HOLY SHIT!!!!

I am sick. I believe I have the hoopacoodis, which is what my mother called any illness involving cold or flu-like symptoms. There were four of us kids and we frequently had the hoopacoodis and when we did, we were always dosed with "red medicine" which I believe was some sort of cough syrup/decongestant and which was used so liberally in my household that it was bought by the quart in a brown industrial-strength looking bottle and was kept in a kitchen cabinet, the better to be handily available for instant dispensation.

Now this was in Winter Haven, Florida, which is right down the road from Lakeland, Florida, which is the location of some sort of big-ass revival going on called Florida Healing Outpouring. If you go to their website, which I just did, you will find a professional-looking movie that shows just how cool and amazing this revival is. You will also find plenty of ways to DONATE if God so moves you to do so.

This is not your run-of-the-mill revival, folks. No. They've got a fat, white, baldheaded, tattooed preacher who is regularly visited by angels. The dead are being raised. Twenty-four times so far! There's the case of the man who can now see through his glass eye! Which, they point out, is even more miraculous than if Jesus had given him a new, real eye. They also say they are miraculously giving people gold teeth via prayer and boy, do I wish I'd have gotten in on that one because my gold crowns cost a lot of money that I would much rather have spent on something else.

There are pages of testimony on the website, many of them offering heartfelt messages of healing like this actual one I just read:

i feel god is not only moving there, but i feel it has begun there!!! My mamaw has been miraculuosly healed!!!!! Praise GOD!!!!!!!!!!!

Well. Who could argue with that?

After spending several long moments perusing some of the many, many bits of film uploaded to YouTube from these revivals, I can only say that God obviously doesn't think obesity is a problem or he would be doing a bit more healing in that direction.

The website also offers a complete line of merch. You can buy books and music that will help you see the truth, understand the truth, and let you get lost in Jesus. I love that phrase, Lost in Jesus, don't you? I always thought you were supposed to get found in Jesus, but hey! lost, found, whatever. It's all about Jesus.

But you know, it's hard times. People can't afford health care and they're losing their houses, cars, jobs, and pensions. Every where we look, every where we turn, every thing we hear is about how things are bad and getting worse. The price of gas, the price of food, the cost of health care, the environment. So anyone with a message of hope and passion is bound to be popular.

Anyone who promises miracles is bound to get attention.

Sometimes I wish I wasn't such a cynical old woman. I wish I could believe in fat white preachers who are visited by angels and told what to cast out, what to cast in, and given the power to do it.
But I can't.

This is not to say I don't believe in miracles. I do. I believe in miracles but they're more the down-home, everyday ones like love and birth and death and rain and the raising up of the watermelons.

And that'll have to do for me. They're the miracles I can see and touch and hear and wonder at.

But you know, if I weren't such a cynical old woman, I'll bet I could go to that website, DONATE, and then put my hand on the computer and pray for a healing from the hoopacoodis and I would be healed.

Maybe not right away. Sometimes, according to testimony, it might take a week or so. That's probably what would happen to me. I'd have this bug for about a week and then it would go away, Hallalujah! praise the Lord, pass the remote control because I'm not the sort of person who can pray with any sense of anything but foolishness and who will, instead, take it easy for a few days, hanging out, reading books, napping, eating tomato sandwiches and watching old movies on the TV while my immune system does its job.

I expect a healing in seven days.
Even without red medicine. Even without a fat white tattooed preacher being involved.
Even without DONATING.

It's a miracle.