“It feels like my lungs are balloons that are about ready to explode…”

That’s the description she used.  Normally, that might sound like a negative thing, but for this woman, it was an indicator that God had healed her! 

As I was leading worship at a women’s retreat recently, I sensed God wanting to bring physical healing.  After mentioning that, I saw one woman in particular that I knew God was healing at that moment.  I called out her name and said that the Lord was healing her right then.  She told me later that she started moving her ankle around to see if the pain had left from the tearing achilles tendon that she was suffering from.  She told me later that “it hurt like the blazes when I did that.”  She went on to say that in a few minutes she realized a strange phenomenon going on that she hadn’t experienced in years….she could breathe.  Of course she was breathing before, but it had been shallow and forced since an incident involving a kerosene heater 23 years before.  The doctor told her that her lungs would try to repair themselves, but in three years, whatever state her lungs were in, that’s how they would stay.  So, for 23 years she lived with shallow breathing, feeling like she was going to pass out at times because she wasn’t getting enough air, and literally gasping at times, scaring those around her.  She heard the doctor’s prognosis and said that she had accepted it “as a way of life.”  She became used to this condition.  (How often can that be said of us?)  In a moment, Jesus took away a 23 year condition…healing her completely.  She said that she couldn’t wait to get home and ride her bike!  How awesome is HE?!