The pain was excruciating, I couldn’t sit long. On our home-buying flight to Boston, I had to lie on the floor of the airplane. Now in the doctor’s office I heard, “There is nothing I can do for you. Your pain is probably caused by deep varicose veins. I am sorry, but the only thing I can give you is a prescription for pain medicine. You will have to live on them for the rest of your life.”
Turning down the prescription, I made a decision: I will look to God for healing. I read books about healing and studied the Scriptures on the subject. The Bible says,
Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer of faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. . . (James 5:14-15).
Hmm, I thought, I have never seen anyone do that before. I wonder …
Finally, I went to Pastor Jim and asked if I could do this. He’d never done it before, but he said yes. It was just before our move to the East Coast. There was an engineering recession, and the San Diego branch of Honeywell was closing. If my husband wanted to keep his job, we would have to move to Massachusetts. A farewell had been planned for our last Sunday evening there. The pastor thought this would be a good time to have the elders pray for me.
The evening came. The pastor did not call for the elders of the church to come forward, but only for those men who had faith in God’s healing power. Several got up of their seats and stood around me.
These men, along with the pastor, laid their hands on me, anointed me with oil, and prayed for healing in the name of Jesus—just like the Scriptures said to do. A feeling of awe prevailed over the congregation. We were actually doing what the Bible said.
As they prayed, I felt nothing, but I kept my eyes on God and His promises. Feelings have nothing to do with God’s power being manifested, only faith. After the service, we left and went home. In the next few days, as I was busy packing, I felt no pain. Then we left for our long drive east.
Suddenly, I had a lot of time on my hands. I began to think about my problem. I was fearful that the 
pain might return and kept checking the place where it had been. On our third day of driving, it did. Feeling frightened, I told my husband Jerry.
In that moment, Jerry turned around while driving—I was sitting in the back—and rebuked the pain, commanding it to leave. Immediately, the pain left!
Several hours went by. From time to time I’d check to see if it was returning. Sure enough, whenever I looked for the pain, it returned. I’d struggle with it for some time, then ask Jerry to pray again. Each time it left. The rest of the trip was like that.
Over many months I slowly learned how to stand in faith for my healing: how to believe God, how to resist the pain in the name of Jesus—from the deep place in me where faith resided. I did not win this spiritual battle overnight. In fact, it took me quite a while to learn how to keep my faith active and walk in this healing.
This series of blogs on the power of God “Record my very first steps into the new world wherein Jesus Christ lives and moves in the soul of man, and through his indwelling Spirit heals mind and body” (Agnes Sanford, The Healing Light, pg. xii).
Question: What meaning will you give to my testimony?