I love my son. Of course I love my son, but life hasn't been easy with him. He was very young when we realised that there was something wrong. Other toddlers made noises, they gabbled, they laughed, they interacted with their parents & the world around them. My wife made all kinds of excuses, 'He's just quiet.' 'Not all toddlers are the same.' 'He will grow out of this, you'll see.'
But as he grew, so the convulsions grew worse, he would be thrown to the ground, shaking violently & foaming at the mouth. The realisation began to dawn on us both that our precious son was being tormented by an evil spirit. At this point my wife gave into the grief & each time it would overtake him, would weep & wail for the son she so wanted, but didn't have & she was filled with grief & love for the son we had, but couldn't help.
Our neighbour, also a dear friend was the first among many who spoke to us of Jesus & how they had heard He had power to cast out evil, unholy spirits. We'd heard ourselves about the man from the Gerasenes who Jesus had delivered from his torment & was now just like any other man, except he always told everyone about who he used to be & how he came to be as he was.
We talked about it, my wife & I & we decided there was nothing we could lose by taking him to Jesus. Things couldn't get any worse than they were, or so we thought!
When we found where His disciples were we fought our way to the front. We could see people leaving who had been made well by the power invested in His disciples. Our faith rose as we asked them to deliver our son from his torment. We had hope & faith that our nightmare would soon be over.
One by one his disciples prayed over our son, nothing happened. It seemed there was a steady stream of these disciples coming away from all the other people clamouring for their attention as one by one they failed miserably to make any difference to our son. My wife began to weep & wail, my faith plummeted with every failed prayer to free our son from the hold of this tormenting spirit.
I picked up our son & we were leaving to go home, all hopes dashed when four more men arrived, well, three ordinary men & Jesus. It was obvious which one Jesus was. He shone, honestly, I know that might sound a daft thing to say, but He did. You know when sunlight shines on a leaf & lights it up almost shining through it & the leaf is transformed by the sunlight? That was how this Jesus looked. My faith which all but died began again to stir at the sight of this shining man!
He didn't look straight at me, but asked His disciples what they'd been doing & talking about. Well at this point I had to speak up, this might be my one & only chance, so I told this man who shone what had happened. I told Him that my son was dumb because of this spirit within him, I told Him how it threw him down, how it made him foam at the mouth, grind his teeth, convulsed him before giving him any respite where he was still. I told Him how my son was wasting away & how I'd brought him to Jesus' disciples to drive out this spirit & how they couldn't do it.
He started talking about lack of faith, of lack of belief, but then told me to bring my son to Him. As we did so & my son saw Jesus that dreadful spirit overtook him again, threw him to the ground & I looked on in desperation as I had so many, many times before. Jesus asked me how long this had been happening & I told Him, since he was a little boy. I told Him about how this spirit threw him into fire & into water & how it was like this spirit was trying to kill our son. Somehow this man with the shining face brought out of you things you didn't normally tell people, I don't know why, but it was right to tell Him.
I ended by saying to Him with all the faith I had left, 'If you can do anything, please have pity on us & help us.' He smiled at that point, which I remember thinking seemed incongruous, but He said 'Anything at all is possible for him who believes.'
You know I said that He brought out of you things you wouldn't normally say? Well before I'd even thought about what He was saying, I found myself almost weeping as I cried out that I did believe, I do believe, but I needed help with the doubts I had. It wasn't simply a statement of fact, but a cry from my very gut of anguish. I didn't want to not believe enough for my son!
He looked away from me to my son, but spoke directly to the spirit within him. He commanded it to come out of him, leave him alone & not go near to him again. There was such authority in that command.
The world sort of stopped at that point as the most horrendous guttural cry came from my son, he convulsed again, but was then still. People around us thought he was dead, but then they hadn't seen this as we had so many, many times before. This time though, Jesus was there & He went over to my son & took him by the hand, lifting him to his feet & as the colour returned to my sons face, there was something new there, something of the same kind of shining that was in Jesus' face. I remember noticing that before he spoke!
My son spoke! You have no idea how beautiful the sound of your son speaking is when you haven't heard it before. Once I'd assimilated that my son was free, my son was well, MY SON COULD TALK, Jesus had disappeared with His disciples.
All my hope now was & is that He knew just how grateful we were, are & always will be & how our whole lives were changed by meeting this man with the shining face, this Jesus!
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