{"id":7925,"date":"2014-12-14T01:15:21","date_gmt":"2014-12-14T06:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dougbittinger.com\/thoughts\/?p=7925"},"modified":"2025-04-21T01:56:39","modified_gmt":"2025-04-21T05:56:39","slug":"faith-healing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/faith-healing\/","title":{"rendered":"Faith and Healing"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"healing\"<\/a>About two months ago my left shoulder started hurting. I have no idea what I did to it.\u00a0 About the time I started thinking that it wasn\u2019t getting better on its own and I might need to see a medical professional, Marie got sick.\u00a0 I spent a few weeks carting Marie around because she could not stand upright.\u00a0 We used a wheeled hassock as transport, but I had to push or pull and lift the little caster wheels over the strips that join carpeting to tile or tile to wood.\u00a0 That didn\u2019t help any.\u00a0 By the time Marie was better my arm was a wreck.\u00a0 We again thought about seeing a doctor, but finances were a problem.<\/p>\n

This morning it hurt so bad I almost didn’t go to church.\u00a0 The pain ran from my left ear to my left elbow to my left shoulder blade.\u00a0 It was not a sharp pain or a burning, but a battered, bruised feeling like some invisible possum-devil has been beating me with a ball bat.\u00a0 But it would hurt just as much at home as it will at church, so I decided to go to church.\u00a0 If I didn’t I’d miss out on something because every lesson Pastor Dan gives teaches me something wonderful.<\/p>\n

I sat in the pew fidgeting and shifting because\u00a0I hurt.\u00a0\u00a0 This morning our Pastor led us in a prayer for healing.\u00a0 Several people are dealing with major problems.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

My reaction to “faith healing” has historically been one of skepticism. I’ve read the stories about sudden cancer remission and wondered.\u00a0\u00a0I’ve seen televangelists who had people leaping from their wheelchairs to run the aisle and I’d roll my eyes and think, “Yeah, right: that person was probably a plant like in a magic show or a mind reader performance”.\u00a0 But deep inside I do believe that God can heal.\u00a0 I believe that prayer can be powerful when offered through a clean heart.\u00a0 So as we went into this I shoved my skepticism aside, clung to the belief, and held up my shoulder (figuratively speaking) to God with a request for healing.\u00a0 The pastor referenced 1 Peter 2:24<\/a> (who was quoting from Isaiah 53:4-5)<\/p>\n

24<\/sup> who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness\u2014by whose stripes you were healed.<\/em><\/p>\n

As we were praying, my side started tingling and the pain just faded away<\/em>!<\/p>\n

I was not certain at first whether to believe it — but I had just committed to doing just that.\u00a0 James (as in the book of) \u00a0says to pray for something you must do so believing that it has already been done, for a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways and cannot expect to get anything from God.\u00a0 I had been double-minded for a long time: wanting to believe, but skeptical at the same time.\u00a0 Wanting proof before I could believe fully.\u00a0 But demanding proof countermands faith.\u00a0 A year ago, maybe a little more, I decided to live\u00a0by faith.\u00a0 I needed to stand by that decision now.<\/p>\n

I pushed my questioning aside, accepted the healing, believed it to be true.\u00a0 Dan (our pastor, not a book) said “Hold on to it, do not give it up for the enemy will steal it away if you let him.”\u00a0 Afterward he went on into his sermon.<\/p>\n

I should say that this is not a Pentecostal church.\u00a0 No one stood up and shouted “Praise Jesus: I’m healed” although I really<\/em> wanted to.<\/p>\n

I sat there, enjoying the absence of a pain that had plagued me for two months and wondering if I dared move my arm.<\/p>\n

I must believe.\u00a0 I wiggled it around a bit: no twinges, no stabs, no fresh whacks with that demonic ball bat.\u00a0 “This is excellent!” I thought.<\/p>\n

Pastor Dan was moving on, I turned my attention to taking notes.\u00a0 I had laid my pen aside earlier.\u00a0 I reached over and grabbed the pen… with my left arm.\u00a0 That should have had me gasping in pain.\u00a0 Nothing!<\/p>\n

I bathed four dogs, using both arms (that was after we got home, not at church).\u00a0 I was fine.<\/p>\n

I did something I shouldn’t have that evening and ‘whack!’ that hurt for a bit.\u00a0 I backed off and the pain went away.\u00a0 There are limits.\u00a0 I should have known that: I’d seen this before. We, as a church, had prayed once specifically for my wife: Marie while she was so sick.<\/p>\n

When I left her to go to church that morning she was barely able to get from the bed to the bathroom, and would vomit when she got there.\u00a0 She promised to stay in bed until I got back home.\u00a0 When I got home, she was dressed, sitting on the sofa and said she felt much better.\u00a0 She went out on the porch had me cut her hair, walked around in the house.\u00a0 Started thinking about going back to work on Monday.\u00a0 She did some house work… that was too much.\u00a0 She set herself back for a time.<\/p>\n

Why aren’t our experiences like the ten lepers who were cleansed or the man whose withered arm was restored or the woman whose issue of blood was cured by touching the hem of Jesus’ garment?\u00a0 Maybe my faith is not be as strong as it should be yet.\u00a0 Maybe it’s because I did not<\/em> announce my gift when I received it.\u00a0 Maybe I lost focus too soon, took it for granted and the enemy crept back is as Dan had warned.\u00a0 I don’t have that answer.\u00a0 Not yet.\u00a0 What I do know is that while my range of motion is limited, I am sitting here, pain free and using both arms to type.\u00a0 I could not have done this yesterday.\u00a0 I experienced healing today, of that much I am certain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About two months ago my left shoulder started hurting. I have no idea what I did to it.  About the time I started thinking that it wasn’t getting better on its own and I might need to see a medical professional, Marie got sick.  I spent a few weeks carting Marie around because she could … Continue reading “Faith and Healing”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[69,82],"class_list":["post-7925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-matters-of-faith","tag-god","tag-health"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7925"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19894,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7925\/revisions\/19894"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pineymountainfoster.org\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}