One day, while suffering through more pain in my head something happened that I can only describe as a miracle.
I can remember sitting in the recliner without the prayer quilt for some time. The pain was getting worse, despite the Percocet pain pills and the ice packs. For some reason I did not have the quilt over me, but it was folded neatly next to the chair. I reached down and unfurled the quilt before pulling it over me from my feet up to my chest. And as I pulled the prayer quilt from the footrest to my chest, the pain melted away as the quilt moved. After it was pulled up to my chest, the pain had completely disappeared in that instant. The power of prayer, and the warmth represented by the hundreds of prayer knots from friends and anonymous members, had melted away the pain for that day.
That type of thing did not happen any other time, but this one time was a powerful reminder to me that God was in control. It was certainly His will being done for a reason.
The days and nights of suffering with the migraines were tough. Daytime was spent in the family room recliner and/or the sofa while listening to soothing music. It was the early stages of the Christmas season so our CD player was stacked with Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith and other Christian singer’s albums. The music helped me get through the days, and allowed me to reflect on the season of Christ’s birth and light unto the world.
Lights were irritating to me and somewhat painful on my eyes, so the lighting in the room was very subdued. When Emily returned home from work she’d try to get me out of the dark corner of the room. But the darkness was comforting on my eyes, even though it was a bit depressing.
For several weeks, I sat in the recliner during the day, and slept in it at night. Some nights I’d move from the recliner to the sofa and then back again, depending on how much pain I was in. There were nights where I spent hours just pacing across the family room with ice packs or frozen vegetable bags held against my head to deal with the pain of the migraines.
One night in early December I had yet another migraine attack going on 12 hours. Despite another operation, the side effects from the Sclerol Buckle procedure were still affecting me with migraines. I had just taken my dose of Percocet pain killers, returned to the sofa and laid down with the prayer quilt pulled over me. I tried to get comfortable, and the quilt did a good job of keeping me warm. But while laying on my left side, the pain was incessant. After several minutes on the sofa I can remember offering another whisper prayer asking God to make the pain go away. I can vividly remember speaking to God in my short phrases and saying “Prayers and Perc…Prayers and Perc.” Of course I was referring to the hundreds of prayers represented by the square knots that had been tied on the prayer quilt for healing and strength by church members. The “Perc” in the whisper prayer was referring to the Percocet pain killers.
I was hoping to God that between the prayers for healing and the medicine I had just taken, He would take away the pain. However, I was not prepared for what happened next.
After the third muttering of this corny phrase “Prayers and Perc”, there was an unexplainable bright flash of light in front of my eyes, and instantaneously the migraine pain that I had experienced for weeks since the Sclerol Buckle operation disappeared. “What was that?” I thought. “Was I dreaming? Did a light bulb explode? Hey, the pain is gone,” I muttered. “The prayer worked!!”
I remember immediately sitting up, thinking that something had flashed in the room or that I was imagining this. But there was no confusion about the lack of pain. God had heard my whisper prayer and answered it with a miracle that night. The migraine pains never returned following the miracle that occurred that night.
This may strike you as something I fabricated or added to the story to give it extra impact, but what I described actually took place that night. I told Emily about it the next morning as she was getting ready to leave for work. She hugged me, cried with me, and praised God for finally relieving me of the pain.
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