Sid: My guest Karen Mayer Cunningham had son, James who was diagnosed with autism. His behavior was as bazaar behavior as I have ever heard. Karen, I don’t know how you and your husband survived, but even though medical science says there’s no cure for autism, God says, “Is anything impossible for me?” I wonder Karen, there’s a lot of things that you learned and if you could give us some tips because I know when people hear you explaining the great miracle that God did in your life, there have been many families have children with autism that have actually been healed as a result of just listening to what you have learned. But it’s not just autism; it’s any problem in life. Literally wherever your faith level is as you read her book, called “Defying Autism” your faith level will literally will literally measurably grow. What are some of the things you’ve learned Karen?
Karen: Well, I think that the first thing that I learned, which was hard to wrap my mind around was that the myths that are created in church about healing or the church world. And churches are wonderful and unfortunately they are run by humans who are flawed and I was raised in all the churches that I’d ever gone to I heard and maybe it was something that was taught but it was what I heard was that healing was available for some and that ultimately God decides in His sovereignty if He heals or He doesn’t heal. And that is not truth; that is absolutely not truth; the truth is that if it’s in His name it is in His will. And since He is Jehovah-Rapha it must be His will to heal people. He didn’t hang on a cross as the ultimate sacrifice and as a curse, so we don’t have to live with curses so that a few can have healing anymore than He hung on a cross so that some might have salvation; He hung that all. Is everyone saved? No, but the sacrifice was paid for all, the blood was spilled out for all of our healing. Now it’s an exchange though, it’s not, you don’t go out to your mail box and go “Well, it didn’t come, well, we prayed for five minutes” and I think that we, are accustomed to or are around people in church or churches or our spiritual experience where people pray for a little bit. Whooh and they get tired, they just don’t pray for much longer. And so you know that Abraham, one of the greatest men in the Bible who died in faith, one of the greatest faith warriors of all time that we know of died without all the promises of God, but you know he died in faith. And in Ephesians it says to put on the full armor of God and in the first two verses it says the words, stand four times. So I think that we are suppose to stand, to not grow weary and we grow weary really quickly. And in this great American world, we learn to live in our discomfort; we have things that can help our discomfort whether it is our homes or our economic situation of maybe a certain medicine. Or but God paid the ultimate price for our complete healing and so you don’t have to know me, you don’t have to know you Sid, for God to work out your healing in your life. He’s going to reveal that to you, He’s going to reveal that to you whatever you need to do, whatever you need to learn in the Word, as He reveals His Word through more revelation comes in partition and then comes the manifestation. And He will walk that out, you know God gave us faith, but our faith has a destination, so it’s an action word. I’m going to stand and believe, I’m going to do the things that God asked me to do, I’m going to stop doing the things that God said, “Stop doing that Karen.” There were a lot of things that I just stopped doing.
Sid: Give me an example of some of things that you had to stop doing.
Karen: Wow, that’s a long list, I don’t think we have that much time, but I just stopped my behaviors, I just stopped drinking every night, I had to stop doing it my way, I had to stop and listen to Him, I had to stop playing God. You know I had to stop playing church where I would just go in and drop in my check and then check that off, I went to church for an hour, that the Christ life is how you live every day. I had to stop living two lives where I acted like a certain way at church and then I acted how I wanted to act in my real life. That the Christian life is a great life, it’s full of joy, you know heaven is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, who wouldn’t want that. And as God revealed Himself to me and that trust grew, that He would never leave or forsake me. And what He’d done for me was just the beginning of what He did for me. You know what He did for James was so great I felt like that was the end of it, but yet He continues to pour out His blessings on me.
Sid: Just out of curiosity what kind of faith does James have right now?
Karen: Well James is saved, he knows that God saved him and he believes that God will always protect him. You know, he says, it you will talk to him he will say, “The devil tried to kill me and God stopped him and that can never happen again.” And he is a very gentle young man; a few years ago he gave one of his Sunday School teachers a prophetic word about something that had happened in the ‘60s. And you know that’s who God purposed for my life, that this gentle giant that raising up, not a child to eat the sheet rock and you know in all of that and all that breaking and breaking away of religion and man’s way, the love of man and pleasing man, I was the one who I believe got the most healing. In that I felt that God stopped the Universe and reached down and said, “I love you Karen, I love you and we were all healed, our whole family was changed from this.”
Sid: And now you say that “The devil goes after the brain and the mouth,” what do you mean by that?
Karen: What I said about children was, I believe that children are most attacked when they sleep or their infirmed. But you know just like in the Garden of Eden the permission that was granted to the enemy to enter into the Garden was thru one gate and that was through your mind. You know the mind is the hardest thing to change and so if I can change my mind, then I can change my mouth. But when I say you’re autistic, you’re dumb you’re eating the sheet rock, you’re sick, then I’m speaking death over my child. And so I had to say you are healed, you are whole, you are well, you’re appropriate, you are grade level, you are successful, and these are things that we don’t speak of our children. We speak the declarations of the doctor, we speak the declarations of the professionals or the teachers, and so when I can change those two things I’ve captured where the enemy can devour me.
Sid: Give me an example of how you would speak these words over James, give me an actual example.
Karen: Oh, I would just when he would tantrum or he was sick or he was misbehaving I would just say, “You are well, you are complete, you do not do those things in Jesus holy name.
Sid: Yeah, but when he kept doing it, didn’t you get discouraged, didn’t you stop saying those things of what you really wanted him to be.
Karen: No, I could not get discouraged, we had come too far, in my mind I got discouraged but in my mouth I was still speaking those things. I could not go back; I had to do what the Lord has asked us to do and to speak wholeness into him. And when we took him to deliverance, you know he was a shell, everything that was in him, was almost all scooped out. So we would have to speak that life back into him. And people need to speak that life into their situations, in their finances, in their relationships, in their children. We dug out this cavern in people by our words that we have to turn around.
Sid: Now there are some people listening with autism, others are facing cancer, other’s their spouses just left them, others are losing their home. I wonder if you would pray as the Spirit leads for the people listening to us right now.
Karen: Yes, Father God I just thank You for Your Son Father, I just ask that You would hear us today, that You would hear our cry out to You Father God. There are people that hurting, that are sick Father God and I would ask from this very moment that you would begin their healing Father God. That You would completely heal them from whatever situation they’re in, emotional, physical, financial Father God that You would bring Your light into their lives. That you would show them the way out of this darkness Father God, show them what they need to do to change, to believe in You Father to anoint their children, anoint their houses, Father God and to stand against the devil scheme. And Satan we just call you a liar, you are exposed, you have overplayed your hand and that any spirit of infirmity would live in these families and these children. And we ask all these things in Jesus Holy name.
Sid Roth: And pray specifically for children that have autism.
Karen: Father God we just thank you today, we just thank you that you have given us this faith Father God and as sons walk out this faith, I pray for all of those families in America and across the world that are suffering under this bondage of autism Father God, it is a disorder. Satan is the king of disorder Father God and I just break his power now in Jesus holy name and say that you cannot operate in these families, that you must loose the minds of these children with autism Father God and that they would have a freedom that they would know that you have set us free by the blood of Jesus. And I would ask that these families would begin to pray over their children to break the power of the enemy and pray life back into them Father God, that You would show them the way out the darkness, whether it’s through ministry, through diet changes, through environmental changes. That they would have complete the whole healing so that their children can walk out their destiny that you have called them to be. And we just ask all these things in Jesus holy name. Amen.
Tags: It's Supernatural, Sid Roth