Sid: My guest Lydia Stanley is the worship leader for the great revival going on in Mobile, Alabama called the Bay of the Holy Spirit Revival. And as we found out all this week she was handpicked by God before the foundation of time to be the worship leader of this Revival. And you’re so blessed Lydia, but you know there is something I heard about you. Before revival came you would go to church every service, you wouldn’t miss a service for five years, why?
Lydia: It’s true.
Sid: Why?
Lydia: It’s true; well I remember that when the revival at Brownsville broke out Lindell Cooley had been out of the country on a mission’s trip. So he admits that the Father’s Day, the initiation of the revival, of course he came back and he was in the revival for its entirety. But I knew, I didn’t know when, I had no idea when, but I knew that God would move again and I was so scared that if I took a Sunday off He would come when I was gone; that I did not take a Sunday off in almost five years, because I just knew that He would come when I was gone and I’m not missing it, I’m not going to miss anything.
Sid: Well, of all the miracles that you have seen, one was a personal friend of yours, tell me about this woman that was in an automobile accident and for twenty-three years was confined to the life of a wheelchair. Was she actually paralyzed from the waist down, or what was her condition?
Lydia: She was, she was fully paralyzed from the waist down. Dalia Knox, she could not walk, and I met Lady Dalia in 2007, Miss Brenda Kilpatrick, the Pastor’s wife, took me to their church one Sunday and I got to meet her for the first time and she was leading worship in her wheelchair, and she would say things like, “I’m not letting the chair in hold me back so don’t let yours hold you back,” that’s just how she is. She’s an amazing worshiper and we immediately just felt that connection.
Sid: But, there was a point where you believed that she would be healed; when was that?
Lydia: That’s right that would have been in 2008 and Pastor Dalia she didn’t really talk about her condition very much, she just never made an issue of it so it’s not really a subject that you would talk about with her or you would bring up with her. But one night I did and I told her, “I don’t want to say something that would offend you, but I do want to tell you something,” and she said, “Well what is it sweetheart?” I said, “You know what, I’ve never seen anybody deal with a challenge with what you face with this kind of dignity and grace, and it’s amazing that you have dealt with it like this, but a day will come and mark my words, when I will dance with you when you get out of that chair!” And she said, “You know what, I believe that,” and I said, “Good we don’t ever have to talk about it again.” And do you know, we have never brought that back up until she came to the Revival on August the 27th of 2010.
Sid: Now, did you have any thought that that was going to be her night?
Lydia: Listen, I had no earthly idea, I didn’t know she was coming.
Sid: I was watching you react because we’re making avail these four DVDs called “Revival Rewind” and they caught you reaction and what you did when you saw this friend of yours that had been confound. You never saw her out a wheelchair, am I right?
Lydia: That’s right, I had no idea that that would be her night, but when they brought her in that night, I know Pastor Dalia enough to know that she usually avoids healing meetings because sometimes when people see someone in a wheelchair they want to make a spectacle of that person; and maybe they have the best of intentions, but it can be very difficult for the person in the chair. So I knew that she might not come back, so when they wheeled her in I said, “Jesus while You’re doing miracles tonight, please get my friend up out of that chair.” But that was just my prayer; I didn’t know that that would be her night. And we worshipped while Nathan prayed with her, we worshipped for I don’t even know how long, maybe thirty-five minutes. And when she stood up for the first time, she stood up, nobody pulled her up, she stood up and I knew that that was miraculous because the nerves had been severed, so when she did that Sid, I ripped my headphones off and I jumped off the platform and ran down beside her because all I knew was that if she was getting her miracle on that night, I was going to be right there with her, because that’s what I had told her in 2008. So all I knew was that I was going to there in the thick of it with her and I was and of course we got to see her take her first steps that night. And she wasn’t able to walk without assistance that first night, she had to have some support because you know the muscles, they had been atrophying.
Sid: Okay, listen I saw on the video, after she had a chance to do a little exercise and get her muscles back in shape, I saw that woman confined to a wheelchair for twenty-three years paralyzed because of a severed nerve, no way medically she would ever walk again, I saw her walking in high heels.
Lydia: Oh, she walked across the stage in stilettos and she marched just like she was in the military, she was marching to the beat of the drums and leading worship with me and I tell you Sid, that was an amazing moment the first time we lead worship eye to eye. And she walked over by my keyboard, and I thought, oh my God, what my eyes have seen, I’ve seen the wonders of the Lord, right before my very eyes. It would have been an amazing miracle if it had been anybody, but for it to have been a friend of mine, wow!
Sid: …And tell me about this selection we are going to play of your songs called “Our God.”
Lydia: Well, actually one of the, it was Saturday night after the Friday night the Revival broke out, the following night, we saw an amazing miracle, we saw, deaf ears, about six people that have been severely hearing impaired immediately got healed while we were singing about, and the song of course it’s talking about, “Our God is Greater our God is Higher than any other.”
Sid: Our God is the healer!
Lydia: And He’s the healer! And we were singing that and while we were singing that and Nathan was praying for these six people with deafness, they immediately their ears popped wide open. So “Our God” has become one of the great anthems of the Revival, it’s one of the favorite songs, because it says if our God is for us, then who can ever stop us!
Sid: And to see these lyric’s become reality before your very eyes night, after night, after night, after night, no wonder it’s the most popular song the revival. Let’s hear a little bit of our God.