Healing in hospice

Although it was just last night that the house passed the health-care reform bill, I am not going to write about it today.  I am too blown away by what has happened.  I think I need some time to process.

Lately, I have been reading and thinking on the subject of miraculous healing.  We pray weekly for healing for our hospice patients.  We don’t see many respond, although a number of our patients’ cancer and dementia have improved enough for them to come off service.  We call that a hospice graduation.

One might say that there are rational explanations for those occurrences: cancer sometimes goes into remission, and dementia patients respond positively when their medical care improves.  Or, perhaps, God healed them.  There is no way to know for sure.

Since the Enlightenment, that 17-18th century discovery of rational, critical thinking, and the scientific method, we understand so much more about our bodies, disease and how to cure.  As such, we don’t think in terms of miracles.  We are conditioned to find rational explanations for events.

And when someone gets sick, we go to a doctor who has been trained in the ways of modern medicine, and often, the doctor can treat in such a way that the person heals.  It is wonderful!  That is especially so when we consider that 150 years ago, there was no treatment for bladder infections, appendicitis and brain tumors.  Science is God’s gift to us.

Does modern medicine represent God’s miraculous healing? There is no doubt that a Dark-Ages person transplanted to our day would consider the successful treatment of a pneumonia as a miracle.  And why did God wait until the 20th century to allow humans to discover antibiotics and surgery techniques?  These questions are imponderable.

So, now to the question of miraculous healing in our day.  Does it occur?  Are there people anointed with the gift of healing?  Are they for real, or are they charlatans, looking for fame and money?  Are the Christians who believe them kooky?

I grew up in an environment that cast a wary eye toward any claims of miracles.  Our brand of Christian theology stated that the spectacular gifts, such as healing and prophecy, disappeared after the first century.  Anyone who believed in those gifts was labeled as “going off the deep end.”

But there are problems with that view.  What do we do with the notion that gifts of healing, prophecy and language are listed in the same paragraph as the gift of teaching?  We don’t believe teaching is done away with, so why healing and prophecy  (1 Cor 14)?

What do we do with stories and events, such as what happened to a man named Duane Miller.  You can click on this link and hear a recording of Duane teaching.  His voice sounds terrible.  For three years, he suffered from a vocal cord disease that literally took away his ability to speak.  Many doctors and many tests could not find or a cure for him, and he resigned himself to a life with a barely-audible voice.  Yet, toward the end of his teaching, right after he reads a passage about God’s healing power, his voice returns!  Amazing.  And, it is recorded.  God allows us to hear this healing, if that is what it is.

Here is the link to Duane Miller’s healing event: http://www.ashworthtn.com/redeemed_pt2.mp3

I also did some study about healing.  A man named Jack Deere wrote a book called, “Surprised by the Power of the Spirit.”   Jack was a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, and he helped start a bible church in Fort Worth in the early 1980′s.  About 4 years later, he had a conversation with a well-respected bible teacher that changed his views about healing.

Jack had to resign his post at the seminary and he left the bible church because of his new belief that God wants us to participate in things like healing and prophecy.  I remember Jack, and his leaving.  He became a black sheep, and lost the respect of the folks in our community.

In his book, he makes a strong case for healing and prophecy, and he deals with the abuses that surround many folks who claim to have these gifts.  I came away from the book feeling that denying the existence of healing gifts is not commensurate with scripture and, perhaps, puts God in a box.  I also felt that my previous disbelief was based more on experience than scripture.

I have written here before that when Jesus healed He did it to develop a relationship.  Consider that he asked the man who was obviously blind, “What do you want me to do for you?”  Jesus wanted to converse.  He wanted the man to know Him.

Jack points out other reasons why God heals:

1. So that God will be glorified
2. In response to faith
3. Out of His compassion
4. When people align themselves with God’s will

It is evident that God doesn’t heal when our ambition is to have a great healing ministry, so that we can be known as healers, or to see something spectacular.

So, what do I think?  I think that I now pray differently for my patients at the medical office and the hospice.  I pray more often.  I use words such as “that you would be glorified, Lord.”  I no longer pray wimpy prayers, such as, “Lord, please guide the surgeons hands.”  I pray healing, just as we are commanded in James 5.

God is mysterious, and not to be figured out.  He is expansive and infinite.  His ways are not our ways.  God is not human, but is fully other.  He is love.  He is compassion.  He created wisdom, and we should not underestimate the wisdom acquired through our suffering.

But at some points in our lives, He may choose to heal someone when we pray, and if it happens, then praise God.  And how wonderful it will be for that person and their family.