Healing.

“Risen with healing in His wings..”

 There are certain lines to songs we sing that feel like they are stuck in my mind and heart and I have to think through them. This is one of them. I usually write a lot on suffering, but here’s my humble attempt to write about healing. So what does it mean to declare in song Christ as the One who is risen with healing in His wings? (see Malachi 4:2) In my life these words have stood to make me wince a little. Why?! I was taught a little bit about praying for people’s health and saw many older men and women’s eyes full with tears as they begged God to heal their loved ones. Vivid pictures in my life and in Scripture of people that definitely lived faith stories and what they believed in their own context and culture about healing prayer come to my mind as I have lived a life of disability for 34 years. I mean, it’s ok to not be sure sometimes and wrestle in prayer. Now though in lieu of even more tests this week and diagnoses it feels like a good place to be at peace and to settle into trust with God. He’s so high and beautifully mysterious. 

Ok now fast forward from being a kid to my teen/college years to a conversation with a speaker at camp who boldly asked to pray for my physical healing. My face must’ve showed how new this was for me cause then she asked pretty poignantly “Do you not have faith that God can do it, Deanna?” Whoa, I can’t really figure out if this has felt like a two by four to my heart or a punch to my face over the years, but in all her well intentions she left a scar on a girls heart that she never knew about. I just didn’t know how to respond! Of course, I thought I had enough faith—and still need more. Do you any of us really have enough? What is “enough”?

I have done all the good and godly things that my Christian faith taught me. I wish I could go back and somehow pushback a little and turn the conversation onto Jesus who is the Healer and leave it there—and not on the measure of my faith. Time change’s people though—it is not as traumatic for me, but if you pray or have prayed you know I tear up now more out of love, then fear!  Since my camp days I’ve said yes to  healing prayer over and over on street corners from Winnipeg to Chicago, sat in living rooms and church sanctuaries praying and asking for prayer. We’ve even tested it by walking, stopping and praying again.

Many of you reading have held those intimate weepy moments for me and with me. I’ve wrestled through sitting through sermons on suffering, healing and what God’s will is and what is my will. What do I want? Am I afraid of the impossible, miraculous etc.etc. I now am glad that certain people and places have been places where I could get all of these feelings about it  all out. Isn’t this what discipleship is? Isn’t it about finding out about God and His character and letting that truth of who He is and what He says change us—not just always praying the right way?

The truth?  The truth is yep, I sit in unbelief sometimes and say Lord, I believe, help my unbelief! I also am careful to whom or in what setting now I am in before I say “Yes, you can pray for me!” To be honest I actually feel better in places where even my No, thanks! is accepted. This may be hard for some to understand and that’s ok I just have no doubt in the miracles in my life that are real and go way beyond the physical. I still am moved BY GOD to accept prayers for physical healing—because my body matters to God. His physical body that was born, walked on earth and was torn apart at the crucifixion is still the body that resurrected and showed Himself to be real —alive and whole. I’ve experienced Him as the God who suffers with and the God who raises up this past year and it’s almost too much of a mystery to continue to write about.

This healing wing though holds a picture of a wider scope of healing! Healing of nations, families— hearts will be turned toward each other and even our land. What beauty when we sing out the song of restoration! God with big wings wants to come and renew and restore all that has been broken! Until then we wait to see glimpses of heaven touching earth, we long with all of Creation for healing and revival with our bodies. Even being open to feel that longing on every level is part of the miracle. Keep longing, keep opening your hands and be at peace.

May we let our healing prayers be about praising the One with Healing in His wings. Let our songs ask for faith to arise and let us know God —that he be magnified in our bodies by life or by death. He’s so perfect in his ways to us individually and as a whole. 

And then what we thought was broken is completely part of the story of glory and all we can say is, “Glllllloooorrrria in excelsis Deo!”