March 27, 2006

Healed after a stroke

By Anna P. Smith

My husband, Larry, was drinking coffee on our porch on the evening of July 20, 1997, when he felt a fiery sensation shoot down his right side. He spilled the coffee all over himself.

He had suffered a stroke. At the hospital it took seven hours to stabilize him. Medical personnel said he was revived twice.

“It was a weird feeling,” he told me later. “I couldn’t talk, or feel anything in my right side.”

I called our home church at the time, Christian Life Center in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Larry was placed on several prayer chains.

God began to work on our behalf.

That first night Larry was in the hospital, a friend from Washington, D.C., we had not seen in 10 years called us. She awoke out of her sleep and told her husband they needed to “pray for Larry Smith.”

Our pastor came and prayed for Larry in intensive care. After he left, Larry thought a prayer of his own: Lord, You made this body and I know You can fix it.

He fell asleep. The phone rang and woke him up. His sister in Dallas, who was also recovering from a stroke, called to say she and others were praying for him. Larry didn’t realize at first that he had answered the phone with his paralyzed right arm, and that he had begun to speak on the phone. His sister cried and said, “You’re talking!”

We found out Larry had suffered a reversible ischemic neurological deficit, a type of stroke brought on by a sudden jump in blood sugar. He was put on insulin and told he would need to take it the rest of his life.

In just two months, he was off the insulin and other medication. His blood sugar was normal. In all, Larry was healed of stroke, diabetes, congestive heart failure and an enlarged heart.

“I tell everyone who listens, it’s all about faith,” Larry says.

Larry and Anna Smith attend Hillcrest Assembly of God in Hayesville, N.C. (Aubrey T. Phillips, pastor).