Healing

Late summer in Alaska means that it starts getting dark-ish and the air cools off substantially in the evenings. That's why I was shivering as my friend and I prayed together down by the Kenai River that night in 2006. I was getting ready to start medical school and he was blessing me before I started. Now before I go on, realize that I had spent months and years leading up to a fairly new-to-me belief in the supernatural, stemming from examples of regular people doing incredible things through the name of Christ all throughout history even up to some events that summer that I had seen for myself. I know it's a stretch for those that don't believe in miracles, but I was preparing myself for a lifetime of seeing and being a part of the divine and miraculous.

My friend had the gift of seeing and speaking truth, so when he told me that night that I would not have the gift of healing, I was more than a bit disappointed. However, he quickly added that spiritual healing would be mine to share with those around me. What that meant at the time, I didn't really know. As I have come to understand medicine, however, it makes sense. Doctors really just remove obstacles so that the body can heal itself. The actual healing takes place over hours to days to months to years as the slow, intricate process restores normality. Spiritual healing, on the other hand, is both an active and passive process involving confrontation of lies believed, encouragement of truth known deeply and faith in the redeemability of any circumstance.

Today was a day I recommitted to experiencing Christ in my life. Something I've done somewhere between 100 and 10,000 times, probably closer to 10,000. Seems I can't ever stay on track, but I keep going for it anyway... So when I saw my patient's husband reading her the Bible this morning, I offered to pray with them. As I said, "Amen," he looked at me and said something to the effect of the following:

"You are an answer to prayer. We have people all over the country praying for her," and went on to describe miraculous healing that he had been a part of and continued, "God wants to use your hands to heal people, but more than that, he wants to use you for spiritual healing. He wants to pour out these things through you if you are willing and have the boldness to follow."

He didn't know my story. He didn't know that I would be using my hands in surgery or that years ago, my friend had spoken very similar words to me. I ascribe glory to God for looking at me and seeing that even with my tendency to veer off in all kinds of directions, He would make use of such a broken and fallible tool.

To top things off, just last Sunday I had whispered a prayer that I almost had forgotten, "God, please send some one to show me that I am still walking your path."

P.S. I apologize to those of you who didn't know I put faith in such weird stuff. You don't know because I'm scared to share some of the things I believe in, but this is me and I'm in love with God.