My Personal Testimony

I have directly experienced God through answered prayers three times in my life. Here are the accounts of those prayers.

The First Prayer

In my younger years, I was in college, sharing an apartment with my boyfriend of three years, and living very much "in the world." I grew up in a Christian home, attending church when I could and even some Wednesday night youth groups. But by the time I was in college, I was more interested in experiencing what the world had to offer than the church.

It was my last year of college, and my boyfriend had taken a job in a city about two hours away, so he was spending most nights away from the apartment. I was working as a waitress and was still very emotionally immature. Because of some issues in my childhood, I had an identity and sense of self-worth that relied on the attention of men. With my relationship now feeling long-distance and a stalled engagement possibility, I felt like my self-worth bucket wasn't being filled. I slowly fell into the trap of a coworker's attention.

Long story short, I was unfaithful. I knew cheating wasn't part of my core values, as blurred as they had become at the time, but I felt I had no choice but to confess. After I told my boyfriend, he left his job mid-shift to come and confront me. Of course, he ultimately left me.

Once he left, I felt called to pray, so I did. I prayed for forgiveness, for healing and growth, and I prayed that if God intended this man to be my husband, he would bring him back and I would never treat him so horribly again. Then I called my mom for comfort and advice. While I was sitting there on the phone with her, maybe 30 minutes to an hour after he left, my boyfriend walked back inside. He closed the door, leaned his back against it, and looked at me with a very familiar expression of hurt and confusion.

He said, "I don't know why I'm here."

I hugged him and told him, "I know why."

It has not been an easy road, but it has been a road of forgiveness, a transformation of values, healing in ways I never imagined, and drawing closer to God. That boyfriend became my husband three years later. We are now working on our 15th year together and share two beautiful daughters.

The Second Prayer

Fast forward into my adulthood. Picture a woman strong in her faith, much more emotionally mature, raising a toddler, committed to Bible studies, attending Sunday church every week (albeit streaming, but hey, it's 2024), and open to sharing the love of God with people willing to listen. But enough about me; this testimony is really about someone else.

Enter my brother and his wife. They were newly-ish wed and trying to conceive. However, my sister-in-law had previously experienced pregnancy losses from past relationships and battled severe endometriosis. She decided to try a pretty invasive procedure in April 2024 to reverse some endometriosis scarring and give her uterus a better chance of conceiving. This procedure gave her maybe a year to try. So they started trying, and I started praying.

In June of that year, my church, which I watch every Sunday, did a segment on healing and specifically called out the healing of endometriosis and opening wombs. I immediately claimed that for my sister-in-law and thanked God in prayer. I forwarded the service to her, not telling her what happened but just that they shared a message for her.

Then, in July, my mom called to tell me my sister-in-law had a miscarriage. I didn't even know she was pregnant, and neither did she until she miscarried. It happened so fast. Through their grief, they decided it was time for her to get a hysterectomy. She couldn't mentally go through the loss of a child again, and who could blame her?

They visited our home in early September, with a consultation appointment for her hysterectomy scheduled for that following weekend. It was a hard visit. We talked about her appointment and the questions she would ask the doctor and made a plan to talk after the appointment. I texted her that day asking how it went, and she asked if she could call me. Of course, I said. She called, and my brother was also on the call, which wasn't surprising. However, instead of a booked date for the procedure, they proceeded to tell me they had left the appointment with a positive pregnancy confirmation!

I couldn't find the words. The conflict of emotion and the internal fight between elation and fear was real. Of course, "Congratulations" was in order, but so was, "I know you've been through so much; are you okay?" I immediately went to prayer after the call, crying, thanking God, and asking for his protection over this baby. Months of trepid hope later, their healthy baby girl was born, looking like a spitting image of her father.

The Third Prayer

In my most recent encounter with God answering my prayers of healing, I was again praying for someone else: my husband's sister. She was going through a somewhat difficult pregnancy with her son. She was stricken with fear due to past experiences with eclampsia and a difficult, premature birth of her daughter ten years prior. She hoped this round would offer her healing from that experience.

One day, we prayed over her fear. When I opened my Bible app later that day, the verse of the day was Isaiah 41:13: "For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you." I forwarded it to her, knowing it was for us. He was with us.

She went into labor, and it was not easy. Her son ended up having a stroke in the birth canal, and by the time he came out, they had to transfer them both to a different hospital with a higher-level NICU available. The doctors told them all the possibilities, and of course, it was a spectrum from total healing to brain damage they couldn't yet measure. They had to put him on anti-seizure medication and keep him hospitalized for a couple of weeks. This was followed by many follow-ups with neurologists and countless tests. The whole time, I was begging God for complete healing. Finally, two months after his birth, the neurologist reported a fully normal EEG. Hope for him was restored and I praise God for his recovery.

In Sum

I know not all of our prayers seem to be answered in the ways we want, or as fast as we want. I have prayers I feel are unanswered or answered in a way that the healing was ultimately death. I know God is not a genie granting wishes and that his plan is greater than our desires. I know we will experience trouble in this world. But I also know God loves us and wants a relationship with us. I am so thankful for the opportunity to have that relationship and to see examples of His healing power firsthand.

Thank you for reading this. I hope it encourages you to share your story or cry out to God in your times of need and that he opens your eyes to answered prayers so you can have a deeper, more personal relationship with Him.