prayer

God Doing Ward Rounds, Part 1

/ M. (Marcia) Evangeline Anderson / 2 Comments

I was recently hospitalized twice in 15 days, each time being admitted with very painful, life-threatening symptoms. BUT do you know what? Both times I found that God had special things to show and tell me there. It was like “show and tell” time in early childhood education, but turned on its ear – where it was the Teacher and not the students doing the showing and telling.

Even before my first discharge, I was able to joyfully record a testimony vlog, which I posted from home days later under JOY of the LORD Ministry, at https://youtu.be/xqw1O9fKAas?si=iS8Jzga2npt8MMPO . Over a hundred viewers watched that in the first few days, and many commented via YouTube, FaceBook. and email that they were blessed and encouraged by it.

However, there were other testimonies from this brief hospitalization period of my life, which I subsequently shared on Facebook and in private messages. Of course that is a narrow audience compared with the reading public, so I am going to share those testimonies now with you readers as well, praying that the Holy Spirit (Ruach HaKodesh) will minister from them, blessings to you!

August 29, 2025: Shalom Friends, I’m currently resting in the care of the LORD at the Hawkesbury General Hospital (HGH) for a little while 😉. Since yesterday I’ve been rated on the room whiteboard as an “independent” patient, because I’m quite strong and now free of the symptoms that brought me here on Tuesday, thanks in part to excellent medical care, and in part to the fervent prayers of family and other intercessors. Glory to God, the Giver of all good gifts!

August 30, 2025: Despite everything that could have taken my shalom out of this Shabbat, I was able to enjoy the LORD and His word this morning, focusing on Scriptures that connect thanksgiving to the JOY of the LORD. Wonderful that I put that first, so that I could ride out the events that followed in my room, once this hospital wing started to buzz. Then came the things I’m not a fan of – needles multiplied, the search for cooperative veins, and blood draws. BUT, after all of that, I’m COUNTING MY BLESSINGS, and they add up to much, much more that these “light and momentary troubles.” (2 Corinthians 4:17)

Although I needed to rest physically, I also needed to unwind emotionally and to be distracted from physical discomfort, so God sent me a blessing just for that. A group call came in from the Toronto number of the leader of an intercessory group of Jamaican women from Christian Life Fellowship (CLF) in Kingston, Jamaica, and its US and Canadian Diaspora. Only five women were on the call, but they helped me toward restored shalom this Shabbat. Their ministry to me on the phone at that time was just what The Doctor, YHVH Rapha, had ordered. HalleluYah!

September 3, 2025: Thanksgiving is on my mind. I was discharged on Monday afternoon (September 1), quite weak but able to eat small amounts of soft foods without too much discomfort. Being back in my own bed was great, Mike is taking good care of me, and Nurse Deb (one of our daughters) has been on call by phone. Yesterday I ate more real food and regained some strength – enough to sit up fairly late, working on my upcoming vlog, inspired not only by recent events, but also by this song, “What shall I render to Jehovah?” (My next post, “Songs in the Hospital Nights” will share a testimony about this song,)

Many, many thanks to ALL the staff who looked after me at Hawkesbury General Hospital for six days, to ensure I could safely return home to St. Isidore and toward the next steps planned for my treatment at The Ottawa Hospital (TOH) this month. Surgical consultant and other doctors, Xray, CT and Lab staff, nurses (including male nurses, to which I’m not so accustomed), phlebotomists, Personal Support Workers, porters, housekeeping and catering staff – I’m very thankful for all their services. Praise the LORD!

September 5, 2025 (from home): I’m awake due to some pain – not abdominal, thank God! Got up, used Voltaren, had some cereal and took some Tylenol. So while I wait for enough comfort to go back to bed, I’m sharing this with you 😉. ( https://youtu.be/xqw1O9fKAas?si=NlsXFx9hPW9TRW0Y )

September 9, 2025, UPDATE: It’s almost midnight, but fasting and sleep are not bedfellows, it seems. So, here’s the update. On Saturday evening Mike had to take me back to Emerge at HGH due to similar pain and vomiting as what I was admitted for previously. However, the ER was FULL, and somewhat short-staffed due to two emergencies that had taken away a doctor and a nurse. 11 hours later, after bloodwork and an X-ray (which reportedly showed no bowel obstruction) I was sent home on medication and recommendations. We got home at about 5 a.m. and I fell asleep. (I had dozed with meds in the ER but Mike had not slept.) At about 7:00 I was awake again, feeling some pain but not wanting to wake Mike or to dose up on an empty stomach, so I had a warm drink and a few crackers. Then I took the Tylenol. Then I sat in the living room, then paced, then sat, then paced, then sat, praying all the time and repeating Scripture. Finally I woke Mike to let him know I wasn’t just out there digesting or praying, but battling again. We got on the phone with Deb, then with a TOH Cancer Centre After Hours nurse, and the consensus was (even before the vomiting started) that I had to return to HGH Emerge.

But the LORD told me, and I said it as emphatically as I heard it, that we must call for an ambulance rather than let Mike take me in. So we did. Being out in our rural area does not guarantee speedy ambulance service on a Sunday morning, but thank God, they got to us, were treated to the full nine yards of my symptoms during the 30 minute drive, did their triage, got there a bit ahead of Mike, and I was spared the waiting room and ER triage scenario.

So, a CT scan showed one obstruction in my small intestine (not two this time, thank God) but that was enough, and I was re-admitted to a ward on Sunday evening. Mike had been sending out prayer requests and updating intercessors, so I heard after the fact that a Zoom prayer meeting of CLF & Diaspora was planned for me at 7:00 p.m. ET (6:00 p.m. Jamaica time.) Last night I was oblivious to that, but this morning I had the blessed privilege of watching the recording, pain-free, nausea-free, in many sittings between the ministrations of the hospital staff. It was quite a meeting, led by two who were not camera-shy, and who finally got a few others to show their faces. But I believe all faces may have been aglow with the Holy Spirit – they certainly sounded like the Upper Room.

Since then I heard that I was being upheld in prayer by at least five other church groups as well, praise the LORD – some praying in the Name of Jesus, as so many of us were introduced to Him, and some praying in the Name that Father God told the angel Gabriel to relay to His earthly family – Yeshua. God’s ears were attentive to all the prayers, and His answers are being showered on me, to overflow. (I posted two pictures to Facebook with the caption, “These pics are a bit deliberately tricky 😉. I am pretending to be asleep, but am actually praying for the man diagonally across from me on this ward, who was audibly suffering. The bed next to me was still empty, but became occupied later in the day. Hopefully a semi-private room becomes available in the morning.”

September 11, 2025, 5:39 a.m.: Good morning / Bonjour / Buenos dias / Shalom! And how are you feeling this morning? I’m feeling very blessed indeed! I feel stronger now than when I was discharged yesterday – even my eyes, so I can look at this screen for a while… The dinner I pureed last evening stayed down and with it the meds… I slept in my own bed last night… the LORD woke me up next to my husband today… and I’m ready to start sharing some more hospital testimonies with you. So here’s a quick one.

At one point during my stay, I wanted to call my sweet nurse for something important, but she also had four other patients to attend, three of whom were not in the same room with me. I didn’t want to disrupt her work with them, but neither did I want my issue to just wait. So instead of pressing the buzzer, I simply DECIDED to ask the LORD to send someone in who could help me, even by relaying a message to my nurse. Before the request had even finished falling from my ‘BRAIN’s mouth’, a PSW walked in, I told her what I needed, and she said she would relay the message. Soon the problem was solved. Thank You Abba (Father)!

Isaiah 65:24 says of the LORD’s relationship with His restored people – “And it will come to pass that before they call, I will answer, and while they are still speaking, I will hear.”

12:25 p.m. Again, thanksgiving is on my mind, and another testimony from this last hospital stay. The first afternoon I was there, I needed to rest, but couldn’t because of another patient in the quad room, who was crying out and groaning – either in pain or from some other turmoil. So I just closed my eyes and began to pray for him – just as I had prayed for the shrieking stranger across the hall last week, that Yeshua would grant a visitation or revelation to meet the precise needs – which He knew but I didn’t. After praying for a while I felt that this old man may actually be a believer, so I asked for angelic ministry to him as an heir of salvation as well. Then I saw a vision of a face coming very close to another face – almost touching noses, and I saw the “angelic” face blowing wind onto the other face. Soon the old man stopped crying out, became quiet for a very long time, and I fell asleep.

He had other episodes on the following days, but I kept praying for him (undercover, as he was quite unfriendly when I tried to speak with him). By the fourth day, while I was preparing for discharge, his doctor, nurse, PSW and physiotherapist were around his bed and wheelchair, saying how much progress he had made, and commending him on his very recent cooperation and efforts. I know it was the LORD’s work, and just so that fact would not be lost to him, I wrote him and his wife a folded note which she accepted into her safekeeping. The note said I had been praying for him, to THE GOD OF THE BIBLE, Who answers prayer, and that I wished them continued blessings.

1:06 p.m.: Last hospital testimony for the day. … My husband Mike has the ‘greenest thumb’ you may ever meet. For the past 2 years he has raised BUMPER crops of tomatoes (and cucumbers last year) in a VERY SMALL PART of our back yard. Most of that has been given away – to family, neighbors, churches, a food bank, and a community marketplace outlet. So anyway, with my first hospitalization on August 27, the nursing staff was so kind to us that Mike brought them a large box of tomatoes to share amongst themselves. It went like hot bread!

Well, for the second hospitalization, starting on September 7, I was on a busier ward with more nursing staff, and he brought in even more tomatoes, which were just as much appreciated. So yesterday when he came in to pick me up, one guy welcomed him warmly with, “Hey, Mr. Tomato Man!” 🙂

And here are some ’empirical’ facts and measurable outcomes. This time around, I had only one tumor blocking my small intestine, not two as before; I only spent four days in hospital, not six as before; and I only lost 2 ½ pounds, not six as before. HalleluYah!

My Hezekiah Blessing

/ M. (Marcia) Evangeline Anderson / Leave a comment

This spring I’ll be four years into what I’m calling ‘my Hezekiah blessing’ – named from the account of God healing King Hezekiah of a life-threatening illness and adding years to his life. The story is told in 2 Kings 20:1-11 and amplified in Isaiah 38:1-22 by the prophet Isaiah. Both accounts begin similarly. Here is the TLV rendition from Isaiah (Is.) 38:1. “1 In those days Hezekiah became mortally ill. So Isaiah the prophet son of Amoz came to him and said to him, ‘Thus says Adonai: Put your house in order. For you are dying, and will not live.’  2 Then he turned his face to the wall and prayed to Adonai saying: 3 ‘Please, Adonai, remember how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in Your eyes.’ And Hezekiah wept bitterly.”  

After that point, the different Biblical writers include different details. (2 Kings is attributed to the prophet Jeremiah.) So I’ll weave my way between their accounts, boldfacing the different inclusions and italicizing my comments.  

From 2 Kings 20 – Apparently, Hezekiah’s bitter weeping didn’t last very long, because verse 4 says, “4 Before Isaiah was gone out of the middle court … the word of Adonai came to him, saying: 5 ‘Return, and say to Hezekiah the leader of My people, thus says Adonai, the God of your father David: I have heard your prayer and I have seen your tears. Behold, I am going to heal you. On the third day you will go up to the House of Adonai. 6 Then …‘”

I paused there to highlight what Isaiah did not include – that God stated His intention to heal Hezekiah, and apparently to restore strength quickly enough that within three days he’d be able to go up to the temple. It seems to me that only then (after he went up to the House of the LORD) would the rest of God’s intention be actioned, as follows: “‘6 Then I will add 15 years to your life. I will deliver you and this city from the hand of the king of Assyria; I will defend this city for My own sake, and for My servant David’s sake.‘”

Hezekiah’s appeal and weeping may have tugged at God’s heart, but His response was actually predicated on His own purpose (defence of the city for His own sake) and faithful promise-keeping (to King David). Continuing from Is. 38:7 – “Now this will be the sign to you from Adonai, that Adonai will do this word He has spoken: 8 Behold, I will cause the shadow on the stairs, which went down with the sun on the sundial of Ahaz, to turn back ten steps. So the sun’s shadow went back ten steps on the sundial on which it had gone down.”  And at verse 22 Isaiah just mentions that Hezekiah had asked the question, “What is the sign that I will go up to the House of Adonai?“

Thankfully, 2 Kings gives more details of the interactions between Hezekiah, Isaiah and God at that point. 2 Kings 20:8ff reveals: “8Hezekiah said to Isaiah, ‘What will be the sign that Adonai will heal me, and that I should go up to the House of Adonai on the third day?‘ 9 Then Isaiah said, ‘This will be the sign to you from Adonai, that Adonai will do this word He has spoken: should the shadow go forward ten steps or go back ten steps?’ 10 Hezekiah answered, ‘It’s easy for a shadow to go forward ten steps; no, let the shadow turn back ten steps.‘ 11 Then Isaiah the prophet cried to Adonai; and He brought the shadow ten steps backward, by which it had gone down on the sundial of Ahaz.”

Wow! Almighty God, through the prophet, actually let Hezekiah choose – should He, the Creator of the cosmos and orchestrator of time, move the sun’s shadow forward by 10 degrees, or backward by 10 degrees on the sundial?  I’m not sure why Hezekiah thought the first option was ‘easy’, but after he had made his choice, the Almighty obliged him.  (Ten ‘steps’ or degrees on the sundial equates to 40 minutes lost or gained. For more on God’s orchestration of time, see “Did NASA really prove the Bible accounts of Joshua and Hezekiah that a day is missing?” )

At this point in his account Isaiah shares, from verses 9-20, “A writing of King Hezekiah of Judah, after his illness, when he recovered…” I’ll just share the snippets of that monologue to which I could relate, to the end of verse 19. Here goes. Is. 38:10-19. 10 I said: “In the prime of my life, I am to enter the gates of Sheol. I am deprived of the rest of my years.” 11 I said:  “… I will look on humanity no longer among the inhabitants of the world… 13 I stilled my soul till morning …  14… I whisper, I moan … My eyes are weary, looking upward. Adonai … be my security!” 15 What should I say? For He has spoken to me— He Himself has done it! … 16 “Adonai … let me live!  … 18 For Sheol cannot thank You, death cannot praise You. Those who go down to the Pit cannot hope for Your faithfulness. 19 The living … —they praise You— as I do today. A father (or mother) makes Your faithfulness known to his (or her) children.”

With all of that recorded for us in Scripture, I compared and contrasted my experience of the past four years with Hezekiah’s experience of serious illness, healing and extension of life.  First I’ll address the differences. (1) Hezekiah was a man and a God-appointed ruler; I’m neither.  (2) Hezekiah had a proven prophet of God announce to him that he should prepare to die, whereas I didn’t – I only had modern medicine suggest that to me. (3) Hezekiah’s response was to weep bitterly and say to God, “Remember how I have walked before You in truth and with a whole heart, and have done what is good in Your eyes.” I could not honestly commend myself to God that way, and neither did I weep bitterly. (4) God’s next word to Hezekiah, via Isaiah, promised not only healing but also 15 years added to his life. Firstly, I don’t have an Isaiah between me and God. I have the Holy Spirit, but from Him I didn’t hear a promise of any specific number of years being added to my life. (5) Hezekiah’s confirmation of his healing apparently took only three days, whereas mine took about three years.

Now let’s look at the similarities that led me to entitle this piece “My Hezekiah Blessing.” From late January to late April 2021 (three months) I was tortured by continual abdominal pain and gastrointestinal problems that defied diagnosis even by specialists and their tests. It was Covid pandemic time, and I was stuck in Jamaica because flights back to Canada had all been cancelled. My pain, inability to digest solids, and the fruitless consultation of doctor after doctor suggested to me that I should prepare to die. And I did prepare, by examining myself to see which of the LORD’s instructions I would be leaving uncompleted. I concluded it was His Great Commission. Despite my endeavours with Child Evangelism, I had adult relatives with whom I had never shared the Gospel. So, to the best of my ability, I wrote and sent a letter to those relatives, explaining God’s sovereignty over the universe, satan’s pursuit of his own adversarial goals, and Yeshua’s great sacrifice to rescue us from the fate of joining satan in hell. Then I shared how they should respond in order to be saved and inherit the wonderful promises of God.  Finally, in April, I had an exploratory surgery right there in Jamaica, where a hidden tumor which would indeed have killed me, was found and removed from my small intestine.  After the surgery my blood pressure plummeted and that also would have killed me had not the anesthesiologist worked hard to prevent it. Then, pathology showed the tumor to be cancerous, and some spread of the cancer was also indicated.

All of that seemed to confirm that I should number my days, and I began to ‘reason’ with the LORD. I knew the ‘healing promises’ of the Bible, but I also knew that not everyone who quotes them back to God gets healed. So while other intercessors were quoting them to me, and for me in prayer, I was asking the LORD, “Are You going to heal me and extend my life as You did for Hezekiah and others?” No definite answer came, so I began to petition Him for one thing: “Please let me live long enough to see You heal and restore my son.” (At that point, my eldest son had been suffering from a degenerative neurological disease for about three years, which would kill him if God did not intervene.) 

In a paragraph above, I said that I didn’t weep bitterly like Hezekiah, but I did shed many desperate tears in ‘reasoning with God’ over my son’s healing, and asking that I would live long enough to witness it. To me, his timely healing was more important than the ultimate length of my life. It was in this petition that I kept asking others to support me, although I saw from some of their responses that either they didn’t quite get it, or they were led to pray differently.

[Discharged in Jamaica to recuperate for a while before traveling to Canada. Note the sticker on the bed, over my pillow, saying RAPHA. He’s the one who heals, in whatever way He chooses.]

There is one important similarity between Hezekiah’s experience and mine that I haven’t mentioned so far. That is, neither of us was going to be healed by the ‘finger of God’ alone. Apart from the instruction to go up to the temple in three days, Hezekiah was also told to use some physical medication. Is. 38:21 tells us of the prescription and prognosis: “Now Isaiah had said, ‘Let them take a cake of figs, and apply it to the boil, and he will live.’”  And 2 Kings 20:7 adds the important detail of the outcome: “Then Isaiah said, ‘Take a cake of figs.’ So they took one and laid it on the boil, and he recovered.”

[The first and only time that I ever had to request wheelchair assistance for the flights home.]

In my case, when I returned to Canada the LORD emboldened me to accept an experimental treatment offered there, in a clinical trial.  After Mike and I prayerfully considered the offer and weighed its potential advantage over the proven outcomes of the “standard of care” for my condition, the Holy Spirit gave us both the faith to overcome the common fear of experimental treatments and clinical trials.  So, while our prayers for divine healing continued, supported by those of our faithful intercessors, we did not reject the use of physical medicine, as some believers do in their pursuit of divine healing. Thanks be to God, I did “go up to the temple” (that is, I did seek the LORD) as Hezekiah did. Yet, in contrast to Hezekiah’s three days, it took me three years to become confident that God would indeed be extending my life. However, I didn’t sit idly waiting. I took advantage of every opportunity to share from my life experience of the goodness of God, and even opportunities to preach on what God had taught me.

In 2023 I started posting a vlog (video blog) to YouTube, called Evangeline’s Voice, and shortly afterwards I added a musical playlist called The LORD’s Song / Quiet Time Noises. None of that required any medium-term or long-term frame of reference though. They were simply outlets for what God had deposited in me, which I wanted to share with others while I still had time. Then, in the summer of 2024 the LORD dropped an idea into my heart through a divine encounter with information on ACT Intl (Artists in Christian Testimony International).  Then He emboldened me again, this time with the conviction that He was indeed going to grant me the extension of life required to (a) follow His lead into a new ministry under ACT Intl., and (b) see my son healed.

As I listened to the LORD closely, He crystallized the vision of what He wanted me to do with my extension, and He gave me a name for the new ministry, JOY of the LORD!  Now about to be launched, JOY of the LORD will encourage others “all the more as (we) see the Day (of the LORD) approaching” (Hebrews 10:25) – encouraging them with God’s promises and gifting to His people, of overcoming joy, even with the severe testing of our faith that we may face in these days of the 21st Century. Through podcasts and in-person events, JOY of the LORD will use the Scriptures and divinely inspired songs, dance and other arts, to bring people into a current experience and infectious expression of God’s joy. Finally, after three years I was saying what Isaiah 38:20 records Hezekiah as saying, “Adonai will save me. So we will play my songs … all the days of our life in the House of Adonai.” Selah.