Sid: I want everyone everywhere to hear this story because Karen Mayer Cunningham story builds faith like few stories I’ve heard before. And although her son was devastated with autism, I mean you lived a literal nightmare Karen with James. And then we found out how he went through deliverance and as a matter of fact, the child’s pastor had an observation on James, let’s go to that right now.
Sid: I have Saundra Afeld on the telephone; she is former Children’s Pastor at Round Rock Chapel where James went to church. Tell me Saundra what you observed as far as James behavior.
Saundra: James was very unpredictable; he exhibited a lot of violence, unpredictable behavior. He had very very limited communication skills; he was, you were not able to put him in a classroom with regular, you know the normal classroom. He also would, there was some bazaar things going on like he would put his fist, he was very very strong and he would put his fist through the wall. And I remember them reporting, the parents reporting that he had actually eaten the sheet rock. He actually ate bark off the tree, he was violent, like I said he was violent and he was just uncontrollable.
Sid: Were you amazed at the change after the deliverance?
Saundra: Yes, I did at first there was a marked change in terms of the level of violence, the level of communication, the inability that he had to make contact immediately changed.
Sid: Thank you so much. Karen, when you brought James home after his deliverance there was immediate changes, but there were setbacks. What types of things were you doing at home with James?
Karen: Well, there were a number of things that we were doing; we were playing praise music for any room that he might be in at all times. And we would anoint them, our children with oil at night and pray over them to fill this vessel. Anything that we were fighting against we would have to bind. We came against the spirit of rage, the spirit of fear, the spirit of infirmity. The deliverance is the healing, but you have to keep your healing, there are things that we do in our lives either at our own hands or other people’s hands or other spoken word curses that that can reenter your life. So as it says in Ephesians 6 you have to put on the full armor of God everyday so that you can stand against the devil’s schemes and it’s a battle, but we’ve already won the battle, Jesus won the battle at Calvary.
Sid: Now, when things looked pretty bleak you were speaking what you wanted to see with your eyes not what you were actually seeing.
Karen: Right, he wasn’t completely healed, he wasn’t caught up, he wasn’t whole he was still having some of these behaviors that were just had become habits to him. They were not demonically driven anymore but they were habitual for him, they had become a habit to sit and chew on your fingers. It had become a habit to pick at pencil erasers and nibble on them while you were watching TV.
Sid: When you say that he would chew on his fingers, did you mean literally? I mean, boy did he have scars on his finger?
Karen: Yes, on his first pointer fingers on both hands he has a little mound of scars and then he would just gnaw on them, he would gnaw on them. And we would just, we took him to a specialist onetime that said that when you speak, when your tongue hits the roof of your mouth it releases a relaxing chemical. And the kids that don’t have language often chew on those things to release the chemicals. That’s why he did some of that but all those behaviors had been part of his life for almost five years, they don’t just go away overnight and so this was a healing that God walked out in his life. And he restored his mind daily and continues to.
Sid: Give me your report on how he is today, how old is he now?
Karen: He’s wonderful, he’s fourteen years old, he’s six foot tall, he’s on the track team and he’s on the basketball team, he’s on the football team. He bowls in city league every week and he’s just a tall, sweet soft spoken boy. Is he still behind academically? Yeah, he’s still behind socially? Absolutely, he lost almost four or five years of his life. But just like Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and with favor with God and man, that’s what James is doing and he has his mind is being restored so quickly that if you had just met me and met him and never heard the story it would be hard to believe because he has done of those behaviors. But he is behind academically, he lost all that time, you know at six years old he’s basically an infant. He’s delivered and set free but he has, you know all of our lives experience and most of our learning base comes from the time that you are in kindergarten and all that was gone, he had none of that. So at six basically he started at zero, so basically he had eight years to catch up and he’s in eight grade and he’s doing amazing.
Sid: Now, it’s very unusual for a doctor to state a miracle occurred but his medical doctor who is now deceased; you had a tape of what your doctor had to say about James, let’s listen to that now.
Medical doctor tape: I saw James first time a few years ago about three years ago when he was about three and a half years old. I got to tell you it was a little shocking to me, I’ve seen a lot of various diseases, conditions, behavior, but little James, I got to tell ya took the cake on this one. He was exhibiting erratic behaviors, uncontrollable, inconsolable of frantic attacks of tantrums; he was quite pale, nonverbal, grunting noises, total lack of attention. From the reports I see now, it is nothing short of a miracle. I mean this young boy is now, vocal, verbal, appropriate, responsive, eating nicely, healthy. So you know it’s just one of those situations you have to chalk up to something maybe higher than what we have in the medical field.
Sid: That was an amazing statement by a medical doctor. Karen is there anything that you want to add to the doctor’s comment?
Karen: Well, he was Ira Levin was such a wonderful man to us. He had compassion for our situation; he had no answers either but he poured over his medical books. And even tried to see if James had a brain tumor or something that would describe these weird behaviors and he didn’t judge us and so for that, we are eternally grateful.
Sid: Now, how long did this bazaar behavior last after he went through his deliverances?
Karen: You know the rage and the acting out and the physicalities stopped pretty quickly, there was no more of that. We still catch him with a pencil eraser in his pocket every so often and he would still pick at little pieces of paper and eat them, but the rage stopped and he quickly began being so successful at stuff and catching up that it really caught the attention of the teachers. In fact he was in a program called structure teach at this school where he basically had close to one on one attention. He actually had his own full time aid just for him when he was sick, that’s how bad he was, that very quickly after that he did not need his aid. And then within a year and a half on the calendar we had to move him just to a regular class with some inclusion and resource help. And it was a scary and exciting time for me to see him progress and he was going into regular classes now. He wasn’t in Special Ed all day long, which is huge.
Sid: Tell me some of his accomplishments; I want to hear a proud Momma.
Karen: Oh, well I was just so proud of him every day of my life, you know it’s the simplest things that maybe other people won’t call accomplishments but he just makes choices. He can make decisions, he could play with other children, he could participate in group activities without flipping out. And that everybody in the world didn’t know that there was something wrong with your kid, he could stay in his Sunday school class, he could go to a Birthday Party and I wasn’t waiting for the other shoe to drop. He was just a normal boy that was his accomplishment that was all I ever wanted was a normal boy.
Sid: How is he in sports?
Karen: He is amazing, he’s amazingly gifted. He is an amazing bowler, he’s throwing the discus right now; he was just in the county newspaper for high score on the High C basketball team. He just continues to blow my mind away everyday with his accomplishments. And he’s humble, he’s quiet, he’s not one to need attention for himself and he’s you know the apple of my eye. I could never, ever thank God enough for what he’s done in our lives.
Sid: Looking back, at the bleakest moment of your life when your son is punching his fist through a wall and trying to eat the material and doing all these bazaar behaviors; did you ever think that he would be as a wonderful young man as he’s turned out to be?
Karen: Oh no, I knew in my heart of hearts that he was going to have to live in an institution. Now I would rent the movie “Rain Man” and watch it over and over and over again. And I knew that was what was going to happen, I knew he was going to have to live in a facility and that I would have to see him on the weekends. I knew that that was going to be outcome and for God to have totally unexplainably altered and prospered our lives the way He has, has given me a joy that I will share with every nation on this earth as long as I live. Because people need to know there’s hope, there’s hope for any situation, no matter if your disease has a name yet, if your situation has a name yet, that the name of Jesus covers it all.
Sid: Just out of curiosity would people, because your book is too new, it is literally just off the press, when people hear your testimony, have any people been healed of autism?
Karen: Yes, there are seven families that I know of over the years of hearing this testimony. Of course we did a video tape which you have shown on your show and we will still have a clip of it. And then I had a compilation book of it come out and there have been seven families that have gone back specifically to Gospel Revelation Ministry and have had complete healing for their children with autism.
Sid Roth: Has anyone ever told you that when they read your book they want their children to read it because it’s such a faith builder? That’s what the producer of my television show told me.
Karen: Yeah, it just, you know brings hope into any situation. When this first happened in my life, I thought it meant that this book, just like you said would be just for people with autism and it’s not about that at all God didn’t work this out for that. He worked it out so you could have hope for anything. And because it was so extreme, then people can believe for that, we walk out our lives so that somebody behind us can go, “Oh, Sid walked that out, Karen walked that out through the power of Jesus and I can. Our testimonies is what builds faith in the person behind us, and that’s why it’s our responsibility to share the truth, the whole truth, not watered down, exactly what God did to honor Him back in some little way with a miracle that he gave you.
Tags: It's Supernatural, Sid Roth