Muizenberg Mtn here I come!

Miracle on 18th Hanson Street

Second hand set of lungs anyone? Now I’ve got a story I never thought I’d be the one to tell, but here goes…

Going back to the days of playing Pee Wee softball with Bryanne, I had to always keep two things in mind, firstly to keep my poney tail cute and flippy, but not too ‘like I tried’  flippy,  and second to keep near a trusty paper bag incase of an impending asthma attack. Though this childhood sickness has not immobilized me from continuing to play all sorts of sport from that time, it has continued to restrict my capability to breath unreservedly. Even just the smallest of colds over the years instantly penetrate my lungs, with desperate wheezing and shallow breathes to follow.

Until just another ordinary day bumping into an extraordinary God in Muizenberg Village…

Ok so the usual, Charlene gets a cold Tuesday, down for the count Wednesday, off to the hospital Thursday as her lungs are officially closing for business, refusing to welcome any depth of air whatsoever. Expectedly the Doc reports a healthy dose of Asthma with a big ol’helping of Bronchitis on the side, and I was whisked off to the green breathing machine for temporary relief. Stabilized and stocked with the familiar steroids and inhalers I’m sent home, exhausted. It’s only a matter of hours when my breath becomes even shallower then before and I’m having attack after attack at the slightest move of my body. The inhaler, taken up to ten times now, powerless.  Claudia, my dear friend by my side in the dark, praying, singing, telling me stories from Malawi, trying not to let on how helplessly scared she was becoming as she was debating on whom to call for emergency help.

She sent out messages for friends to pray, one of which was a another good friend of mine, Mawande, whom then also came by. He shared a picture God had given him before coming, that as he prayed for me, fire was shooting through his hand into my lungs and began then to declare healing from asthma on my behalf and encouraged me, as I was able, to declare the same. I prayed that only praise for my Lord would be left in place of the suffocating fluid, that my lungs would be expanded wider than ever before.  Slowly my breath started to catch, and by the time we finished and I stood up, when I would have been sent into another exhausting bout of desperate heaving previously, no sign of attack was present! As Mawande was leaving he grinned and said “enjoy your new pair of lungs,” and off to bed I went.  Even just moving around in bed for the next while, I couldn’t supress this sneaky suspicion that something amazing was at work in my body as I didn’t even think of using my inhaler once.

 I awoke at one stage, chest, arms and legs running with sweat like I’ve never experienced, and my first thought was, “this must be the after effects of lung transplant surgery complete!” There I was in my bed, eyes and soul wide open with an inexpressible joy as I was exhaling and inhaling deeper, wider, fuller and longer than I ever knew possible! Oh Asthma where is your sting?! Literally every breath, day and night since, is a living miracle of Jesus Christ in me!

Back to my Doc I went a few days after, blasting through with a one hundred percent score on the breathing tests which I had previously scored a lung capacity of less then twenty-five percent a few days before!  ONE HUNDRED PERCENT! Excitedly I told the Doc what miracle had happened on my couch that long dark night, and when normally he said he would’ve put me on a daily preventative inhaler for the rest of my life, he saw no need at this point as he could not discount the obvious work of God he was seeing with his very eyes!

This asthma that was being used to steal, kill and destroy has now been flipped upside down, transformed into a story of life, oh abundant life! Our Jesus is creative like that!

Now a few days of resting and I can hardly wait to put this new pair of lungs to the test and take down Muizenberg Mountain, breath by breath! Hallelujah! Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!

A few other fun thoughts to finish things off are, I’m coming HOME! for a month in mid July, my new roomie Felicity plays the banjo which makes us feel like we should be chewing on some alfalfa when she practices, I officially became a member of a beautiful church called Joshua Generation for the duration of my time here, my brother Mike’s family is moving down the road from me in a few weeks (I GET TO PINCH MY NEPHEWS!!!) our team is becoming united in spirit and purpose like never before  as we are working towards loving one another before we try to love any one else with integrity (usually the hardest thing to do), I chomped down on a Mc’ fatty cow tongue unknowingly as a sample at our local grocery store last week, and I love you mom, Happy Mothers Day!