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Testimony of Raina Formicola

Healing My Broken Body, Healing My Broken Soul 

Testimony of Raina Formicola

 

Stories are pouring in of things the Lord is doing in our body.  If you have a story, we'd love to hear it! This is the healing testimony of Raina, shared at Bridgeway last week.

 

God is mercifully good. God is graciously patient. God is wonderfully loving. God is willingly giving.

 

At the Convergence Conference, the Lord began to heal my broken body—but what is more miraculous and glorious is that He began healing my broken soul!

 

Since childhood, I have struggled with an out-of-control immune system and it has only worsened as I have grown into adulthood. It started as asthma, food sensitivities, pet and seasonal allergies and has grown to include thyroid problems, adrenal gland dysfunction, eczema, joint pain, depression, mental fog, breathing problems, and even allergies to the last few homes I have lived in as well as to any animal with fur/hair!

 

As my physical symptoms grew, so did my fear. I wanted to protect myself and my children who seemed to be inheriting the same issues. The world was slowly closing off to our family as we all began to react to something almost everywhere we went. I was even allergic to our house—so the place that was supposed to represent safety and rest was full of danger and physical discomfort.

 

I always believed that the Lord was able to heal me. I was prayed for, and I personally asked God many times to take these physical problems away—but I didn’t believe He necessarily wanted to. That was until I heard Andrew Wilson’s talk at the Convergence Conference about a Charismatic Theology of Healing—then I began to see more fully the love of the Lord and how much He wanted to heal me.

 

On the first day of the Conference, Brianne Davenport shared with me her testimony of how the Lord healed her gluten allergy. At that moment I was overcome with envy! I wanted God to do that for me too.

 

On the Second day of the conference, I knew that if the Lord didn’t do something for my physical condition, I would be sick in bed the week after.  I felt in my heart this urgency, this desperate compelling feeling that I needed healing from Jesus.I identified with the afflicted woman in the gospels who was pushing and searching through the crowds—willing to crawl with my face to the dusty ground, as long as I could simply touch Jesus’ garment and be healed. 

 

I told my husband that I wanted to be prayed for by the “prophet guys” that Jack Deere had brought. And so after one of the sessions, we approached them for prayer. They took us to the backstage area, asked us how to pray and then Michael Rowntree began to peacefully lead me in a simple repeat-after-me prayer, to break off any generational sickness or fear.

 

I thought they would be more forceful in their prayers, but these were such meek men - humble and peaceful - but with the full force of the Holy Spirit’s power. Michael stopped for a moment to listen to the Holy Spirit and then asked me gently, “Have you ever struggled with self-hatred?” 

 

Wow! Yes! That was definitely God whispering my secrets to him, revealing my heart through prophecy. As a child and all through adulthood, I had struggled with insecurity, timidity, lack of confidence, inability to make decisions, and unhappiness with my physical appearance. He asked if I wanted to repent of that sin and I said, “YES! of course!" So I repented of thinking that God had somehow made a mistake when He made me.  

 

We thanked them and went back to our seats—there were no fireworks, no slaying in the spirit, no physical manifestations of power in any way—but there was simply a feeling of peace with a little bit of hopeful expectancy mixed in.

 

Later that night as I was driving back for the evening session, I was praying in the car and suddenly noticed that I could breathe better than usual. I started saying out loud, “I receive it, Lord. If you are healing me, I RECEIVE IT!” I started yelling it, and singing it and felt a rush of energy through my body. I thought it was just oxygen, but I think it was the Holy Spirit!

 

When I arrived, I walked into The Criterion while worship was being poured out, and I was reminded of things the Lord had shown me weeks, months and even years before. Memories began to flood into my mind, bringing confirmation that God had prepared me for this moment where His Spirit was breaking into the hard ground of my heart as well as the broken parts of my body. 

 

I was able to sing the whole worship set, with my voice full and clear—something I had not been able to do since I was a teenager. It felt as though I had grown another lung, or more realistically, that I had the full capacity of my lungs that I had never felt before. In addition to this, my mind was crisp and clear - something I had only experienced when overly medicated from my thyroid/adrenal meds, or over-caffeinated, which always brought on a consequential backlash of exhaustion and fogginess—and even then, this new clarity was pure, real, real, not a counterfeit energy or clarity. 

 

In the coming days and weeks, healing continued for me and for my family. I was able to run for the first time with no asthma (I could not even go on a walk before without having asthma). We talked on the phone with Michael Rowntree again and he prayed over me and my husband for the Lord to do a total healing. The next morning, I felt so much energy, I wanted to dance and run around. I asked the Lord, “should I take my medication?” And the Lord gently spoke to me and said, “You can take it if you feel like you need it.” He was totally helping me to be decisive! So I didn’t take anything until later on in the day when I took a half dose—and even then it made me feel slightly jittery.  I was able to give one of my daughters two foods we thought she was allergic to and she didn’t react at all, and my husband, Sam, was able to eat some foods he was previously allergic to, with NO reaction. 

 

Even more important, as the days have unfolded since then, the Lord has done some major house cleaning in my spirit—He is daily showing me places in my heart that had been shrouded in darkness and bondage. The sin of Self-Hatred had been hiding other sins, especially the sin of religious pride and judgmental thoughts towards other Christians who showed “too much emotion” about the Holy Spirit - I had contempt in my heart for my brothers and sisters in Christ - so I repented to the Lord for that horrible sin.

 

Praise God! I am so thankful for His faithfulness to me! I don’t know where this will take me, but I do know ONE THING: I am more in love with Jesus than ever before. I could worship Him all day and night—I don’t want to stop! And every time I share my testimony I feel a new, fresh wave of power and energy flow inside me. May the name of the Lord Jesus be praised! To Him be all the Glory!