Flora, Where is your horse?

19 year old Flora Philips, a foster-child of my sister Esther, was walking up a hill, on the way to church, when a friend stopped to offer a lift.  His greeting was, “Flora, where’s your horse?”.  While Flora had heard this many times before deep down it still hurt.  You see Flora was extremely bow legged, often even her best friends, kidded her about it.

Flora was on her way to the first day of a two day healing meeting at her church in Powell River, lead by Pastor Raymond Bloomfield.  At that time her brother Glenn had no place to stay and she was determined to have Pastor Ray pray for him.   That first evening she was hesitant to go forward until Ray said, “just one more for this evening”. Her hand shot up but so did others and she was disappointed, but determined to be first the next night.

However the next night Ray said. “We are going to do things a bit different tonight, I will ask God who I should call up for prayer.” Flora’s first thought was, “Oh no, there goes my chance”.  However after a couple of others Ray pointed to Flora and said, “come up.”  Trembling Flora started forward, but when she was only half way, Ray said, “stop there, God says He is going to do something with your body.” Flora stopped then suddenly fell over backwards.  She lay there for the rest of the service with warm waves which kept sweeping through her body.  She lay there completely peacefully, hearing nothing, seeing nothing.  Finally as people were leaving, walking around her, she finally got up.   As she stood up her knees touched each other and she looked down.  Her legs were straight, her legs were no long bowed.  That was 33 years ago and her legs are still straight!

Flora never saw Pastor Ray again for 32 years, until a friend, who had moved from Powell River to Surrey, told her of an elderly couple who needed someone to help them.  She suggested the Flora could share an apartment with her and work for this couple for three days a week.  The couple was Pastor Ray and his wife.  They had housekeepers part time and family lived nearby, but they needed someone to fill in the gaps.  Flora has become that someone.

Flora told me this story within a month of it happening.  This was shortly after I had become a Christian and it greatly increased my faith and the realization that Jesus Christ in alive today and can and will answer our prayers.  Flora’s straightened legs have inspired me to pray for many hurting people.  In turn these prayers have given me the privilege of seeing the power of God manifested in many ways.

Flora had another remarkable experience which increased my faith.  Several years after this event, Flora’s heart stopped, during a heart operation.  Here is a video of her account of what she experienced before the doctors restarted her heart.