Homeless Boston woman healed
This is the story of the homeless Boston lady by the name of Jewel who encountered the Love of Jesus. it’s a bit long, but worth the read I think. Sometimes ministering on the streets can get a bit messy but God is good all the time and love never fails 🙂
A few of us who gather together each weekend, had come up out of the Boston MBTA subway at the Boston Common specifically to lay hands on the sick. When we first arrived, 11 year-old Jacob who has been hungry to see his faith grow, had healed a guy on the sidewalk with an infection and pain in his ankle, then we crossed the street over to the Boston Common. Laury (my awesome wife) had just given a sleeping alcoholic her shirt to lay his head on, then she and my friend Garth prayed over him to be delivered from alcohol addiction, for he had said that he wanted/needed a drink. Afterward, he said he did not need a drink anymore.
Meanwhile, 11 year-old Jacob had pointed out to me a woman asleep on the grass a little distance away, saying she needed prayer. If I’m honest, my “flesh” thought this might get messy and hesitated for a second, but how could I refuse at the prompting of an 11 year-old boy? So I went over to the woman, and Garth followed a minute or so later and joined me. As it turned out, the woman was contemplating suicide (she had attempted suicide twice before), and was very thankful that we woke her up, because she had concluded that nobody cared about her anymore. In fact, before she went to sleep, she had prayed earnestly that God would send someone to her. She said that earlier in the day a man approached her and said that he would give her something to eat if she performed a certain act, but of course she refused.
Seeing that we were Christians, she pulled out a ragged paperback Bible to show us that she believed in God, and thanked God that we had come to encourage her. At this point, we had made her day just by showing her that someone cared about her. She was not expecting all that God was going to do for her through us, however God had another plan!
Initially, she began pouring out her story of difficulty as a young girl abused, repeatedly insisting that we not interrupt her, and to let her finish, because she “had to get it out.” When she was a child, she was placed in unspeakable situations to support someone’s drug addiction. She explained that her desire was to honor her mother, but she had to get away from that home to avoid the circumstances and stay safe, but felt she had dishonored her mom in a way. So she moved away and this had tormented her for years. Recently she came to Boston to bury her mother, for her mother had died and she sincerely wanted to honor her mother. Now she was homeless.
Worse than that, she said that two days before she had been in a wheelchair, and could still hardly walk. She had had seizures, but could not afford the anti-seizure medicine, so the homeless shelters had refused her, not being willing to deal with such a situation. She was oppressed to the point of bondage and mental anguish to all this, and still was not even of sound mind at this point. She would have ranted on and probably ask us for money to pay for those medications.
After she had vented a bit after maybe 20 minutes, we got control of the conversation, and when I asked her what her pain level was, on a scale of 0 – 10, she said “100.” Garth and I both began speaking life over her, and as the pain went down, she began to calm down. We continued to the point that she said that it was “much better,” and told her to stand up, which she did not think she could do. But she did (on her own), and we prayed over her some more as she became more and more coherent. She became so grateful for this progress that she said that this was enough, and began thanking God, but we insisted that all the pain had to go.
At this point after a few minutes, she was communicating perfectly normally and of sound mind.
She said that she was hungry, that she had not eaten all day long, so we asked her what she wanted, and she gave us an order for a double cheeseburger, onion rings, and soda. But at this point she could walk well enough that she said she would come with us, and began to pack her bag with her belongings.
But first, she wanted to know why we had come to her like this in her time of need. What prompted us? I said it was 11 year-old Jacob. She was surprised that it was a boy, and praised God for him, wanting to meet him. Garth pointed him out to her and beckoned him to come. He was lying on the ground with my two boys over him, and did not come. We found out that he had just fell and badly hurt his knee. He could not get up.
At this point we told her that he had just been injured, but that she should come lay her hand on him and it would be healed, just like what had just been done to her. We all walked over to him and and Garth told her to command that his knee be healed, in Jesus’ name. That is just what she did. She put her hand on his knee, spoke healing to him, the pain instantly left his knee, and he got up.
We all proceeded to the nearby Burger King, got the food for her, and some for the three boys (Garth’s two and Jacob). The four of them sat at a small table and ate and talked, while the rest of us encountered a number of other people at the fairly crowded Burger King who needed healing, all of whom left pain-free, including one older woman with a cane who had Arthritis, fibroid-myalagia, and four young ladies in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZQwkB5HNP8
At one point we looked and saw Jacob hand her one, two, three five dollar bills out of his pocket – that was his entire spending allowance for the day and he gave it all to Jewel!
We asked Jewell about her pain level one more time while she was at Burger King and she said she had a pain level of 2/10. It immediately went to zero and she was completely pain free. Her face was almost shining, so full of joy and peace by the time we left, you would not know she was the same woman who, one hour earlier, had a face that was twisted by thoughts of suicide, tormented by pain, and darkened by despair.
It is at that point that we got some video footage of her in the Burger King. The video ends with her breaking out in a song of praise for Jesus, walking through the crowded Burger King singing a beautiful melody, and when finished almost everyone in the place was clapping for her!
It was a really good day watching lives transformed in the name of Jesus! Yay God- thank you Jesus!
By
Scott L and Garth W