Read Nathaniel's story of how Jesus took him on a journey of healing from Inflammatory bowel disease (Colitis) .......
In my early twenties, I went to the bathroom one night and saw heaps of blood in the toilet. A day or so later, I went to the doctor, then saw a specialist and was diagnosed with Inflammatory Bowel Disease/Colitis.
This is my story of how God healed me:
I suffered from this internal bleeding for almost a year straight. A few years earlier, I found out I couldn’t eat diary or gluten without an intolerance, and all my life I suffered from social anxiety. I was advised not to tell anybody about the disease because they would treat me differently, so I suffered in shame alone.
Around the time of diagnosis, I was challenged by a friend of mine to spend my downtime each day reading the bible, so I began to read the Word of God daily. I started in the gospels and read all the times that Jesus healed people. One of the nights I read about the lady with constant bleeding, who had bled for twelve years and spent all her money on doctors. I knew how she felt, but Jesus healed her because she had the faith to believe that He could, and by that same faith she reached out and touched Him.
Some nights I would not be able to sleep because of the pain I felt, and most nights I used to pray to God in tears. I would cry out to Him, begging Him to heal me, sometimes just groaning without words and other times only saying, “I know you can”.
At that time, I started going to an apologetics course at Bethlehem Baptist Church (BBC), teaching on World religions. At the course, we began learning about spiritual warfare. One night, they handed out Anna’s testimony, a lady who was healed through the Freedom and Fire ministry.
As I learnt more and more about spiritual warfare, I began to feel like the Holy Spirit was trying to tell me something, and I felt like something was ‘on me’ that I couldn’t remove.
As I kept going to the course, I noticed that the medication I was taking for Colitis wasn’t helping anymore and the bleeding was more intense, like when I was first diagnosed. I was on a strict diet at the time, and foods that had always been safe for me started to make the bleeding worse.
Then the medication no longer became effective. I spoke to my doctor about the worsening symptoms. He began to talk to me about more invasive medication like suppositories, and the possibility of surgery to remove parts of my intestine if they became scarred from the bleeding (to prevent cancer starting in the scar tissue). I didn’t want either. Anna’s testimony about ‘almost’ having surgery to replace both her hips stood out to me. I felt like neither of those options would heal me, rather they would only temper the disease. I felt that only God could heal me perfectly.
The more I went to the apologetics course, the bleeding would get worse. So, I started to fall on my face at night and weep as I kept begging Jesus to heal me. Soon after, I attended a prayer night at BBC. The focus of the prayer meeting was to pray for Tauranga, but the only reason I went was so that Jesus would heal me. A friend had suggested that I meet with a member of the Freedom and Fire team who had seen many healings.
During the evening, they asked us if anyone wanted prayer for healing to stand up. I nervously stood up along with a few others. People laid hands on me and prayed over me. I had my head down the entire time people prayed, so that no one could see my face. Multiple times, fear washed over me and each time a lady behind me said “spirit of fear I command you to go in Jesus’ name.” I couldn’t understand how this person knew about the fear rising in those moments.
Later, when I approached the member from the Freedom and Fire team, I discovered that she was the woman who had commanded the fear to leave in Jesus' name. When I mentioned that I had heard she could heal, she immediately shook her head and pointed up to God, saying that He healed them and not her. I was relieved, as I knew that only God had the power to heal, but He works with us to show His glory and power.
I explained my Colitis diagnosis to her, and she shared her own testimony about how God had healed her from an autoimmune condition. Her symptoms lasted for a few months after the initial prayer, but they eventually went away as she faithfully walked out her healing. The woman then prayed for my body and commanded the spirit of infirmity to leave.
That night I went home, and it was the first time in months that the bleeding was lighter. I knew that there was power in prayer, but more importantly that God was moving and doing something in my life.
During a BBC night church session a few months later, the speaker said that God was calling some of us into the next level of our faith and was asking us if we’d like to go deeper. I went up the front and he prayed for me and asked God to take me to the next level in my faith.
The very next night I was hanging out with my friends, and I shared with them about the Colitis and that I wanted to be completely healed. They placed hands on me and prayed. I began to see many visions and the Holy Spirit led us in prayer. The more we prayed, the more visions I saw! One of my friends said that God was going to heal me. At some point the Holy Spirit showed me that I needed to lay down on the ground in the shape of an X, which seemed a little strange. I told my friends this and they backed away so I could be obedient. At this point, one of my friends who had been praying for my healing told us that they had asked God to show them where I needed healing and to mark it with an X. It turns out it was my whole body!
We didn’t really know what we were doing but we took what we had learned from the apologetics course and continued to pray. Through a lot of uncertainty and tiredness we followed the Holy Spirit in prayer and obedience, late into the night. After many more visions and similar miracles, the Holy Spirit showed me that I was dealing with the spirit of infirmity. My friends began telling the spirit of infirmity to leave in Jesus’ name, and I began to feel and see a demon holding onto my body. Eventually, we cast out the demon and then I knew I had been healed! At the very end God told me “It is done”. I wept because I felt that God had heard all my prayers and my cries and had fully seen me.
The following week, the symptoms did not disappear, but I knew that I had been healed. In dreams, I had visions of other spirits trying to scare me, so I contacted the team at Freedom and Fire and booked an appointment.
As I was driving to the appointment, I began to feel immense fear and anxiety. Then, I saw two birds flying overhead in the rain, and I remembered a verse from my daily bible reading I had read the night before – Matthew 6:26; “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?’ At this moment, I knew God was with me and He would provide for me.
I met with the Freedom and Fire team, they prayed and commanded multiple spirits to leave, and I was fully delivered. At one point when we were praying, I confessed about some sexual immorality I had gone through with my ex-girlfriend. The team member prayed and broke the soul tie in Jesus’ name. At that point, I felt God put a piece of my heart back in place. I thought I had given that part of me away and I would never be able to get it back, but God fully restored my heart. At the same time, I felt my ring finger become purified, too. After the prayer session, I went home very happy and encouraged.
The next morning, I woke up and it was the first morning in my entire life (even since I was a child), that I had absolute silence in my head. I was smiling because it was the first time, I had felt Jesus’ true peace in my life.
It was a long journey of walking out my healing. For the next couple months, I still faced the symptoms of Colitis like internal bleeding, but I remembered that God never breaks His word. I began to eat every type of food, and eventually threw away my prescription medication. From there on out, I focused on God’s promise that I had been healed, and that it “was done”. During those months, the bleeding was sometimes better, but sometimes it was worse than when I was diagnosed or was taking medication. Yet, I remembered God’s promise.
It's now more than a year later since I was healed! Although as humans we experience fear, I now live without any of the fear and anxiety I felt prior to the deliverance, and I can eat every type of food!
Praise God! Praise Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals! Hallelujah! I love Him and I’ll be forever grateful for how He has healed me. I now have the faith that I see older Christians carry. Ones that have a deeper, next level relationship with God. When I was younger, I thought I would have to wait decades for this type of faith, and only get to experience this joy at the end of my life. With grace, He called me to Him and helped me to be brave enough to cry out, to listen, to show up, to stand up, and step out to meet Him.
All glory to God, our Saviour, our friend, our father, our healer, our counsellor, our first love. Praise be to Him! Forever!
There is power in the name of Jesus.
Genesis 16:13 ...’You are the God who sees me…”