Healed from Food Allergies

God's Word says that the enemy comes 'to kill, to steal and destroy' - John 10:10 - but Jesus came to bring us 'life to the full.' What a contrast! For ten and a half years 'food allergies' have been part of Marianne's life and ours. Many of you have joined us to pray for her over this time at specific occasions and now we want you to rejoice with us for Jesus Christ has healed her.

As most of you will be aware, in early January the situation rapidly deteriorated for Marianne in an unexplained way. Even one consultant Pediatric Allergist in a top children's hospital was baffled and told us that she had never seen the like of it in all her years of experience, losing so many food items at one go from an already highly restricted diet. The only hope we were given was that it might be a 'virus' and the treatment was one and a half months of antihistamine to be taken before each meal.

Despite keeping rigorously to the medication, 'to be taken twenty minutes before each meal for maximum effect,' we saw very little improvement. We kept a food diary during the time and for each meal, each day there continued to be an obvious, ugly reaction. Just finding something to cook was a trial. There were so many things she could not eat that citing what she could eat was easier. (At one point when we had hit rock bottom this had been cornflakes, raisins, dried apricots and precious little else). The traditional cure of 'lamb and rice' even proved too much for her system as she had reactions to these as well.

Despite the difficulties of finding something for her, the worst part was that her lips were so swollen, damaged and infected as a result of the reactions that she struggled even to eat with a teaspoon and drink with a straw (this situation being a side-effect of chronic eczema around her mouth). You can understand in the circumstances that instead of being a pleasure, eating was a moment we all dreaded, knowing that there would be pain, rashes, itchiness and inevitably of course, tears.

During this time God made it clear to me one day while reading Scripture that we had to 'resist the devil, standing firm in the faith' - 1 Peter 5:8-9. By chance I decided to looked up the word for 'resist' in the original Greek in order to fully understand what this meant. (This is not something I do ordinarily!) There it was, with its English translation, meaning: 'to stand against, to oppose, to withstand ' but it was especially the English gloss of the Greek which I found interesting - for there was God's answer to our question of how to put the 'resistance' into practice. The actual word in Greek was 'anthistemi' - something which bears a striking resemblance to 'antihistamine!'

In faith, and trusting God that this was the divine 'prescription' for our situation for Marianne, instead of taking antihistamine in medical form before each meal we 'resisted' the real enemy, (since food was clearly not the real enemy here, although it had every appearance of being so). Since our offensive weapon against the enemy is God's Word, (see Ephesians 6), and we prayed before each meal using a verse in 1 Timothy 4: 4,5 which declares : 'For all (food) is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving for it is consecrated by the Word of God and prayer.'

Amazingly through prayer alone and the application of this Word of Scripture, within a very few days Marianne was able to eat almost all of the foods that she had stopped taking since the time of crisis in early January had begun. It wasn't a 'magic formula' though, for in our battle the enemy fought back. Despite our victories, we also had many occasions when we had to take Marianne aside during a meal because despite faithfully praying this Scripture, she had still reacted to something. We would then continue to pray until the reaction stopped which it generally did.

If this all sounds too good to be true to you and completely unlike anything you have ever experienced, rest assured that we have never experienced anything like this before either! However, we have not been duped, the enemy has repeatedly thrown off his disguise and bared his fist at us quite literally for daring to challenge him in this sickness. But we have stood in Christ's victory over him through the Cross and he has had to flee. We have tested and seen that God's Word is truth: John 17:17 and that when we resist the enemy, he will flee (James 4:7).

The end of this story came on March 31st when as a step of faith that God had completely healed Marianne as a result of specific prayers of faith, we re-introduced cow's milk into her diet, one of the previously big allergens in her diet besides peanuts. She did have a major reaction, the biggest of any since all of the other food 'reintroductions' began. But, when dealt with in accordance with God's word, the enemy had to flee again and the reaction disappeared, frightening though it was. It is a testimony to this that the following day when we saw the Pediatric Allergist in Paris for a routine check-up, which had been scheduled some time before, she conducted a series of tests from which she concluded that not only did Marianne no longer have any restrictions on her diet, but she could even have peanuts, something which she then tested on the spot. Marianne's conclusion was that peanut butter was great!

So just what do we make of all this? It is very hard to resume in a paragraph God's entirely sovereign plan during all of this and why healing would have been delayed for 10 years. Yet, we have seen His mighty hand act. Medically speaking, statistics were against us, as a child with serious multiple food allergies will never fully 'grow out of it.' But God is greater than stats! We now also understand in a very concrete way that when we stand on the promises of God there will be resistance from an enemy who is real and who will stand against us, who will threaten us and who will try to scare us, but we are 'more than conquerors though Him who loved us,' Romans 8:37.

What has Marianne's reaction been to her healing? You can bet that it was less spiritual!! In short it was just utter amazement that after all these years she is able to finally have an ice cream - aren't children down-to-earth! She has revelled since Monday in yogurt and cheese, eaten her first real pizza, cooked and eaten brownies and chocolate chip cookies with me... all of those things which we consider 'normal' experiences for a child. How can we fathom God's wisdom and His power? Surely His name is great in all the Earth and His love knows no end.

In Christ the King,

Elizabeth