Have you ever heard the story of the courageous man of God, Job, according to the holy Bible?
Job was a man of God whose body was greatly stricken and bed-ridden. He lost everything, including his family. However, the faith that he exemplified went beyond the average human’s mind of measure.
Can you think of one that has been greatly afflicted physically and each time, regardless of the length of the suffering, still managed to hold on to faith, a faith that seems to have a way of changing the mind of God Himself?
Well, I have. She’s a wonderful, courageous woman of God.
She fears him, loves him and is willing to be a working vessel for his purpose.
She is the mother of three children, a deaconess and a prophetess.
Elizabeth Blanding of Silver is a true warrior. She has experienced the worst kind of pain, but the best kind of miracles!
It started more than 50 years ago. While undergoing a hysterectomy, Blanding began to suffer major blood loss from massive bleeding caused by a major blood vessel that burst in her neck. The doctors tried to give her more blood, but as soon as the blood was given, her body was rejecting it and the blood was running out of her veins as quickly as they were giving it.
Finally, her heart stopped. After resuscitation was no longer an option, Blanding was pushed to the side.
“I was still cut wide open,” she said. “I was waiting for the hospital’s morgue.”
Meanwhile, she said that God was performing His work, doing His own surgery. She said that doctors noticed her heart began to “beat on its own, and the vein that burst had tied itself in a knot at its end, which stopped the bleeding.
“Dr. Coker called me his miracle,” she said. “But I would correct him: ‘No, I’m God’s miracle.’”
Blanding underwent two serious back surgeries for three ruptured disks.
Ruptured disks may be caused by a sudden back injury, lifting excessive weights, improperly lifting weights, aging, being overweight and a number of other factors. They can cause severe leg pain, numbness or weakness of the legs and feet, along with back pain
However, more serious cases may cause sudden loss of bladder or bowel function, requiring immediate medical attention.
Blanding said she had three disks removed in her back, replacing them with artificial disks. She was told she would never walk again. However, she says that she trusted God and believed that she was going to walk again.
Well, indeed she did, and she continued without assistance. She told her testimony to anyone who would listen.
About 25 years ago, Blanding endured not one but two strokes within a short time span. One left her paralyzed on her entire left side. She was then under the care of Dr. Edward Keith and Dr. Clarence Coker. She remembers looking at a glass of water on her bedside table, thirsting for it, but unable to get to it.
She said she then told the Lord that if He healed her and completely raised her up, that she would do his will.
“I said, ‘I will do whatever you want me to do,’” she said.
She was completely healed. There were no effects of either stroke remaining. She returned to work at Windsor Manor Nursing Facility in the Silver community.
During the late 1990s, Blanding also had replacement surgery on both knees. Then, on Sunday, Jan. 1, 2005, during morning worship, Blanding suddenly became sick again.
There was sudden severe chest pains, nausea, severe pressure in her chest, shortness of breath and momentary times of unconsciousness. Her daughter rushed her to Clarendon Memorial Hospital. Her daughter tells how scared she was trying to drive while her mother was in pain, screaming in between fainting and telling her that she loved her and to let the rest of the family know how much she loved them.
It was then that Blanding closed her eyes and the family all thought the worst.
When they arrived, the doctors reported that her heart was extremely weak with between 16-20 beats per minute. They said Blanding was in congestive heart failure.
Things were not looking good.
“You better stay prayed up, cause when the time comes and you can’t pray for yourself, you will be OK,” Blanding had always said. “Because you will have already stored up your prayers!”
This must have been the case with her, because she came out once again victorious.
She did require a pacemaker while under doctor’s care.
Blanding began suffering unexplained shortnesses of breath in 2010, followed by severe chest pains and associated chest pressure. She was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a chronic lung disease which causes poor flow of the airways.
It’s a disease that worsens over time. She was placed on oxygen, which she was required to have at all times. Later, she said she was told that she was in dire need of both a new heart and lungs due to the severity of her COPD, high blood pressure and congestive issues.
She said that she was told, however, that due to her age, which was in the late 60s, along with other health factors, that she was not a candidate for the donor list.
“All I could do was trust in God,” she said.
She was confined to a wheel chair and her breath seemed short even while using oxygen.
But every Sunday she was able, she was at worship, praying and testifying.
“I know God is a healer, and I’m believing him for the new lungs and a new heart!” she would say.
Most services she was praying for others, allowing herself to be used by her God, prophesying and ministering to everyone.
Around this time, her doctor in Columbia informed her that he had some good and bad news. The latter was that the battery in her pacemaker was almost gone. The former was that although the pacemaker was working at only 5 percent, the heart she needed to have replaced was beating at 95 percent.
“I said that God kept her and was healing my body,” she said.
After more than three years in a wheel chair, with mandated oxygen, Blanding attended a youth explosion service Aug. 29, 2013, at Macedonia Fire Baptized Holiness Church in Silver, where the Rev. Ethel W. Sweat is the host pastor and Apostle Jerome Langly of Andrews was the guest speaker.
During the service, Langly began to pray for Blanding, and she suddenly got up out of the wheelchair, proceeded to jump up and down and removed the oxygen.
“God did that,” she said. “He worked a miracle in my life.”
Blanding tells her testimony often to her church family and those in the Silver community.
But in December 2015, she began to have more difficulties with her breathing. She was hospitalized with congestive heart failure again. The doctors extracted 2.5 bags of fluid, and she was 50 pounds lighter after extraction.
“The doctors told me that I should have been gone,” Blanding said. “With that amount of fluid, it should have definitely been my call to death.”
She said she never felt the build up of fluid.
“I still give credit to God,” she said. “God is still a healer.”
She said she still believes through faith, regardless of what she goes through, that “God can do anything, but fail!”
I have had the great pleasure of listening to Blanding minister and also to witness some of her scariest moments in her health. It is what motivated the decision to write this, to help her get the word out that, “He did it for me, He can do it for you,” as she says.
She said that, even now at 75, her body is being healed by God.
She loves to tell her testimony while singing her favorite hymn, “I still have a praise inside of me,” by the L.A. Mass Choir.
It’s not often we find someone with the faith and the strength of Job, especially after having gone through so much. However, I found one that has the faith and the spirit of Job, and her name is Elizabeth Blanding.
“Though He slay me, yet I will trust Him.” – Job 13:15 NKJV
- Sondra Busby
