I don't know how much of my testimony you have heard, but just in case you don't know … When I was just five years old I was hit with polio and was paralyzed on my right side for six months. That was in 1952. The Salk vaccine was not available to the public until 1955. Most often, youngsters who developed polio before that time were doomed to a lifetime of being at least partially crippled. But what the enemy did not consider was that I had two "praying" grandmothers. I have no doubt at all that it was their intercession that brought me through the ordeal with absolutely no permanent ill effects. If you saw me today you would not believe I ever had polio.

Then came the asthma that lasted from my early teen years through my early twenties. I had it so bad that I was designated 4-F by the military. That was when the Vietnam War was raging, so you know it had to be pretty bad to keep them from drafting me. During that time period I was hospitalized with it twice because my windpipe had closed to the size of a pinhole. But what the enemy did not consider was that, at that time, I had a praying mother (my grandmothers had gone on to be with the Lord). Once more the Lord healed me (after the Vietnam War was over, by the way) and if you saw me in person today, you would not believe I ever had asthma.

In 1990 I was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The doctors told me it was Melanoma, the most deadly and fastest spreading kind. To quote the doctor, he said, "Son, we are going to do our best for you. We're going to send you to M. D. Anderson Hospital in Houston. But I have to be honest … we doubt you have more than six months to live. Our advice is for you to get your house in order." My wife Sue was with me in his office and heard the same words. We were so stunned that on the drive home neither of us could even talk. Surely we had been defeated this time. But what the enemy did not consider was that I now had a godly, praying wife … and I too was born again and Spirit filled. Making a long story very short, through prayer and the skill of the surgeons, every trace of the cancer was removed from my body. I have never had a single trace of it reoccur in all these years. (That's been a really long six months.) The only bodily evidence I have is the scar from the surgery that extends from the center of my breastplate to just near my left armpit. If you saw me in person today, you would not believe I ever had terminal cancer.

The most recent attack was in 1994 when I "suddenly" developed a heart condition called Supraventricular Dichartia. I was driving trucks at the time. The doctors told me that this was very serious, and potentially life threatening. They put me on very strong medication and told me that I would have to take it for the rest of my life … even though the side effects of the medicine accelerated the development of arthritis and bone loss via decalcification. What the enemy did not consider was that I had now been praying in the Spirit for two years an average of 60 to 70 hours a week in the cab of my truck. I thank God for those thousands of hours spent praying in other tongues. The Holy Spirit taught me that Jesus is my Savior, that Jesus is the one who Baptizes in the Holy Ghost, and that Jesus is my Healer! Briefly stated, the Lord healed me over a two-year period. I took my last dose of that medicine in May of 1998 … and I have never had another episode of the heart condition. I am healed. If you saw me in person today, you would not believe that I ever had a heart condition.

The reason I wanted to share these experiences with you is because THE LORD IS NOT A RESPECTER OF PERSONS. WHAT HE DOES FOR ONE … HE WILL DO FOR ALL. I am, of all people, most ordinary. I fall way short of "perfection." If the Lord has been so gracious to me, just a normal "blood washed" child, then certainly He will do the same for you. It is time to exercise faith in these three verses:

1 John 1:9   If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Heb 4:16   Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

Ex 15:26b   I Am the LORD that healeth thee.

Mat 8:17   That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.

Your fellow servant for Christ,

Gary Carpenter