Surprised By Healing Rain

By Jenny Boyd

Growing up in Central Louisiana , winters were icy and summers were hot and humid.  The one wall-unit air conditioner in our 2 bedroom frame house was little relief from the blistering heat.  It didn’t help matters that I had asthma and allergies and this was before the days of breathing treatments you could take home. 

I still remember my mom loading me up in our banana yellow Grand Torino with black vinyl interior and no AC for yet another rush trip to the Emergency Room as I gasped for air and coughed myself hoarse.  Allergies made my skin just one big splotch of red rashes that came and went, but the worst was an allergy on my feet.  I was in so much pain, but specialists and doctors were baffled so they suggested a remedy of socks, sandals (I might be allergic to the glue in tennis shoes) and an alcohol based liquid that burned even worse than the backs of my legs from the hot vinyl car seats!

Things improved only slightly when we moved to Texas .  The move itself was harder than we ever expected as I had to be hospitalized for a week with pneumonia, but eventually, a new drug began to work and I regained enough strength to be moved.  The humidity was lower so the asthma and allergy attacks lessened in severity and frequency.  Was God delivering me?  I hoped so, but not yet.  I contracted mono and my immune system was depleted, but He had a plan.

Years later when I was dating my future husband, I became sick. I remember my mom telling him, “She was always a sickly child.”  Was I destined to a future of sickness?  Even as an adult, doctors told me I would never be able to have a child.  Four children later, again, I could see God had a plan and my faith grew bigger than the struggle. 

Praise God for the invention of the inhaler!  God had moved me and my family to a ranch house in Grapevine, Texas surrounded by beautiful trees and, yes, even cattle on the land.  I’m sure you can imagine the reaction.  My allergies and asthma were back in full force.  At one point, I recall being in such respiratory distress, I told my husband that someday, it would be the end of me.  I just knew I would die from this inability to breathe.

Having been somewhat of a songwriter, I wrote a song called “You Have Healed Me” based on Psalm 103.  Soon afterward, I got to sing it to a friend who would be diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer a few weeks after hearing the song.  Only God knew how much she needed this faith booster as I sang,

“You have healed me from all the diseases of my soul

You have freed me from sin and made me whole

You have rescued me from certain death that I was living in

You have loved me and changed me from within”

As the years went by, God moved us back to Hurst , Texas with fewer trees and no cows.  Yay!  And yet, I still struggled with various health issues until a doctor finally said I needed a hysterectomy.  The procedure went well, but my body began to react violently to the pain medication I was being given.  Instead of reducing the pain and relaxing me, it increased the pain and I started trying to crawl out of bed.  I couldn’t lay still.  My mom came to see me, Bible in hand, and began to pray and read Psalm 103 –

“Praise the Lord, O my soul;

All my inmost being, praise His holy name.

Praise the Lord, O my soul,

And forget not all His benefits.

He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases…”

As she read, I would hear her start chapter 104 occasionally and I would say, “Stop!  Go back to 103.  Read 103 again!”  And she did read it again….and again, and again, for what seemed like hours as the medications they had actually given me twice, thinking I must just need more, slowly worked their way out of my system.

I awoke pain free and left the hospital with a grateful heart for a godly mother who would bless my life with such patience and faith.  It wasn’t until about a year later it began to occur to me that I hadn’t needed my inhaler or any medication with the change of the seasons.  Two years, 3 years, 4, 5, 6…..   now, 7 years later, I can’t even remember my last asthma or allergy attack!  Could my mother’s prayers have been so far reaching as to move God to heal me from these things?  

 “Is any one of you sick?  He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord and the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well.  The Lord will raise him up.  If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.  Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.  The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”

- James 5:14-16