I am sitting here wondering how to start this entry.  I have been a firm believer in God’s supernatural healing power.  I have experienced healing in my own body on so many occasions and have seen others healed that it never really was an issue for me in my walk with the Lord.  I have laid my hands on many people, anointing them with oil and praying the prayer of faith and have seen God do supernatural things that no man could explain away.  We have had a daughter that was born dead (black and blue) and not breathing, and as my wife pleaded with the doctor to tell us what we had, and him telling her that it didn’t matter now,  and then hearing her cry out “in Jesus Name breathe” and hearing the baby cry out gasping for that first breath of air, yeah I’ve seen God’s hand move. (Gabby is 13 now and a beautiful soul). We have prayed for our children over the years that God has healed when other children had the same symptoms as them and were sick for days or weeks.

I have also seen the Lord heal my wife.  She has had at least 2 heart attacks that we know of.  I have seen her vomit red foam as she cried out to God for healing while we were praying for her.  I have felt the power of God come over me as we have prayed over her and immediately she would be better.  But there was this time……..

For the past few weeks she has been going through a battle in her body.  She was hurting in her legs and lost feeling in one arm and hand.  So we did as we do…… we began to pray.  It is not that we don’t believe in going to the doctors or seeking medical help, it is that we have taken God at His Word.  We try to trust in Him, and He has never failed us.  We support anyone who wants to go to the doctor.  We have just experienced His healing power so many times, that this is the norm for us.  But this time there was no immediate healing like times past.  So we continued to pray.   She got worse.  She couldn’t hardly walk and needed help to get from the couch to the bathroom at times.  She couldn’t get up and down the stairs at church and had to have help.  She barely could hold a pen in her hand.  But God did heal.  As she started getting feeling back in her arm, the other arm and hand began to lose feeling.  Again, I have seen God heal this woman that I love so many times, that I guess I just expected God to move, but He didn’t……. not right away anyhow.  So as any christian does at times, I began to doubt.  And not only doubt God, but also to fear that this was it for her.  That maybe Jesus wasn’t going to hear our prayer this time.  I then I began to read stories of others who are going through some kind of suffering, and I began to be so grieved.  I would go find a place where I could cry and try to comprehend my life without this beautiful gift that God had blessed me with 25 years ago.  I had forgotten who Jesus Christ is and what His word says about healing.  He suffered stripes for our healing.  I began to look at the hopelessness of this world we live in.  As Paul stated in the Bible “if in this WORLD ONLY we have our hope, then we would be men most miserable.”  I can admit that I was in anguish and despair about this, unlike any time before.  I have always believed that if we put our trust in the power of Jesus to heal then we have to accept the answer that he gives.  But the thought just kept coming to me that she might be taken from me this time.

That was until yesterday………………………..

It was not a special day other than being the Lord’s day.  We got up and did our normal Sunday morning routine.  We got to church as usual.  Made it through Sunday School and was in the morning service as we have done just about every Sunday morning since we have been together.  The sermon was a good one. Again, just another day in the Lord’s house.  Then as the message was coming to a close, the Holy Ghost began to move in our midst.  One brother in the Lord began to shout and dance in the Spirit, then another cried out and fell forward onto the floor in awesome worship.  Pretty soon the church came alive with the power of God.  We were all shouting and praising the Lord.  About that time, my Co-Pastor came down to my sweet wife and prophesied to her to cry out to God for her healing.  At first she was a little hesitant as she had not been able to even stand totally on her own.  Then a wave of cool breeze came across the back of our church and she let out that familiar cry that I have heard her cry many times in our lives.  She began to shout, and then to walk up and down the aisle of the church.  She was not stumbling or shaking as she had in weeks past.  She needed no one by her side to help her along. She was HEALED!  I could do nothing but drop to the floor and cry out to God in gratitude for another miracle………. and to repent. To ask the Lord to forgive me for my doubt and unbelief.  To ask Him to help me to remember that He has the FINAL say and maybe spread some hope in this hopeless world we are living in.  Friend don’t lose hope.  Remember God wants the best for us.  Trust in Him!   What a blessing to know the God of Heaven. And so today………….

For This I’m Thankful.

I was sitting here thinking of all of the things that I love about being a dad.  The hugs, the countless drawings I have tucked away to embarrass them when they have kids, and the countless times that I have heard the words “daddy’s home!” when I have come in the front door.

I think back to a cool November day in 1992.  I was a young new husband of almost a year, and here we were going to the doctor for my wife’s checkup on her due date.  After a short time back with the doctor, my beautiful pregnant wife came out with a nervous smile on her face.  She tells me “it’s time” and just like that we are walking (slowly) across the pavilion from the doctor’s office building to the hospital.  We get her checked in and comfortable, I run to the car to get her things, and then the process begins. ( I forgot to mention that her water broke on the doctor’s examining table).  So here we were, a couple of young people who just a few months earlier were stunned to hear that we were going to be parents, now in a labor/delivery room about to embark on a new chapter in our lives.  As the labor increased, I saw something in this woman that I had fallen in love with and chosen to marry.  I saw the most beautiful look on her face as she was pale and sweaty, and at times in immense pain.  I saw a mother developing before my eyes.  She was so focused at what was happening and I was standing around not sure what to do.  As the time wore on and the pains came more frequently and more intense, and after my wife had an epidural, she was ready to have this baby.

As she was pushing, and at times throwing up from all of the stress that she was under, I began to see a little glimpse of a head that was appearing.  It was becoming all so real at this point.  As the nurses called for the doctor to come in, and seeing my wife in such pain and anguish it became like a slow motion movie in my mind as I think back.  The doctor had to use forceps (salad spoons as we called them) to help pull this beautiful little baby girl from her mothers womb.  I was standing there with the video camera rolling as my firstborn daughter was delivered right before my eyes.  A beautiful bald little girl with a hint of red hair showing.  She let out a cry that let me know that “hey you have now entered the realm of fatherhood.”  As they took her to the scale to weigh her, clean her up and suction nastiness out of her nostrils, I stood amazed at this little person who was grabbing hold of my finger and  forever changing my life.  I continued to video as our daughter was placed into the arms of an eager mother.  I watched as they began to bond instantly.  Her eyes wide open and looking around at the world she had just entered to.  I watched my wife cry with tears of joy looking at this miracle of life that she was holding in her arms.  I didn’t know at the time, but my wife had prayed and prayed that she would be able to become a mother.  She wasn’t sure if this was possible since her sister at the time had tried many times and wasn’t successful.  So here we were, no longer a couple, but a family.

Now 23 years later, I look across the room at a young lady who has grown into a beautiful strong Christian woman.  She is a college graduate now.  She has grown from that bald baby girl, to a sweet curly redheaded girl who always was thinking of others more than herself, to an awkward teenager, to a responsible young adult who loves Jesus, loves life and is a hopeless romantic.  I stand in amazement sometimes that the Lord would have let me be a part of this wonderful person who touches others.  As I read some of the Facebook posts she received for her birthday yesterday, I see a selfless person who wants the world to see Jesus in her.  I think of her unselfish attitude to take a year off from her schooling to come home and just “help” her mother around the house, and be there for her.  You see that bond that I saw on that day 23 years ago is as strong today as it ever was.  So on this day after her birthday I want to tell the world about this wonderful young lady that I will always see as my “little 4 year old”.  Rebekah Elizabeth Hughes I love you.  I am so very proud to be called your daddy.  I pray that God will give you the desires of your heart as you continue to serve Him.  So today…………….

For This I’m Thankful

Hello. My name is Mark.  I live in a small southern town and have decided to document some of the true blessings that have and will come to my life.  I guess I decided to name this blog For This I’m Thankful, because over the past few years I have noticed that in my life I seemed to always be in some kind of bad mood.  My wife and kids would see me coming and would whisper ” here comes dad, and he doesn’t look happy”.  I guess that I have focused so much on the negative of life, i.e the bills, the sicknesses, the failures in life, the regrets, etc that I realized that I have overlooked all of the true blessings that surround me on a daily basis.  Even as I write this first entry, I sit in Awe of how much God has truly blessed me and how much I truly have focused on the “bad” and forgotten all of the “good” that inspires me everyday.  I am a firm believer in Jesus Christ, a Co-Pastor of a small congregation, a full time working dad to some amazing kids and the husband to an “angel” of a wife for the last 23 years this month.  As I start on this journey, I want to look back on some of those blessings that I had long forgotten.  I want to be thankful in the here and now.  I want to inspire people and be a light in this dark world.  I want people to see Jesus Christ through me.  I may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but as I write, I want people to have a place to come and experience hope and an occasional laugh.  Maybe a tear also.  So with this first blog I just want to say…………………    For This I’m Thankful.