Healer

Healing God.

You who heal the deaf, give sight to the blind and raise the dead,

We come to you requesting that your healing power be poured out on our loved ones. 

Heal their bodies, make them whole and healthy, that you may be glorified.

Amen.

Have you ever listened to evangelicals who are about to pray? They ask for prayer/praise items and inevitably it disintegrates into a list of all the people present, known, or heard of that are suffering from physical malady or illness. Prayers for healing definitely top the charts in most prayed prayers. Ironically, though these are the most prayed prayers, they are also the least expected to come true. We pray for healing fully expecting that God can heal, but fully expecting that he won't. Oh we have all sorts of ways of explaining why prayers remain unanswered, but they all ring with a rather hollow sound as we stare down death, evil and suffering, begging God to somehow intervene. The above prayer is the prayer I might pray in public, but the true cry of my heart goes a lot more like this:

Jesus,

You healed the lame, restored sight to the blind, and raised the dead. 

I come to you begging for the lives of my dear loved ones,

Knowing that you heal, yet fully expecting you not to.

I pray that despite my expectations, you would heal. 

Lord, surprise me, disappoint my expectation of you,

make your name mighty among your people!

I know what you can do, I am afraid of what you will do, 

But I know that in it all you are God.

Amen.

Praying for healing is the only occasion I question the validity of my belief. Luckily, right at the heart of the Christian message is Easter. Easter, the death of God, his passage under the earth, his glorious resurrection. Threaded throughout those darkest of days is the pain of unanswered prayer, but yet even there, these three remain. And so as Eliot wrote "I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith but the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting."

A Prayer of Thanksgiving

Heavenly Father;

sometimes we come before you and things aren't alright.

That's alright.

sometimes, i can't say thank-you for your goodness.

You are always good.

my prayers get stuck in my throat and come out in feeble groans and whispers.

You hear my voice.

i am alone and unwanted.

You have called me by name.

sickness and death are lurking.

You are called healer.

vanity of vanities, all is hopelessness.

We hope against hope.

numbly sitting in the pew, i am incapable of worship.

Trees clap their hands in praise.

guilty, oh so guilty.

Declared innocent.

Your mercies are never ending. We, your people, rage tirelessly against your holy name, yet time and time again you reiterate your promises to us. Not only did you come and die, but you also came and lived. In your life lies the promise of life for us all. The world can be a pretty dark place. A lot of stuff happens that I don't have an answer for, and that kills me, but it also killed you.  This Thanksgiving, I thank-you for your promise to me that when things aren't all right, that with you, it's alright. Thank-you so very much Jesus. Cheers!

Glory be to the Father, 

and to the Son, 

and to the Holy Spirit.

As it was in the Beginning,

is now,

and shall be forever.

Amen.