Samuel was one of the most remarkable people I have ever met. Once he fully surrendered his heart to the Lord, there was no turning back. And my life as his pastor took on more adventure than I could have ever dreamed.
It wasn’t long after Samuel’s surrender to Christ that his wife Laurie followed suit. They had a little girl Suzie and soon Michael was born.
However, in his first few years of life Michael had a condition common with many infants where he would develop infections in his ears. We had the same problem with our second son, who was around the same age as Michael, but our son’s problem wasn’t as severe.
The typical routine was that the condition would create an infection in his ear which would turn into an earache and a high temperature. For Samuel and Laurie this resulted in Michael waking up in the middle of the night screaming in pain and with a fever time after time. When the medicine wouldn’t cause the pain and temperature to subside they would have no recourse but to bring Michael to the emergency room to allow the professionals to remedy the situation.
This was getting extremely wearisome to Samuel and Laurie and finally their doctor told them if the condition persisted they would have to operate on Michael to install a tube in his ear to allow the fluid to drain so that the infection wouldn’t build up.
Finally, one night, when Michael’s fever was extremely high and he was screaming in pain, Samuel had had enough. He had heard the teaching in church from James 5:14, “Is any among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up.”
In frustration Samuel called me. He said, “Pastor, will you come over to my house with a few elders of the church, lay hands on my son and anoint him with oil and pray for him. I don’t know what else to do.”
So I rounded up a few of our church leaders and met them over at Samuel’s house and we proceeded to do what the Scripture says.
Michael was dressed only in a diaper because his body was in the throes of a very high fever. All of us gathered around Laurie, who was holding Michael and each of us placed our hands on his bare skin. I remember distinctly that his body was hot to the touch. And if I recall correctly, that night his temperature was around 103 degrees.
I had one of the men who were with me that night, offer the prayer—and we prayed.
At a certain moment while we were praying, I felt the temperature on Michael’s skin go from very hot to normal. I almost lost concentration because I knew God had intervened even as we prayed. The person praying also experienced the same sensation, because he quickly ended the prayer. And we all rejoiced because we all had experienced a miracle of healing before our eyes…and we felt it in our fingertips.
Michael never experienced another bout with ear infections and a few weeks later their doctor confirmed that he found no trace of infection in his body.
God still performs miracles today.
I would love to hear from you! Email me: chris@chrisschimel.com or Facebook.