At the end of last year, in December, I was in a big meeting with the [executives] at my company. I work at a bank and I had to present a proposal that would go to our head offices. And as soon as I start talking, blood starts coming out of my nose.

Something I’ve never experienced before. I went to the bathroom [to] blow my nose and a big blood clot came out. The next day, I had a meeting on zoom. I’m talking and then I start bleeding again. Then I got scared. My younger sister is a doctor, so I called her and told her what happened. And she was like, “Tania, that’s a lot of blood. That’s not normal. Go to a hematologist.”

So I got an appointment [a week later]. When I arrived [for my appointment], I told the doctor everything that happened. He took labs and did a bunch of tests. It was a Wednesday and he told me to come back Friday for the results.

[When I went back], he first made me wait like a lot. Which didn’t happen in the previous appointment, and then he comes in and he’s very nervous.

He goes like, “You have Von Willebrand’s disease, which is a disease where you can bleed to death. You are 46-years-old and I don’t understand how you’ve never been diagnosed with this. You gave natural birth. You had two miscarriages. You had a couple of operations. And you are still alive.”

He had done three different tests and all three came positive. And it wasn’t even borderline positive. And that I know, because he gave me all the proof and I sent it to my sister. And she goes, “wow, Tania, it’s definitely a miracle you are alive.”

I always said, does God really heal physically? Does God really heal sickness? Because I've seen so many good Christians die of cancer, die of heart diseases, die of so many diseases. And I really would question God if he was really a healer.

[In 2021] our pastor from our last church died of cancer. And we had been praying for a whole year. And I was so sure I had faith, I believed with all my being that God was going to heal him. So when they gave us the news that he passed, I couldn't understand that. I couldn't.

It was like, why was I so sure that God would heal him and God took him home?

I never got to the point of doubting God’s existence. But my husband told me, “Tanya, sometimes I doubt if God exists.” The way all people deal with doubt is different. I told him, “this is about faith. When you have doubts, just tell God, “God, I doubt you exist. Are you real God?”

What I like to do is write a lot. So sometimes I take my journals and I read and it’s like, “oh, I forgot God did this. Oh, wow. This is not a human. This is supernatural. This is God.”

And I think that helps a lot. When you journal, you can go back because our mind doesn't remember everything. Our mind is finite. So we need to write stuff down. And God says it in his Word too, to write these things down. So we write stuff down so we can remember the goodness and the faithfulness of God.

A couple of months later [after our pastor died], my daughter was diagnosed with scoliosis. That’s also a disease where you are born with. That was so hard for me.

I was like, God, why am I going to ask you to heal her? If you didn't heal our pastor, he was like your chosen one. He was like your angel here on Earth.

And I actually didn't even pray for healing for her.

I was like, “God, give us the best doctors”. Because I was thinking that God wouldn’t heal her.

Months later, when we went back for a follow up, the doctor said to us, “scientifically, I can’t explain this. I have seen it, but there is no scientific explanation. Your daughter has no more scoliosis.”

And when my daughter was healed, I just started crying. Because I was like, “God, forgive my unbelief.” And that’s when I started getting hope again. Because I have to say, I lost hope. I was like, God do you hear us? Why do we pray?

[But even in the midst of that] I would always talk to God. I was like “give me hope, give me the joy I have in you.” Don’t disconnect from him even though you are disappointed.

[When I got diagnosed with Von Willebrand’s], the only song I could hear at that moment was CeCe Winans - "The Goodness of God." You've always been faithful.

And I was just thanking God for keeping me alive these 45 years and for just keeping my life in his hands. And allowing me to see my daughter grow up.

And then I said… “Well, God, I don't know what you have for me, but I would like that you give me another 45 years just so I can see my daughter grow, go to college, maybe get married, maybe have babies”.

Since it happened around Christmas and New Years, [I only told a small group of people]. I didn't want to give anybody this kind of news.

I only had told it to the pastors [Jenaveve and Seth] and to a couple in our church that we got a nice friendship. And I mentioned it to them and all four told me, “we're going to be praying.”

And I would pray. I would say, “God, I know you're the healer. I know you can heal me. And whatever your purpose is with this, I would like to know it if you want to reveal it. I would like to live a couple of more years to see grandchildren if it's possible, but whatever your will is God”.

Everything I would look up in the Word of God, it would talk about trusting, waiting and believing. Those three words.

Trust.

Wait.

Believe.

Almost daily I would like to find it in something. Either it's a verse or a devotional or a song that came up. Something a fellow brother or sister in Christ would share with me in WhatsApp or on Facebook or something. My mom would share. My sisters. Everything was trust, wait and believe. And I would write that down in my journal.

So I was like… another miracle.

During the weeks of waiting, God impressed on my heart a very old hymn. It talks about the blood of Jesus and it still has power and it still heals and it flows through the highest mountain and lowest valley. God wants to heal us and we have to ask for healing and believe when we ask that we can do it. For God, there’s nothing impossible.

It took me a while to understand [my pastor’s death]. It took me a while to understand that it was his time. We are just passing by in this world. And he was ready. My pastor would always tell me, “he was ready to go home.” Sometimes healing doesn’t happen on this side, but God healed him eternally. And it’s a healing tool we have to understand.