God healed me....and I didn't even know I needed healing!

A week ago last Sunday, God performed a miracle in my life! A true miracle...one I didn't even know I needed...and I continue to be in awe! Oh, ye, of little faith, I have even waited 10 days to share this miracle publicly in order to make sure that it really was a miracle! Lord, have mercy!

On Sunday evening we arrived home from church as normal, around 6 p.m. A bit later, one of the physiotherapists (massage therapists) from the Evangelistic Medical Mission Crusade volunteer team arrived at the Ranch. She had offered to come out and give the ladies of our staff free massages!

So, later that evening I went to the other building on our property, up to one of the extra staff bedrooms off of our classroom area. There the therapist had set up her massage table. Relaxing music floated through the air, dancing with the sweet aromas of therapeutic oils.

As the massage began, I adjusted my earphones to listen to Dad's last sermon before retirement, which he had preached earlier that morning, at my home church, after nearly 40 years of pastoring there. I secretly hoped that that massage would reach all the way to my heart, because it really felt like it needed a massage!

As the message, and massage, continued, the therapist commented: “Julie, do you have problems with your hips?” I thought for a second and then replied: “Yeah, I guess I do, especially with my right hip.” A few seconds later I asked: “How can you tell?” “Oh, I can tell all right!” was her quick response as she continued to work silently and methodically.

Do you know when I realized, though, that I really had had problems with my right hip? As soon as I got off the massage table.....and my hip didn't hurt! A bit later, I walked upstairs....and downstairs....and upstairs....and downstairs....and upstairs (etc....) to put the kids to bed and my hip didn't hurt! The next morning the alarm went off at 5:30 a.m., my feet hit the floor....and my hip didn't hurt! After devotions and 30 minutes on the treadmill.....my hip didn't hurt! My hip didn't hurt during my stretching exercises and I could sit Indian style on the floor....without pain! I went to school and after over an hour of sitting at my desk and attending the kids' questions, I got up....and my hip didn't hurt! I ran up to my office to make a photo copy for school without holding onto the railing...and my hip didn't hurt! I slept all night and didn't have to change positions to accommodate...a hurting hip!

In each of this instances, I was not thinking, “My hip should be hurting.” I did not even expect my hip to hurt, because I really had ignored the pain problem, but once I put weight on the hip and it didn't hurt my brain said: “Hey, that was supposed to hurt and it didn't!”

As I thought more and more about this situation, I realized that my hips, particularly my right hip, had been hurting for months! However, the pain had gotten increasingly worse so gradually that I hadn't even realized how bothersome it had become! (Like the proverbial frog in the boiling pot of water.) I also realized that I had excused the pain as a possible inherited arthritis, like my Grandma, or maybe a different congenital hip condition, like the one with which Josiah had been born born. I assumed that the pain was something I was going to have to learn to live with and knew that God would give me the strength to do so. Now that the pain was gone, I remembered that on many occasions I had had to pray for strength to be able to go up our house steps just one more time! I thought it was just exhaustion, but it had been pain!

The Lord certianly used the therapist's hands during the massage, but He did the miraculous healing! A simple massage session (I had had massages with this therapist before) feel wonderful, but they don't heal! Jesus heals! (The Lord has used this same therapist to heal people on crusade. Our staff has witnessed the elderly arrive totally dependent on a cane and then leave the crusade, leaving the cane behind!)

I have been quite stupefact for the last 10 days....marvelling at life without hip pain, marvelling at the stupidity of living with unnecessary pain, marvelling at the fact that I hadn't even considered the possibility of trying to get rid of the pain, marvelling at the fact that I hadn't even realized how bad the pain had become until it was gone, marvelling at the fact that the pain crept in so slowly and subtly that I hadn't even fully detected it!

How dangerous it can be to become so used to living in a state of pain that we don't even realize we are in pain! Wow! When pain becomes normal!

What happens when emotional pain becomes normal? What happens when we no longer even consider forgiveness because we assume that cold, stony portion of our heart is simply just that way, when we could be living in total and utter freedom?! What happens when loneliness becomes a friendly ache, rather than an impulse to seek friendship with God and others?! What happens when abuse becomes normal and we don't even consider seeking help and healing because we can't even see the abuse because “that's just the way life is”?!

What happens when spiritual pain becomes normal? When “losing your first love” is a part of Christian growth? When the big, dark, vacuum of a whole in our heart is deemed an irremediable human condition?

So, how are you healed of a pain you don't even realize you have?

You depend on God to reveal and heal!

Ask Him today: “Lord, I come to you this day asking that you would reveal any pain present in my life that You would will to heal! Reveal it to me so that I can then go to You as the Great Physician to heal my soul, my heart and my body in accordance with Your perfect will.”

One thing is if the Lord chooses not to heal and quite another is not even realizing we need healing! Let's just not get used to the pain!