When I first heard The Voice in my left ear asking, “Do you want to be healed?”, I had no idea what was involved when I answered, “Yes.”
Since that early February Sunday 14 years ago, I’ve been learning some things.
- God’s healing is always a matter of ‘through’. There’s always something God wants to do when He heals a person that extends beyond their own individual case. It’s meant to work in and through them, benefitting more than just the one He touches. In the Gospel accounts of Jesus healing people, there were always others around.
If you’ve experienced God’s healing touch, ask yourself: “Who were those other people around me when God healed me–what happened in their lives, too?” You may not know the answer to that Earthside, yet it’s worth thinking about. Your healing wasn’t just for you.
- God’s healing is often in response to somebody’s prayer besides yours. The minute it became clear I was dying, I began praying for God’s intervention. I’ve never prayed with more focus nor singlemindedness. I prayed and kept dying. More laser focus and singlemindedness. Still dying by ounces. Okay, this faith deal wasn’t working as advertised or I was doing something wrong, though I quoted and claimed every verse about trusting in God I could find. I spoke all those powerful verses about God being able to do ANYTHING. Just kept dying, and if anything getting worse.
I complained.
God: “It wasn’t your prayer I was waiting to hear.”
I didn’t find out until later that both my wife and my son, in separate instances, finally gave up and said something like, “Okay, God. If You’re going to take him, just do it. Either that or heal him. I can’t take any more of this watching him being repeatedly cut open, carved on and still starving to death!” It was when they both reached that point of total surrender to what God was wanting to do – either way – that I heard The Voice that Sunday morning as I sat quietly, eyes closed, listening to a song.
- God’s healing is unique, individually customized to each recipient’s need. I always figured healed meant, well–healed. You know. Total restoration? Nothing left undone. Everything back the way it had been, only better. New and improved. Brand new. For me, that meant instantly being transformed back into the 6′, 250-lb. strongman I’d been. Able to leap garden sheds with a short stepladder. Well, at least I could still pick one end of it up. If you’re big and strong enough to move the shed, you don’t need to jump over it.
God had other ideas. From His exhaustless bag of Celestial Stuff He gave me back a somewhat-marginalized 180-lb., 5’10 body. Having always been muscular, I pouted, “I can’t lift up garden sheds anymore.” God gently slid His huge arm around my now-kind-of-scrawny shoulders and said, “I’ve other things I want you to be lifting from now on.”
“I want you to lift other people’s spirits and attitudes by your writing and speaking. I’d never have gotten your attention long enough to stick with this gift, had I returned to you the body you had.” God’s healing is never found on the BOGO table. It’s as unique and personal as you are.
- God’s healing always occurs at least in part in ways defying human description and understanding. God uses stunning combinations of rational and irrational, known and unknown, human and Divine help in His healing artistry. You’ve heard and read story after story how people came through otherwise normal treatments with anything-but-normal results no one could explain. Surgeons, med techs, RNs, and specialists all did pretty much the same thing they’d done hundreds of times before – yet here came jaw-dropping, billboard-changing results NObody could have anticipated.
Then there are the other times when God steps in, revealing a raw, shockwaving power unknown to our world but natural in His. That’s what happened with me. Nothing could have prepared me or my family for what God began that day, though we were people of God and strong believers in prayer. None of us have been quite the same. Even those who have since chosen to walk apart from God and His Word know – KNOW – His power to heal.
So you ask, “How’s that healing thing workin’ out for ya?” Day by day, friend. You see, this thing I’m living in is medically impossible. What God began that February Sunday back in ‘o3 continues every morning. I know – we all know – if God decided He was done with whatever He had in mind in working through me, it would only be a matter of weeks and I’d go see Him.
I don’t expect that, though. Know why? There are still stories for me to write. You know the kind: those that always seem to have a strange sense of Heaven woven into them in ways not pushy but definitely pointing the reader to God. There are still many posts to compose that elevate and lift and encourage and challenge. There are books needing to be written and published.
Well, there is that other deal. I promised God two things when He healed me. First, that I’d never bore anyone with ‘just another story’. But, next, that I’d never let any chance go by to tell someone a little of my story. God’s not done doing stuff in His world – and I’m a walking, talking testimony of it!
How’s the healing thing workin’ out? Exactly how God wants it. Each day’s a new adventure. Each comment in response to something I’ve written, or each time I’ve spoken, opens just that many more windows of thought.
It’s a thing of joy just to be alive and share them!
© D. Dean Boone, February 2017