Mid-1980’s. Dad, Don Moen, and myself are in southern England. Dad is preaching in a church and I am sitting in the front row, stage right. Dad has finished his sermon and Don is leading the audience in worship as Dad begins to pray for healing.
Even though I was only 10 or so, this ritual of Dad praying for the sick and Don playing “Great is Thy Faithfulness” is comfortable to me. Dad asks each of us to lay our hands on those who had need of healing. The woman next to me, maybe 50 years old in age, was wheelchair bound due to two legs that were shriveled from atrophied muscles and malformed bones. I was nervous reaching out, but I mustered up the courage and laid my hand on her right shoulder.
I squeezed my eyes tightly shut believing that God would hear me a little better if I really focused my prayers. Dad said, “Repeat after me ‘be healed in Jesus’ Name’”. The two of us softly repeated this phrase again and again, in an almost rhythmic chant. Nothing happened. Dad kept praying and Don kept playing his piano.
A few minutes into the prayer, I heard a very strange noises. “Snap! Crack! Pop!” I didn’t want to open my eyes for fear that I would ruin everything and God would look away. I opened my right eye and peaked out to see what the eerie noise was all about. At that moment, the woman I was praying for let out a harrowing shriek.
I looked down and began watching the woman’s legs slowly grow out, straighten, and then her calves muscles began to form around her bones. She leapt to her feet and began to jump about in front of the stage and shout “Hallelujah!”. After a lifetime of being crippled and disabled, this woman’s life was miraculously changed by the power of God in that one instant. What a memory!