Overcoming Afflictions
Dr. Jerlette Mickie
Psalms 34:19 Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all.
David states clearly in Psalms 34:19 that no matter what may be your condition, one must have the faith to believe that God will deliver them out from under it. God delights in making a way of escape for those that love him. He will point you to the place of safety. He will direct you to the place where there will be joy unspeakable, and filled with God’s glory, where your misery moments will be canceled and your worship to him will never again be interrupted.
In 1981 while serving in the Military, I was diagnose with Polio like symptoms and release from drill instructor training, In 1987, I was diagnose with Neuron-muscular disease resulting later with symptoms of early stages of Lou- Gehrig disease. For the next two years of my life there would be frequent periods of physical chaotic exhaustion. I was told I would more likely in 30 months experience lost of bones and nerve disorder in my muscles, resulting in bone collapse, and I would be a vegetable in a wheel chair being care for all the time until my demise.
David helps us to understand that there are all kinds of afflictions that come to plague our divine purpose and progress. With God’s help we will experience victory in everyone affliction great or small. I learned that during those seasons I would often go into a panic mode, as a desperate attack would invade my thoughts about life. I had to speak to myself about what God declared already mines. Jeremiah. 29:11 was one of my everyday scriptures. What God had stored up for me was good, well thought out; deliberate, with a destiny ending promise.
God’s healing promises will always supersede our seasons of affliction every time. While experience some hard moments, I never stop believing God, I would often cry myself to sleep, and my last words would often be Jesus I love you in spite of. The pain medicine regiment consist of; Naprosyn, Vicodin, Oxycodone, Morphine, Ibuprofen, Percocet, and Valium, in which had no effect on my condition, providing little to no relief. The Word of God was my final resource to being totally healed. I had to believe that until I witness total healing I had to accept God making me fruitful with the affliction.
In all of 1987 and 1988, I begin to see my hand flip up, stay hard, leg pain, back pain, practically unbearable, I kept preaching, conducting revivals, crusades, workshop, until one day in February of 1989, at a revival I was conducting, My deliverance was in my mouth. God healed me in my hotel room. That affliction that had tormented me for over 7 years left my body while I was sleep, and I awoke the next morning to total healing, now some 24 years ago. In spite the beginning; look for a bright ending, look for a next day God experience. Praise God!
I said this to encourage you the reader to respond to God’s will concerning you life and not your condition. Don’t allow afflictions to alter your assignment, postpone your purpose. Ask God for strategy to do his will in the state that you in until he removes all hindrance for the kingdom sake. Remember the closing passage of Psalms 34:19 “And the Lord shall deliver you out of them all”
Those days left me with no employment but I had praise, a prayer, and worship to God for still being alive. I continue to believe despite the statistics of those with my condition that eventually died. Though the pain is so severe, and the temptation is strong to quit and given in. God’s word declare a way of escape When visions and dreams would show me paralyze and in the wheel chair, I would wake up crying and declaring I will not be in a wheel chair nor will I have this condition for life.
God is faith to do it, all you have to do is believe in the midst of the affliction, you have to speak to your pain, speak to your test, speak to your trial, speak to your short-comings, and say; its only momentarily. Allow this period to be an opportunity to exalt the Lord. Open up your mouth praise GOD even when the tears are trying to get the best of your worship. You name it I did just that, yes I ran, I JUMP, I SCREAMED, I KNEEL, I BOWED, I SANGED, and I cried alone many days and deserted nights. It wasn’t until I petitioned God directly about my condition. I would often quote 2 Peter 2:24. When I learn the types of worship and began learning and experiencing a God moment, only then did began to build my faith in God, by becoming a true worshipper despite my setbacks. I made up in my mind what I was willing to offer to God was going to be, true, honest and deliberate.
In closing:
I am praying for you the reader, and agreeing with you for the hand of God to be on your life, to see to it that you fulfill purpose and destiny. I pray that you stand strong in and through every affliction, knowing first that God will once again show his might hand concerning you, resulting in victory and that he cause you to be fruit in the land of your suffering in route to making you whole.
Dr. Jerlette Mickie
