Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Healing

A topic that has come up in a few conversations over the last two weeks is healing. I think about physical healing a lot, since I have lived with chronic pain every day for the last 18 years.

This pregnancy has been much more difficult (physically) than I had ever dreamed and I had asked some people at our staff meeting to pray for my ribs and back. As I’m continually expanding, the muscles are pulling away from the ribcage and have caused nerve pain. I’ve never had nerve pain before and this is some of the most excruciating and exhausting pain I’ve ever experienced. Anyway, not the point of the story…

After I asked for prayer, a friend was telling me that his wife had a similar thing happen when she was pregnant and we started talking about healing. He mentioned that sometimes, we can be healed despite having a cure for what is hurting. As I’ve been letting that thought percolate in my head the last few weeks, I feel like this is a theme that has been woven into my life.

I have prayed for physical healing for more than half of my life. At ORU, I stood up at every chapel, asking God to heal me. I even went to a Benny Hinn crusade willing to do anything to be healed! Nothing ever happened. I thought that faith was like a thermometer and if I could just get my faith up to a certain degree, God was obligated to heal me (that needs to be another post later).

However, hindsight has proved 20/20. Although I live in pain all the time, I truly believe that God has healed me, just not in the ways I hoped for. Living with pain has shaped me into the person that I am today. I would not be the same if I had lived my life pain-free.

In so many Christian circles, we talk about healing and paint God into a corner. Either heal us or don’t. I am beginning to see that sometimes it can be both. I’m not physically healed from chronic pain, but my soul, the depth of who I am, is healed and whole, partly because of living through this experience.

So, while I would take healing and energy the second it was offered, I am reminded that so much healing comes without a cure.

1 comment:

Abby Wilkinson said...

love you Court. i am sorr you are in pain and I will join in prayer. This is a great reminder of God's continual gifts to us even when they don't seem that way at the time. Praying for you and that precious baby.