“I’ve been healed of total deafness and of having one leg shorter than the other,” Hannah Simm, from Exeter, told me on Sunday.
“I was born with no hearing in my right ear, so it is amazing to suddenly be able to hear out of it. In fact, when it happened, it just seemed to me that my left ear had gone quieter, but of course, I’d never had normal hearing my whole life, so all those years my left ear had been compensating. Now it didn’t need to anymore.”
Hannah explained to me that she was healed at Newday in August 2010 after I had prayed for the sick. What’s so unusual is that she was healed of two conditions at the same time, and of course in the two months since, she’s been back to see the medical specialists who had been treating her, for both conditions.
“When my ear got healed and I was hearing normally out of my ear. I asked my Mum to get me an appointment. I knew it was going to be a big deal, because I knew I’d been healed. Of course, when they did the tests, it was obvious that I could hear! You either can or you can’t! So there was no apparent medical explanation, so they arranged a further appointment to see if I can still hear in a few months time. If I can, then I suppose I’ll never have to go to the audiologist again. Of course, I don’t need a hearing aid any more!”
But that is only the first part of Hannah’s remarkable story. She continued: “I was born without a ball & socket in my left hip. They did an operation when I was very young, to replace it, but you won’t be surprised to hear that one leg was shorter than the other by somewhere between one and two inches.
“As a result, I have had to have special shoes fitted. These are shoes or insoles that are specially made for me so that my legs are the same length and that I can walk normally.
“When I was healed at Newday, it was easy to test. Because my special shoe now was too high for me as soon as I put it on! Can you believe it! The leg’s been too short all these years! Now my legs are the same length. So I don’t need my special shoes. Think about it! An inch and a half is a lot!
“And again it was an easy thing for my specialist to test. They said it was not unheard of for a leg to grow a little bit, but they said they were amazed by how much mine had grown.
“They also told me that my back had un-twisted a bit. In other words, all those years my back had twisted to compensate for the fact that I had one leg shorter than the other, and they said that now my back was different too and had begun to untwist.”
So the whole thing is amazing. In fact the only reason I am even aware that this double-healing took place is because as my great friend Andy Arscott was opening the morning service at Frontiers Church, Exeter, he pointed Hannah out to the congregation and told the story of her healing. I had the privilege of meeting her at the end of the service. I also really enjoyed speaking at the launch of their new Sunday evening campus at the Boston Tea Party, and all in all it was a marathon drive there and back on the same day, but hugely rewarding.
On a completely different subject, some of you will know that our delightful lodger, Marie Theron, is moving out on December 13th to get married to CCL legend Anthony Somerset in Zimbabwe, so if any of you would be interested in coming to live with us in our loft room, and becoming our new lodger at our home in Fulham, then please check out the ad I have just posted on the Marketplace, and please get in touch.