Collateral Damage

By Suzie Eller

"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds." Psalm 147:3 (ESV)

My house has a crack. Just over the doorframe, creeping to the ceiling. It catches my eye every time I sit on my couch in my living rom. My house isn't that old, so when I asked how this happened, the answer was, "collateral damage."

Collateral damage is defined as damage to things that are incidental to the intended target. Who knew that the sunny rays outside could fracture the wall of my nicely air conditioned home? But it happened.

Last year we had one of the hottest summers on record and the parched ground around the foundation strained the frame, which put pressure on the walls, and eventually a crack appeared.

Miraculously Healed While Reading the Bible

AMAZING STORY

By David DiCicco

The 700 Club

CBN.com –“All of a sudden, things looked very odd to me. I looked at my fingers like this, and I could see some fingers and others I couldn’t. ‘Am I having a stroke or what is this? What’s going on?’”

Sue Wynn was twenty-eight years old with a promising career when the first symptoms appeared. After several trips to the emergency room she got disturbing news. “The ER doc said, ‘I must tell you, you have a fifty percent chance of having MS.’ I just dismissed it. I said, ‘I don’t have time for that. This can’t possibly be that. I feel fine.’”

She moved on with her life and career. But one night at home with her husband, her symptoms erupted. “I was sitting watching the evening news with Jeff. And Jeff has a tendency to like to jiggle his foot, and so I said, ‘Jeff, stop jiggling.’ He said, ‘I’m not but you are.’ And I was going like this (head shaking), and then it started going like this (intensity of shaking increased), and then it started to go like that (It grew progressively worse.), and I was scared to death because I didn’t know and I couldn’t stop. It just kept going like that.”

Casey Treat: Use Every Endeavor to Heal Yourself

AMAZING STORY

By Shannon Woodland

The 700 Club

CBN.com – A teenage boy sticks a needle in his arm for a high. Does he realize that his drug use could threaten his life 30 years later? That’s exactly what happened to Casey Treat.

In 2003, a routine medical exam for a life insurance policy revealed that Hepatitis C was killing him.

“At that time they said I had a four percent chance of clearing the virus and most likely what was going to happen over the next few years, my liver would fail,” Casey said. “Then I would either need a liver transplant, which was difficult, or I would die young.” 

Gloria Copeland Talks About the Blessed Life

By The 700 Club

CBN.com 


The Goodness of the Lord

“You would think everybody would be thrilled to hear that God is good, but the fact is, it often upsets religious people – especially preachers,” Gloria says.

Oral Roberts broke the mold in the 1940s when he began to preach about God’s goodness, and he was criticized for it. That’s because other preachers had developed sermons about how God uses sickness, poverty, and pain to teach us something.

King David understood the goodness of God. He knew that God would take care of him, provide for him, and deliver him from danger. From that revelation he wrote Psalm 23, which shows incredible insight into God’s goodness. “The Lord is my Shepherd …”. The more deeply we understand the truth of these words, the more we will be able to trust God in every circumstance of life. Our confidence in Him will make us bold when others are timid. This is what happened to David.

Everything God tells us to do is for our own good and protection. We’re His children, and He wants us to obey Him because He wants to see us blessed.

The Stories of Hope

The Bible tells us one story after another of God meeting people where they hurt. Tell me, why are these stories in the Bible? Why are the Gospels full of such people? Such hopeless people? Though their situations vary, their conditions don't. They are trapped. Estranged. Rejected. They have nowhere to turn. On their lips, a desperate prayer. In their hearts, desolate dreams. And in their hands, a broken rope. But before their eyes a never-say-die Galilean who majors in stepping in when everyone else steps out.

Surprisingly simple, the actions of this man. Just words of mercy or touches of kindness. Fingers on sightless eyes. A hand on a weary shoulder. Words for sad hearts ... all fulfilling the prophecy: "A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out."

Again I ask. Why are these portraits in the Bible? Why does this gallery exist? Why did God leave us one tale after another of wounded lives being restored? So we could be grateful for the past? So we could look back with amazement at what Jesus did?