Ординатура / Офтальмология / Английские материалы / An instrument in Gods Hand_Vaughan_1999

God was telling me to take a step of faith concerning the visas for China, to walk on water, as it were. I immediately went to our travel agent and booked a flight to Hong Kong with a stopover in Los Angeles.

Soon after I arrived in Los Angeles, we received word that the long-awaited visas had been granted, and the following day we left for Hong Kong, where we were able to obtain the necessary entry permits. We were the first such Christian group to have this great opportunity.

After processing all the necessary papers, we arrived back at our ministry house in Hong Kong in time to sit down together to a wonderful Thanksgiving meal. It was as the Lord had said. We truly did have something to be thankful for on Thanksgiving Day.

Dr. Vaughan was a big part of that China miracle and has been my friend ever since. Now you will come to know her through her book , An Instrument in God’s Hand. You will see the process that God used to bring her to her present-day effectiveness in His service.

Short and petite, Dr. Vaughan’s stature belies her great strength of soul and spirit. Since I have known her, I can say that her eye has always been single toward God and His Kingdom, and through the years, her vision has only enlarged and increased. She will surely be one of the great end-time players on God’s stage of the miraculous.

Ruth Ward Heflin

Ashland, Virginia

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Author’s Preface

On my desk, I have a Chinese marble egg with a variety of bright colors intertwined in it. This book reminds me of that egg because it, too, has a variety of intertwined bright themes — from Kathryn Kuhlman to surgical instruments and worldwide travel experiences (especially China and Israel); from dreams and visions God has given me, to life-impacting lessons from the Word of God taught to me as only the Holy Spirit can teach.

I will share with you how my life was transformed from a nominal Christian who had no personal relationship with Jesus Christ into someone who walks and talks with Him throughout every day and watches Him do miracles in abundance. Above all, as you read this book, I want you to see how YOU can be An Instrument in God’s Hand in these end times.

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Introduction

It was a hot summer day in Cincinnati in 1993. For me, it was a very special day because it was my birthday.

I was praying for sick people at the altar of a local church, where I had been holding a revival, when a lady approached me and asked if I would come back and pray for her sister who, she said, was unable to come to the front. Without hesitating and without thinking, I followed her.

She led me halfway back in the auditorium to an aisle seat, where her sister was sitting, a walker by her side. I said to her, “Rise, in the name of Jesus, and be healed.” I had no idea what her problem was. That never entered my mind. I simply took her by the arm, lifted her to her feet, and the two of us began walking down the center aisle of the church together.

I say “walking,” but the truth is that she was laboriously shuffling along, taking tiny baby steps. I noticed that the arm I was holding was very stiff. In fact, her entire body seemed stiff and immobile. None of these facts deterred me from encouraging her to walk.

Then, suddenly, a miraculous thing happened. The arm I was holding made a popping sound, and so did other parts of her body. I felt the arm become more flexible. This must have simultaneously happened in her legs because she began taking better steps.

By this time, we had arrived at the altar, and I proceeded to walk with her across the front of the church building — once, then twice

— and each time she was able to walk faster, until her shuffle became actual steps.

The third time we crossed the front of the altar area, we were jogging together, and I realized that she was going faster than I was.

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I let go of her arm, and she took off running with all her might. She ran down the side aisle to the back of the church and then across the back. She was running like an Olympic sprinter.

She came down the center aisle like she was doing the hundredyard dash. I had never seen anyone run so fast in my life. She was running so fast, in fact, that when she got to the altar area, there was no way she could make the turn. She didn’t seem to care. Just where the center aisle ended, she slid under the altar, like a baseball player sliding into home plate and laid there under the power of God.

All of us who had witnessed the event stood there in shock. A woman as stiff as a board had suddenly turned into a gazelle as she was healed by the power of God.

After the service, the pastor told me the woman’s story. He and his family had gone to a local restaurant and had just ordered their food when they looked out the window and saw this lady struggling to get out of a car. She worked her feet out first and then, grimacing with pain, she very slowly hoisted herself up onto her walker. Her feet moved only in tiny steps, and each tiny step seemed to take great effort and cause her excruciating pain.

The food arrived, and the family had finished eating and were already gathering their belongings and preparing to leave the restaurant by the time the lady and her sister, who accompanied her, were able to make it through the front door and to a table nearby. It had taken her more than thirty minutes to get inside and get seated.

Feeling great compassion for the woman, and recognizing that she desperately needed a miracle, the pastor spoke with her and her sister and told them about our revival meetings the following week. God would be doing miracles, he told them, and he hoped that they would attend. The lady answered that her doctors had done everything they knew to do, but were unable to help her further with her

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crippling disease. It was only after the pastor had encouraged them further that they had promised that they would try to come. Thank God they did.

How had a well-educated, scientifically trained medical doctor like me end up in a Cincinnati church, watching God do miracles? Allow me to take you back to the beginning and share with you, through the pages of this book, my discovery of the miraculous.

Elizabeth R. Vaughan, M.D.

Eye Surgeon

Dallas, Texas

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An Instrument in God’s Hand

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The Early Years

Chapter 1

The Early Years

It had been a hot Arizona day, but it was now night, and a cool, gentle summer breeze was blowing in through the second-story window of my grandparents’ house, where I was staying. Every summer I would spend two weeks with them in Phoenix. At bedtime, Grandmother would read me Bible stories, then kiss me good-night and turn out the lights. I was then left alone with the gentle breeze, thinking of the men she had read to

me about: Daniel in the den with those ferocious lions or David killing the huge giant with a single stone. What a big God took care of them!

My grandfather had been a successful businessman in Alabama until he became very ill. After doctors told him that his only chance for survival was to move to an arid climate, he committed his life to God, became a Methodist minister and moved his family to the southwestern United States, there to live by faith. Many were the times my grandparents would sit their children down to an

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