“You’d better brace yourself for what I am about to tell you,” I said to a friend of mine as we drove along a road in town. He assured me he could take anything I said to him – but when I told him what I’m about to tell you – he nearly wrecked the car!
My wife and I just became serious Christians in August last year. My wife was brought up as a Catholic and I as an Anglican would periodically go to Church on Sundays as we had time (like we were taught to do by our parents a long time ago). It was just a religious function but God remained more or less a distant hazy concept. I was not always like that. In my younger days I had confessed Christ at a young age but somewhere in High School, I abandoned the faith.
Last April, everything was looking pretty good in our lives. My wife was expecting our second child and although our son was showing symptoms of asthma we were hopeful that he would outgrow it.
But then one day in December as I was returning from a business trip, my wife met me at the airport with terrible news. During a routine pregnancy check up, her doctor had administered an HIV test along with other blood-work. The HIV test came back POSITIVE! The doctor wanted to begin administering drugs immediately but the cost of these drugs here when compared to our family income was prohibitive.
I was stunned… Our life was basically over! If my wife had it, it was a foregone conclusion that I had it too. There is a high infection rate of AIDS here in Nigeria (about 40% in urban centers) and social stigmatization is high. When you add to that – the cost of drugs for us, and our boy’s asthma – this was literally – a death sentence for my entire family!
Just when I thought that things couldn’t get any worse, my son began having life threatening asthma attacks. We didn’t know what to do, and didn’t know where to go for help. I lost all hope and began thinking of suicide.
I began searching for information on AIDS and asthma on the Internet when it hit me that our situation was clearly way beyond any earthly intervention. So, in desperation I entered the search words “Faith” and “Healing” and the first article I clicked open was “Faith and Healing” by Tim Greenwood!
We both read this powerful article – a testimony of Tim’s healing from his death sentence of terminal heart disease. PLUS, in it – Tim taught ‘step-by-step’ how he, by believing and applying what the Bible said about healing, received complete healing. Now, we desperately wanted to believe that what Tim taught – would work for us. So, during a particularly bad asthma attack one night – we put the teaching to work for our son.
Immediately all asthma symptoms left our son – and did not return! Our son was healed! Our faith soared! For the first time we now believed that nothing was going to hold us back! We wrote for Tim’s free book “Walking In Faith,” sent in a prayer request and began devouring every article on the Tim Greenwood Ministries (TGM) website (www.tgm.org). Plus, Tim’s wife began corresponding with us via email, teaching and encouraging us!
My wife’s condition was rather desperate especially with the baby coming. We did not have time to mull this over any longer. We had to believe and act and act now! I went in for HIV testing believing and confessing that the test results would be negative. With the devil screaming in my ear that the test would be positive – as an act of faith, I bought a card for my doctor and wrote in it “Thank you for your help and assistance. I have collected my results and they are negative,” and I sealed the envelope.
When I got the results at the lab counter I wanted to hug the elderly lady. NEGATIVE! Thank you God! I was healed!
Ok, we had come this far by the encouragement we got from the emails and numerous articles from the TGM website. Given my suicidal thoughts when we first learned of the diagnosis and the great hope we now had, I was evident that God had clearly worked at least two miracles in our lives. Now we all focused in on healing for my wife.
We kept praying. The matter became more or less a prayer for a good report from her next set of lab tests, and standing in faith that our child will breasted as it was God’s wish for babies to breast feed, and that my wife will not have to take any drugs on account of another negative lab test.
Daily we got into serious praise, worship and prayers in our bedroom for at least one hour. In the morning, our alarm clock is set to 5am, giving as a minimum of another one hour of prayer, praise and worship before I would start to prepare to go to work. We worked this system both weekdays and weekends. We now knew and believed what the Bible said about our healing, the importance of what we say and how to act on our faith.
In the next visit to the doctor, the doctor was quite adamant – my wife would have to start on the drugs. My wife was just as adamant. She told the doctor about my results, and that she was no longer infected with AIDS. He was quite candid – patients once they tested positive on this test – remained positive. But we knew that we are not ordinary; we are children of GOD, healed by the stripes of Jesus, praise and glory to His mighty Name! And, rather than argue, the doctor agreed to do fresh HIV tests on my wife.
All the tests came back negative! My wife was healed!
Needless to say the doctor had a hard time explaining this. But we know our God is our healer: He healed our son, my wife and myself—also our baby (who we named after Tim’s wife) was born completely healthy.
As you might guess, this was a head-spinning day. We kept smiling at everyone and at home we could not sleep. We nearly prayed and praised the whole night and will continue to do so. From no hope to great faith! From a death sentence, to life and life more abundantly!