EnidSong

By Enid Ning

“I’ve already received healing,” I assured my friend Veronique confidently.

It was January 1992. We were in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada at Youth With a Mission’s (YWAM’s) Discipleship Training School (DTS). Veronique was from the French part of Switzerland.

“Oh, but there’s more!” said Veronique in that dramatic, Swiss French way of hers.

“More?” I looked at Veronique skeptically. “How much more?”

Veronique made a small circle with her thumb and forefinger. “This is the healing you have already received.”

She then made large gestures with both arms. “And this is how much healing there still is to receive. More than this whole room!”

I felt frustrated. Would I ever be finished healing?

***

Later, in my room, I shared my frustrations with Dorothea, another friend from the German part of Switzerland. My biggest question was: “Why has God allowed me to experience so many past hurts? What good could possibly come out of it?”

Although she didn’t have an answer, Dorothea listened empathetically and then prayed for me.

After she left, a verse from the Bible, Psalm 42:7, seemed to jump out at me: “Deep calls to deep. In the roar of your waterfalls, all your waves and breakers have washed over me.” Although I didn’t understand what it meant, the words seemed so significant that I wrote them in the inside front cover of my journal, and drew a picture of a waterfall underneath.

The very next day, when Dan Wilt was teaching us on worship, suddenly, in the middle of his teaching, with no apparent connection to what he had been saying, he quoted Psalm 42:7: “Deep calls to deep. In the roar of your waterfalls, all your waves and breakers have washed over me.” He then explained that this verse meant that as deeply as we have been hurt in the past, that is how much God can fill us up. He then immediately picked up his original train of thought and returned to teaching us about worship.

I was amazed. Here was my answer. As deeply as I had been hurt in the past, that was how much God could fill me up with Himself! That was why I had been allowed to be hurt! That was the good that would come out of it!

But that wasn’t all.

***

The next day at dinnertime, I met a girl named Debbie who was on staff with YWAM Cambridge. Up to this point, she did not seem to be involved with our DTS. (Later I discovered that she would be teaching us Creative Movement in preparation for our outreach show, “Toymaker and Son.”)

For some reason which I didn’t understand, Debbie sat with me and let me tell her how impatient I was to be healed right away, to get it all over with. She listened carefully to me, then began to speak. She was not completely healed yet either, but she knew that God had a schedule for her healing. She gave me the example that perhaps on December 18, 1995, at 9:18 PM God would say, “It is time for you to be healed from X,” and she would be healed. She assured me that the same was true for me. I did not need to be impatient — everything would be completed at the right time, according to God’s perfect schedule.

Then she prayed for me, and as she prayed, it seemed as if the Holy Spirit came over her. “And God, I know that you can give Enid a dream tonight!” she proclaimed strongly.

I was startled. God give me a dream? It had never happened before. I felt skeptical. Why did Debbie say that? I couldn’t understand.

Strangely enough, that night, or rather, early the next morning, just before I awoke, I had a vivid dream. In my dream, I saw two of my brothers, Chuck and Pete. I understood that they had brought me to a very special Person, called the Healer. They would pray for me, kneeling on either side, and the Healer would heal me.

Then I saw a girl I knew from my DTS class. Her name was Maureen and she came from the United States. The person who had brought her to the Healer was someone I had never seen before: a balding, heavyset, middle-aged man, with iron-gray hair. He looked terribly sad. Somehow I understood that Maureen was to be healed first before me.

As I awoke, I heard the following words very clearly: “She will not be healed until 70 times seven.”

When I was fully awake, the first thing I thought was, “Wow! What a deeply spiritual dream!”

I wondered why I should have a dream about Maureen, when I was in great need of healing myself. I took time to ask God about it, and I asked Him if He wanted me to tell Maureen about the dream. There was a strong sense of “Yes!” inside me so I went off to look for her.

We sat on the stairs where I had found her, and I shared my dream with Maureen.

“And there was this guy that had brought you to the Healer, but I didn’t know who he was.”

“What did he look like?” asked Maureen curiously.

Her eyes grew wide as I described him.

“Enid, that was my father!”

Maureen shared with me that she was angry with her father for abandoning the family when she was young. She had never been able to forgive him. But now, it was clear that God wanted her to forgive before he would heal her.

I committed myself to pray for her healing.

Later in the DTS, Maureen’s father came to visit her. He looked very much like I had seen him in my dream, except that his hair was brown! I could not figure this out (although today it occurs to me that he maybe could’ve dyed out the gray).

Maureen must have been healed, because I received healing. I don’t remember her telling me in so many words that she had received her healing, but I’m certain she must have, or I would not have received mine. As Debbie assured me, healing is an ongoing process. I have received more than a roomful of healing by now, yet I know there is more to go! But I’m not impatient anymore. Instead I’m confident in God and in His Perfect Schedule. It doesn’t matter that I’m not completely healed yet, because it is absolutely certain that I will be healed at just the right time. Because of this confidence, I feel as if I have already been completely healed!

I will never be able to repay Him.