EllisonBay - Wisconsin Aglow

Testimony of Healing – Michelle Kemp

I suppose that some background is in order. I was raised in the Catholic faith and practiced this faith until 1986 when I became disillusioned and stopped going to church completely. I became a born again Christian in September of 2004. Five months later on January 23, 2005 I was exiting my daughter’s car when an oncoming car, going too fast for conditions, started sliding on the snow. The car struck me; throwing me on the hood of their car. The impact carried me down the road on the hood and then came to a sudden stop which threw me to the pavement. Needless to say, I received many injuries including a severe concussion and broken bones. Those injuries healed and I considered myself quite blessed to be alive.

Even though the majority of my injuries healed, I continued to complain that my left hip would ache after any kind of exercise. I was x-rayed several times but the doctors kept saying that the bones looked just fine. I was sent to physical therapy which did not seem to make any difference. This pain in my hip continued and I began to limp every time I got up after sitting for awhile. I could no longer sleep on my left side due to the pain it caused. In 2007, the doctor once again ordered physical therapy and it did little good. I decided that I would just have to learn to live with the pain. In 2008, I changed doctors and he conducted more tests, including new x-rays. Once again, I was told that my bones looked fine. For the third time, I was back in physical therapy which did little to help. During this time my husband and I started a small landscaping business, which required much physical exercise. I would work all day, come home, ice my hip, take over the counter pain medication and go to bed.

In the summer of 2009, my doctor became concerned about the amount of pain medication I was taking and sent me to an orthopedic surgeon. He did an MRI and discovered, after all those years, that I did indeed receive a very serious injury to my hip when I was struck by the car. The major muscle that runs up the side of leg from my thigh to my hip was severed when the car struck me. The surgeon said that he was surprised that I was able to do as much as I did but stated that after all the time that had passed that there was not much of a chance of being able to pull the severed ends of the muscle together again and have it work like it should. He said that the best he could do was try to give me cortisone shot in the hip to relieve the pain. The shot gave me some relief for a couple of weeks but the pain was soon back. In October of last year, I attended an Aglow meeting at the house of Faith Murray along with Julie House and Mona Christianson. I happened to mention how much pain my hip was giving me and that was concerned about how I could continue working next summer. The ladies said that they would pray for healing. They laid their hands on my hip and proceed to pray for my hip to be healed. I was very skeptical about this and have to admit that I had very little faith that this would work. I had seen healings on television and basically thought that it was contrived. I believed that the people who claimed healings were planted in the audience. When I went home that day, my hip still hurt and I promptly forgot all about it.

As Christmas neared, my husband, Gary, asked me about my hip. He said that he had not heard me complain about the pain in a while. It was then that I noticed that I had been taking a lot less pain medication and that my hip was not hurting nearly as much. I told him that it was probably not bothering me because I was not exercising as much. I told him about the ladies praying on me for healing in October but said I found it hard to believe that it had anything to do with how I felt now. I still was very skeptical. Three months later, I was no longer taking any pain medication, I was able to sleep on my left side for the first time in 5 years and finally started to believe that something might have happened on that day that the women prayed over me. However, I still thought the pain would come back when I started gardening again in the summer. Along with my husband, I did heavy landscaping for 14 clients throughout the next summer; pain free. It is now October of 2010, one year later, and I am completely healed of all pain and I believe! I will always be grateful to the ladies that had the faith that I did not. This experience has not only healed my hip but healed my soul of any and all doubts of power of the Holy Spirit and love of my Savior.