About Adrian Rose

 

 

My first experience of Christian Healing came in early October 1997. I had been completely bed-bound with M.E. for 18 months at this point and was having a terrible time. I had been suffering with overwhelming and disabling fatigue, along with a long list of other horrendous symptoms and was really struggling.

 

My parents contacted a local lady called Liesl Alexander who was well known in our area as having a very powerful Christian Healing Ministry called Free to Live Ministries.

 

I had always believed in God but had never really acted on those beliefs. It was only when I became seriously ill and, at times genuinely feared for my life, that I decided to make a serious commitment to God.

 

Thankfully, Liesl Alexander agreed to come and pray with me. As she layed her hands on me and prayed I remember feeling so desperate for something to happen but initially it didn't, which left me frustrated to the point of tears. Persistence in prayer bought results thought as, after about 20 minutes of praying, I felt a sudden surge of energy within myself, almost like electricity and instantaneously became able, from that point onwards, to sit up all day long (previously I had only been able to sit up in bed for 15 minutes at a time, because of the intense fatigue.)

 

I had hoped that I would go on to quickly recover completely, but strangely things didn't work out that way, (though I never returned to being bed-bound again). It was all very confusing.

 

One thing I do remember is Liesl telling me, before she left, that I needed to step out in faith and break the cycle of invalidity, that God had healed me and I needed to believe that and boldly step out against remaining symptoms and as I did this, they would go. My faith was not that strong at this stage, all I knew was that I felt strong enough to sit up for as long as I wanted to but nowhere near completely well so, based on my feelings, I didn't dare push things any further for fear of ending up back in bed.

 

My second experience happened in early March 2003 when I went to one of Liesl Alexander's Church Healing Services held in Oakington near Cambridge.

 

After being healed from the bedbound state in 1997 I tried, on several occasions, to talk Liesl into visiting me again but she refused, instead encouraging me again and again to "step out in faith!" I never reached a point where I felt well enough to actually do this but by the Spring of '03 I had become so desperate for further improvements (as nothing I'd tried since Liesl's first visit had bought any lasting relief), that I just snapped and asked my parents to get me to one of those services.

 

I'd hardly been out of the house for years, let alone in the car, so the 40 mile round trip felt incredibly weird. I just about managed the walk from the car to the Church in Oakington with the help of my walking stick and then slumped in a pew feeling like a fish out of water.

 

The healing service was packed and very lively as Liesl had recently received a very positive write up about her ministry in the Cambridge Evening News.

I had to put ear plugs in to deal with the volume of the worship band but generally I coped with the service quite well which felt very weird (was it the adrenaline?)

 

During the latter stages of the service the time came for the sick to queue to be prayed for by Liesl. I couldn't stand up for long enough so my mother joined the queue on my behalf and bought Liesl to where I was sitting.

 

It had been a long wait (Oct '97 to March '03) but suddenly Liesl was praying for me again and laying hands on me in the name of Jesus with several of her prayer team. I was expecting another "zap" similar to the one I'd felt in October '97 but it didn't happen that way on this occasion. This time there was no "zap" but instead a sensation of deep Warmth started to appear and disappear.

 

The sensation of warmth continued, mainly in my lower back but sometimes in other areas of my body, on a daily basis throughout the spring and summer of 2003 and I noticed gradual, slight improvements in my health.

I spoke to Liesl Alexander a few times on the phone during this period explaining to her what was happening and still her response remained the same "You need to step out in faith!"

 

The situation still felt too fragile to me to take any risks so I continued to hold back in the hope that the gentle improvements and the feelings of warmth would eventually result in a return to some degree of health without me having to do anything too radical.

 

My most dramatic experience of Christian Healing took place during the latter part of 2003 and completely transformed my life.

 

The gentle improvements I had been experiencing since attending the Church healing service in the Spring of '03 had enabled me to be able to read a little again (eyes previously too weak and concentration seriously impaired). In my search to try to know more about the subject of Christian healing I had, bit by bit, been working my way through 2 different books which I'd heard had transformed other peoples lives and faith.

The first book was called "Healing" by Smith Wigglesworth and the second was "Healing the Sick" by T.L. Osborn. The information in the books caused a faith to rise up in me that I'd never felt before, I absorbed the information in them like nothing I'd ever known before and the result was a transformation in my own life and faith.

The T.L. Osborn book claims that thousands of people the world over have received healing from God simply by reading the information contained in its pages and acting on it. I found this incredibly hard to believe......... until I experienced it myself.

 

During the reading of the two books I felt very strongly within myself that God was calling me to step out against the illness and walk in faith, just simply to get on my feet and walk and keep walking, trusting that He would not fail me. In a way this had felt like a challenge to me ever since Liesl Alexander's first visit and her parting words to me but my faith hadn't been strong enough on any of the occasions she'd challenged me but suddenly I was in a very different place, this time my faith was on fire.

 

I began to seriously seek God to confirm this call on my life, I had to be sure. God graciously did confim this to me in several very powerful ways but despite this it still took weeks for me to build up the courage to actually do anything about it but when I eventually did, the results were nothing short of miraculous.

 

On Nov 4th 2003 I got up out of the chair I'd been sitting in for years, threw my walking stick to one side, opened the front door and literally walked away from something that had held me captive for nearly 9 years.

I'm not going to tell you it was easy, in fact the first 200 yards were tough but then something happened. I felt strengthened, somehow quickened within myself and able to stay on my feet . . . . and I stayed on them for hours (previously I'd not been able to walk for more than 2 minutes at a time and I'd been like that for many years).

 

From that day onwards God began doing something in me that caused a gradual reversal of all symptoms. It wasn't easy at times, it didn't all disappear overnight, it took determination and faith but as I persisted, I got better and better.

I know in my own heart that I could never have done any of this in my own strength because I'd tried before to push myself by increasing my activity levels out of pure anger and frustration and it only resulted in a dramatic worsening of symptoms which could sometimes take months to bounce back from - this time it was very different.

 

My father told me, several months into my recovery, that two separate benefits agency doctors who had visited me to assess my situation at different stages during my illness had both stated that, in their opinions, I had been so ill for so long that it was highly unlikely that I'd ever recover!

           

At the time of updating this (May 2010), I'm still free from severe M.E. (CFS) and there has been no serious relapse at all.

 

As my recovery got underway, I became increasingly active as a voluntary worker within my local Churches, mainly in the areas of worship leading and youth work. As well as the worship leading I also began writing and producing my own music.

In October 2004 I started driving again (first time in nine years) which felt amazing.

In late 2005 I had a book published about my experiences which I called, "Love Never Fails".

In May 2007 I got married and shortly afterwards started working officially for my local Church (Linton Free Church, nr Cambridge) as a worship leader, youth worker and organizer of Linton Churches Together's special monthly healing services (see my blog for details of these services). It all felt very hard to take in having previously been so seriously disabled!

 

Regarding the books mentioned earlier, I obviously can't promise that everyone will have the same experience as I did and I think it would be ridiculous to suggest that they would, as this would make the teaching in the books a global cure-all but I'd still strongly recommend anyone to read them who has a genuine interest and oppenness towards Christian healing.

I'm not naive as to just how controversial this subject is and also how disliked some of the, so called, "faith ministries/teachers" are. I had no time at all for this type of teaching for many years and there are still aspects of it that I question but, when all is said and done, I'm convinced God used it in my life for good.

 

For obvious reasons, this has only been a very brief account of a selection of my experiences, there is of course much, much more to my story than is written here and that's the reason why I felt I had to write the book Love Never Fails.

 

If you're looking for hope, if you're looking for encouragement, if you're searching for healing, if you're wondering if Jesus Christ is really there at all and if He is, does He really care, then I challenge you to read my story. I was sceptical, I struggled with many different issues regarding faith and healing for a long, long time but I've seen and felt things in my life that have now completely changed my outlook and put an end to my doubting.

 

"With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible." (Mark 10:27 NKJv)