Healing

March 4, 2013

Yesterday is one of those days I want to remember. It was just an ordinary Sunday. But that is what made it extraordinary. God was present. God is always present. But maybe there was an expectancy or openness to Him showing up that isn’t usually there. But that is how God works. In the ordinary. In the simple. In the weak.

I have always struggled with hearing God. Most of the time I struggle to answer when the last time I actually hear him was. And when I think I’m certain I hear him, doubt inevitably fills my mind and I question whether or not it was really him. And sadly the doubt usually wins. I continually ask that God would speak and make himself known to me. I get jealous when I hear story after story after story of how God spoke to people, through people, so loud and clear that there is no room for doubt. I will often ask, “What about me? What am I doing wrong that you speak to them and not me? Why can’t I hear you?” After being a Christian for 20+ years, I would think that this wouldn’t be such an issue. I should know his voice by now, right?!

This last week I had the flu. I rarely get the flu, but when I do, always in the back of my mind is the issue of my disease.  It certainly made its way to the fore front of my thoughts this week.

During seek week last October, I felt compelled to pray for healing.  Once again, fear and doubt prevented me from going forward for prayer until the very last night. Even then, I couldn’t bring myself to go forward, but instead asked a friend to pray over me.  In processing thought that, I realized two things: 1. I don’t think I truly believed God would heal me. I knew he could. I just didn’t believe he would. And then I would have to make excuses as to why God didn’t heal me. That sounds so dumb as I write it out. It is dumb. God is God and can heal or not heal as he chooses. 2. In a weird way, I needed my disease to define me. I needed it to stand out, to be noticed.

So in asking for healing, I was letting go of both those things.

Yesterday I was killing time at Starbucks before church. I was still feeling like my Crohns might be flaring up.  I opened my Bible and randomly read Ps 103.

           

Praise the Lord, O My Soul, All my inmost being, praise his Holy name.

            Praise the Lord, O My Soul, and forget not all his benefits-

            Who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,

Who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth

Is renewed like the eagles.

           

After reading that, all I wrote in my journal was, “God I wanted healing from Crohn’s. I ask for healing.”

I went to church like usual. Set up communion and put the flyers out as usual. Maria was getting baptized, so there was more than normal excitement. This day marked one year of being sober for her. I have watched God move and speak in her life over the last year. Our group got to be a part of that. It is so cool to know that God used our life group to speak his truth and love to her.

In the middle of the response time, Joel got up and shared two things that the prayer team received as they prayed over the service. I don’t remember what the second one was because the first thing he shared was for me!  I think one of the ways the Holy Spirit prompts me is physically. My heart felt as if it was beating out of my chest. “Someone here is having some sort of stomach pain.” He might have said something else after that, but I don’t remember. But that was me!  I had/have stomach pain.

I went forward to receive prayer. Even before she started praying for healing, she prayed something along the lines of I have a story to share. I have forgotten most of what she actually prayed. But this is what I know: God spoke. To me. He heard me. He knows my desires. He knows my story. And I will be persistent to continue to bring my request for healing before the Lord, knowing and believing he will answer.