Healings That Stood The Test of Time (1)

 

From the years 1957 to 1972 spanning a torturous pain-filled 15 years, Delores Winder went time and again under the operating knives of surgeons all in a bid to fight her rather debilitating illness, but her ordeal was a frustrating one. In spite of the best medical care, she found herself getting progressively worse until she was for all practical purpose an invalid. To move at all, she had to wear a full body cast and a neck brace. Her pains were unbearable and her case was hopeless. Only a miracle could save her and she hardly believed in miracles. Together with her family, she braced up herself for the worst-the inevitable, until the invitation came… Continue

I am running ahead of myself but when you find a healing in 2013 that have stood since 1975; a healing that took place in the ministry of no less a person than the legendary handmaiden of the Lord, Kathryn Kuhlman. When you get a personal approval from the recipient of such a special miracle to write the story to a new generation decades after it happened; a generation that has been taught that the age of miracles is passed. When you are like I am, a firm believer that healings prove that Jesus Christ loves His people today just as He did 2000 years ago. Then you may very well share my excitement in bringing you this very sacred story that I hold dear to my heart.

 

They say life begins at forty but Mrs. Winder was barely 40 years old when after four surgeries (back fusions performed by orthopedic surgeons) and another two cordotomies- an advanced surgical procedure carried out on patients (normally cancer patients) in extreme pains in a bid to alleviate the pains- she was sent home to die. A cordotomy is a procedure no longer in practice today. It is a medical procedure where the surgeon enters the brain from behind the ear, burns off nerves connecting the part of the body in extreme pains to the brain so that the person becomes paralyzed in that part of his body. Mrs. Winder who had suffered from brittle bone and what doctors called pseudo-arthritis for many years had finally reached that point in her suffering when this painful and irreversible procedure was carried out on the right side of her body. It went very well- she came out of surgery paralyzed on her right side from her neck down! Subsequently the same procedure was carried out on her left side leaving her paralyzed from her waist down in that section of her body. It is just like a technician will disconnect a house with electrical faults from the mains probably pending when the faults will be fixed to avoid hazards. It did not mean Delores’ illness was over; just that she can no longer have any feelings in both her legs- no feelings no pains. Sadly, unlike in the electrical analogy, cordotomies are permanent rather than temporal and for Delores, there were no chances of the faults ever getting fixed. Hers was a permanent and progressive disability. Her brittle bones continued to deteriorate. At the age of just forty and some odd years, she was told that her bones were the bones of a seventy years old woman. Her bones were literally rotting away! All the doctors fought to do was to postpone the evil day and hope to make her few remaining days as painless as possible. She was placed at a time in plaster of paris for seven years! The POP was eventually replaced with a special plastic body cast. Yet for all practical purpose, Delores was an invalid and had to be in bed most of the time. Death was imminent for her and how well she knew it!

Moreover one fateful day, one of her orthopedic surgeon that had become a very close friend throughout her ordeal tried desperately to examine her one more time. He hoped there was something-anything he could do for her. At least he hoped to find out something from examining her that may in some way be of help to someone else in the future with same illness. It was an exercise in futility. What he found left him in tears. The tissues in her back were shredding literally to pieces and there was no possibility of patching them up. With tears streaming down his face, he announced to his patient that she should get ready to die. She was going out real fast! At this point her lungs and heart were bad, but the greatest threat came from her kidneys which were on the verge of packing off.

O the agony she felt! The anguish, the pains, the frustration that was hers as her husband started making plans for her funeral arrangements! There are some who think it will be fun to plan for your own funeral but Delores knows from experience that it is the most torturous of all pains. Her greatest frustration was her youngest son-Chris. He was only 14 years old and Delores couldn’t bring herself to think of dying and leaving him behind. Yet, she knew that would be the case in just a matter of days. She needed to talk to God. She needed assurance that when she is gone, Chris will be okay.

 

This was Delores’ condition when someone-her housekeeper’s mother turned on the television to a station carrying a Kathryn Kuhlman broadcast. Delores did not believe in miracles and she knew better than anyone else that Miss Kuhlman was a gook. Why! She lived in Pennsylvania (the city where Miss Kuhlman’s ministry was based in Pittsburgh) and as such she knew Kathryn was all fakery and scam! “Turn it off!” she said to her housekeeper’s mother. However when the woman kidded her about keeping a window closed in her search for God, she decided to leave the television on and to watch.
 
Things started happening fast. During prayers, as she sought answers from the Lord about her condition and about her son Chris, the Holy Spirit said to her “Kathryn Kuhlman!” She felt the Lord was leading her to attend a Miss Kuhlman meeting but she dreaded the very thought of it. Then a friend of hers shortly afterwards in 1975 invited her to attend a Kathryn Kuhlman lecture on the Holy Ghost in some Methodist church. Delores was not very enthused about attending because she did not care much about lady preachers and Kathryn Kuhlman in particular-she was certain Miss Kuhlman was a charlatan. However at the friend’s insistence and just in case she was keeping a window closed, she reluctantly attended. She had no expectations for a miracle.

The service went well. She was almost going to say it was a worthwhile experience until Miss Kuhlman began to pray for the sick. As she laid hands on so-called recipients of miraculous healings who came out by the dozens to testify, they were felled under the power of the Holy Spirit. Delores was offended. In fact she began to make her way to the exit with her girlfriend. She had had enough of the staged performances and sheer fanaticism!  This was pure con and she is not falling for it.

However, while she was sitting through the service earlier, she had the strangest experience. Her legs were burning up as if fire was lit in them. Strange! She ought not to feel anything in those legs as the cordotomies had blocked the nerves in a bid to end her torturous pains. Later, as she disappointingly murmured her way out of that Methodist auditorium on that 10th day of August 1975, a stranger met her outside and engaged her in a conversation. She was soon to find out that this stranger was a medical doctor and at his insistence she went to the ladies, removed her braces and casts and found out that the Great Physician had healed her body! That was 38 years ago and today, Delores Winder has not only retained that outstanding and very remarkable healing, she has been involved in the ministry and she herself has been a vessel through which many have received miraculous healings from the Great Physician! Now you can imagine my joy in corresponding with her and my gratefulness in getting her personal approval to retell this story to a new generation of believers! Those, whom the Lord heals, stay healed!