God is . . . Healer

Last week I started to look at some of the characteristics of God, the first one being love.  This week it’s healer.  Though there are many stories more compelling than mine, I do know God as healer. 

There was a time when I, as a young mother of two, had one strep throat after another.  I could always feel it coming: the terrible exhaustion, the fever, the sore throat, and finally, the white pustules that carpeted my mucus membranes like those little candy dots you peal off a strip. Next came the trek to the doctor’s office, the round of antibiotics, my digestive track going haywire from the antibiotics killing off all the normal flora—a vicious cycle that repeated itself again and again.

Around this time I was learning about how God healed, that those who had come into the saving knowledge of Jesus could also claim His promises; that by His stripes we actually were healed already (Isaiah 53:5); that the very word salvation meant more than just the gift of eternal life and forgiveness of sin, it also covered things like healing, prosperity, and protection.  And I was just desperate enough to believe it.  Sometimes it’s desperation that makes you step up to the mound, to that plate of faith. I mean, a mother with young children couldn’t afford to be sick.  Too much depended on her.  There was no sleeping in, no cook making hot soup in the kitchen while I lounged in front of the T.V. My husband had to go to work. There were bills to be paid. And two and four year olds don’t understand the concept of, “Just let Mommy rest a bit.”  

So when I woke up one morning, feeling, yet again, miserable and tired and feverish and sick; when I saw, yet again, those horrible white dots on my throat, I couldn’t face another trip to the doctor, another round of antibiotics so I asked God to heal me.  All day I felt terrible, but all day I prayed the healing scriptures over myself as I went about the business of caring for my family.  I didn’t hear any music or voices, or see flashes of lightening, but by the end of the day I was fine and the spots were gone.  I’ve never had another strep throat since.

Yes, God does use doctors and medicine, but He also heals miraculously, and I mean more than just our physical bodies, because He can and does heal broken hearts and minds and spirits. I also know about that, because He’s healed mine.  I like what the Bible says about God not being a respecter of persons.  What He does for one He can and will do for another.  He has no favorites.  He loves us all.  And that in itself is a miracle!

Until next time,

Sylvia