Margaret’s Story - A dream and a healing
Margaret Ford is a busy housewife and mother. She is married to Ken, who is an electrician, and they have a daughter studying at the university, and a son who is still at school.
Margaret, Ken and their family attend a charismatic Anglican-Baptist church. Margaret spends much time alone with the Lord in prayer and she also prays with people who have problems.
In 1982, Margaret was diagnosed as having leukaemia.
Before that time, she had been under a great deal of stress. In 1980, her father had become senile and her lame mother could not cope. Each day Margaret and her sister drove to their parents’ home to do the shopping and cleaning.
Then her mother had to go into hospital, for she had cancer of the bowel.
One evening Margaret received a telephone call from a neighbour to say that her father had set the house on fire. The whole of the downstairs was burnt. Another neighbour had heard her father screaming and had managed to pull him out of the house.
So both parents were now in hospital, but not at the same one. Shortly afterwards, her father died and, six weeks later, her mother died also.
From the time her children, Paula and Lee, had been very young, Margaret had taken them both to Sunday school, although she did not go to church herself.
One day, after Margaret’s parents had died, Paula asked her mother if she would go with them to the monthly family service. Margaret did not want to go, but because she wished to be a caring mother, she agreed to go along. Ken did not go with them.
By now, Margaret was very depressed, although she took great pains not to show this to others.
During those monthly services, she could not concentrate. However, one morning the minister said something about Jesus which caused Margaret to listen.
On the way home after the service, she looked up at the sky and quietly prayed in desperation, ‘If you’re up there, do something with my life!’
She continued to feel very depressed and she decided not to take Paula and Lee to Sunday school any more.
Margaret’s dream
A few months later, Margaret had a dream. She dreamt that she and her mother were in a hot, steamy room that resembled a waiting room. Her mother walked through a door and down a dark corridor. There was a light at the end. Margaret tried to follow her, but a hand pushed her back and she heard a voice say, ‘It isn’t your time to come through.’
Several months passed and then Margaret became very ill. She went to hospital for tests and was told that she had leukaemia.
She felt numb, but as she and Ken came away from the hospital, the dream flashed into her mind. She knew then that it was not time for her to die and she told this to Ken.
When she arrived home, a neighbour called to enquire how she was and Margaret said, ‘I’ve got leukaemia but God said I’m not going to die.’
As she thought about this afterwards, she wondered how she knew that it was God speaking to her through the dream, and this started her search for God.
She went into hospital and felt very frightened. At first, she had a room on her own and a minister came to visit her. She asked him how she could find God, but he was not very helpful.
The doctors said that she would be in hospital for months. She started the chemotherapy treatment. After a week she was sent home. Then she returned for more tests and had to stay in. This time she was put into a ward with other leukaemia patients. She was afraid of hearing distressing stories from the others, so in order not to communicate with them, she spent the time reading her old Authorised Version of the Bible.
She quietly cried out to God, ‘I can’t cope. I shan’t survive here.’ And God heard her cry.
A Scottish woman doctor asked Margaret if she could drive and Margaret said that she could. ‘Well, the tests have shown that you’re clear! You can drive to the hospital every morning and evening to have the chemotherapy.’
No ill effects
For 18 months, Margaret drove to the hospital each day. She suffered no ill effects from the chemotherapy other than sickness after the first injection. She had no further sickness for the rest of the treatment.
Her blood count twice became low and she had to have two blood transfusions. But she did not have to stay in overnight during those 18 months.
Margaret started to go to church and she became a Spirit-filled Christian. The 18 months passed and there followed a further six months.
Then a blow struck! The leukaemia returned. Margaret was devastated.
Again the dream came back into her mind. She thought of God saying that it was not her time to die. Then she suddenly realised that she had presumed that he was going to heal her — but that in fact he had not said that.
She became very angry with God and felt that he was taking great delight in all her sufferings.
She became seriously ill and had to go into hospital. She had a very high temperature, but in spite of the fact that she was very ill, she did not feel ill.
‘Talk to her’
One day, as Margaret lay in bed, she saw a woman patient walking along the corridor, and as she watched she knew that the Lord wanted her to talk to this lady about himself. She said to the Lord, ‘If she comes to my ward, I will.’ However, there were no spare beds in Margaret’s ward.
The next day, a patient in the ward told Margaret that she was going to be moved, but did not know why. A little later, the woman from the corridor was wheeled in and put into the recently vacated bed.
This woman saw Margaret’s Bible and she called Margaret across to her. She said that she was a Christian but was very afraid of dying. Margaret discerned that she did not really know the Lord, so she spoke to her about Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
She asked Margaret to pray that she would be filled with the Holy Spirit, but Margaret, who was expecting a visit from her own minister in a few days suggested that she wait and let him pray with her.
The next morning the lady shouted to Margaret to come to her again. Margaret, whose temperature was still very high, went across to her bed. She told Margaret that she was still very frightened of dying and again asked her to pray that she would be filled with the Holy Spirit. Margaret knew that the Lord wanted her to pray and so she prayed for her.
Margaret’s own temperature dropped immediately and became normal. The doctors were mystified and took several readings from different thermometers in order to check. Then they said that she could go home, although the leukaemia was still there.
A peaceful death
When Margaret returned to the hospital the following day for more tests, she learnt from the ward orderly that the woman patient had died peacefully — and unafraid — during the night.
Margaret became very ill again with blood poisoning. She was bleeding internally because of the chemotherapy. But the strange thing was that she did not feel particularly ill.
She was put near to the nurse and the doctor came. They thought she was dying. Margaret knew she was on the point of death. She heard a nurse ask, ‘Shall we send for her husband?’
Once more the dream came into Margaret’s mind and she remembered the words, ‘It isn’t your time to come through.’
The doctor said, ‘Let’s wait a bit longer.’ Then Margaret began to improve.
She spent three weeks in hospital and during that time, God gave Margaret much laughter over the hilarious antics of one little old lady on the ward. This acted as a tonic.
At the end of the three weeks, Margaret went home believing that she would always be in remission for so long, and then the leukaemia would return.
‘You are healed’
One day, as she was busy in her kitchen, Margaret felt the Lord say that she was healed — and that he wanted her to tell others. But she could not do this, because she had no assurance about it.
Then she went to a ‘Heal, power and praise’ meeting and the leader asked for testimonies of what God had been doing in people’s lives.
Margaret knew that the Lord wanted her to tell everyone there that she was healed. After a struggle, she left her seat, walked to the front and said, ‘The Lord has healed me of leukaemia’ That was eight years ago and the leukaemia has not returned.
Today, Margaret still stands in the healing the Lord gave to her in the kitchen that day.
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Wise words How we need friends in time of testing. Jesus demonstrated his humanity when he asked his disciples to stay with him. He wanted and needed them in his time of greatest trial. ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow, to the point of death; stay here and keep watch with me (Matt 26.38). |
On the way home from the service, she looked up and quietly prayed in desperation, ‘If you’re up there, do something with my life’
One day, as she was busy in her kitchen, Margaret felt the Lord say that she was healed
Healing and Wholeness No. 11 Page 37