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On the subject of the miraculous, and direct heavenly intervention into our physical world...

I will readily acknowledge first, that it does happen in the "here and now" and that although there are hucksters charlatans, phonies, and deceivers who basically care only to fleece the gullible and vulnerable at the expense of how others perceive us as future residets of God's kingdom, the reality is that Miracles occur far more often than many of the Methodists, Baptists, Wesleyans, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, E. Orthodox, and other "conservative" sects and denominations among us might wish to believe.

Such events are also subject to sleight of hand and evilly supernatural counterfeit periodically, and therefore extra stringent scrutiny is not unwarranted, lest we go seeking after signs and wonders like an "adulterous generation".

They probably happen less often than Pentecostal, Assemblies of God, Evangelical, Foursquare Gospel, Nazarene, and other so-called "Charismatic" denominaations would like to believe.

Even that which is utterly genuine can be "hijacked" or co-opted, compromised, leavened, inhabited by misdirection, and end up becoming that which does not serve the most High.

Becoming bitterly divisive, or critical of reported events - whether they are corporate or individual is counterproductive to the life and health of the body of Christ and our ministry as His hands extended here in a lost and dying world. I believe it is better to reserve judgment, immerse ourselves in Scripture (without an agenda), and send up earnest prayers and petitions before the throne of our King.

If we are faithful to do those things, He will bring justice and His will in our midst. Those things which are sourced in Him, in His Spirit...no weapon will prosper raised against them, or against His people who do what they do in His Holy name.

Twenty years ago, I was living in the country of Denmark, boarding at a Christian school with about 60 other students in my general age range. One was from Canada, one from Germany by way of Norway and Lapland, four (including me) were from the USA, and the rest were from all across Denmark.

The men had their dorm areas and the ladies theirs, we attended worship/prayer in the morning, had meals together in a dining hall, and were split amongst a variety of two to four classes together throughout the day. Away from classes we became well and closely acquainted, often went into the small village nearby, and recreated as friends in general. Sometimes groups of students would go to various churches or cafes in towns anywhere between 20 minutes and 90 minutes' drive distance, sing, speak and testify as an informal, loosely knit group of young evangelists.

I knew all my fellow students - some better than others. One girl - Lena - a sweet, kind-hearted, always smiling or laughing sort with a head covered in a mass of medium brown curly ringlets - was always a fun person to be around, a real blessing. Lena had a kind of funny walk - a "hitch" to her getalong, so to speak. I seldom laid any mark to it, but one day we were seated in the community "living room" of the school talking, and she asked me why I never had asked her about it. Almost everybody else had, it seemed - at least those who did not already know.

It was a birth/growth "defect". She had been born with one leg noticeably shorter than the other, and her legs did not grow at an equal rate as she matured, compounding the challenges. On top of that, she suffered from what I think would translate Danish-to-English, as a slight form of hip dysplasia (one leg - the shorter one - not being entirely well secured in the hip socket). Altogether, kind of a troublesome scenario for her.

She had always worn shoes of unequal thickness, ever since she began to first walk. As she grew older, the thickness gradually increased, even as the growth of her already short leg failed to keep pace with its mate. She took off both shoes quite unabashedly, and handed them to me for examination, quite composed and matter-of-fact all the while. I was impressed by her good nature (I felt sure that I could not have dealt as well with such thing) but she remained casual about it, for she had known nothing else.

She was happy in fact that she could effect a more or less normal walk; after all, many people had it much worse. Their feet were twisted or drawn, many could not walk at all - so how bad was it for her? But there was still some pain behind her maturity and serene demeanor. I knew som cruel-tongued children had had their go at her in her elementary school days; I was not so mean myself, but I well knew the type. They inhabit every playground of every school in every land...

Less than one week later, an "evangelie's gruppen" went to a small town 45 minutes away to sing and play for, evangelise and pray with the people of the village and surrounding farmlands. There was even supposed to be a guest speaker of some repute. I took a pass for some reason I have long since forgotten, but Lena went along.

I saw her again not two minutes after she walked in the front doors of the main building of our little school. You couldn't miss her, really. Her whole face was supernaturally aglow; her entire countenance. It was almost difficult to look at - except it wasn't. She had such a pretty face. Oh, not like a model or some such- just wholesomely pretty with a bit of an angelic or cherubic quality. She was glowing like a backlit Botticelli, or Rafaello painting right out of the Uffizi gallery.

"I'm healed! I'm healed! I'm whole!" she exclaimed chattering warmly and joyfully. "Jesus healed me! I'm not sick anymore!"

I greeted her with a hug, and very nearly got the stuffing squeezed out of me for it as she continued to explain.

They had been at the meeting singing and praying, some people had been lead to Christ and prayed to receive Him into their hearts, the worship had continued on, and been (to use a current phrase) "off the hook" or very deep and quenching to the sould, I would guess. At a point someone laid hands upon her, simply praying in a more general manner and the Holy Spirit had fallen in force. She was not "slain" in the Spirit as some articulate such a phenomenon but the hand of the Lord moved perceptibly and tangibly.

"My legs! My legs! They're both the same, they're both the same! God made my legs even!"

Her excitement was too much to contain. Besides that, she was telling the truth. She had ambled up to me with an uneven gait - if slightly different than her usual, but I did not notice that. Then bracing herself with one hand against a windowsill, or doorjamb, she reached down and pulled off both her shoes - the regular one and the thick-soled, built-up one carefully measured and designed to compensate for the deficiency of one leg being over an inch shorter than the other.

Throwing them both tumbling aside onto the floor, she exclaimed "Look! Watch this; see how I walk!" I watched - along with 2 or 3 other people nearby - as in her stockinged feet, she took more than a half dozen paces, exaggeratedly slow for effect - and altogether even.

No rise and fall of one hip, no swinging-out, sideways roll of the pelvis to maintain balance, no tentativeness borne of the pain of dysplasia.

Just a walk like any other girl her age. A walk which took her from "here to there', point 'A' to point 'B'. A walk punctuated by her regular head turns to look at us with a smile so radiant, we could have turned off the lights and still have seen it!

I knew Lena, I knew her one shoe was extra-thick (I had held her shoes in my hands) and she still had a hitch in her gait, I knew it was not something surgically correctible.

And there she stood in her stocking feet on the carpet, legs equal in length, hip joint tight and pain free in one evening. Even her muscles - which should have been unevenly developed and distributed, which should have been differently fatigued owing to the spontaneous alteration of their use - even her leg muscles were normal and of equal strength.

People can doubt miracles ever occurred, question whether they happen in this modern age, criticise those who talk about them, speculate as to their existence, or deride those that claim to have experienced or witnessed them. It is all the same to me.

But I know Lena, I know what her shoes looked like and how they wer made. I know how she walked in her bare feet, because I saw for myself. Before, and after. Before God worked a physical miracle, and after - when Lena had to go sock-footed for a few days, until she could go to a store and buy some "normal" shoes for the first time in 20 years of her young life. I know what I can testify to. Great is the Lord for He hath done great things.

Pax

A.A.C.