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HEALING TESTIMONY-
By: Cathy Tubbs-Rochester, MI
In June of 2004 I heard the diagnosis from my doctor that no one ever wants to hear. “Your biopsy came back positive. It’s malignant and I will have to refer you to a special surgeon.”
As my dermatologist gave me the news that a mole, high on my cheekbone, underneath my eye, was cancerous, my mind raced. While I was grateful that my doctor was able to assure me that the cancer was the type that would not spread to other areas of my body and therefore presented no risk to my overall health, I must admit that even though I fully believe in Divine Healing, I was frightened.
First, the psychological impact of that word: “cancer”.
Second was the emotional side of me, I think particularly as a woman, being attacked by the enemy with fears as to what I would look like after the surgery. They had already planned for an excellent plastic surgeon to perform my surgery, but I was warned to plan for an all day surgery and to have someone else accompany me to drive me home.
The surgical procedure called for the surgeon to remove an initial section of skin and then send it immediately to an on-site pathology lab. Utilizing special dyes and markers, they could determine the direction in which the cancer spread. This way the doctor would only cut in the direction of the spread instead of simply cutting out a wide section of skin around the lesion as they used to do. The surgeon would continue to take sections of tissue until he finally received one that came back showing no cancer cells. It was time consuming, but allowed for less scarring than the older method.
While waiting for my surgical date, I was at war with the negative whisperings of the enemy in the battlefield of my mind. Then one night I was suddenly awakened in middle of the night with what I believe was a Word directly for me from the Lord. “Whose report are you going to believe?” It affected me so profoundly that I wrote down the words on a piece of paper and attached it to a knickknack on my nightstand (where it remains to this day). I also felt a very strong prodding, which I definitely believe was the Holy Spirit, telling me to read about Joshua and Caleb.
In the book of Numbers, Chapters 13 and 14, Moses led the Israelites to the land of Canan and sent a group to spy out the land. They returned with an evil report full of fear. The people of the land were very large and the scouts were so frightened that they got almost the entire congregation worked up so that the people lifted their voices and cried and wept. They complained against Moses and Aaron and began to lament and cry that they wished they had perished in the land of Egypt or in the wilderness. They falsely accused the Lord of bringing them to Canan just to be killed there by the sword. But Joshua and Caleb, who were among those who initially spied out the land, tore there clothes and spoke out to the congregation that the land was a good land. They encouraged the people that if they would keep faithful and not rebel against the Lord and not fear the people of the land, surely the Lord would deliver it into their hands. The verse that spoke to me the most is Numbers 4:11, “Then the LORD said to Moses, “How long will these people reject Me? And how long with they not believe Me, with all the signs which I have performed among them?”
I was determined not to be like the Israelites but to rather be like Joshua and Caleb. I would not reject (question or doubt) the Lord, His goodness, or the FACT that by Jesus’ stripes I HAVE BEEN healed. I determined not to allow the enemy to use fear of the unknown to draw me into doubt and disbelief and to instead remember the words of the LORD and BELIEVE Him and remember all the signs I have seen Him perform in my life and in those of others.
After this events moved rapidly. The Lord gave me great favor with my dermatologist. He initially told me that it would be a wait of several weeks before I could have my surgery, but I just wanted to get it over with. I mentioned this, and he said he would call the surgeon personally and pull strings. I had my surgery in less than one week!
Two nights before my surgery at our Wednesday night church service, I asked the group to pray for me. My specific prayer request was that when the surgeon took the initial first excision from my face that the results would come back immediately “no cancer”. I also called our friend Kate McVeigh and she and her prayer group gathered the next evening and agreed with us in prayer.
On Friday morning I went to the surgeon’s office with my mother. As I went in to the operating area for my first excision, the surgeon examined the area with great care. He then informed me that the lesion was so close to my eye that he believed that he would likely have to call in an ophthalmic surgeon to assist him later in the day (or extend the surgery and do more work the next day) because he was of the impression that the cancer extended to my lower eyelid and he was concerned about the possibility of removing the special glands that lubricate our eyelids and enable them to blink and move over our eyes without scratching. He felt that he needed the specialist to help him as he removed sections of my lower eyelid. Immediately my spirit reared up. I looked right at that doctor and actually laughed a little laugh and said “No. That’s not going to happen so don’t even worry about it. That’s not for me!”. As Kate McVeigh would say, “I’m not signing for that package. Mark it “Return to Sender” and ship it back to the devil where it came from!” The words of the doctor were a notion I refused to even entertain.
I was then prepped for surgery and the doctor removed the first section of skin from my cheekbone. The tissue was sent to pathology and I was sent into the recovery room where my mother and the 3 other patients having skin cancer surgery were already waiting. After approximately 45 minutes one of the nurses appeared at the door and called me. I walked up to her and she said, “Okay, Mrs. Tubbs. You’re all done now. I’ll take you into plastic surgery now and then you can be on your way”. Still standing at the open door of the recovery room, I began asking her questions.
“What do you mean I’m all done?”
“We found no cancer Mrs. Tubbs, so you can go to plastic surgery now.”
I made sure I got details from her, especially making sure I clearly understood her that they found NO CANCER at all in the tissue, not only that they had gotten it all with the first cut. I couldn’t and didn’t want to hold it in. I immediately began telling the nurse about how this was exactly what we had prayed the result would be with the very first tissue removal. As I was speaking, another nurse walked by. She looked at me with a strange look on her face as she shifted several patient charts in her arms and asked me to please repeat what I had just said. I repeated my praise report.
“Well, you and your husband and friends must have been praying awfully hard” she replied with wide eyes.
I asked her what she meant.
The nurse then nodded her head toward the other patients in the waiting room as she responded, “You must have been praying awfully hard because NOBODY has cancer this morning. We had the whole day scheduled with surgeries and now we have no idea what we’re going to do this afternoon!”
Praise the Lord for His mercy toward men!
I was quickly finished and out the door. By 10 am I called my husband, Pastor Jack, from the parking lot of the surgical center and informed him of the news. He was happy, but not surprised. He had fully expected God to do something wonderful for me that day.
I was perfectly fine to drive, and as I drove my mother to her house she quietly informed me that she hoped it was okay, but when I went into surgery she prayed for some of the other patients in the waiting room. She said she knew that I had received lots of prayer and she felt so sorry for the other patients that she couldn’t help but pray for them. Thank the Lord for praying mothers!
Later, in January of 2005 at Kate McVeigh’s Winter Word Luncheon in a time of highly anointed prayer, she was led of the Lord to ask everyone to stand up and ask the Lord for what they wanted in accordance with His Word. I stood up and asked the Lord to restore the feeling in my cheek and lower eyelid, which still had not been fully restored since the surgery when they were forced to sever some of my facial nerves. I immediately received feeling back in my face and eyelid. I was so overjoyed I kept running my fingers across my lower eyelashes, reveling in the fact that I could actually FEEL again!
As I prepared to write this testimony I became under attack by the enemy. He tried to lay the temptation before me not to write my testimony for various reasons. But I reminded myself of what the Word says in Revelation 12:11, “And they overcame him (the devil) by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death.” The devil is a defeated foe, our God is a healing God, a merciful God and a God of Love, of which I will gratefully testify all my life.
When I look at my nightstand each night I still see the words “Whose report are you going to believe”. I will believe the report of the Lord that states clearly in 1 Peter 2:24 “Who Himself (Jesus) bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness – by whose stripes you WERE healed.”
I praise the Lord and maintain an attitude of thankfulness for the personal healing touch of His hand upon me. I pray that I will always refuse to accept a negative report from man, but rather believe the Lord’s report and what the Word of God says about me. In this particular circumstance – that I am HEALED (as are all Born-Again Believers)!
