THE LORD WHO HEALETH THEE

It has been nearly a decade now that I served the Lord as a leader with our church’s senior high group on a missions trip to the Bahamas.  We served at All Saints Camp, a place that many people with various disabilities and sicknesses called home.   

We went to build some homes and demolish others, to lay a long cement sidewalk, and to minister to the residents.  Being there in the summer when the weather was very hot and humid made the work more of a challenge.  But our kids did an awesome job of working hard, without complaining.  

There was one day when, out of deference for my age I think, I was assigned the task of scraping paint blobs from a newly finished porch. alongside a girl who had been injured while doing demo on a house.  I didn’t last long.  I rated the job right up there with watching grass grow – boring and tedious – and after not even an hour, I moved on to some other task.  (The teen never complained ONCE!)

As I think about that day now, I’m reminded of a contrast that put me to shame. While we slogged away at that boring job, we were serenaded by a resident who lived just across the sidewalk from where we worked.  

 Some of our students were gathered around Anthony on his tiny shaded porch, singing along with him the hymns of our faith.  Of all the songs he sang, one was completely unfamiliar to me.  It was a chorus I have since discovered was written by Don Moen called, I Am The Lord That Healeth Thee:

I am the God that
Healeth thee
I am the Lord
Your healer
I sent My word
And I healed your disease
I am the Lord
Your healer

It is a wonderful, simple chorus, exalting one of the attributes of God – God, Our Healer – sung with passion by a man living in very humble circumstances.  What made that moment so memorable for me, and provided such a contrast, is that Anthony was blind.  Here I was, inwardly complaining about the tedium of the task I had to do, while Anthony was worshiping His Creator and Healer, and doing it with reverence and passion.  

This past week I have watched the Lord reveal this particular attribute of His – I am the God that healeth.

Way more than a decade ago now our family was in shambles.  Each of us was suffering in his and her own ways by events that went on for years. For me, especially, I remember those years as terrorizing.  I spent many nights awake and afraid, and many days as well.  I prayed as I had never prayed before, and while I am now able to say that the Lord was at work – I didn’t see it then – and He certainly wasn’t working the way I wanted Him to.  All these years later, just writing about it can still make me feel anxious.

After some years, things eventually eased up and a measure of distance from one another helped lower anxiety levels.  But relationships had not healed.  There were years when we couldn’t even talk about it with one another.  Relationships were strained and I, for one, had little hope they would ever be any different and I grieved over it. 

How small was my faith, for I seriously underestimated what my Sovereign, Omnipotent God, who is in the business of doing the impossible, would eventually do.  

Slowly, slowly, within the last few years I have begun to enjoy a sweetness of relationship with the one who was the cause of my fear and anxiety.  There is a new level of understanding, appreciation and love between us that I never thought we would ever see.  I thank the Lord for it every day.  He has proved Himself to be “the God that healeth”.  

What prompted this blog however, was what He has done in the last month or so.  I wish I could reveal all the details, but doing so might hurt someone, so I will keep them to myself.  What I can say is that He took two people who were mostly estranged and gave them a time together to remember forever.  He took a relationship previously shaped by anger and distance, and healed it completely. He didn’t just mend it, He transformed it to one of real love and appreciation for the very personality and behavioral differences that were the cause of division before.  

I’m blown away by God’s faithfulness to hear our prayers and answer them, in His time and in His way, and without any “helpful” interference from me!  

 Why do I doubt that He is able to do things like this?  I doubt Him because I focus on the seemingly, impossible to change, people involved and not on the God of whom it was said, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?”   I doubt Him because I have expectations that He will work in THIS way, and no other, and I miss what He IS doing though it could be staring me in the face.

I don’t think Anthony doubted the Lord as Healer, even though he was never healed of his blindness.  But then, who knows that maybe he had been healed in many other ways in his life so that prompted his reverent worship of the Lord, Who is Healer?

Does the Lord ALWAYS heal us physically or emotionally or relationally?  No, sometimes, for reasons we may never understand this side of heaven, it is for our best and His glory not to answer that prayer with a yes.  When the Lord does heal, it is a gift of His generous grace.

I am grateful for the healing He has brought to our family.  He is worthy of worship for He IS the One Who Healeth.