If God can heal me he can do anything

Tara had endured 20 months of severe pain, hospitals and hadn’t been able to eat a single meal in that time, then God moved miraculously. She told Chris Rolfe her story of despair, faith and the medical results her specialists couldn’t explain

“We did the test wrong, we’ll have to repeat it,” the specialist told his team.

But lying on the hospital bed in front of him, Tara knew that no matter how many times they tested her the results mystifying her medical team would be the same because God had answered her prayers for healing after 20 months of agonising pain and life-threatening illness.

Diagnosis

Tara’s story began around Christmas 2023.

“I began struggling to eat, felt sick all the time, had no energy and lost a lot of weight really quickly,” she explains.

“I didn’t know it then, but that Christmas dinner was my last proper meal and the next time I’d eat something that resembled a dinner would be August 2025.”

As Tara’s condition deteriorated, even drinking water caused excruciating pain. Malnourished, she began being fed through nasal feeding tubes.

Eventually, specialists discovered that two arteries and a vein in her abdomen were significantly compressed.

“I was diagnosed with vascular compression syndrome. There’s only five known cases in the UK so it’s incredibly rare.”

“There’s nothing more we can do”

Relatives, friends and her church family from Ingatestone Elim supported Tara and her two children, Eva (eight) and Finn (three), through months of appointments, emergency admissions, tests and severe pain.

“I couldn’t have managed without their hospitality and them being there for us on so many nights when I was in hospital. They advocated with medics not to give up on treating me too.”

But eventually she conceded that moving closer to her mum and stepdad in Malvern would provide more consistent care for her kids.

By May 2025, Tara’s medical team admitted they’d run out of treatment options.

“They said, ‘There’s not much we can do now. We can keep you comfortable and control your symptoms, but you’re being assigned to the palliative consultants.’”

Tara’s faith had stayed strong until then, but she struggled with unanswered prayer.

“I wrote letters to my children because we didn’t know which way things would go.

“I was at my lowest ebb and at times felt abandoned by God.

“I thought, ‘I’m a young mum with two wonderful children. What have I done so wrong that I can’t just live my life with them?’”

The turning point

Shortly after an extended hospital stay Tara experienced the worst night of her illness.

“The pain was excruciating because my aorta was rubbing up against the other arteries in my abdomen and against my spine.”

Paramedics, a doctor and district nurses battled to control it but even strong opioids didn’t touch the sides.

It was this night that Tara came closest to God.

“When the pain became unbearable, I prayed a prayer of complete despair: ‘God, if this is it, I can’t do it anymore. Just call me home.’

“In that moment I felt God saying, ‘Just hold on a bit longer, even if it’s minute by minute.’ That was such a clear turning point.

“I was clinging on to life, but I needed to pray that prayer to unlock God’s direction for me. I’ve never felt Him with me more than that night.”

A second encounter

Tara now felt better able to bear her situation, but her condition didn’t improve, so specialists planned major surgery.

It was to take place in August in London, so Tara stayed with her dad and stepmum nearby beforehand. Here, she had a second transformational encounter.

“I was sitting in the garden reading my Bible and felt this overwhelming sense of peace and contentment, like a light inside me.

“From that moment my health started to improve. I was able to manage with less of the strong pain medication and slowly started eating food I hadn’t been able to eat in a long time.

“Without any medical confirmation I knew something had shifted massively.”

Specialists mystified

Tara went for a pre-op procedure and there experienced a third move of God.

She waited all day for her appointment and was so impatient to get home she agreed to have the pre-op under local anaesthetic and therefore was fully awake to see what God did.

The specialist injected her with dye then turned to his trainee.

“Tara has classic Nutcracker Syndrome,” he said, “so you’ll see the dye go in then it will pool when it reaches the point of compression.”

But a different result mystified the whole room.

“He said, ‘We’ve done this wrong, we have to go again,’ says Tara, “but I lay there thinking, do it three, four times, whatever you need, but it’ll show the same thing!

“He said, ‘Wait. This has opened up massively. We haven’t seen this before.’

“He was speechless. He knew what a miracle this was because he’s the only specialist surgeon in the country for this condition. He’d been with me from the start and had seen me at my worst so could see what a victory it was.

“He said, ‘I can’t explain this to you medically, Tara.’

“I said, ‘I don’t need a medical explanation, I know God has healed me.’”

Back to life

Every day since then, Tara’s health has improved.

“I continue to strengthen, I can eat what I want, and I’ve got the energy to do things with my children that I never could have done before.

“They saw me so sick for so long but now we’re enjoying quietly getting back to life, eating dinner together and me always being there to pick them up from school.”

Tara recalls how in her worst days she was encouraged by Eva’s faithful prayers for healing. Now she can see how the experience has impacted the whole family’s faith.

“I was baptised at Ingatestone in November and Eva and Finn’s faith has deepened too. He’s only three, but he’s been praying, ‘Thank you God for healing mummy.’

“We pray for miracles and we pray with faith that God can perform them, but when you’re actually healed it’s transformative.

“You think, ‘If God can do that for me, He can do anything.’”

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.