Chuck, a Healing Room Graduate, had a Miraculous Healing:
It began when my wife and I took our youngest daughter to the doctor for school-required vaccinations. We had made an appointment for a Monday morning with the doctor, who after examining my daughter and giving her shots including one for tuberculosis, suggested we should also be tested for Tuberculosis. I had not been tested since I entered the military, some fourteen years before. No big deal, right?
The only problem I had was within just a few hours I was beginning to show a reaction to the TB shot. By the time we returned to the doctor’s office on Tuesday there was a huge goose egg on my inner left forearm, but my wife and daughters arms didn’t show anything. Theirs were negative. In fact when the doctor saw my physical reaction to the test, he committed, “that is the worse positive reaction to the TB test I have ever seen.” And he told me that I needed to go to a hospital that treated TB patients and begin treatment.
Now it was a big deal! Because I have always had a great fear of dying from Tuberculosis.
I remember “That Night” as if it were yesterday. My mother put me to bed, and telling me she was going to run across the sidewalk to a friend’s house, and wouldn’t be gone long. Sometime later, I was awakened by the neighbor’s daughter who told me I needed to come to her house because my mother was sick. When I walked into that house I saw my mother setting in a chair in the kitchen with blood spewing out of her mouth, my mother’s dress was soaked in her blood, and it was pooling on the floor around her. The lady of the house yelled at her daughter, to take me into another room, but before she did, I saw the white towels soaked in blood, my mother’s blood, as our neighbors tried to catch the blood from my mother’s mouth, and mop her blood from the floor.
At four-years-old I watched my mother hemorrhaging from Tuberculosis of the lungs and I watched my mother dieing before my eyes from that horrible disease.
Now I had it! And I knew I was a dead man walking.
As I got older, the memory of that night was the remembrance of a four-year-old child, and I tried to make it stay locked away, but inside I had a great fear. A fear I tried to keep hidden so I would not have to see the mental pictures of my mother dying over and over. When I was told I had Tuberculosis, that locked door was suddenly and forcibly kicked open by that fear. The doctor told me that it was the “worse positive reaction” to the Tuberculosis test he had ever seen. I knew in my heart I was a dead man. I would never see my daughters grow up; and I would never spend my life with my wife. The doctor told Jo & I, we needed to get me treatment as soon as possible.
Since I had been in the military we went the next day, which was a Wednesday to the Houston Veterans Hospital (back then you could see a doctor the same day you went in) where they took blood tests, and X-rays of my lungs. After waiting for the results, we went in to see one of the staff doctors. He looked at my arm where the spot of the injection was still as ‘large as an egg’ and explained all the tests showed results that Tuberculosis was present. He showed Jo & me on the X-rays where my lungs were covered with Tuberculosis cells. I became so scared my whole body began to shake so hard that Jo grabbed a hold of me, because I was about to fall out of my chair. The doctor told us to come back on Thursday for more tests so they could determine treatment. But to me, he did not seem optimistic. Of course, for me, I had no hope; I was going to die like my mother. We went home and told the girls I was sick but did not tell them I was going to die because Jo & I were still trying to deal with the news ourselves and did not feel at that time the girls should be told their dad was dying. I called my dad to tell him hoping for encouragement, after all he was a minister, and that’s what ministers are suppose to do, right? But all he said was, “I have often wondered if you would get it too”. At that time it was hard for me to handle his reaction. He didn’t even offer to pray for me but later I realized, I may have lost a mother but he had lost a wife, and now he would probably lose a son and did not have the faith to hope for the healing of a son, when his hope and prayers for his wife had not saved her from the disease.
Since it was Wednesday we went to midweek service at church. Sometime during the service, before the pastor preached, I stood up and asked the pastor if I could address the congregation. He said, “Yes”. I had not told him about the test. I went to the front turned and while looking at the people began to tell them about my mother dying of Tuberculosis, and my fear of catching it too. Then I told them that today I had been diagnosed with active Tuberculosis. I told them that in my mind and heart I had no chance and that I was going to die like my mother. The only hope I had was that the Bible states in James 5:14, 15 (NIV), “Is anyone of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.”
I want you to understand, I had no faith and was running on fear. Like I said before, as far as I was concerned, I was going to die soon. The elders and the pastor came and surrounded me. The pastor and the elders put oil on their fingers and anointed my head, then laid hands on me. I know for a fact that those men were not any holier than anyone else in the church. In fact, other than their elder responsibilities they did not have any other duties in the church, but they did have faith. The pastor was a good minister and I consider him a fine man, but he was not known for the ‘laying on of hands’. When they finished, I went back and sat down not feeling any different. The shaking from fear if anything had gotten worse. I had heard no choir of angles, seen no bolts of lighting, nor felt any electrical or other surges through my body. I just felt plain scared. The only thing I knew for certain I had done what the Bible stated I should do. If it did not work I would die.
The next day Jo and I went back to the VA hospital for me to take more tests and X-rays. We went in to see the doctor again. Only this time we had a different doctor. Had it been the same doctor we could have said he just made a mistake yesterday, but this new doctor had Wednesday’s set of X-rays and the ones that were just taken that morning on the light board. “Mr. Benson” the doctor said, “I do not know what is going on here. In fact, I double-checked with radiology to make sure I had the correct X-rays. The ones that they took of your lungs today are different from those of yesterday. But I cannot explain to you what has happened.” My wife sensing something asked impatiently, “What are you talking about?” Suddenly in my heart I knew. The doctor said “these X-rays, pointing to yesterdays, are the ones they took of your lungs on Wednesday. These, ‘pointing to the other set’, are the ones they took today. What I do not understand” he said, looking puzzled, “Is the first set show active Tuberculosis and the second set show just scar tissue where you use to have Tuberculosis”. You talk about relief, joy, a sudden halting of that over powering fear; Jo & I hugged each other. The doctor went on, “the reason we know we have the correct X-rays is on this first set you can see scare tissue among the Tuberculosis from a childhood disease. I would guess scarlet fever”. I told him he was correct. I had had Scarlet and Rheumatic fever together when I was a child. He then showed us on the second set the same scares in the same places. Only this time among Tuberculosis scares. He said, “Mr. Benson I do not know what to tell you, but we cannot start treatment for Tuberculosis until we are sure you have it. You are going to have to come back tomorrow and let us run more tests and X-rays on you”. We said okay and left feeling like we were floating 3 feet off the ground. As soon as we got home we called the pastor and a few friends and the rest of the evening we spent rejoicing.
On Friday we went back to the hospital for more tests and X-rays. This time we got a third doctor. He scratched his head, looked at me and like the second doctor said, “Mr. Benson I don’t understand what is going on here. I had to make sure I had your test results and your X-rays and not someone else’s. There is something very unusual happening here”. He continued, “the X-rays they took of your lungs on Wednesday showed an advanced stage of Tuberculosis, the blood work and other tests backed that diagnosis up. Yet the X-rays from Thursday show scare tissue from where you use to have Tuberculosis and the blood work showed no Tuberculosis present. But today’s X-rays don’t even show the scare tissue. Then looking down at my file, then looking back at the X-rays taken today, he said, even the scare tissue from when you had Scarlet and Rheumatic fever are gone”. “In fact Mr. Benson”, he went on; “if I didn’t know any better I would say I was looking at a new born baby’s lungs”. We told the doctor about the prayer and he seemed to accept that as the answer. He did tell me though, that there was no need for me to come backbecause I did not have Tuberculosis.
Normally, that would be the end of the story but God was not through yet. We rejoiced and every chance I got I would tell my story about how God healed me of Tuberculosis. One day I realized I was telling people because I was afraid if I didn’t I would not stay healed and the Tuberculosis would come back and I really would die. I may have been healed of Tuberculosis, but the fear that I had lived with for so long was still there. And it kept telling me I wasn’t really healed.
A number of years later, in 1984 we moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma so I could attend Oral Roberts University. Part of the enrolling process was getting a physical and taking a Tuberculosis test. I had not had one since that experience I just related, I was really upset about taking the test. I was afraid that the Tuberculosis might have come back. Now I believed God had healed me, yet, could I be positive it would last? Because I had this nagging little voice following me around telling me I wasn’t’ really healed. Then there was that sudden rush of fear that made me think my healing wasn’t forever. Anyway, I took the test and like before, the injection caused a large bump on my arm. Not quite as big as before, but big enough that the fear came “slamming” back. Jo became upset and began to cry, but kept saying, “Honey you are healed, God healed you.” I began to shake again with fear. We called some friends we had just made who we knew would come and pray with us. We all prayed and we cried as I told my story to them. We were hoping it was just a mistake but I knew looking at my arm it was not a mistake. Wasn’t that what that little voice kept saying? When it came time to go to the City of Faith Hospital and have my arm looked at with all the other new students, I went with misgivings. As I stood in line all kinds of thoughts went through my mind. When it was finally my turn I held my arm out with that big bump on it. The nurse looked at it, looked up at me, she then took my arm in her hand, touched the bump with her finger, looked back up at me and smiling said, “God has healed you of Tuberculosis hasn’t he?” How she knew was beyond imagining. I just know when she said that; it shattered that fear that had griped my heart for so long into a million pieces. What I had was an ‘allergic reaction’ to the Tuberculin solution. I could no longer take a Tuberculosis test. What that experience did, was destroy that childhood fear once and for all and let me know that when God heals, he heals for real and forever, with no catches.
A brief note concerning the wonderful nurse that recognized I was healed of Tuberculosis. Jo later found out she had worked in Africa with TB patients, and because she believed in the power of prayer, she had seen many men and women healed of Tuberculosis. She had come to recognize the various allergic reactions to TB of the different tests on an individual who was truly healed of that terrible disease. I believe God placed that particular nurse, that day, to cross my path to deliver the truth to me in no uncertain terms.
All I can say is thank God for His ‘Living Word’ because without it I would have never lived to see my girls grow up to be beautiful women, or my grandson and my goddaughter grow into wonderful young adults, and incidentally my wonderful wife and I celebrated our 50th Wedding Anniversary in August of 2016.
Chuck – Humble, Texas
“And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God,” Luke 17:15
