Gabrielle’s Story

The disease hit me completely out of left field in 2010.

After many tests and possibilities eliminated, the diagnosis finally came: systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).  Lupus is an incurable autoimmune disease, where your immune system starts to attack your own body (soft tissues and muscles, mostly).  They caught it early, which kept long-term organ damage at a minimum, but the inflammations that it gave caused me more pain than I had ever experienced before in my life (and that’s saying something).  It left me extremely weak and sore, to the point where, some days, I couldn’t even pick up a bowl to make myself cereal.  It also inflamed my skin to the point where wearing certain types of clothing could cause intense pain.  I also had the common lupus rash on my face, and hair loss and bruising.

It was the summer of 2013, almost four years after I had been diagnosed (and, in that time, done a Be Your Own Beautiful photoshoot that you can see here), that I began to realize and accept that Jesus is in the business of healing, and that my healing was about to come. On the morning of July 19^th, God informed me that my healing from lupus would come that night. I already had plans to go that evening with a friend of mine, Katie, to a Christian service – God’s perfect timing began to make sense.

As the speaker’s message came to a close that evening, they announced that they were going to go into prayer. The prayer turned into prophesying over people in the room, and I was the first person that they came to prophesy over. I, of course, thought: “This is it! This is my moment of healing!”

Though amazing words of prophecy were spoken over me, none were about healing. The speakers moved on to others, and I was left a bit confused. As the speakers continued praying for others, God instructed me to go and sit in the middle of the aisle. My flesh tried to rebel, but I did as I was instructed.

Shortly after, much to my dismay, the time of prayer ended and people were dismissed for the night – as I was still sitting in the middle of the floor as instructed by God.  As time went by, I became ever more distracted, because I really had to go to the bathroom. I asked God for permission, and upon being told I could get up, I went to the bathroom.  I then headed back out to the main room and God directed me to just remain standing and worship Him. So, in the middle of a chatty room, I did just that. I was so concentrated on Jesus that I was a bit startled when Katie came up to me with a pastor and told me that the pastor felt led to pray for me.

The pastor didn’t even get five words out before the Spirit took me under. Laying there on the ground, I had no control over my body – just my mind. I was simultaneously out-of-body and so hyper-aware of my body that I could feel the Holy Spirit’s presence heavily on me. I began to smell something cool and slightly sweet – like the ideal temperature for your lungs to breathe in, with just the right amount of scent. God informed me that it was the smell of His presence. As I was breathing in this smell, this sensation, I could feel the scent of God’s spirit filling up my lungs. I could physically feel my lungs begin to cool, and it felt as if they were being cleansed – as if all the impurities were being pushed out. As I meditated on this sensation, it began to spread out from my lungs and into my torso. Slowly but steadily, I could feel it spreading into my arms and legs, my fingers and toes. The disease was fleeing every cell of my body.

God spoke to me a few minutes later: “Just look at my Presence”. My eyes opened, fixated on the ceiling right above me, and I physically saw the Holy Spirit, just as I had physically felt and smelled Him. It looked like a mirage of heat rising from pavement on a hot summer’s day. This image was the exact length and width of my body. After several minutes, the Holy Spirit began to dissipate – both the smell and sight of Him – and I could feel myself coming back around.

Katie helped me to sit up, and as I did, breadcrumbs started to fall off of the front of my shoulders and out of my hair. Katie and I questioned what these were, and we received the answer at the same time, “It’s manna from Heaven!”  Katie’s next question was if I was supposed to eat it, and God immediately responded with “no”.  Several other people asked me the same thing later, and God continued to say “no.”

So when I got home later that night, I left it by my bed in a little plastic container.  No sooner did I start to relax into bed with worship music than God instructed me to eat the manna, giving me the word: “the manna is the exact amount of Heaven needed to complete your healing”.  I understood that this was to be done alone with God; between me and my Jesus – the only one who was with me through every single moment of my suffering with lupus.

So I ate the manna.  And I found that for the next several days, because I was ill every time I went to the bathroom, that the impurities and the disease of the lupus were gradually draining out of my body.  Interestingly enough, I was healed from the disease – it was stripped clean out of my body – but I wasn’t healed from the effects of it. It took several more months for my body to gain back the strength and muscle mass it had lost from years of illness.

Now though, well over a year later, I am lupus free! I have no disease, no symptoms, and my blood work is coming back cleaner and cleaner from any and all marks of lupus every time I get it done. Praise Jesus!

If you have any questions or comments for Gabrielle, she would be happy to talk to you via email at gabriellepeace@yahoo.com.