We received this testimony from Markie Braly:
I'm from Medford, Oregon. I received prayer from one of your ministry students on Saturday. I'm in leadership at our church in Medford but had to step down for 1.5 years because I was so sick—until Saturday morning, April 22!
On Saturday morning, I was in a wheelchair because I've been battling a neurological disease called Guillain-Barr Syndrome for the last 1.5 years. It's a disease in which your immune system eats away parts of your nervous system. I got it in January 2016 and had a very rare relapse in January 2017. This January and February, I was in the hospital for three weeks, was paralyzed from the waist down, had limited ability in my arms and hands, and had very limited energy (at times couldn't even move or talk). I also would faint and pre-faint up to 40 times a day. I had no reflexes in my legs and had to relearn to walk. I was unable to function, take care of my daughter, or be the wife and friend that I wanted to be. On Saturday morning, April 22, my husband and I went to coffee in Ashland, Oregon, at a different coffee shop than we normally go to. I wheeled in (in my wheelchair because that morning in particular my feet wouldn't pick up off the ground, and I had to shuffle them to move my legs at all), and we sat for about an hour and spent time together. When we left, we were followed by a girl who came up to us in the 7/11 parking lot where we were parked and said, "Hi, my name is Jessica. I'm learning how to hear God's voice, and I would really like to pray for you." She told me about how she was from Bethel, and I could have leaped for joy! Little did she know we had been contending for healing for so long! She said that she had just been reading a book in the coffee shop. In the book, there was a woman who was healed and never needed her wheelchair again and the second she finished that story, we wheeled into the shop and Holy Spirit fell on her! He told her she needed to pray for me. So she did! While she was praying, my right leg started involuntarily convulsing and contracting. I was trying to calm it down and couldn't, no matter how hard I tried! She also prophesied over our church and us that we were headed into a time of revival and that we would be the catalyst! She then prayed for my husband, and then we prayed for her got her contact info, and left.
In the truck, my left leg started contracting violently! My left leg was the weaker leg and had further to go to heal. It felt like I was being shocked or maybe like someone was scraping my nerves. I guess re-growing nerves and muscle hurts! It was kicking the floor of our truck involuntarily. Then, it calmed down, and I decided I wanted to try to get out of the truck and walk. So I got out ... and walked normally! I walked around the truck twice without an issue, so then I felt like maybe I wanted to run. So my husband recorded me, and I sprinted the 50-yard dash! I'd been longing to run for months and months! While I was running and laughing uncontrollably, my non-crying husband was bawling his eyes out. Our lives are forever changed!
Not only did Jesus heal my nerves and muscles; He also healed my cardiovascular system (it is controlled by your nervous system), and also my energy (Guillain-Barr makes it so your cells don't produce the correct amount of energy, and if you do too much, you can have an energy low for days, sometimes in which you cannot move or communicate). Since I got healed, I've been able to do anything I've wanted!
But wait! There's more! We, of course, instantly told all our friends and sent them all the video of me running. People were freaking out. We told our pastors (who are basically also my parents, so this was extra special for them) and we all decided I should give a surprise testimony at church the next day! So, the next morning I drove myself to church (I had been told just days before that it would be months before I would be able to learn to drive again, especially because my car is a stick shift).
Our pastors totally changed the "normal" service routine and put off the message. The entire service was just worship, my testimony (this e-mail is the short version), ran around the sanctuary, and then we called people up for ministry time and prayer for healing. Dozens of people were healed from anxiety to knees that had just had surgery to pain in shoulders and backs! I prayed for someone with a neurological disorder, whose legs started convulsing, and for someone with HIV, whose entire body started convulsing! Hearts were changed, softened, and healed. Our entire church was changed because Jesus healed me and because Jessica stepped out and prayed for me!
Jesus told me when we first found out I had relapsed (which was the worst day of my life to know I had to go through it all again), that if I stayed close to Him during this sickness and trusted Him, my ministry would be birthed out of this time! And on Sunday, my husband said afterward that he had just been staring in awe at me the whole time, that Jesus had lit a fire in me that he'd never seen before. I went from being totally afraid of speaking in front of crowds to basically giving two messages on God's goodness and commanding sickness to leave bodies in Jesus' name! God is good. Our whole community is coming alive. People see that God is REALLY real and that He REALLY loves us, and He's REALLY good