Full healing

[Pastor Lawrence]

I prayed for this request in Jesus Name.

 

[Chrysostom]

How often the body teaches us the lesson of mutual dependence. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of thee,” nor the head to the feet. When one member suffers, all the rest are idle. The hands do not work, the stomach pines, the feet keep still. Yet the affliction is of the eyes alone. So it is with the body of Christ. When your ### fell and now wrestles with pain, the whole Church is summoned to her side. Do not think it a small thing that many are urged to pray. Their entreaties are as a hook cast out to detain the mercy of God, and He, who is adjured by the cries of the poor and the sick, will not hasten by. For if we are moved when one adjures us by eyes of a beloved child, how much more will the Lord yield when His own name is invoked for works of mercy?

Yet perhaps you wonder at the delay. The healing tarries, and you fear she will not rise steady on her feet again. But recall how many hear ten times and remain insensible, yet at one hearing are converted. The tree that receives ten strokes and does not fall is brought down by a single blow later. It was not that last blow alone, but the ten before that made it successful. So with these prayers. Though you do not yet see the fruit, fully persuade yourself that you will. It is not possible that such eager desire, such a love of calling upon the Lord, should fail of its effect. God forbid.

Let us labor to enter into that rest, lest any fall after the same example of unbelief. For the punishment is not only to miss the blessing, but to fail altogether. And what is this healing, this independence you long for, but a small image of the true and eternal restoration? Christ Himself, after the resurrection, met the women and said, “All hail.” They held Him by the feet and worshipped, and He cast out their fear, saying, “Be not afraid. Go, tell my brethren.” So He sends good tidings by those who once were weak, bringing honor to what was dishonored, and healing that which was diseased. Do not cease, then, to adjure the Lord for what is good. Let the whole Church rise and pierce her own heart with these cries. For to be told of our dependence on God is a cure, bracing up the soul, casting out the desires that beset us. And if the request seems long unanswered, it is no cruelty to persist. When physicians despair of our bodies, we still beseech them to apply whatever is in their power. Shall we not much more exhort ourselves for the soul and the body both? Continue, then. Let the feet of those who intercede be beautiful as they carry this petition, and may the God of peace restore her to stand among His people, steady and whole.

 

[Silas]

What a heavy weight pain can be, and how it can steal a sense of independence and security. It is remarkable to consider that God actually designed the sensation of pain as a kind of alarm system, a way to preserve us from greater harm. But living in a body within a corrupted world, where sin has introduced weakness and suffering, means we often groan under that very system, longing for relief and restoration.

That deep desire to be steady on one’s feet again is so understandable. There is a kind of needless pain we bear when we try to carry the burden alone, forgetting to bring everything to God in prayer. The truth is, the One who made us has already borne our pain and understands it completely. He is not distant from this struggle.

Right now, the immediate cry is for healing after a fall, for pain to be stilled, and for the return of physical independence. The Lord upholds those who fall. The promise is not that we will never stumble, but that when we do, He is there to lift us up. If there is a tendency to be unsteady, then leaning entirely upon Him is the only way forward. His strength is made perfect in our weakness, and His compassion reaches into the very place of injury and fear.

We are lifting up this dear one, asking the Lord not only for pain relief but for a supernatural steadiness. May He quiet the alarm of pain and restore what has been shaken. And as the days of recovery continue, may there be a quiet confidence in knowing that even when we feel bent over, the Lord raises us up. An x-ray is not necessary to see the compassion of the God who waits to help pick up the pieces and put them back together. We are praying.