Healing

Physical Healing–Coming to terms with Healing   I believed with all that was within  me that David Hayes was healed of his tumor.  I would not entertain doubt or allow anyone to speak of the possibility of reoccurrence into our lives.  I was given a promise the day of David’s announcement seizure and I held onto that promise like a dog with a bone.  I was not alone in this belief.  Others held fast as well and came along beside us in our promise of healing.   There was good reason to stand in agreement with us.  God did mighty works of restoration and healing that first year.   Yet, with the prayers and faith of thousands David died.  He was not restored in the way I had prayed, he was not healed the way others had claimed for him.  I was left to try and understand what had happened and how it had happened.   I was not alone in my wonderings as others around me cried out “why” to me many a days.  I gave no answer then nor do I give one now.     David’s birthday was March 19th.  I was struggling to get through the day when I opened the mail to find David’ death certificate staring up at me.    I wailed to God about bad timing and how could He have allowed David to die,much less get this finality of his death on the day of his birth???  As I cried, a calm spread over me as God spoke truth into my weary and grief stricken heart.  ” I determined the day of David’ birth. I gave him his first breath.  I determined, the day of David’s death. It was me.”   I hit the table in anger and yelled “But that would make you cruel”   There was no answer.  I only had peace and calm.  It was then that God touched me to understand that it did not make Him cruel, it made Him God.  I could not understand the reasons why David died.  I still do not understand why David died. Nothing cosmic has changed in the world with his death. Nothing that I can see or reason that makes it understandable.  Yet,my understanding is not needed.  I don’t understand why Jesus would love me with such a passion that He would die for me, yet He did.  I do not understand how He could not only forgive me of my sins,but call me friend.  I cannot understand, why He calls my name with such tenderness and draws me to a relationship with Him.  The greatest test of faith is not as some teach to believe in a healing.  The greatest test of faith is  to lay that which is hard and full of pain down at His feet and trust Him in what is unseen.    I still believe in healing.  I believe that God does heal in mighty ways.   He moves and it is thrilling to be a part of such times.  To be a witness to God’s power is such a humbling, yet exciting experience.   To hear about such movements in sermons and read about them in healing books is exciting as well.   We praise God for those who walk this earth healed in such a way that it glorified God. For me, I refuse to allow David to ever become the poster boy for nonhealing.  I will pray for healing when friends come to me with their illness and I will  pray boldly with faith in a God who moves mountains.  God still heals and I will believe that He is healing my loved one and friend with all the faith and hope I have within me until He,Himself reveals the answer “No, not this way, not this time” in death.    He heals because He loves us and He heals to glorify Himself.      When He says “no” and brings our loved ones to Himself, Grief comes and stands beside us.  God however does not leave us, nor does that answer mean that our faith was weak or unpleasing to Him.  I did not lack faith in praying for David’s healing, his friends did not lack faith, and David’s faith was one that inspired me.  It is hard for us, it was hard for me to accept that God was not going to heal David on this earth.  I cannot put into words what it felt like to hear our beloved doctor tell us that David only had days, weeks, and at best a few months to live.  My heart can remember,but I had to give that memory to God because when I remember it is as if I am right back in that room trying to process the impossible.   My faith was not on trail that day.   David sat hearing those words and calmly asked the doctor if he could pray for him.  He prayed words of thanks for a doctor who had done his best and he got up to leave in perfect peace.   I stood pacing and watching.   It was the strangest day of my life.  We went out to eat afterwards and David reaffirmed his love for me.  He assured me that God could heal him and in the meantime we would embrace life.  We would celebrate it and not spend his last days in despair.  I walked into the bathroom, slid to the floor, and sobbed.  When God lifted me up off the floor, He washed over me with a strength that carried me through the next months as I was privileged to walk with David to the threshold and be there as he crossed over it.   I cried every day in those months,I held on to the hope of healing,and I had faith, and others had faith.  I prayed every night for healing and looked for it,but it never came on this earth.  As hard as it was for me to accept Jesus in His love for me showed me that He heals for the same reason that He claims His own.  He brings those to heaven because He loves them and He calls us home to glorify Himself.  This does not make Him cruel.  It makes Him, God.   It means that I only see part of the picture.  When I was a child on my grandfather’s farm, I did not understand why he would do certain things.  I obeyed,because I trusted him.  As I grew older I understood more and more why he did the things he did.  Some were for my safety, some were for welfare of the family, others for the farm’s  growth .   As I struggled whispering good-bye to David in those first months after His passing, I knew I could not trust my own understanding and I openly cried out to God to  help me in my faith.     If you had faith and thought the mountains would move only to feel that they moved and landed on top of you,you are not the first to feel this way.   If you are struggling with anger,feelings of betrayal by God, confusion, you are not alone.  You are not unique and those emotions do not make you unloved by God.  The bible is full of men and women who cried out to God to understand, to give an answer to them, and to explain Himself.    Call out to Him.  He knows your heart, He knows your hurt, and He knows your deepest thoughts.  You cannot hide them from Him.  He knows how you feel about Him and He knows your anger and hurt.   Since He knows, join King David and cry out to Him.   The key here is dialogue.  As long as you are crying out TO Him, He will bring healing in your life.   He will reveal Himself to you and He will show you His love for you.  Hold on.   If you choose though to cry out ABOUT Him,railing against God and not pouring your heart out TO Him, I caution you that your path will not bring you towards purpose or healing.  Without prayer, without lament, there is only bitterness and depression.   You will not find His peace, His joy, His Holiness, or His grace in your grief if you choose this road.  I assure you that God is capable of handling your hardest questions, your rawest emotions, and your deepest pain.   If you cry out TO Him, He will bring you to Himself.   I would also add, that you will not be alone in your answer.   Unless it was a prophecy, I have yet to find one reference to God explaining His actions.  He never defends Himself, and yet He reaches out to us in our temper tantrums picking us up, holding us,rocking us, and assuring us only of His love for us.   My questions have not been answered to my earthly satisfaction.   I had a list of specific questions about the promise and I looked for a reason that would make sense of David’s death.  I was given no answer.  As I cried out to God in my grief walk, as He brought praise to my lips and joy to my heart, my questions changed.  I began to ask God to reveal to me what He wanted me to know about David’s death and about the promise.  I asked Him to show me what was beneficial to my healing and to my heart.  When the question changed, God revealed to me many things about David’s illness and death.  His answer to me was not one of explanation of His actions,but instead of revelation of His character to me.    What God has shown me is how much He loved me during those dark days and how that love has continued to carry me through even darker nights.     I know that the faith of my family,friends, and those I never met thrilled the heart of God.  That faith did not go unrewarded or unacknowledged. We just will not see it until we ourselves cross over the threshold into His arms.   When there is no physical answer to prayer, your faith may come under question.   You may question it, others may question it, and those questions only compound your pain and hurt in your grief.  Instead, take a deep breath and lay your faith at His feet.  If you feel it was weak, then give it to Him and let it go.   If you feel your faith was strong enough, yet your prayers unanswered then give it to Him and let it go.   At His feet, you will not find the answers you are looking for,but instead you will find His peace and His love.   Our faith is not a faith in ourselves and our ability to heal.  Our faith lies in a God who has the power with a word to call time and space into existence and yet  whose greatest pleasure is to love us.   Keep faith in what you cannot understand, what  you cannot see, what you cannot touch, or comprehend.  Hold hope in the future, in healing, in the truth that our loved ones have had their faith and hope completed and they see what we wait on to see.   Hold on to hope, hold on to faith.  We will see the unseen one day, the veil will lift, we will understand, and we will rejoice and delight in Jesus while we dance with those who went before us.  Hold on.   “What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see” Hebrews 11:1