Does God heal today? There are evidences of God’s healing grace in a dramatic and miraculous manner. Yet, there are other indications that He does not heal even when prayer is offered.

I believe in God's healing grace and have experienced it in my life.  However the healing process is often complex and remains a mystery in many situations.

I am reading an interesting book, God is in the Hard Stuff, by Bruce Bickel and Stan Jantz.  They shared an experience regarding a man who had a deadly brain tumor.  As he faced surgery two ministers prayed for healing and anointed him with oil, based on James 5:14-15. Surgery was performed and the outlook was grim. Prayer continued, hoping and believing for a miracle.

Within five months he passed into eternity. "There was sadness, of course, but there was also HOPE,” Bruce and Stan wrote. “Though God had not healed our friend physically, He had actually done much more.”

One month before he died, the authors visited the friend. They asked him if he was disappointed that God had not healed him. "Oh, but HE HAS!" he replied. "God has healed me in ways you can't imagine. I don't want you to worry about me. God is in control. All will be well." 

Then their friend handed them a prayer from Mother Teresa, which he personalized: 

"Dear Jesus, Help me to spread Your fragrance everywhere I go. Flood my soul with Your Spirit and life.  Penetrate and posses my whole being so utterly that my life may only be a radiance of Yours.

"Shine through me and be so in me, that every soul I come in contact with may feel Your presence in my soul. Let them look up and see no longer me, but only Jesus!  Stay with me and I shall begin to shine as You shine; so to shine as to be a light to others; the light, O Jesus, will be all from You. None of it will be mine; it will be You shining on others through me.

"Let me praise You in the way You love best, by shining on those around me. Let me preach You without preaching, not by words, but example, by the catching force, the sympathetic influence of what I do, the evident fullness of the love my heart bears to You. AMEN!"

The friend then said, "This is how God has healed me. He is using my life to touch others with His love. As long as I live, I want God to use me."

Their friend was used of God to shine on hundreds of people who saw him in the last weeks of his life. God had healed him, and through that healing, God showed them how much He cares for us all. God demonstrated that our prayers were not empty. As the healing passage in James concludes, our prayers had "great power and wonderful results." (James 5:16) What a demonstration of God's healing grace and power, beyond the realm of the physical which reaches to the eternal!! (Excerpts from God is in the Hard Stuff, by Bruce Bickel and Stan Jantz , Barbour Publishing, 2005)

Bill and Gloria Gaither penned these powerful words,
 

Shackled by a heavy burden,
‘Neath the load of sin and shame,  
Then the hand of Jesus touched me,  
And Now I am no longer the same.

Since I met this blessed Savior,  
Since He cleansed and made be whole,  
I will never cease to praise Him  
I’ll shout it while eternity rolls.

He touched me, Oh, He touched me,  
And Oh, the joy that floods my soul.  
Something happened and now I know.  
He touched me and made me whole.

Amen!
(Words and music by Bill and Gloria Gaither, www.gaither.com)