CAN YOU PRAISE HIM NOW?


Dear Friends
I pulled out an old newsletter and found this testimony written by Chris Stanley. We appreciate his testimony of God’s healing power and his desire to use that testimony to encourage all of us. When the doctors had given up hope, God answered prayer and bore witness to the resurrection of Jesus Christ by working a miracle of healing. Also, it is important to know that Chris wrote this testimony in 1997, about 26 years ago. The doctors had given him up to die, but God intervened. Chris is healthy, is a worship leader in his church, and still testifies to the faithfulness and love of God. ---Billy Long

 
CAN YOU PRAISE HIM NOW?
By Chris Stanley

During the time I had cancer I experienced a period of depression. I came home from the hospital after receiving a large dose of chemotherapy called “methotrexate.” Five days of it to be exact. As a result, my hands and mouth developed blisters. I couldn’t eat for 31 days. I laid in the bed feeling sorry for myself just wanting to give up. (By the way, that’s when God will send you friends to perk you up. Thanks, Teresa!).

I remember the day so well. My wife Carla came into the room to check on me and said as she had done many times before, “What can I do for you?” Noticing that I was not in a good mood, she sat down on our hope chest and just looked at me, bald-headed, blistered, and crying like a baby. After a moment or two, she looked up at me and with a voice of faith she asked me, “Chris, can you praise Him now? Can you sing to Him now?” I can’t begin to tell you how real the presence of God was in that room at that moment! And as best as I could, blisters and all, we sang…

I AM DETERMINED
TO BE INVINCIBLE
TILL HE HAS FINISHED HIS PURPOSE IN ME
AND NOTHING SHALL SHAKE ME
FOR HE’LL NEVER FORSAKE ME
I AM DETERMINED
TO LIVE FOR THE KING.

I recently shared that story at a church here in Brunswick County, and we could feel the power of God as real as Carla and I did when we experienced it at home. I believe it was a turning point for me. I pray God used it as a turning point for them. also.

So I say to you as you read this: It is a great privilege to praise Him! Whether on the mountain tops of life or in the lowest of the lows. God is worthy to be praised! HE wants us to praise Him regardless of our circumstances. So let us as God's people continue to come together with excitement. God is doing a new thing among us; and I, for one, am so glad to experience it.          ---Chris Stanley.

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