A Swollen, Painful Hand Suddenly Healed.

I have a friend named Louise whom I encounter every now and then. Several years ago, I was just walking out of the bank and there she was coming up the sidewalk toward me. We had stopped and chatted for a few moments when she revealed to me that one of her hands was giving her a lot of pain. I looked at it and was kind of startled to see that it was swollen with blue traces on greyish-white skin, and it had been getting worse over the previous week. It had started with no apparent cause, and she lamented that she would not be able to play the piano anymore if this kept up.

Now, I admit that as a believer in Jesus as the Great Healer, I have never had much...or any... faith to pray for physical healing, especially for someone else! Sure, I cry out for help now and then, but to be confronted with a serious problem, make a desperate plea, and then expect an answer to MY prayer has always seemed beyond me. Although, I do believe it happens--when other people pray, and I have no problem believing for emotional healing or spiritual deliverance, since I have witnessed it enough times. However, in spite of my lack of faith for the physical, when Louise said she couldn't play her piano, possibly ever again, a sudden compassion leapt up inside of me and I thought something like, "Oh, no! This can't happen! We have to pray!"

I impulsively took her hand and asked God to heal it. It was a brief prayer, but very heartfelt. And it must have been inspired by the Holy Spirit, because shortly afterward, she contacted me and said her hand was better. About a year ago, I asked her how it was going, and she said it was still good, but somehow her unenthusiastic response left me with a shadow of doubt. Was she just trying to make me feel good? I wondered.

Finally, a few weeks ago we discovered each other attending the wedding of a mutual friend, and I wanted to clear up my uncertainty once and for all. I specifically asked her if she could play piano now, and there it was again, that hesitation and lack of enthusiasm. So I pursued it. What was wrong? Was it not a true healing? Much to my amusement, she--after a kind of murmuring hesitation--let me know she doesn't really want to play piano anymore; she wants to learn guitar! Lol! She held out her lovely, healthy hand with rosy skin. And my doubts were finally put to rest when she later informed me (after I quizzed her a bit more by text) that the healing of her undiagnosed ailment began to occur immediately after we prayed. Ahh, God is good.

For reasons unknown to us, sometimes, sadly, God's answer seems to be "No"... It could, on many occasions, simply be the lack of faith existing in our modern "civilized" society; I do not know, but in spite of those sometimes bitterly painful disappointments, my experience with Louise has given me a spark of faith that I will witness more physical-healing miracles in the future. Hallelujah.