I Asked God To
Take Me Home By
Linda Crawford
“Lord, if you are not going to heal me now,
please, just take me home.”
I hung there on the
side of my bed, fighting to keep my eyes open.
Then I decided I didn’t want to keep them
open.
This had been a long journey.
I just wanted to go home to be with the
Lord.
Back in the late 90’s,
doctors started saying that I had Fibromyalgia,
but I wouldn’t accept that diagnosis, nor would
I even say the word.
As a matter of fact, I called it the “F”
word.
I started declaring my healing and
refused to take the rest of the tests for a
complete diagnosis.
Still, whether I completed the testing or
not, doctors said other illnesses would develop
as a result of the Fibromyalgia.
I had already been diagnosed with high
blood pressure, which was always stroke level,
and hypoglycemia.
My blood sugar would drop so fast, that
before I knew it, I would be in a helpless
state, unable to even hold my head up to drink
juice.
I noticed that I would often have back
and joint pain, stiffness, and chronic swelling
in my legs, feet and fingers.
I was diagnosed with arthritis.
Sometimes I could hardly walk, and
sometimes, I couldn’t walk at all.
Often struggling to get out of bed, I
would press my feet to the floor to see if I
could walk.
Most of the time, I could.
Sometimes, I could not. Still declaring
my healing, I took pain and inflammatory
medication and learned to get up the stairs and
out of my car without being noticed.
Shortly after, in 1998, my sleeping habits began
to change.
Prescription medicines had a weird effect
on me, so I started taking over-the-counter
sleep-aids; however, they took four hours to
make me drowsy, and when they did work, I would
sleep for only a few hours.
For over 13 years, I have functioned on
3-4 hours of sleep each night.
In 2000, I was diagnosed with irritable
bowel syndrome. Call it what you will, but the
bottom line is I had diarrhea 3-4 times a day,
and the doctors said I would have it for the
rest of my life.
To avoid embarrassment when I went out
with friends, I traveled with anti-diarrhea
medicines.
I tried everything—prescription,
over-the-counter, herbs.
Sometimes they worked.
Most times they didn’t.
I never knew when I would have to request
1 or 2 quick bathroom stops.
Other
health issues crept in.
When I was pregnant with my daughter in
1987, I started having migraines, but I was
healed some years later. Then in 2005, I thought
I was having a stroke.
I developed dizziness, slurred speech,
and seizure-like behavior.
I remember feeling as if I were being
tossed around like a ragdoll as this “thing”
threw me to the floor.
The doctors ran tests after tests and
finally told me that I was having migraines
again, in the form of vertigo. The “regular”
migraines and its evil friend, vertigo, became
progressively worse and more frequent. Of
course, the doctors said I would have vertigo
for the rest of my life.
My skin became very sensitive to touch. A
light squeeze or tap brought tears to my eyes.
Hugs hurt, and even a pat on the back or on my
arms or hands seemed unbearable for me, but I
labored to cover my reaction to people’s
affections.
Even though I hated to admit that my health was
getting worse each day, I started noticing that
I had just enough energy to make it through my
classes.
It’s like my body knew when my last
student walked away.
Immediately, the fatigue took over.
The daily ritual would begin.
I would leave for home, but before I
could get off campus, I would have to park in
one of the parking lots to sleep for 15 minutes.
On my way home, I often fell asleep at
the red lights.
To avoid go to sleep while I was driving,
I would stop at different intervals at stores,
recline my seat, and sleep another 10 minutes—
just to make it home.
About three years, I developed asthma, COPD, and
an allergy to dairy products. My doctor
prescribed inhalers, pills and a nebulizer or my
breathing machine, which I fondly called it.
I also began to have a reaction to most
foods—pork, beef, even chicken.
A sickness would envelope me—nausea,
dizziness, weakness in my body and joints, and a
scary, scary shortness of breath.
I had chronic leg cramps, and my feet
felt as if they were on fire.
All of the symptoms would attack me at
once, many times lasting for 2-3 days.
It seemed as if my eyelashes needed to
throw up, my feet, my hands—every part of me,
and my entire body had indigestion.
Finally, in February of this year, I decided
that I just didn’t want to go on. Through the
years, I had managed to hide these illnesses
from most people.
My children knew, my husband knew, and a
few friends knew, but no one, absolutely no one,
knew the whole story, and on this particular
night, I was just tired.
Energy spent, I didn’t feel like trying
anymore. I didn’t feel like making an effort to
pull myself up, so my upper body was on the bed
while my knees and feet were on the floor.
I remember leaning on the edge of bed,
thinking of how awesome it would be to wake up
in Heaven. Then I cried out to God, “Lord, if
you are not going to heal me now, please, just
take me home.”
At that same moment, my pastor walked into the
room to pray for me.
In a firm voice he said, “Stop it!
You are not going anywhere.”
As he prayed for me, he declared once
again that I was already healed from this
“thing.”
The next morning I was weak but better. Staying
in bed all day, I decided I was up to having our
Tuesday night Bible study, which we had
cancelled the week before because I was sick.
My husband would do the bulk of the
teaching, and I would chime in if I could. That
night, two of our Bible study members, who knew
some of the details of what I was going through,
provided non-diary smoothies for everybody.
With a strawberry smoothie in one hand
and a chocolate one in the other, I was so
excited!
How long had it been since I had had a
smoothie or most recently, kept anything on my
stomach?
I had a ball!
A few hours later, I “accidentally” fell
asleep without a sleep-aid, and I slept through
the night for the first time in 13 years.
The following evening, I called my friend
to see if the smoothies had anything to do with
my sleeping.
She laughed, saying their ability to
sleep was the first thing she and her husband
noticed when they started on the nutritional
products and changed their diets, and even
though it was 9:00 p.m. my husband drove me 20
miles to my friend’s home to get another
smoothie.
Again, I slept through the night without
a sleep aid.
The following day, March 3rd,
I started on the products, made a commitment to
change my eating habits, and began the journey
of getting my life back.
Within one day, the diarrhea stopped.
Within three days, the “redlight” naps
stopped. Within a week, the joint pain and
soreness disappeared.
Within two weeks, the vertigo and
vertigo”ish” feelings were non-existent.
Within three weeks, I was jumping off
benches and running up and down the stairs—just
because I could!
Recently, when I went to Mississippi for my
nephew’s funeral, my return flight was delayed
for a day due to bad weather.
As I went through my luggage to make sure
that I had enough of everything for an extra
day, it dawned on me that for the first time in
over a decade, I had no pain medicines with me,
no disposable heat pads, no anti-diarrhea
medicine, no vertigo medicine, no sleep-aids, no
anti-nausea medicine—nothing!
How great is our God!
This long journey ended in victory. For
me, the change in my health has been immediate
and today, 4 months after God answered my prayer
through strawberry and chocolate smoothies, my
blood pressure is a few numbers from being
normal, and I have no symptoms of any of the
previously diagnosed illnesses—none!
Just the other day, I heard my husband say to
his friend, “It’s like she’s a different
person.”
He’s right.
I am. Oh, and by the way, I have lost 15
pounds.
That’s just an extra bonus!
For more information,
contact Linda Crawford at 254-715-8943.
