Chicken Strips and Wrist Immobilizers

One day while on duty, we paid a visit to a part of the city that my partner and I really like. Northeast Tacoma is a small, residential area perched on a hill overlooking the port of Tacoma. The view is nice, but the food is amazing. While killing time waiting for a call, we went to our favorite Shell station for fuel and food. I don’t normally eat gas station food, but this gas station makes the best chicken strips in town. While my partner filled the ambulance fuel tank, I got lunch.

I went inside and ordered a 4-piece box of chicken strips. I noticed that the young woman with blonde hair who took my order was wearing a black immobilizer on her wrist.

“Here are your chicken strips, sir. Did you want any dipping sauce?”

“Do you have any barbecue sauce?” She grabbed two packets of barbecue sauce and handed them to me. I pointed to the immobilizer on her wrist. “Carpal tunnel?”

“Yeah… and I hate wearing this thing,” she replied pointing to the immobilizer.

“How would you like to be healed?”

Using her fingers to gesture quotation marks in the air, she asked, “What do you mean by ‘healed’?”

“I’ve prayed for a lot of people with carpal tunnel syndrome and many of them have been healed.”

She looked at me, rolled her eyes and in a sarcastic tone said, “whatever.” She was skeptical, which is understandable if you’ve never seen anyone healed at a gas station. But this wasn’t my first barbecue. Before I paid for the food, I asked her to hold out her arm and she did.

“Can I pray for you?” I asked.

“Sure, if it makes you feel better.”

I gave her a wry smile. “I feel fine. You’re the one who’s going to feel better.” I placed my hand on the immobilizer. “I command this wrist to be healed in the name of Jesus. I command the spirit of pain to leave right now. Inflammation, I command you to go.” I asked if she felt anything.

“No, it still hurts.”

I prayed again. “Spirit of pain, get out now in Jesus’ name. Carpal tunnels, be healed. Do you feel anything different?”

She tried to move her hand in a circle. “Nope, it still hurts.”

I prayed a third time. “I command the carpal tunnel to be opened now in this wrist. Ligaments and tendons, be healed in Jesus’ name.” I asked again if she felt any change.

“Nothing. It still hurts.”

I told her that sometimes people get healed, though they don’t feel any changes immediately. Sometimes they notice the symptoms go away the next day or even a week later. “I believe you’re healed and I think you’ll feel it soon. When you’re healed, just know that God did it because He loves you.” I thanked her and left with my chicken strips, which were awesome.

We went back to the Shell station about two weeks later for fuel. While my partner filled the tank, I went inside to get some of those yummy chicken strips. I saw the same woman behind the counter. She wasn’t wearing the wrist immobilizer, so I asked her where it was. With a smile she said, “I don’t need it anymore, my wrist feels great.”

“Now that you’ve been healed, let me tell you how to keep the pain from coming back. Healing is a little like warfare. There’s this enemy out there who wants you to have that pain back. Jesus wants you to be healed. If the pain returns, just tell it to leave in the name of Jesus and keep believing you’re healed.”

“Okay, I’ll remember that,” she replied. “Hey, are you gonna get some chicken strips or not?”

“Of course I am! The chicken strips here are amazing. But not as amazing as Jesus.”