By Lynda Gilpin - October 3, 2007
Editor’s note: Lynda’s testimony is powerful.
She celebrates the Lord’s continuous work of physical and emotional
healing in her life. Lynda has been a member of Calvary since the early
days, has served on the mission field in
Russia
and
Israel, and continues to serve faithfully at
Calvary
on the World Missions Council and through small groups.
I believe that healing comes in our spirit, body,
and soul, (mind, emotion, physical healing), because this has been my
experience in my walk with the Lord.
In 1989 the Lord was speaking to me to come to the
end of self, to admit where I was, and to come and cry out to him. (I
was in recovery from a recent divorce and years of mental abuse.)
My friend Magan said to me at church one day, “We
should forget the makeup. We come and cry it off every service.” It
was as if the Lord was saying, “Don’t hide behind anything, no false
fronts. Be open and transparent so that you can learn what is in your
heart.”
Mahesh Chavada prayed for me at the Kansas City
Conference in 1990, in his session for healing of damaged emotions. I
had never really embraced that thought before, but I knew that it was
from the Lord.
Thus began my journey of pressing in to the Lord,
asking for this healing to become complete in my life. It seemed that
every service as we came together at Calvary the Lord was supernaturally
healing something deep inside of me that I was not even aware of that
needed healing.
I would sit in the worship and teaching services
and weep. I continually asked good friends to pray for me as I felt that
I needed others to stand in the gap with me. I wondered if they would
tire of seeing me as I approached them for prayers. But, I continued to
follow the leading of the Lord.
In 1991, again at the Kansas City Conference, the
Lord revealed to me that he was healing/delivering me from the fear of
man, imparting a new level of boldness within me.
He did this in an interesting way, through an
encounter with a homeless, demon-possessed man who approached me in a
park at the table where I was sitting for morning coffee outside the
hotel we stayed in. The man sat down and literally growled at me while
speaking. I recognized he had a demonic spirit, and I told him Jesus
loved him. I sat there as long as I could stand it trying to witness to
him and finally got up and staggered away in tears.
I was emotionally undone as this event unfolded
that early morning; he had frightened me profoundly. I was alone,
sitting by myself at that table writing in my journal, and there was no
one around to help me.
As I left the table, God sent me an angel in
disguise. Suddenly there was a precious, gentle old man who appeared
where he had not previously been. He pulled his small Bible out of his
pocket and began to speak in a calm way to me. He said he totally
depended on the Lord for all he needed, and lived by the words in his
Bible.
When I made my way into the auditorium and found
the area our group was sitting in, I shared with friends there what had
happened. They prayed with me. In the praise and worship service, the
presence of the Lord was so heavy on me I could hardly stand. Two people
were holding me up.
It was during this worship service that the Lord
made me aware that he was giving me a spirit of boldness and that I had
a hidden fear of man-- what they thought and how they had treated me in
the past. He was setting me free.
Alan Vincent visited
Calvary
in 1992. I had never met him, nor heard him speak. As he was giving his
message, he stopped about 5 minutes into it and stated, “There is a
lady here that has a back problem and God wants to heal you.”
For several months I had been dealing with one of
those “bend over and tie your shoe back slip outs.” I had been to a
chiropractor, had treatments, and had some relief. However, I was far
from being well.
God had impressed in me that I still harbored
unforgiveness toward my former husband. I had to learn what
unconditional forgiveness really meant. Although I had dealt with some
parts of that, and was still working on it as God revealed things to me,
I came to realize that my physical back problem was connected to this
issue of unforgiveness.
This seemed to be the time and place that God chose
to deal with it. As I went to the front of the church for Alan to pray
for me, the power of the God was so intense that I “rested in the
Spirit” for the remainder of that service.
It was an hour and a half before I could manage to
sit up, I was so drunk in the Spirit. I had to be driven home, missed
the next day of work, and I was still drunk. When my head cleared, my
back was entirely healed.
God impressed on me to read
Daniel 8:27
“As he was exhausted and lay ill for several days.” My healing was
so complete that months later I went to
Latvia
with our first mission team and shuffled two seventy pound pieces of
luggage-- one for me, and one for Tammy Ross who lived in
Latvia
.
Jack Deere spoke over me by name at a conference
from a crowded room of hundreds in March of 1993.
His word was “There is a woman named Lynda here.
You feel defeated in your prayer life, feel condemnation, and feel
worthless. You think you cannot change, you don’t like yourself, and
you think God doesn’t even like you. You’re more in touch with
failure than truth. These are lies of the enemy. God can change all
that; you are powerless to change this. God loves you. He has planted a
seed already in your heart. It will grow into a beautiful plant. There
will be a stability in your emotions which you have never experienced
before. Take one step to Him; He will run to you. You will feel in your
heart the affection the Lord has for you. You will have a hunger to
pray. It will be a sovereign work the Lord is going to do.”
A few months later, I was on my way to
Moscow
,
Russia
, with The Commission Program, teaching Christian Morals and Ethics in
Russian schools to Russian teachers. That in itself is a miracle story
of God’s provision for me to go.
I was living out the words that Jack Deere had
spoken over me, and when I returned in 1994 to
Calvary
, again God touched me with healing from a spirit of rejection. I was
scheduled to make the second trip into
Latvia
with a mission team.
As they prayed for our team, God profoundly touched
me as I rested once again in his Spirit. Robert Smith told me the Lord
was healing me of this rejection. Later when I tried again to get up, I
fell again. This time pastors Jeff McGee and John Foster came to pray
for me. Jeff McGee spoke that the Lord had healed me of a spirit of
rejection, that he was giving me authority to pray for those who also
suffered from rejection.
The most recent physical healing I have experienced
is for my right arm. I injured it late in 2006, lifting heavy objects,
then overworking it at the shoulder joint. I had asked for prayer
several times at LIFT group and at the end of Sunday service.
A word was spoken to me that the healing would not
be complete until after I returned from the Nigerian Mission Trip (in
January, 2007), and that I would never be the same after this trip.
While there, a pastor prayed for the congregation
for healing. There was grace to ask the Lord at that time for the
healing we needed. Debbie Buckles was praying for me. For the first time
in months I was able to raise my arm above my head and rotate it some.
This has been so awesome for me.
Celebrating the goodness of the Lord,
Lynda Gilpin
