Healing

I had a real “Job” moment last Sunday morning in church. Seated in front of me was my dear friend, Sandy, who has battled cancer for a year now. A little over a month ago the doctor discovered another tumor, which means another round of radiation. I know that many people, me included, are praying for her to be healed. But, I didn’t want to get my hopes up for her.

As I was sat there in church, listening to Pastor Jim’s sermon, I heard God speaking to me. He said, “Who are you to question whether Sandy will be healed or not? Who are you to question whether or not I will heal you? Who are you to doubt whether or not I will or won’t heal a person?” Tears quietly streamed down my face as I tried to keep it together.

Last November, my (foster) sister-in-law, Wendy, found herself very sick, with severe abdominal pain, unable to keep anything down, . She was in the hospital for a period of time while the doctors tried to figure out what was wrong with her. Over the next several months she battled the “illness”. By late January, she ended up back in the hospital for exploratory surgery. It was then that the surgeon discovered that her appendix had ruptured and had probably done so back in November! She is now back home and is on the long road of recovery.

I tell you these two stories because of the one thing they have in common – not the illnesses – but the promises that they both received. God gave them both a promise that their illness would not result in their death. Wendy clung to that promise because she had an unshakable faith in the Lord. And, it is the same promise that Sandy clings to.

God reminded me today of the same promise He gave me back in Dec of 2006 in regards to healing my wounded childhood. I had been living with this sense of dread that if I allowed myself to remember the wounds of my childhood, I feared that I would not survive – that I would surely die. God spoke to me through my reading for that particular day in Psalm 91. When I read those words back then, I realized that God’s promise to me was to walk along side me and to keep me safe – not safe from bodily or emotional harm – but from my soul being destroyed. In my prayer that day I had written these words, “My Lord & Savior, I so understand how You protect me from danger now. The area in my life that needs to be protected is my soul. That is your promise to me. While I may go through and have gone through so much trouble – well, there will always be suffering, physically and even mentally, – but, You will hold my soul in Your hands so that no one can touch it!”

I know that the Lord has healed my heart in so many ways and I know that there is yet a lot of healing to be done. I understand the reason why He doesn’t heal instantaneously in my life. If He had I would have missed out on so many lessons learned which has caused my faith to grow exponentially. So, I chalk this latest “episode” to a lesson learned.