Storyline Fall 2020
A quarterly magazine published by First Alliance Church (Calgary, Alberta) in this issue we highlight FAC people telling their stories.
A quarterly magazine published by First Alliance Church (Calgary, Alberta) in this issue we highlight FAC people telling their stories.
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way that I’d never experienced before.<br />
HW: Definitely. I love it when God speaks<br />
like that and you just know … you know that<br />
it was Him. So, have you experienced either<br />
one of those touches in your life?<br />
JP: Well, at the time I was taking medication<br />
that was increasingly, as the dose was<br />
going up, having a lot of side effects for<br />
me. Some of you’d have probably seen me<br />
– I was suffering from anxiety; depression<br />
was beginning to set in; I had frequent<br />
nosebleeds; my GI system was all over the<br />
place. Often right before I’d come up to<br />
preach my nose would be bleeding – I’d<br />
just be praying it wouldn’t be before I’d get<br />
onstage. I was feeling really ill and definitely<br />
not myself. It was a troubling time for<br />
me. And at the time that first touch thing<br />
happened, our pastors have a prayer retreat<br />
every year – you were there … We went on<br />
this prayer retreat, and I think I’d told some<br />
of you about the dream, but not many. But<br />
you all gathered around and prayed for a<br />
very long time for me. And that day when<br />
you prayed, all of those symptoms stopped<br />
– instantly. No more nausea, no more<br />
vomiting, no more nosebleeds, the anxiety<br />
– everything went away, almost instantly,<br />
that day. I’d never felt so good in such a long<br />
time. And I’d gone to bed sort of praising<br />
Jesus for 1 good day, and the next day was<br />
a good day, and I thought, “Wow! There’s<br />
number 1! This is gonna be fantastic! When<br />
does number 2 happen?” I was so excited<br />
about this, that all these symptoms had<br />
disappeared. The shaking was still there, but<br />
everything else had gone.<br />
HW: So, step 1 – yay!<br />
JP: Yeah.<br />
HW: That’s awesome …<br />
JP: Step 2 …<br />
HW: Now, what about step 2?<br />
JP: Well, by then I’d been referred to<br />
a neurologist, so I’d gone off to my<br />
appointment. And I was thinking, “Maybe<br />
step 2 God’ll miraculously heal me, or maybe<br />
step 2 she’ll give me a bottle of pills, and I’ll<br />
go home, and it’ll be fantastic.” That’s really<br />
what I was hoping for. So I went in that day<br />
to see my neurologist, and they did a bunch<br />
of tests and a bunch of other things … and<br />
that day didn’t go so well. In fact, you were<br />
the first person I think I met when I came<br />
back to work from being there … Gill was<br />
away, out of the country at the time. And she<br />
told me it was a whole lot more serious than<br />
that. All of the signs, the early diagnosis,<br />
were pointing to a condition that was going<br />
to be much more troubling and significant<br />
for me. As far as you could tell, it would be<br />
something that wouldn’t be treatable. And it<br />
would actually considerably shorten my life,<br />
and she gave me a time horizon for it. This is<br />
what I didn’t expect number 2 to be – that I’d<br />
be healed going to Heaven. It was – it just felt<br />
like my world was beginning to fall apart.<br />
HW: It got darker before it got better, hey?<br />
JP: It really got very complicated.<br />
HW: Yeah.<br />
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