Dale's story

Great Grandfather enjoys a fourth generation babe. God is a God of life, health, abundance.

DALE’S STORY
Guest writer,
 Lyn Arthur, 
 
“Your Healing will spring forth speedily … (Isa 58:8) speedily … (Isa 58:8)
 “Push!” commanded Doctor and midwife in chorus. “One for Norwood” called my cheerleader-cum-husband. In the third day of labour, weary, yet determined, I pushed, and felt the baby slide out of my tired body into the hands of the waiting staff! “It’s a boy!” My mother, waiting back at the house, cried with relief. His father scooped him up the second the staff released him and laid him in my arms. The love we both felt for this tiny mite was overwhelming. “Look at the length of his fingers, he’ll be a pianist for sure” some-one prophesied. “He’ll be tall” commented another. “He measures 20 inches already!” A week later he came home to his newly decorated orange and yellow nursery. It was the 70’s! My Mum returned home, life settled into its new routine, and I began the visits to the Infant Welfare sister. He was five weeks old when she noticed his foot. There had been some comment when he was born about a possible clubbed foot, but it was considered mild, something to be dealt with somewhere down the track. This day though, as he lay naked on the scales she was concerned. His right foot lay pointing at right angles and resisted her outward push. “That foot is bad” she said “I think you should show this to the doctor. It needs immediate attention. “What will they do?” I enquired fearfully. “Probably put him in a plaster cast for about six months” she said. Six months! It was August now and we lived in the Riverland. How would he cope in the heat? I returned home and told his father. We would pray. At that stage we were relatively new Christians, and had never prayed for healing before, so it was two timid people, feeling slightly foolish who lay the babe on our bed and laid our hands on our son. Our two adult hands covered his whole torso! “Lord, I feel a bit silly doing this” his father prayed, “but if you can, will you please heal Dale.” It was two days before I could get into the doctors. I reported what the nurse had said, so he stripped the babe and checked him over, saying nothing. He then turned to me and said “Come on it’s near enough to your six week check-up I’ll do you first and then I’ll have another look at him,” puzzled, I complied. When he finished he picked up the babe again and bent his legs frog like up and out, then he lifted his head to ask, “Which foot was it?” This was our first experience of God’s healing power through our own personal prayer.
 
A POEM by LYN ARTHUR
A child, not yet two - and yet ...
 I bore him, he is mine ...
 Or so my heart would want.
Yet in that small boy
Lies a destiny far beyond my reach.
 I love him; I hold him;
 I call him my own.
My home is his home;
 My God is his God.
 Yet in all of this I am so small.
I mold, but life makes.
I dream, but time creates realities
 Some day a man, now a child.
 Mine to hold, but God's to have.

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