Posted on 07/22/2012 3:17:11 PM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
My brother-in-law celebrated his 60th birthday yesterday. It was a poignant occasion because, but for the grace of God, he wouldn’t have lived to share the milestone with family and friends.
That’s because he suffered a stroke two years ago that left him blind and without full use of his motor skills. His loved ones feared that he would be one of the 140,000 Americans who succumb each year to stroke, the third-leading cause of death in this country.
But a miraculous thing happened: My brother-in-law regained his sight. Then he recovered his motor skills.
Within the next year, his health was restored to the point that he actually completed a marathon.
As I watched him yesterday eating, drinking and making merry, the thought occurred that I was in the presence of a true-to-life Lazarus. That my brother-in-law, a man of faith, lived to see his 60th birthday is a testament that God continues to heal today as he did during Biblical times.
He remains Jehovah Rapha.
And just as I witnessed, first hand, the Almighty’s healing, there are others reading these words who have, themselves, been healed. Or, if not them, then a family member or a friend or a coworker or a member of their church family
To all those who have borne witness to such healing, I say rejoice. For blessed are you to see the Lord reveal himself in such a powerful way. And it is not an extraordinary experience you should keep to yourself. You need to share it when the Holy Spirit presents the opportunity.
For there are many among us, including some Christ followers, who believe the time of miracles ended when Christ Himself ascended to the Father. They doubt that the Almighty responds to prayers for His divine intervention.
But I am persuaded that the Lord continues to perform miracles each and every day. But because we are living in a fallen world, an increasingly secularist society, we see through a glass darkly. We don’t recognize a miracle when it’s right in front of us.
As when a man who, but for Jehovah Rapha, would have been lying beneath a gravestone yesterday, was, instead, blowing out the candles on his birthday cake.
I just turned 60, and had a stroke 2 years ago.
Thank you for sharing this. God is all-powerful and all good.
Nothing is too hard for our Lord. However, we must remember it is “His will” for us that we receive in blessings such as this. As hard as it is, we must realize that our prayers for a person, for a specific act of God, may not be the best for that person. Faith is continuing to believe when God doesn’t do as we pray (order?) Him to do. My prayers for sick, hurting, and dying are along the line of: Lord, please help ____ as You know best and oversee those taking care of him/her. For those who doubt me, I truly say that this is my prayer for my 84 year old Uncle who is in rapidly declining health.
Good for your brother-in-law. As for the rest of us, we must suffer unhealed.
The Lord bless you and keep you, friend.
We must also remember when we pray, that sometimes the answer is “no”.
Not proof at all. People who might ordinarily die sometimes live. Some live, some die. Proves nothing.
Often the answer is not “no” but “later”.
sometime yes, sometimes no, sometimes maybe, at least that is the way it has been for me over the years, and I had a stroke in April
All that were infirm during the time of Jesus were not healed. But many were, and miraculously so. So it is in our current age. While we do not know why God chooses some to be healed and not others – “I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy,” He says, “and I will have compassion on whomever I will have compassion” – we do know that some are indeed miraculously healed, according to Scripture, “for the Glory of God.”
Over six months, he slowly got better, retained all his mental and physical abilities and could keep up with the best of us, serving the Lord until the day he died, just five years ago at 72. Those years were a gift. He lived to see my two children born and they remember him.
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