Not in the Midst of a Storm

Healing Testimony of Pastor Lisa Marie Fox
You've watched the local news, CNN Headline News or the Weather Channel when there was a broadcast indicating threats of a tornado or a hurricane. You've heard them assign names and predict endangered locations. You've seen the visuals - circular radar patterns dancing on the weather screens, property owners boarding up store fronts, placing sand bags along waterfronts, and the local Red Cross prepping for the storm. Once the storm touches down, many people wait it out in a safe place, while others remain in imminent danger. They choose to stay in the midst of the storm saving their material possessions or waiting until the last minute to take necessary precautions. The broadcasts the following day displays the effects of the storm and gives details of the aftermath. Some have died, while others were injured or unscathed.

I am one who can relate to those who placed themselves in imminent danger.

Why?

I was one of them. The name of my storm was cancer.
Norvell Hayes said, “ The life of sickness, poverty, worry, stress, anxiety and confusion that so may believers live is not the kind of life that Jesus Christ died to provide.”

I REPENTED
 

I have been an active member of the Pentecostal Church since age 4. I sang in the Sonshine Band an recited Bible verses in my Sunday School class. By the age of 12 I had made a conscious decision to accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior and to serve Him for the rest of my life. I never looked back. I loved the Lord with all of my heart and forever will. My goal? To touch lives by sharing and spreading the love of Jesus everywhere I went.

TL Osborn said, “We do not glorify God in our spirit by remaining in sin. We do not glorify God in our body by remaining sick.”

 
 
I DISCOVERED
 
I made an amazing discovery in October of 1994. I could not protect my house. NOT IN THE MIDST OF A STORM. I had been diagnosed with Andeocarcinoma (uterine cancer). I was told of women who had been afflicted with it, and that few among them survived because it was diagnosed too late. I had also discovered that attending Church regularly, singing on the choir, and serving on the usher board was not enough to deliver me from this attack. These were all works. I knew all the latest Gospel songs, top artists, choirs and groups. But I did not know enough about the Bible ( Word of God) to defend myself against this attack. I did not have the appropriate weapons. What did I know? I knew I was afraid.  My head spun with thoughts of goals not yet accomplished and dreams I thought would never become reality. I went to the Doctor about 8:30 that morning because for weeks I had been feeling sick and weak from hemorrhaging and nausea. By 11:30 that same day, I underwent surgery. Two days later, a specialist confirmed my diagnosis from years, to two years and some months. Fear gripped me. Shocked I sat there. I denied the entire conversation and the events that had taken place 48 hours before. I wanted to cry, but I could not. I knew that once I started , I would never stop crying a river of pity. The first thought after the initial shock was how was my personal relationship with my Heavenly Father? Have I spent time in prayer, reading and meditating on the Word of God? No , I had not been consistant. Proverbs 4:20-22 says, “My son ( daughter in my case) attend to my words, incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let them not depart from thine eyes;keep them in the midst of thine heart. For they are life unto those who find them, and health to all their flesh.” This scripture had not yet become rhema ( alive) to me.
FF Bosworth said, “Some people wonder why they can’t have faith for healing. They feed their bodies three hot meals a day , and their spirit one cold snack a week.”
 
I PRAYED
 
I did not take time to learn the Word and the rights and privileges given to me as a child of God. I did not understand the covenant that includes salvation, healing and prosperity God made with me through His Son Jesus Christ. I did not know how to apply the Word of God in my life.
I vividly remember the response my twin sister Letitia gave me when I called her in Baltimore with the news. It was not one of sympathy. She took time to explain the detail in her plan of attack against her infirmity. She literally started preaching to me. If she had been in Atlanta with me, her voice would have been super strong with one finger on her . Bible and one finger in my face. Imagine that! I could not debate with her. When we went away to college, she drew closer to the Lord and devoured the Word. I on the other hand started a gospel choir, and spent all my money on music and clothes. Letitia spent her money on teaching tapes, Bible reference material and other books. (Circumstances have a way of changing the way you do things. Later on, she started raiding my closet, and I started raiding her book and tape collection.) I knew that the only thing I could do was stop crying, straighten up and listen to what she had to say. Letitia spoke from experience. She battled stomach cancer in 1990 and won. She knew it was an attack of satan, that God did not put sickness on her to teach her a lesson or to get her attention.
 
The Word of God and the Holy Spirit teaches, corrects, confirms and directs us in everything that we need to know.  She knew that Jesus came to do the will of God, His Father. What did Jesus do? He preached the Gospel, taught in temples, and healed all manners of sickness and disease while he was on the earth.(Matthew 4:23). He gave us all power and authority to overcome. (Luke 9:1,Luke 10:19).
 
So what did Letitia do? She told the devil that he was trespassing against her body, then she petitioned the heavenly courts to issue a warrant for his arrest. She had a strong confidence about her strategy against his attack. She knew that once he was captured b the Jehovah Rapha Police that he would be sentenced to death. Letitia stood on the Word concerning her healing until it manifested itself. She also reminded me that night on the phone that I could not get healed off of her testimony. I had to open my Word, open my mouth, open my heart, open my spirit to believe, receive and to be healed on my own. It took some time for this to sink in before I decided to ask God for forgiveness, and began to declare that I will have the victory over this terminal situation.
 
Billy Joe Daughtery said “ The attention you give to the Word of healing is determined by how much you value health in your life and how you value the Word of God .”
 
I BELIEVED

Letitia, her husband Shedrick and I agreed that I needed to be in an environment where my faith could be built up and where they could also keep watch over me. They moved me from Atlanta to Baltimore. I thank God for their love , support and prayers. When I arrived in Baltimore, Shedrick and Letitia had already formed a prayer group months ago in their homes that met every Wednesday in their homes at 10 AM for the terminally ill. Most were members that belonged to their Church. I recall two regular prayer group members that had been diagnosed with cancer. One grew weary and she just wanted to go home and be with the Lord. Her desire became a reality shortly thereafter. The other held on long and strong and received his healing. WBAL-TV Baltimore did a documentary on prayer and medicine that featured him in the story.
 
Many were praying with and for me . My new Church home in Owings Mills, MD had embraced me with much love and support. I was overwhelming. They had an entire intercessory prayer team praying for me. Talk about some serious prayer warriors who where full of the Word , they spoke the Word, lived the Word and prayed the Word. was determined not to depend on anyone else to believe God for me.. no I needed to believe Him for myself too. I know that the prayer of agreement is powerful , but both parties must agree to get results. ( Matthew 18:19 and 20)
My condition did not get any better, rather it grew worse. The test – surgery- more test – treatment thing proved unsuccessful. The two doctors told me they did not have all the answers or the options, they were not miracle workers, and also how mistakes are inevitable in the medical profession. By that time, I had made up in my mind to totally trust the Doctor who is the answer, who had no need for options, who can work miracles by just speaking the Word of God, and never makes a mistake because He, God is perfect. Do not misunderstand me. I believe and do have faith in doctors. I believe God uses and also works through them, some in miraculous ways. But you must know whose report to believe, ( Isaiah 53) , when the doctor’s report offers no hope, no life, no nothing.
Letitia and Shedrick along with my former pastors decided to finance a trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma for me once they found out where I was in my faith. My faith was strong. It did not matter whether Papa Hagin or Benny Hinn prayed the prayer of faith over me or not, I was already healed. I stood in BWI airport that hot June day in 1995 with a tumor the size of a baseball, waiting for the flight that would take me high in my faith and in the Lord.
My twenty two day experience at the Rhema Bible Training Center’s Prayer and Healing Center in Tulsa, helped me to do just that. I sat under anointed teaching, preaching and healing classes and services. My faith was charged. My spirit man was renewed. My body was healed. Symptoms invaded my body in class some days. It did not discourage me one bit. Faith invaded my heart, my mind and my soul. You could not tell me I was not healed. By the time I left the healing school, the tumor had disappeared and so had several other symptoms.
Kenneth E. Hagin said, “If Jesus bore our sickness and carried our pains there is no need for both of us to bear them.”
 
I LEARNED
When I was at the Healing School, I learned to take healing scriptures like Proverbs 4:20-23 , II Peter 2:24 and Isaiah 53:5 and John 10:10, like a prescription drug and to pray the Ephesians prayers every day. I learned I had a covenant with God and that in that covenant, there is no sickness, disease or lack. I learned that my faith had to grow from a level of believing to knowing. I learned I had to speak only those things I desired to come to pass. Doug Jones, the director of the Healing School taught me something that I will never forget, that the very words that I speak must be a direct result of what I believe. If what I believe is not strong enough for me to fix my mouth to speak it then it is not strong enough to change my circumstances. Lessons learned? Having unforgiveness, and not walking in love hindered my healing from coming to full manifestation. I learned I had to believe God’s Word, speak God’s Word and live God’s Word. 
Gloria Copeland once said, “ To receive healing is wonderful, but to live in divine health is better.”
 
I OVERCAME
 
                                                                                                                     
I left Tulsa having receive the manifestation of my healing. I went back to the doctors to have repeat testing done. They could not find an active cancer cell in my body. The word “remission” translated to the heavenly language “redemption.” Now there is a good place to shout! To add to the victory, I had surgery July 1, 1997 to remove a “benign” cyst from the ovary. The surgery was successful. I headed to the recovery room and the surgeon headed outside to the recovery lounge to display the color photos of my uterus to Letitia and “Auntie Joyce”. My doctor was amazed that I had no scar tissue and my uterus looked healthy smooth and pink. He let them know that if it had not been for the scars on my lower abdomen, he would never believe that I had surgery of any kind at any time. There is another good place to shout! I have had many opportunities to share my experience by the way of offering healing clinics, sharing my personal testimony and providing one on one ministry to individuals who have decided to live and not die but declare the works of the Lord. I am whole, I am equipped to stand up against the enemy when he comes to attack me.
 
Satan’s favorite area of attack are our physical bodies, our finances and our familes. I have learned to overcome those attacks by guarding those areas and not opening the door for the enemy to come in by way of disobedience to God’s word, or by not walking in love and forgiveness.
 
Here I stand victorious knowing and believing that Jesus provided healing for me on Calvary. Healing is mine if I believe and receive it. I know what the Word has to say about my health and wellbeing. I will hear, believe, and speak the Word of God. I will be consistent in my faith without wavering.
Clyde Oliver spoke loud in my ear, “God has great plans for you, and none of them include defeat. “
 
That storm is over. I may have some scars, reminders of what God has brought me through, but my house is still standing. ( Luke 6:46-49) I am blessed. I am delivered. I am healed. Do not wait until the storm comes to build your house, to seek shelter and to take the necessary precautions. God’s Word tells us persecution and affliction come for the Word’s sake. ( Mark 4:17)
The persecutions and afflictions will come. But no weapon formed against us shall prosper. (Isaiah 54:17). It may form against you but it will not work unless you accept and surrender to it. Healing is yours. Believe it , receive it, in Jesus Name.
 
Lisa Marie Hargrove ( Fox)
Pikesville , Maryland
July 1997
*With the exception of Clyde Oliver, all quotes taken from Faith’s Little Instruction Book for Healing. Harrison House.