The mystery of Faith.

Last night our son came into the kitchen and told me : “I am healed. I don’t need any tranquilisers”. This is always a very sensitive topic with us and usually will lead to some sort of argument. The dilemma here is that all Christians believe in miracles and the healing powers of God. Just the way we believe can be quite different.

There are some Christians who believe that there is power in words and hence negative thinking and words can cause an effect, the same as positive thinking/declaration can cause an effect. The problem here is the way Jesus described FAITH. He said that “if you have faith, the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain be moved…..”. There are many Christians who believe that to demonstrate FAITH you need to positively affirm it and never doubt and then the healing will come. For a person who has this kind of belief, it is impossible to admit any kind of illness because this gives power to the illness and hence makes it happen or works against your  faith to be healed. And agreeing that you are sick then demonstrates a lack of faith.

My own belief system acknowledges miracles and that healing can happen spontaneously. In my life, when I have experienced this (see below), the evidence has also been spontaneous.

There is a fine line in my view between all this. You can hardly tell the world that you are healed of the flu and then still sneeze and cough and show obvious flu symptoms. I find it very difficult, in fact offputting to demonstrate that kind of faith because there appears to be a falseness to it. When God heals you, the lame can throw away their crutches and the blind can see…instantly. They don’t go stumbling about bumping into things whilst they are thanking God for their sight. They can see and thank God for their sight.

The dilmma here is that if I tell my son that I don’t believe he has been healed because I don’t see it demonstrated in his life, he gets upset and accuses us of having no faith. And in his own belief system he would be justified in doing that. And yet I can’t very well agree he has been healed because stopping to take his medication, when healing has not yet occurred, would have dire consequenses. So we live with this extremely difficult situation. I then need to inform his doctors because of the harm that can come to him if he stops his medication. And then I am in fact the source of his problems. I am responsible for calling the doctors, having him on higher doses of medication when all the time I would love nothing better than that he could go off his medication. Catch 22 situation. Sometimes you wish you could quit being a mother. But of course that is impossible. It’s a job for life. No matter where our how your children end up, if they are healthy if they are sick if they live with you or away from you if they are poor or rich if they are happy or sad you share their joys and their pains! And most of the time, you wouldn’t want it any other way!

Spontaneous healing – an example.

It was more than 10 years ago. I had broken my wrist whilst playing racket ball, a very painful experience, and had my arm plastered up. The plaster was causing me problems and I ended up getting very depressed. The sheer weight of it. And I was very busy at work (as usual) and really didn’t need this handicap. I was supposed to hold my hand up in a sling. And found it impossible to type just using my left hand. So most of the time I was using a finger sticking out of the plaster on my right hand to get around the keyboard. I bought a mouse that was like a touchpad so you could operate it with one finger and I did this with my left hand. As the day went on my arm would feel heavier and heavier and the wrist would hurt…because I wasn’t supposed to be using it.

I remember this very clearly. One Saturday morning I woke up and was sitting in bed feeling sorry for myself. Into my head came the words, very clearly: “Wake up ye that sleepeth”. They went through me like a jolt. I knew exactly what was meant. I had allowed myself to get depressed and had forgotten the power of faith and prayer. I had not even prayed about my situation just drifted along each day.

Well…I didn’t need any further reminders. I sat straight up, and put my left hand on my right arm and said a prayer of healing over my wrist. As I was praying I could feel a strong sense of heat going up the right arm. And I knew at that moment that I had been healed. I got up out of bed and using a pair of pliers, I cut off the plaster. And I thanked God for the healing. The next Monday in the lift at work someone made a comment that my plaster was gone. I told them, I prayed over the arm and it is healed. Was rather embarassing but I felt that I had to acknowledge and thank God openly for healing me. There was no further pain and the wrist was totally normal. Mind you…the story must have gone around the office. Nobody else was game to ask me what had happened to my plaster J

When I went for my checkup, I remember walking past the area in the hospital where the plaster was being cut off. And there someone was sitting and a very nasty looking saw was being used to cut open the plaster. I had to shudder thinking how easily one could cut through the arm. The doctor was surprised at how good my wrist was and even more surprised when the Xray showed absolutely no sign of the breakage.

Why are some things healed and others not? I am unable to say. Most times in my life, healing doesn’t come miraculously. I find that miracles are usually there to demonstrate the power of God. And for them to be effective you first have to agree that you are sick, in my view. Otherwise how can you thank God for healing you?