services at church but when they asked if anyone wanted to come forward for healing, I held back, convincing myself that it wasn't important enough. Surely God had higher priorities than my pain. After all, I had learnt to live with it with the help of some pills that I took regularly. This was despite the vigorous prompting of my daughter. Whenever they said, "Is there anyone here with such and such a problem" (exactly describing my symptoms), she would elbow me in the side and tell me to go forward. But I never did.
In 2000 we went to America as a family to visit some friends. On our last day, my husband and myself were praying with our friend Gillian and her neighbour who I didn't know very well. At one point this neighbour said to me, "I see a picture of you with chains wrapped around your arms and wrists. Is there anything wrong with you?" I was dismissive. "Not really, just this arthritis problem." "Well," she said, "we'll just pray for healing and release from these chains." And that's what she did. It wasn't a big, heavy prayer, just a simple one. Then she asked me, "What do you see?" I could sense (somehow!) a fine, drizzly, rain. The sort of rain that doesn't look like it should be very wet but actually soaks you through. The rain was golden and felt good. After that, the prayer meeting finished and we left for the airport. On the plane I was thinking, "I've been healed!" but I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want to look silly if it came back. I stopped taking the pills immediately and for the next 2 weeks I kept prodding myself and checking to see if it was still true. At the end of those two weeks I told Eddie but didn't announce it generally. "After all," I thought, "It may be OK now, in the summer, but what about the winter. It's always worse then."
In the mornings my fingers would always be locked up and my husband, Eddie, would have to rub them until I could move them again. Whenever I was doing anything with my fingers I would have to stop regularly to let the pain subside. By 1998 it was spreading around my body and started to affect my hips. I used to enjoy walking in the mountains but this became increasingly difficult and I would be unable to get up the following day. It was always worse when the weather was damp and I never looked forward to the winter. I would visit the doctor who prescribed numerous remedies but none of them seemed to make any difference. Sometimes I would go to healing services at church but when they asked if anyone wanted to come forward for healing, I held back, convincing myself that it wasn't important enough. Surely God had higher priorities than my pain. After all, I had learnt to live with it with the help of some pills that I took regularly. This was despite the vigorous prompting of my daughter. Whenever they said, "Is there anyone here with such and such a problem" (exactly describing my symptoms), she would elbow me in the side and tell me to go forward. But I never did.
In 2000 we went to America as a family to visit some friends. On our last day, my husband and myself were praying with our friend Gillian and her neighbour who I didn't know very well. At one point this neighbour said to me, "I see a picture of you with chains wrapped around your arms and wrists. Is there anything wrong with you?" I was dismissive. "Not really, just this arthritis problem." "Well," she said, "we'll just pray for healing and release from these chains." And that's what she did. It wasn't a big, heavy prayer, just a simple one. Then she asked me, "What do you see?" I could sense (somehow!) a fine, drizzly, rain. The sort of rain that doesn't look like it should be very wet but actually soaks you through. The rain was golden and felt good. After that, the prayer meeting finished and we left for the airport. On the plane I was thinking, "I've been healed!" but I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want to look silly if it came back. I stopped taking the pills immediately and for the next 2 weeks I kept prodding myself and checking to see if it was still true. At the end of those two weeks I told Eddie but didn't announce it generally. "After all," I thought, "It may be OK now, in the summer, but what about the winter. It's always worse then."
When I was in the 6th form at school I took a class to learn how to type. It was during these classes that I started to get pains in my hands. My teacher said it was arthritis, that it would only get worse, and that I should learn to live with it.
Sure enough, it did get worse. Over the following years it intensified. It was particularly bad in my thumb, causing me to drop things like mugs of tea. Because it was there all the time, I learned to compensate and live with it but doing anything intricate was painful and if I tried to carry on regardless I would really suffer the next day.
Sure enough, it did get worse. Over the following years it intensified. It was particularly bad in my thumb, causing me to drop things like mugs of tea. Because it was there all the time, I learned to compensate and live with it but doing anything intricate was painful and if I tried to carry on regardless I would really suffer the next day.