On Total Healing

I was not sure whether to post this in "Thoughts On" or in "A Child's Brain Tumor."

The reason I might have posted it in the latter is because shortly after Heidi's diagnosis, a prayer and healing team came from Saint Margret's. A woman who would later become a close friend, Dottie Krieder said she felt lead to pray for total healing for Heidi. She said she rarely felt lead to pray that way because total healing comes about in two ways: either the Lord removes all vestiges of the disease and it's attendant problems, or He brings the person home to Himself.

I decided to post William Cool's comment in Thoughts because as well as total healing, he addresses the concept of miracles from a scientist's perspective. I find what he writes, fascinating. I wish my Dad were alive to read Bill's words. He would have enjoyed them.

With his permission, here is Bill's comment:

One critical aspect of the spiritual gifts is remembering that God is sovereign and not subject to our perspectives.

 I’ll mention one example. When my wife and I first arrived at St. Luke’s, Akron, one of the most amazingly joyful people we met was a woman named Miriam, who almost seemed to glow with smiles and joy that spilled out to all around her. Both her legs were in braces and useless. She got around using crutches. Early one winter, I was in a Bible study with Miriam, and as we left she said, “Bill, I know my healing is near - I’m starting to feel tingling in my legs.”

Not long after, at a parish-wide New Year’s eve party and dance (a way to evangelize those looking for a good party), our rector failed to show up until late in the evening. When he finally arrived, he said, “Miriam has been healed. She is with the Lord.” In fact her car had been smashed at a foggy intersection. We were, of course stunned and began praying as a group. In the midst of our prayers, a teenage girl spoke out that she had a vision of Miriam who was dancing with the Lord. I still get choked up when I remember her saying that.

Miriam was responsible for at least one witness after her death. The day following the accident, a member of the parish went to the scene of the accident and found someone clearing debris and sweeping the mess off the road. As they began to talk, the parishioner explained who Miriam was and something of her strong faith. The man sent to clean up the road said that who Miriam was explained what he had sensed when he came to the site. He said that generally when cleaning up such a site he felt a strong sense of destruction and chaos, but at this accident site he had felt an overwhelming sense of peace, which he had not understood until it was explained to him something about Miriam.

One last comment. I am a scientist with a PhD in the biological sciences. I know the principles of scientific evidence. What I have described here and in my previous comments requires a different kind of evidence. As Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:8, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” We don’t “see” wind, but we see and hear its results. And what I have described cannot be explained as merely a sort of focusing or speed-up of natural phenomena. Someone in a much earlier thread wondered if the Holy Spirit orthodontist work I witnessed (and described above) could have been merely an acceleration of natural actions. Since mineral metabolism was my area of expertise for my doctorate, I can give a pretty emphatic negative to that possibility. To focus that much metabolic energy into the space of a few seconds would have cooked the tissues and blood vessels in the jaw bones. At least in this instance, when the creator of the universe chose to straighten the young woman’s teeth in response to prayer, he chose to do it in a way that is beyond our understanding of how the world generally functions. [127] Posted by Bill Cool on 09-12-2008 at 12:41 AM

The whole thread can be found at

http://www.standfirminfaith.com/index.php/site/article/15860/

I want to include Bill's answer when I emailed to ask his permission to post his comment.

I can still remember coming into the then very small St. Luke's, Akron, sanctuary and seeing Miriam shining in the choir, and I can still remember as she and I headed out of the building after that Bible study and having her tell me that her healing was near. And I can also clearly remember the teen-age daughter of our choir director describing her vision, "I can see Miriam. She is dancing with the Lord."

 

At Truro, our new rector, Tory Baucum, has reminded us these past two weeks of God's emphasis on relationship - in the first creation story, about the close relationship in the Trinity - "Let us make man in our image (with that image carrying a need for such relationship), and in the second creation story, about the relationship of man and woman, as part of that image we carry.

Miriam carried that relationship with her Father and with Jesus wherever she went and the vision of her dancing was an encouraging reminder of that.

 

Bill Cool

The picture of Bill carrying the memory of the young girl's vision of Miriam dancing with the Lord touched me deeply. When she got to thinking, sometimes Heidi became sad because of the many abilities she had lost. Then inevitably she would reply, "But that's okay. I know when I get to Heaven, I will be able to (fill in the blank) again" Dancing was one of those blanks.

The Upper Room has published a devotional of mine, Dancing Feet, in this year's Nov/Dec issue. They tamed it down a bit (smile -- I never thought they would touch that one), so I am going to ask if they mind if I post the original version. If they do not mind, I will post it.