Healed from a Bent Condition

By Thelma Gilbert M.A. D.D.

Thelma describes the personal woundedness that almost devastated her. She explains her addiction to prescribed medications that put her into a zombie-like state. She identified herself with the biblical account of the woman with a bent-over condition (Luke 13:1017) with gut-wrenching truth as she confessed her prayers for miracles.

Kenric A. Prescott, pastor and teacher, Union Baptist Church of Hartford; Hartford, CT

The pain, insight, thoughtfulness, and ultimate victory in this writing by Rev. Dr. Thelma Gilbert is greatly needed by men and women in these difficult days and times. Sharing both her journey from painful darkness to Gods marvelous light and the story of the woman with bent-over condition (Luke 13:1017), Healed from a Bent Condition brings peace and hope to people who are struggling to find their way.

Reverend Asalean Lena Brown, associate minister, Martin Temple A.M.E.Z. Church; Chicago, IL

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jan 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781512724899

Thelma Gilbert M.A. D.D.

The Rev. Dr. Thelma Gilbert was ordained into the gospel ministry of Jesus Christ in 1986. She is recognized as a competent, qualified, and well-trained teacher, leader, pastor, and servant. Well-prepared, disciplined, cheerful, and confident, Thelma serves as an advocate for people of all ages who are oppressed, suffering, and heartbroken from the many ills of our society. Dr. Gilbert’s God-given gifts, talents, and services as an acclaimed teacher, seminar speaker, and preacher are sought across the United States. Dr. Gilbert is a pioneer and mentor for women in ministry. She became the first woman president of a predominantly male organization after several decades of their existence, and the first woman pastor voted into an almost one-hundred-year-old organization in Connecticut. She is the recipient of many awards for dedicated services. Thelma is the mother of two children and the grandmother of seven grandchildren. One of her favorite scriptures is Proverbs 3:5–6. You can reach her at [e-mail] or by mail: P.O. Box 7232, Bloomfield, CT 06002.

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Copyright © 2016 Thelma Gilbert, M.A., D.D.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Author Photo by Chantrail Maybelle Simmons

Front Cover Photo by Kenric Austin Prescott, M.S.W., M.Div. http://kapturedphotos.redbubble.com

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5127-2488-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-2490-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-2489-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015921201

WestBow Press rev. date: 1/8/2016

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Scripture

Childhood and Adolescence

My Request and the Issue of Judging

Judgmental, Critical, and Faultfinding Spirits

Not So Special

What Would I Have Done?

Request Granted

A Personal Testimony

Doctor’s Confession

Rock Bottom

A Taste of Bitterness

The Spirit of Forgiveness

All That Medicine

Inaccurate Diagnosis

A Breakthrough

First Witness

Second Witness

Third Witness

A Spiritual Battle

Definitions of a Miracle

The Reality of Demons and Satan, or Devils

Demons

Satan

Jesus’s and the Bible’s Statements about the Reality of Satan

The Sabbath Miracles of Jesus

Noticeable and Unnoticeable Maladies

A Nameless Woman

Not a Name Issue but a Faith Issue

Faith: What Is It?

The Daughter of Abraham’s Faith

If Jesus Prayed, What about Us?

It’s the Name, Not the Disability

Spiritual Disability: The Sin Issue

Adam and Eve’s Disobedience: The First Sin Issue

The Curse

What Is Your Disability?

Charlotte Elliott

Luke

The Synagogue

The Importance and Purpose of the Synagogue

Rulers

The Ruler: A Worshipper with a Hidden Agenda

The Lord of the Sabbath

A Daughter of Abraham

The Woman’s Diagnosis

The Infirmity of Sin

Our Spiritual Malady

The Woman’s Healing

The Religious Ruler and the Sabbath

Rejoicing in the Lord

A Glimpse of Faith and Hope

Rest Found in Jesus Alone

Moving Forward, Upward, and Onward

I Am a Witness

Where Am I Now?

By God’s Power

Advancing in the Lord

The Issue of Sexism

A Continuous Journey in the Lord

Bibliography

Author’s Profile

In loving

memory of three people I miss dearly: my mother, the late Osceola Simmons, and my two sisters, the late Marjorie Gibson and the late Maybelle Simmons

Comments about the Au

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Rev. Dr. Thelma Gilbert is a woman after the heart of God. God hath spoken concerning you: Greater! Oh, taste and see that the Lord is blessing your journey as you travel down Destiny Road! Press on!

—Presiding Bishop Jean B. Taylor

Jehovah-Jireh Ministries International

It is a genuine honor to count Rev. Dr. Thelma Gilbert a dear friend. She is an anointed and committed servant of God. She is a great organizer and administrator. Rev. Gilbert is quite humble and always is committed to helping others. Her book Healed from a Bent Condition is both inspiring and encouraging. It is destined to touch with meaningful impact all who shall read its pages.

—Vincent L. Thompson Jr., MSW, M.Div., D.Min.

Pastor and Teacher

Rev. Dr. Gilbert has availed herself to be the canvas for God’s works. She has made her life one of learning, teaching, loving, giving, receiving, administering, falling, recovering, and always standing on faith. The reader will get a glimpse of her journey in progress through these pages.

—Tanya Johnson-Gilchrist, LCSW, MPH, CPH

The Rev. Dr. Thelma Gilbert is truly a woman of God. Dr. Gilbert has been called a trailblazer for women. She has paved the way for women of all ages, nationalities, and faiths in ministry. She is indeed a woman with great talents given to her by God. Over the years, she has unselfishly given of herself to others by serving God and humanity.

—Minister Tina Williams-Knight

Pastor Thelma Gilbert, (Mama T), as I call her, is a remarkable, anointed, persevering, gift to the body of Christ.

Her infectious smile, intelligence, graciousness in giving to others, flows out of a reservoir of the grace God has entrusted to her. Rev. Dr. Thelma Gilbert, the first female President of the Greater Hartford Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, is a trail blazer, a spiritual mentor and teacher to women pastors, ministers, and laymen, in the state of Connecticut.

—Lydia P. Ford

Pastor of Don’t Forget To Say Your Prayers Ministry

Thelma and I have been friends for over forty years. I watched Thelma grow from a person of low self esteem to the strong woman she is today. I could compare her transformation in life to the metamorphosis of the butterfly. Her faith in God, through all of her trials, never waivered.

—Dorothy L Googe

Foreword

The author, Dr. Thelma Gilbert, and I have much in common. At some point in our lives, we’ve personally experienced illness or watched loved ones suffer through diseases, disabilities, and deaths due to relentless maladies. Maladies affect all sizes, races, and cultures. Maladies have no regard for our spiritual or religious backgrounds. When disorders assault our lives, questions naturally arise. We ask, Why me? Is there no end to my suffering? How did this suffering find me? Our experiences seem to parallel those of the apostle Paul, and we wonder if Satan sent the suffering to taunt, buffet, and defeat us (2 Corinthians 12:7). Are our disabilities and diseases the results of our personal sins or those of our parents (John 9:1–2)? Does illness come as a test initiated by Satan but sanctioned by the Lord (Job 2:1–7)? On the other hand, are the woes in our lives sent to give glory to God, as John 11:4 suggests?

Some sicknesses are short-lived, while others abide throughout our lives. When they settle in for the long run, we need a strategy to contest them and claim victory over them. In Healed from a Bent Condition, Dr. Gilbert unveils her personal path from a bent condition to relief and healing.

I have known Dr. Gilbert for nineteen years and have found her to be an insightful and able preacher, teacher, church planter, and retreat facilitator. I knew of her tenderhearted work as a human services professional and her call to ministry and the pastorate, yet only as I read her book did I learn that she is one of the wounded healers Henri Nouwen describes in his book The Wounded Healer.

Thelma describes the personal wounds that almost devastated her. She speaks of personal demons that tested her faith that left her desperate, depressed and devastated. As with Job,¹ she wondered about the presence of God in the midst of her suffering. She describes a five-year battle for her life as she accepted her doctor’s prescriptions for psychotropic meds. Thelma describes her addiction to prescribed medications that put her in a zombielike state. She identifies herself with the biblical account of a woman with a bent-over condition (Luke 13:10–17), and with gut-wrenching truth, she confesses her prayers for miracles. She saw no miracle, yet her faith did not fail.

There were times when she conducted Freudian self-analysis, trying to learn the formula for her own healing. In this book, she weaves her life story with biblically grounded and theologically sound reasoning. In time, she got to a place where she discovered the essence of Nouwen’s message: The beginning and the end of all Christian leadership is to give your life for others.²

I was honored by her request to write the foreword for her book. Regrettably, I have only known her since her release from her bent-over condition. I wish I had known her before her transformation. In fact, whenever you read gospel accounts of people who received relief from their maladies, in most cases, you’ll discover that the healed, exorcized, or resurrected people received whole and malady-free lives.

In a few gospel accounts, we see people celebrating their unbent conditions. Some leaped (Acts 14:9–1), some returned home (Matthew 9:8), and the woman who was cured after twelve years of bleeding (Matthew 9:22) simply slipped into the crowd and was never seen again. However, I love the accounts in which people’s healings, exorcisms, restorations, and resurrections end up with people celebrating and telling everyone the good news (Matthew 8:2–3, 9:27–31; Mark 5:18–20; Luke 7:11–18).

With this book, Thelma testifies of her faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. She celebrates the transformation the Lord performed in her life, and as with others in the Bible, she has been testifying of the great things the Lord has done for her. Because of the Lord’s goodness and grace, she has poured out her life in service to God and humanity. She has given herself over to the work of bringing help, healing, and hope to others.

Since overcoming her bent-over condition, she has engaged in pastoral and human service work that has opened new vistas and opportunities for many. Her unbent state of life has resulted in ministries rendered to the glory and honor of the Lord.

Kenric A. Prescott

Pastor and Teacher, Union Baptist

Church of Hartford, Connecticut

Preface

When I started to write this book, I intended to write a book of sermons. During that time in my life, I was going through a wilderness experience with God. I was waiting for the Holy Spirit to direct my next steps in ministry. To my amazement, as I started writing the first sermon on the miracle of the woman with the spirit of infirmity, the Holy Spirit guided my thoughts in a direction I never could have imagined. Surprisingly, this story, located in Luke 13:10–17, started developing into a book of its own. It was then that I realized my next step was to write this book. This twist confounded my spirit and mind. I tossed my plans for the book of sermons out the window, remembering what my mother used to say to me: We plan, but God unplans. How true this statement has been concerning this book and my life as a whole. My mother experienced and understood what Jeremiah 29:11 meant far better than I did. I encourage you to accept the truth of God’s Word, as I did, as you read the following verse of Scripture: ‘‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future" (NIV).

I thank God for my mother’s wisdom, but most of all, I thank God for knowing the plans He has for my life. The wisdom and insight I received from the ministry of the Holy Spirit while writing this book were miracles in and of themselves. I am eternally grateful to God for entrusting me with this challenging task.

In the miracle of the woman described in Luke 13:10–17, there are four different players. The first is a woman who has a disability called a spirit of infirmity; the second is Christ, the healer; the third is a faultfinding ruler; and the fourth is a grateful crowd. When you read of this supernatural act performed by Jesus Christ, I pray the working ministry of the Holy Spirit will deepen your understanding of His Word and enlighten you with new revelations from His heavenly throne. Hopefully you will come to the realization that every human being, in one way or another, is crippled with a spirit of infirmity. While you read this book, I hope you will gain a keen awareness of the fact that we need a healing Christ in our lives, individually and collectively.

It is my desire that when you receive your healing from Jesus, the Great Physician, you will share your testimony with others. While sharing your testimony and rejoicing in the Lord, give God all the glory. Let your testimony be so convincing and powerful that others will know that

God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us. (Ephesians 3:20 MSG)

While you continue growing in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, I pray that your faith in God will increase, your trust in Him will deepen, and your hope in His miraculous power will become secure. As you travel your Christian journey, I hope you will know how to discern who is for you and who is against you. Just as there were faultfinding and trap-laying people who entered the synagogue with the wrong motives during Jesus’s earthly ministry, faultfinding and trap-laying people exist in the body