This
written down testimony has only one and dutiful purpose, to exalt and glorify
the name of the Lord because during the first days of February 1956 He performed
a great miracle on Luigi, my second son. Since then
. I was determined to
tell this miracle wherever I would be and wherever I would have an
opportunity to tell it: inside or outside a church, among friends, relatives
and strangers
. To the glory of God! |
What God
worked on my son was not done in a corner
. secretly, unknown to everybody;
but there are various witnesses, the obstetrician Piccirillo
the
orthopaedist Doctor Carmine Scarpati of Taranto, my parents and the whole
Church of Taranto, at the time. |
When I
gave birth to this child, his little right foot was deformed. When he was
only three days old his foot was put in plaster (nearly up to his right knee)
and in the judgement of the orthopaedist he had to keep the plaster on for 20
days. |
Those
plasterings
. Had to continue till the age when the child would begin to
walk and afterward, perhaps, through some operations and an orthopaedic shoe
the child would walk quite well. |
|
Obviously,
in that circumstance, I and my husband were tremendously sad. We would weep
and could not comfort one another (
.), however, immediately after I
recovered physically (about one month had passed since the birth of my child)
we decided to pray seriously: we wanted the Lord to intervene on our behalf!
.. Together with other brothers of the Church, who were very bound to us by
affection, brother Antonio Dentico with his family, brothers Francesco and
Giacomo Caldarolo with their families, we decided to pray intensely to God that
He might heal my child, and so we prayed on behalf of my child for three
days. |
Since the
first day of prayer we tasted the blessing of God and we felt the assurance
that the healing had taken place, yet, in order not to incur some
responsibilities
, we did not dare to take the plaster cast off his foot. |
After
several days (we were in the period of the second plaster), as usual, the
doctor came to take the plaster cast off and to do the third plastering. We,
parents, were present and we were in front of him, we were looking forward to
seeing the little foot normalized and thus completely healed!
. But
unfortunately, we did not see the foot healed!
Obviously, we did not say
anything to the doctor about our intimate secret, that is, about our prayer
and our assurance about the healing; yet we felt very disappointed and
discouraged when we saw that foot still deformed! However,
. We asked the doctor not to put the foot in plaster the third time,
but to wait kindly for a possible communication from us. When the doctor went
out
. We looked each other in the eyes to encourage one another, but our
eyes were full of tears, we could not refrain from weeping!
. |
During the
days which followed
. Faced with the visible reality of the non-healing, we
were embarrassed and perplexed; we really were at our wits end. We were
waiting for the miracle
.. And since we had not received it, we fell down as
into a well, and there was no way out! |
The doctor
was waiting for our decision about what to do
he,
of course, did not understand our perplexity! However we, with that little
faith we had,
wanted to see, to wait, to reflect
further, perhaps to continue to pray
and to believe in the promises of
God.!... |
The first
week passed and, not seeing the healing and any improvement, feeling our
responsibility, obviously, faced with the opinion of those who knew us and
knew about the deformation, and feeling also guilty about carelessness toward
our son
. we decided to call for the doctor but we
did not find him. To use the telephone seemed to us little official and thus
we fixed an appointment with Mrs Scapati for the third plastering
. We
waited for the doctor for all the evening, but the doctor did not come. |
We called
for the doctor once more, we had to be quick, there was no time to waste
but also this second time there was an obstacle; the doctor was ill, we had
to wait several days
for the healing of the doctor and then we had to
plaster the foot. However, just in the meantime (
.) a thing which we were
not expecting any longer (or almost any longer) happened!
obviously because of our misery and lack of faith!.... |
One of
those mornings, while we were waiting for the healing of the doctor
. As
usual I got ready in order to make my son have a bath. While I was
unbandaging my son
thats what I would do everyday watching the feet of my
little child carefully and at length, speaking words of hope and prayer, that
morning
. I noticed that there was something I could not understand but
is
it an illusion or do I not see well?
.. I did scarcely believe my eyes
then I took the little feet in my hands, I put one foot close to the other
and to my surprise I saw they were exactly the same. I rubbed again my eyes
in order to watch better
. In my opinion, the malformation was not there any
longer!
. I called my husband to make sure that he also could see what I
saw. He also took the feet of the baby in his hands, then
we looked at each other amazed, almost incredulous, as if what had happened were
not true. |
Looking
well at the feet again and thoroughly we convinced ourselves that it was
true! Rather
. Very true!
God had done the miracle of the perfect and
complete healing! We embraced one another and we wept for joy inexpressible,
then we took the child in our arms, we fondled him, and we rejoiced praising
God for His very big help and His mercy toward us! |
Overflowing
with happiness and uncontrollable joy, we phoned doctor Scapati: What
happened? the doctor said to my husband. Doctor, come here to see! my
husband replied. |
The doctor
came
. And he examined carefully the feet of the child, and every now and
then he looked at us
he did not know what to say
we noticed that he was
embarrassed and perplexed and eventually he said to us: If you dont say to
me
.. which is the foot we are treating
. I am not
able to say which one is the feet deformed! Is it
the right foot or the left one? We smiled
. Because of amazement, but it
was true. We alone could remember which was the foot, because for about two
months and a half we had seen it deformed and several times each day, and now
it was perfectly healed! How could we forget it? How couldnt we know it? |
The doctor
told us that he had never seen during his profession such a thing and he
added: You have received a real miracle!
.. Then we spoke to him about our
request we had made to God
. To him it was not a novelty since we had
already spoken to him about the Lord, that happened the first time he had
come to our home to plaster the foot of our child for the first time; rather,
he himself, seeing the pictures with the verses of the Word of God, had inquired
about our profession of evangelical faith. To him that was just a
reconfirmation that we believe in a Living God!
. |
To God
alone, therefore, we give all praise and glory! |
|
Yours in
Christ Jesus |
|
Maria
Ciavalella Zucchi |
|
From:
Zucchi Sergio, Espansione Pentecostale [Pentecostal Expansion], 1994,
Taranto, Italy, pages 384-387 |