As I left the true story of my soul-crushing experience with the fake healer/showman/thief who robbed God’s people of both their money and a true miracle; I was burdened with playing a part in persuading some that miracles and healing do not happen. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Miracles and miraculous healing happen as surely as we all draw breath. In fact, if one is in doubt of this very statement I invite you to watch the birth of a child. I believe that a live birth of a tiny human being is one of the most overlooked miracles in this world. Friends, this ain’t no cosmic sneeze. Miracles exist all around us. No special effects are required, no smoke and mirrors… No theatrics necessary.
As I previously left off, I was in a funk. Unable to reconcile my part in a horrible sham. The feeling of guilt was hard to shake and I had begun to question whether all faith healers and evangelists were involved in the same type of hoax. In my heart of hearts, I knew that this last could not be true, but there were so many of these televangelists out there working this same angle or something similar. One touted working miracles if you made a contribution wherein he sent you a piece of one of his ties somehow through which miracles would happen. One beseeched you to lay your hands on the television and your divine healing would take place. My mind kept asking, “ what if?”
Where had healing gone
Scriptures are clear, but we have traveled so far down the darkened path from the healing that Jesus and His Disciples performed in the Bible. The Church, somewhere around 300 years after Jesus, began to take healing out of the hands of the faithful and hoarded it, only to be done by the priesthood. Healing in the name of Christ Jesus and done by the Holy Spirit nearly stopped being practiced because of jealousy. The clergy wanted all the cool stuff for themselves! How dare the rabble, whom they felt beneath their lofty position, lay claim to such a gift from God? For decades, centuries even, healing slipped out of sight. People began to feel that it no longer existed. That the Holy Spirit had, somehow, lost the will or power to heal.
Never really gone
Healing has enjoyed a bit of resurgence in recent years, thanks in part to the faith of some true believers in Jesus Christ. There had been no statute of limitations in the New Testament. Jesus did not write an expiration date to the “Great Commission.” He never said, “Hey, you guys go out and spread the Good News, heal the sick, raise the dead, cast out demons, but give it a rest after a couple hundred years.” Thanks to the likes of Billy Graham, Francis and Judith MacNutt, and many others, healing is enjoying a revival.
Personal revelation
My wife and I were invited to attend a healing conference put on by St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, the Church we attended in Collierville, TN. This was somewhere around 2010. I was to run sound for the weekend and my wife was to receive healing prayer because she suffered from Fibromyalgia for many years. Fibro, for those who are not familiar, is a chronic pain disorder that is still somewhat of a mystery and it absolutely cripples many of its sufferers. Cynthia was one of those who suffered the pain and several related disorders including Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. She had taken nearly every drug known to modern medicine to end her pain, including up to five doses of morphine daily. Nothing was entirely effective and many were not effective for long. We welcomed any attempt to stop her suffering.
There were around 60 people who attended the conference. The headline speaker was an Episcopal Priest from the United Kingdom. He was humbly and comfortably dressed. He looked a little like the Renaissance paintings of St. Nicholas. A jolly sort with a comfortable, disarming voice. His honesty and sincerity were beyond a doubt. He talked about healing and how he had seen it take hold of many who had faith enough to believe it could happen. He was careful to state that he didn’t feel that people were infirm because of a lack of faith or that they were somehow at fault for their maladies. Sinfulness might not be the reason for their illness.
He made quite the impression. Not because he was some kind of showman, quite the contrary. He believed that Jesus Christ had given His followers a gift. Those followers, with the help of the Holy Spirit, could come to Him in prayer and because of His mercy and love for us, He would grant more than we might hope to ask. The Grace of God was palpable in the room. Our speaker believed and we were convinced that he was right. It is a wonderful place to stand, in the midst of a blossoming, spring-like eruption of Faith.
Come Holy Spirit
The time to test our new-found confidence came and Cyn stepped forward to take a seat before Father Jeff Marx, Jean Woods, and Mike Gibson. These three were our friends. Like us in many ways. I will be forever grateful for their faith in workings of the Holy Spirit. I stood behind my wife with my hands on her shoulders. Our prayer warriors began to pray. They were soft, sincere, comforting and they prayed to God as though he was sitting in our midst. As you know, Christ promised to be in our midst when two or more of us were gathered in His name. The three prayed, they shed tears and they asked Jesus to heal my wife, to remove her pain. There were no harsh spotlights, no microphones. There was only heartbreaking realism as these three faith-filled disciples of Christ poured out their energy in prayer to the Savior, the Healer. They begged Jesus to turn my wife into the person that He already saw her as, his perfect child.
What began to happen next was the part that got my attention and proved to me before the praying stopped that the Holy Spirit had been present in that small, still place. The room was full of small groups who were praying their own prayers. We were not alone but the others may as well have been miles away. All I could hear was the sound of these wonderful prayers and my wife’s quiet tears. To my amazement, I began to feel a power, like an electrical current, traveling up my arms from the spot where my hands lay gently on Cyn’s shoulders. I could not have moved my hands if I had wanted to move them. I knew at that moment that my wife was being healed and that I was being included in the miracle of God’s Presence. I was being marked just as Thomas had been marked as a true believer when he put his fingers in the wounds on the resurrected Christ’s side. From that moment, that precise moment, I would never doubt again.
The praying stopped. Everyone in our little group was exhausted. Most had tears visible on their angelic faces. Cynthia sat for a moment, unable to stand on unsteady legs. We all knew that something amazing had happened. We had witnessed a miracle. Had been a conduit for the Power of our living Savior. He loved us not just enough to show up, He loved us enough to keep His promise and granted far more than was asked. Cynthia slowly stood, a look of pleasant awe on her face. She was spent. I helped her upstairs to a room in the venue where she could rest. She rejoined us a couple hours later after a restorative nap. She knew that she was different. We all did. She would never be as she had once been. She had been touched by the healing power of prayer. Christ had laid his hands on her just as surely as I had.
It is now several years later. Cynthia has never, since that blessed day, had to take another morphine pill. She quit them cold, with no withdrawal. She still gets tired but she is no longer in pain. She is, as I have been, blessed beyond measure by the personal touch from our Creator. We will never again have any doubts about the healing power of prayer. Our God is just waiting to hear from us. He is always faithful. He is ever Merciful. No special effects, no smoke, and mirrors needed.
Seek and Ye shall find
Unfortunately, we turned to God as somewhat of a last resort. Sadly, it had not been our first approach to healing. Sadder indeed, is that we were not the only ones who turn to the Healer late in our need. He is only a bowed head, a trusting heart, and fervent prayer away. The coolest part is that He wants to show us how much He loves us. All we have to do is to give Him the chance.
