The Dead Part of the Brain Recovered! : Healing of the Cerebral Palsy

My eleven-month old son Joshua had epilepsy, and was diagnosed cerebral palsy. He was told he would be unable to crawl in the future if he remained the same. However, when I prayed to God about him, I was given hope and conviction. The work of God was far greater than our family ever imagined.

 

“The brain has been completely healed”

 

At the doctor’s office, the MRI of the brain of my two-year-old son was largely projected on the screen. The doctor told us that the brain was completely healed. My husband and I got absent minded for a while, hearing the doctor explain to us in comparison with the MRI of one year before, because we got too surprised at the healing work of God.

 

The Diagnosis of the Cerebral Palsy when he was 11 months old

 

This happened over one year ago. My 11-month-old son suddenly had a convulsive fit and lost consciousness; he was admitted to the hospital. My son Joshua was born prematurely, two months earlier than scheduled, at the weight of 1,295 grams. Besides he was allergic to both breast and cow’s milk, so we depended on God daily to feed him. Thankfully the Lord has caused him to grow this big till now. Needless to say he was behind growth; while ordinary children start toddling close to the age of one, my son was just able to hold his head up like a five-month old child. We as a couple began to extremely worry about him, running to hospitals and clinics for him. At the hospital he was taken to, the electroencephalography showed that he had epilepsy, and a week after that, with MRI he was diagnosed cerebral palsy. The doctor said to us, “As you can see, a part of the brain is dead. Since it is located at part of the motor center, he would be unable to sit on his own or to crawl. He needs rehabilitation from now on. By training himself many times, other parts of the brain will learn how to walk, replacing the dead part. If he could walk by the age of four, he would be able to go to an ordinary elementary school.” Being upset, I tried to keep peace and heard the doctor explaining like that. However, with overflowing tears, I became full of guilt for my son. I thought I should have done this or that at that time and that why such a thing like this happened at our home.

 

“The works of God should be revealed in him.”

 

Arguing in a circle, when I prayed to God, I began to be full of one conviction quietly in my heart, which strongly supported me; “This is led by the perfect God, so, it is the unmistaken path.” I clearly remember this brief time as if it was vividly projected to me in slow motion. At the same time, my husband was given the word from the Bible; “the works of God should be revealed in him.(John 9:3) “ We began to feel that nothing would bring to us the blessing and edification but what had happened to us; we even started having hope. Our family sang praise to God and prayed, saying, “Let’s give thanks to God about this start.” Contrary to my emotion, the words of praise returned to me as confession of faith, strength and encouragement. People at church raised the hands of prayer; I took the initiative in receiving a healing prayer daily.

 

Days of unimaginable rehabilitation

 

Contrary to my expectation, extremely hard days began. The rehabilitation we started as parents was far harsher than we imagined. The son needed to build an abdominal muscle to sit down. I had a hard time just to drive him to crawl when he was unconscious of doing so. Rehabilitation took several hours a day, and a daily life cycle was changed to adopt rehabilitation into child care. When I held him in my arms, I did it so that he would almost slip from my hands, so that Joshua would be able to put on his arm strength and abdominal muscle by trying to cling to me. While I was holding Joshua who tried to cling to me desperately with his little arm strength, I feared that he would feel sad because I didn’t hold him firmly, and was worried about him. However, in such a time like this, when I prayed in my heart: “Please protect the heart of my child with your peace.” To my wonder, Joshua beamed. My son was able to finally sit after several months’ rehabilitation. On the contrary, I was suffering coxarthrosis which became severe enough to require a surgery. Under the strain of repeated rehabilitation, coxarthrosis got worse and brought an acute pain; I was not released from pain day and night. I had to walk by holding on to the stroller and reached the limit to continue with rehabilitation of my son. As I talked with the doctor about that, he told me that since the body of a baby hardens fast, the responsibility of a mother was heavy. 　 With an acute pain running, I fell together with the son who couldn’t make a move at all and cried together. I couldn’t handle the day and I finally decided an operation of hip prosthesis. Right away my parents were going to take care of Joshua including his rehabilitation for me. However, I got a phone call from them, declining that offer because my father was to be hospitalized suddenly. This was the first time that he was hospitalized. So I talked to a government office and they said, “There is an infant home for such a parent like you, however, we don’t take the child of the cerebral palsy.” Instead they introduced to me a home. However, at the home they told me that a home was only for the children of more severe level. All the doors were closed. I was completely cornered physically and mentally with nothing to help me with.

 

Faith and Hope, Conviction and Joy – Through prayer and the Word

 

All I can do was prayer, but how could I handle today until the word of God was fulfilled. I was in a desperate situation. One day a message that was delivered at the church spoke to my heart: “When you are up against the wall, only the heaven is open. Go to God. God will surely answer you.” In desperation when I started to pray to God again and read the Bible wholeheartedly, tears fell from my eyes endlessly: a passage about a man who had been invalid and lame for thirty-eight years. at the edge of a pool called Bethesda (John 5:1-) The instant when he was said, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk,” at once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. That passage of the man overlapped my son and myself, parent and child. I felt in my bones that Jesus God Himself with concern had come over for Joshua who couldn’t walk and myself. I was surrounded by incredible peace and felt like I heard the Lord say to us, “Pick up your mat and walk” into my ear. I got one conviction and another, thinking that I was not going to need to come down and that Joshua would be cured and start walking immediately. While I felt realistic about the fact that the Lord is with us, I was again strongly brimming with faith, hope and conviction. Also, I was filled with even joy, thinking that I should have a pastor pray for healing for us and that I should continue to praise this God. Thought I had experienced the Great God who grew my son who was premature and couldn’t drink breast and milk, I repented that I had had an illusion that I could have done something to help my son if I were well.

 

Remarkable healing that surprised the doctor

 

One month after that, Joshua began to be healed noticeably. One day, all of a sudden, he started crawling at once. He used to be on his hands and knees, not learning to put hands alternately no matter how I showed him. On that night he came to meet his dad by crawling; we couldn’t believe our eyes.

 

Joshua who began to walk & Healing of the hip joint

 

However, it was about time when, in a nursing center, walk training was going to begin while he still continued to crawl over eight months, being unable to walk. In a church service, Joshua stood up suddenly without holding onto anything, and began to walk briskly. God helped Joshua to walk at the age of two without waiting until he was four. Not only that, the pain of my hip joint which was so acute that I found it difficult to walk was gone. It was unbelievable and I thought, first, I must have got paralyzed. God healed both of us, parent and child at the same time.　 Complete healing and recovery of the brain of Joshua was shown clearly before our eyes. The name of disease of "epilepsy" got excluded from a medical record. Living God surely worked in the humanly impossible domain. He reached out His hand and manifested His work for us while we were up against the wall. If the Lord hadn’t work on Joshua, he would have been still trained to crawl　 Joshua was admitted to a nursery school in August, and go to school cheerfully. Before he was healed, the result of the interview of that nursery school was that he had been put on hold because of a limit of a small number of special needs children due to a disease. After he got healed, he got well enough to be treated the same way as normal children. 　 The more Joshua got healed, the more smile was brought back to my elder daughter. Before her brother was born, she had continue to pray for him, so the damage she got was incredible; we as a family walked together for the past two years and half. God’s work was wonderful far beyond our imagination. I give thanks to God from the bottom of my heart who manifested wonderful work through the trial Joshua had been given.

 

(Harumi Sanbonmatsu in Tokyo)