Reflections on Partial Healings in the Western World: A follow-up to "A Trilogy of Healings"

In my previous blog post, "A Trilogy of Healings", I described three healings which were partial but nonetheless miraculous. A long-time friend of mine had a baby against all odds. Years later, in a "tent meeting", the same friend's adopted daughter was healed of arthritis, and at approximately the same time in the same place, my other friend had her eyes healed! But in each case, the healings, although wonderful and supernatural, were not 100%, which leaves one wondering why. Why couldn't Brenda have that second baby? Why wasn't Hope's ankle completely healed when her knee was? Why were Yolanda's eyes healed to 75% but not 100%?

I am quite sure that these three events are not the first times that people have had this type of experience and asked the same questions. And I know many have prayed and seen nothing happen at all. Could that be to some extent due to the society we live in here in North America where God is, for the most part, ignored? I have heard numerous times from returning missionaries that in developing countries where people are more in touch with the spiritual kingdom, and where medical help is beyond their reach, all types of healings--physical, mental, emotional--take place when a follower of Jesus begins to teach about the love of God. Complete healings! It does seem that we in Canada have lost touch with the wonder-working side of the God we say we believe in.

Further to that, we live in an atmosphere in which the media daily bombards us with messages that reject God and ridicule faith in a Creator who loves us. Favorite sit-com's generally make the "believer" (if one is portrayed) the stupid or uneducated, ignorant one at whom viewers laugh. This greatly magnifies the struggle to even have faith in miracles at all! Let alone speak of them! The problem with all the undermining of faith is that when he walked the earth in human form, Jesus repeatedly said to people, "Your faith has healed you." Because of the numerous supernatural healings I have witnessed and those I have experienced, I think it's time to start believing again. Everyone needs one at some point in their life, and faith is key!

Many of the individuals who persist in praying for healing have said that in their experience the "atmosphere" of faith makes a big difference. Therefore, being surrounded by "nay-sayers" could be affecting the outcomes for those receiving the prayer. In contrast, I'm told, when faith starts rising, miracles start happening. Cases in point: the tent meetings.

After decades of continuous public attempts to crush North Americans' faith, many of us are left asking, "Do I believe that God would do this for me personally?" And (if not) "How do I start believing for more?" Well! Jesus is the best one to help us answer those questions, and he has laid out many promises and examples of his work in his Word, the Holy Bible (the perfect place to start) to let us know what to expect and what to hope for.

Yolanda's experience when she was first hit by a stroke in 1994 gives more food for thought. She was housesitting at a friend's house with another friend when it happened and was sitting at the top of a staircase chatting with her friend when the symptoms began. She temporarily passed out and regained consciousness at the bottom of the stairs where she heard her friend panicking and yelling at ambulance attendants, trying to convince them that something was terribly wrong in spite of a normal heart rate. At some point of her consciousness, Yolanda felt the paralysis progress rapidly down her right side and then begin to climb up her left side. As it reached her chest area, in her mind she cried out a desperate plea to God, "Not my left side too!!?" Immediately she felt the numbness reverse and swoop back down her left side and out of her foot. She went in and out of consciousness in the ambulance and woke up in the hospital four days later, paralyzed on her entire right side and half-blind in each eye.

Yolanda's trauma and prayer present a very interesting faith situation. What went on in the spiritual realm in those dire moments? Good question! What would have happened if she had cried out for more? ...What would I have done in her place?

In any case, I think everyone longs for something, regardless of how much we have. Could partial healings be leaving us with a God-permitted reason to draw closer to Him and ultimately to become a voice of hope for someone else regardless of the outcome?

In Conclusion

God is not out to purposely hurt us. When we investigate and come to realize that the invisible, spiritual world is just as real as the visible, physical one; and we begin to earnestly search for answers, we discover that the "dark side" wants to harm us and keep us in bondage, if not outright destroy us. The Author of all that is Good and Right, on the other hand, wants to heal us and set us free. When we come to know and love him, his promise is this, "I will take what the enemy meant for evil and turn it for good."