He walked among them, healing their ills, driving out demons, and preaching the word. The people were astonished at his deeds and flocked to hear him. No, I am not talking about Jesus. I am talking about John Gillespie from Belfast in Northern Ireland. He lived a most extraordinary ministry for over twenty years and became so well-known that there were times when the venues where his services were held became so full, that loudspeakers had to be fitted to the outsides of the buildings. 

It was a ministry John originally fought to avoid. However, he had lived thirteen years of his life in permanent, often excruciating, pain, engaged daily in an intense, argumentative, even belligerent relationship with a silent, strangely unresponsive God. In his own words, he “… met his violent state with violent prayer,” convinced that it was his destiny to be healed. He did get his miraculous healing but it came at a cost. John discovered that God wanted him to undertake a healing ministry.

He did not want this and struggled against it until one evening a prophetic priest had a vision. He saw a heavily laden ship, almost sinking, floating into a port. The name on the side of the vessel was ‘The Miracle Ship‘. The priest saw John standing on the harbour wall and Jesus, who was on the prow of the ship, saying to him: “There are thousands upon thousands of miracles in this ship, John. If you do not deliver them to my people, all of them will be lost.” 

Hearing about this, John reluctantly accepted the ministry, becoming so well known that last year, National Geographic (USA), who were planning a six-episodes programme on miracles, invited John to be the subject of one them. Sadly the invitation came some months after John had died. 

However, stories of his miraculous healings and deliverances, his new and innovative prayers for healing, live on after him in The Miracle Ship by Dr. Brian O’Hare. The book is published by Crimson Cloak Publishing in hardback, paperback and e-book versions, and is also available at Amazon, Ingram, Kobo, and other distributors. 

Article above as received from Irish writer, Brian O’Hare who is a retired Assistant Director of Further and Higher Regional College. He lives in Newry, Northern Ireland, UK