There were a lot of good things that happened in our world in 2018. The Good News Journal ran a number of articles in 2018 that told of God’s redeeming grace, His healing power, modern day miracles and the good deeds that people do when they listen to the prompting of God’s spirit. These types of stories seldom make it into today’s media…but they should. While they may not sell papers or get more viewers, they sure can make you feel better about life, help strengthen your faith and confirm that we are serving a most powerful and loving God.
We started 2018 with an article titled “3 Celebrities Redeemed and Restored.” It told how Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez and “Little Richard” were all touched by God and had their lives changed in a mighty way. But you didn’t need to be a celebrity to experience God’s life-changing power in 2018. Reinhard Bonnke’s ministry reported 845,875 Nigerians accepted Christ during his final farewell tour in that country. On an army base in Missouri, over 2,000 troops were saved in a 6 month period. The base chaplin believes it is the beginning of a revival there. Over 10,000 people gave their lives to Jesus in 3 days in August at Greg Laurie’s Harvest Crusade. And revivals broke out or grew stronger in Flordia, Tennessee and California with thousands reported saved. God is still moving in a powerful way in our world today!
A number of uplifting stories of miracles/ healings appeared in the Good News this past year. Following are the highlights of just a few:
A young girl named Chloe Clark was struck in the head by a piece of falling plywood at a construction site. She slipped into a coma and almost died. Thousands of people from around the world joined in prayer and Chloe make a miraculous recovery.
Gospel singer, Blair Monique, had been diagnosed with a cancerous uterine tumor and needed major surgery but her husband, Terrence, prayed that God would heal the cancer and replace it with a baby. During a pre-op visit doctors were astonished to find just that had happened.
Frank Martin, South Carolina’s head basketball coach, reveled to ESPN of a time in his life when he was dying in a Kansas hospital and a nurse came into his room, prayed for him and he was healed. The strange thing was that nobody in the hospital knew the nurse described by Martin. A stranger thing occurred when a major newspaper in Kansas ran the story of Martin’s recovery and recieved multiple responses from people in the same town that Martin almost died. They described similar encounters that matched the description of Martin’s “angle” nurse and how they were healed after falling critically ill when she prayed for them. To this day the “angel” nurse has not been identified.
Eight year old, London Kemp, was declared dead 3 different times in one day after being in a horrible automobile accident. He suffered massive head trauma and his mother was told if he lived he would be in a vegetive state for the rest of his life. He confounded the doctor’s by completely recovering and today he witnesses to others about his experience and what he saw in heaven that day. This all happened after much prayer by family and friends.
In Lodi, California, Paul Wood, was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. He asked for people to pray for him and the day before surgery a scan showed that the tumor was gone, confounding his doctors. They were so fascinated with his recovery that they asked him to participate in a research study.
All of these stories have two things in common…prayer and God’s healing power.
Other articles we ran in 2018 were not so dramatic but showed the good that people and organizations do because of the love of God that is in their hearts. These good works included a Texas church that gave away $10,551,618 to over 4,000 families last Easter which paid their past medical bills in full. A Chick-fil-A manager who called his employees in on a Sunday to cook and deliver 500 chicken sandwiches and 1200 chicken nuggets to people in shelters in North Carolina after Hurricane Florence. A woman in Maryland who donated a kidney to a complete stranger because she was lead by the spirit of God to do so. And there were many others.
Then there were just some outright mind-blowing miracles that could only be done by a powerful, loving God. On July 31st, all 103 passengers and crew aboard an Aeromexico fight survived a horrible plane crash. The plane not only crashed but exploded in a ball of fire as people were scrambling off. Even non-belivers on board became believers that day as almost to a person they stated that God was on board their plane and He had saved them. In the last issue of 2018 we ran a story titled “Amazing Miracles” that described the power and the destruction of the horrific wildfires in California and two specific instances that God surely intervened. The homes of Christian Actor Kevin Sorbo and Christian Actress Brenda Epperson both were spared from the flaming inferno. No one else’s homes in each of their entire neighborhoods remained standing. It was like God heard their prayers and placed a hedge of protection around them.
I hope that these stories made you feel a little bit better after you read them, helped strengthen your faith in our awesome God and will inspire you to have your best year ever in 2019. Remember…God is still in control and prayer still works!