By Traci Godwin
The goodness of God is breathtaking. Ask Grace House member, Susan Moseley. Her heart will tell you.
“I catch myself holding my breath when I think of what all God has done for me.” Susan exclaimed.
She received a healing in her heart on Sunday, February 26 at Grace House.
Susan had been suffering from congestive heart failure, arterial pulmonary hypertension, an enlarged heart, leaking heart valves and nodules in her lungs. She was facing possible heart surgery and perhaps a transplant. She had an appointment scheduled with a cardiac surgeon in Birmingham on March 2 to discuss the matter and to have a battery of tests done.
Susan was a registered nurse, spending the last 21 years of her career in hospice care. She was aware of where the progression of these illnesses would lead. In December 2022, she saw her pulmonologist and he referred her to a cardiac surgeon.
Everything changed that Sunday before the appointment was to take place. There was a strong anointing that morning as the presence of God fell when Pastor Eddie Lawrence was overcome by the power of God upon seeing a dear friend in the congregation. As he and the friend embraced and the power of God was strong in the room, Pastor Doc Shell began inviting all who needed a touch from God to come to the altar.
God was preparing Susan for what was to come that morning. Susan’s friend, Gary McFall, picked her up that morning before the service and told her he had a dream the night before that she would be healed. He said in his dream, a crowd had gone to the altar, stopped praying individually and collectively began praying for Susan and she was healed.
Just as in Gary’s dream, upon the invitation to come to the altar, a crowd did form and Susan was right in the middle of it. Others gathered behind to pray as people were getting anointed with oil. What happened next is beyond all that Susan thought would happen that day.
“I don’t know who anointed me with oil, but I felt a hot spear fall from the ceiling and hit the top of my head. It went through my body, through my heart and down through my feet and into the floor,” Susan explained. “I thought ‘Lord, I think I’m having a heart attack! I thank you Lord for my home in heaven!’”
But Susan did not have a heart attack and she did not die. She heard a lone voice. It was Pastor Doc Shell.
“Wait, wait, wait y’all…she’s almost there,’ he said..” Susan remembered. “I opened my eyes and I knew I’d been healed.” She took a breath and didn’t feel the pain she had felt for years as she struggled with her illnesses.
“I started crying,” Susan recalled. “My Lord has healed me and I don’t deserve it. Lord, I thank you.”
Susan said that moment of realization and recognition of her healing felt like walking into a warm, cozy home after being outside on a cold, blustery winter day.
“I melted into the warmth.” she said. “I had never felt as close to the Lord as I did that day. By Jesus’s stripes I am healed. For the first time I KNEW when He died on the cross, He died for me. He loved me that much. The nails didn’t hold Him on that cross. His love for me did.”
Susan said she envisioned Jesus on the cross and she was there, in the dirt at Jesus’s feet. Her eyes were focused on His feet.
“There were three shades of crimson blood pooled, some was dried and flaking, over His ankle and down to His big toe and the nail and cuticle.” Susan explained. “I heard Him say ‘These feet have carried you all this way. I have held you all your life and you are taking your first steps with me.”
Four days later, Susan traveled to Birmingham to meet her surgeon and undergo six hours of tests.
“I didn’t tell the doctor anything,” Susan laughed
.
Dr. Andrew Lenneman arrived in the exam room after the tests were complete and asked “Tell me why you are here?”
Susan went through the list: enlarged heart, congestive heart failure, pulmonary hypertension, etc.
“I’ve read your chart. I’ve read the list of medicines you are on,” the doctor explained. “We found nothing wrong with your heart.”
The doctor said her mitral valve had a tiny crease from being under so much pressure for so long, and there was a tiny amount of blood leaking that amounted to about as much blood that would be leaked in an athlete who was lifting weights.
“Lord, this is the evidence,” Susan exclaimed.
“I was a hospice nurse for 21 years.” Susan explained. “I’ve prayed with patients who just wanted two more weeks to see their children or grandchildren one last time.”
Yet she felt unworthy of her miracle. Susan had attended church her whole life, every Sunday morning. She grew up fearing God and believing in Him, but had never owned or read a personal Bible. It was just some that people in her former denomination did. Even then, she could see how the goodness of God was following her. After becoming a part of Grace House she began to grow more in her faith.
One day she was shopping at a local thrift store and her shopping cart got stuck on something. It was an old red Bible, the previous owner had the last name of “Brown” and she had underlined verses throughout the Bible. Moseley bought it and began devouring it.
“Ms. Brown became a friend to me.” Susan smiled.
Through that unknown friend’s Bible and her underlined scriptures, and loving counsel from the godly people in her life, Susan began to understand that all that had occurred in her life was covered in the blood of Jesus. Her sickness, her story, her page, had been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.
“I was told what was written on my page can’t be read because Jesus’s blood covers it.” Susan said in amazement.