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CBN.com – "It would take me a really long time to try and make my fingers work," says Cindy Asmus. "I had to think, I’m going to do this. Even tying my shoe, brushing and flossing my teeth, holding on to a pen and writing were hard to do."
At age 44, Cindy Asmus’ life turned upside down. The doctor told her she had Parkinson’s disease. At first the symptoms were minor: She felt weak; there was a numbness in her arm. Over several years, it progressed into uncontrollable shaking.
Cindy’s faith made it hard to accept the diagnosis.
"You pray all the time that God wasn’t going to let this happen. It actually does get diagnosed. There’s a part that thinks, I’ve been before the elders. Like His Word says, I’ve been anointed, we’ve prayed, and we’ve claimed. Yet I was still diagnosed with it. That was hard," she reveals.
Everyday tasks became impossible.
"I was trying to put the cap back on the pen, and my brother-in-law was watching me and trying to get it," Cindy recalls. "I finally had to line my hands against the table to put the cap on the pen because it was really hard even to do that."
Cindy’s physician, Dr. Eric Duwell, remembered the severity of Cindy’s condition.
"I know she was having coordination problems with her arm to some degree, fumbling and dropping things," he says. "She wasn’t the same person. She was tremulous, upset a good deal of the time, all because of the progressive nature of her neurological condition."
For years, Cindy worked tirelessly as a volunteer at her church. She taught Sunday school and sang on the worship team. She wanted to know why God would let this happen.
"I said, 'God, I don’t understand this, but I can’t deal with this anymore,' Cindy prayed.
One day Cindy decided she had to turn it all over to God.
"I came to church on Sunday, and the pastor had done an altar call—if anybody needed prayer, if anybody needed anything, come up. I went up to the altar and just knelt there," she explains. "I said, 'God, you have got to help me because I can’t deal with this anymore. A peace started coming over me. At that time, that wonderful small voice of God came and said, 'I’m going to heal you, but it is not time yet.' "
Months later, something amazing happened right here at Cindy’s church in Neenah, Wis.
"That was Wednesday night Bible study. We had come to church," Cindy remembers. "It wasn’t this big, special night that anything particular happened. We always have a prayer request at the end and we pray for needs. At the very end of that, the pastor walked over—which he had done so many times before and prayed for this illness to leave. As he started praying, it was like I began to shake a little bit more. I don’t even know how long we prayed. All of a sudden, everything stopped, every bit of shaking stopped. All I kept thinking was I’m not shaking. I’m not shaking anymore. That’s all I kept thinking because I hadn’t been able to still my hands in months. It was so unreal to just sit there and be still and not have any part of my body move."
Ever since that night in June 2001, Cindy enjoys even the small tasks.
"I can tie my shoes really fast now. I can run upstairs instead of where I could hardly walk up stairs. I can write a clear sentence. I can eat with a spoon, a fork. I can cut with a knife, which I couldn’t do before. There is so much to be thankful for that I can get up and I can do the things that, when I was ill, could not do," she says.
Cindy wants others to trust God with their physical problems.
"No matter what you see," says Cindy, "He’s
there and He’s able. And not to worry, which I think at
times we still do. But give it to Him completely. Do not take
it back."
A caring friend will be there to pray with you in your time of need.
