Page 154 - Evidence of Things Unseen

problems. I was not coughing as much, and my breathing was improved, though my wife
continued on with much difficulty. I noticed one day that my tongue felt like someone had
given me a shot of novocaine. It felt a little numb, and had a strange sensation to it. The
next morning I woke up and this sensation had spread to my lips, which felt a little puffy
and numb. By the end of the day the entire right side of my face was paralyzed, and I
realized I had come down with Bell’s Palsy.
I knew about Bell’s Palsy because I had an uncle who had come down with this
condition years earlier. I read what I could on the Internet about it and I found it was often
precipitated by a viral infection, and it was due to inflammation and damage to the seventh
cranial nerve. The condition typically persists anywhere from a few weeks to a few months,
with some cases lasting longer than a year.
Over the next week the symptoms reached maturity where the right side of my mouth
was drooping. When I smiled, I only had half a smile. When I raised my eyebrows, only my
left eyebrow would go up. My right eye would not blink fully, and this led to a dry eye
condition and the need to use my finger to manually blink my eye. At times I began wearing
a patch over my right eye to keep it from being irritated and drying out. I also experienced
much pain in the right side of my head that felt like a severe ear ache with shooting pains.
All these things are symptoms of Bell’s Palsy.
When I read about this condition on the Internet I learned that there is little to be
done in the way of treatment. It has not been proven that any medication will improve the
condition. One must simply wait for the damaged nerve to regenerate itself, and this can be
a slow process. All of these things have occurred as I have been writing this book, which
speaks in places about God performing supernatural healing in our lives. We have no health
insurance, for God has told us to look to Him for our health needs, and He continues to
reaffirm that this is His will for us.
I knew all of these things happening in our lives were not coincidental, for God orders
our steps, and He is the One who chooses our trials and tests. I have been reminded again
of the significance of our house number 24-40. God is seeking to teach us to worship Him
in the midst of trials. He wants to see if He will find a response of worship in our hearts, or
whether we will resort to murmuring and complaint against Him as the Israelites also did
in their wilderness journeys. I have been very mindful of this, and because of this fact I have
chosen to adopt an attitude of trust and worship, rather than fear and complaint.
As all of these things have been occurring, my family and I have had to choose to
recognize the presence of God in our situations and struggles. We can either choose to
believe that He orders the events of our lives, and He has a very good purpose for all things,
or we can live in the unconscious reality spoken of earlier in this book. What we choose to
believe will radically impact what our response will be.
Because I have chosen to recognize the presence of God, and to not think that anything
in my life is chance, or accident, I was ready to receive what God spoke to me yesterday
through a prophetic word He led me to. I was writing a chapter in this book and I had just
penned the following words:

Our time had started off with great promise, but had ended with tremendous
disappointment. I had felt certain that the Lord would use this people as a core
group to begin to raise up a people to His praise. I had prayed for such a people for
ten years...