Healing is Hip!

Four years ago, I began experiencing severe hip pain – mostly when I walked.  I would take a step and as I planed my left foot, the pain would be so intense, it would almost bring me to my knees.  I went to an Orthopedic doctor and he x-rayed my hips, came into the exam room and said “you have the hips of an 80 year old man.  You should not run anymore or do anything strenuous.  Your only option is for me to do a total hip replacement.”  In shock and with a major eye-roll, I limped out of there as fast as I could.  I figured I would just have to live with the pain.  Maybe if I just stretched, it would feel better?  I did massage therapy.  I did physical therapy for a spell, it just didn’t seem to do any good.  I was 32 at the time.  Flash forward to last spring, while at the men’s retreat, a few of my new friends from San Diego put their hands on me and prayed – specifically for regeneration in my hip.  Instantly, I begin to feel this strange heat and warmth inside my upper thigh and hip.  I knew I was healed.  That warmth stayed with me for four days.  Fast forward to October ‘08, I started getting numbness (or a pins and needles feeling) behind my left knee.  I went to a different Orthopedic doctor, he x-rayed my hips, came back into the exam room and said...”what did you do? You have the hips of an 80 year old man. I see fractures, bone fragments, and arthritis (oh my)  What did you do?”  He sent me away to get an MRI and when I returned he offered, “looks like I’ll need to send you down for surgery you have a torn anterior labrum.  It’s not going to get any better.”  He sent me to get a 2nd MRI – I finally got this in a few weeks ago (March).  I went in to his office to get the results, he walked into the exam room with a curious look on his face.  He said “how do you feel?”  I told him “tight”.  He replied, “there’s a lot of this going on in the NFL now.  You have a hip impingement.  Carson had the same thing, did some therapy and was good as new in 2 months.  After a couple months of therapy, you should be as good as new.”  No need for surgery.  No need for a full hip replacement.  I don’t have the hips of an 80 year old man.      This outcome wasn’t the result of hours upon hours of work in the gym or ANYTHING I did.  I didn’t DO anything from October to March – much less 2005 to 2009.  This miraculous healing has happened because of the Lord’s loving kindness and his tender mercy. Over these 4 years, he has dealt with bitterness and rejection in me and delivered me. He just LOVES me and has driven these things out little by little.  He does what he says.  He is who he says he is.  He’s so good and so patient.  Praise God. 

-from David Russell