Faith. Healing.

Thank you for your messages of concern for my mum. Her operation went great - as far as they can tell, they got all the cancer out. Mum's back at work and still positive. Amazing. She's now deciding whether to have radiotherapy to reduce chances of a recurrence.

I can't point to a specific miraculous healing, but I can testify to answered prayer. As my friend Steph told me once, 'you never know how much worse it could have been.' Certainly this whole thing has made me trust my Father God more.

But in the way of miraculous healings, I think the hole in my eardrum, that has been there for nearly 12 months in spite of earplugs in the shower and plenty of prayer, may have healed over.

It's extremely hard to tell, because the only test I have is to hold my nose and blow - which until monday night led to me hearing a hiss in my left ear as air escaped. Ian prayed for me at small group, and when I blew there was a crackling in both ears as the pressure built up behind the eardrums... but no hiss. I tried again. Still no hiss. Um...

The word 'faith' gets slung about a lot in this area, but I've always struggled to understand what people are talking about. After a few years of consideration, I've come to the conclusion that those people don't really know what they're talking about either. I think they understand 'faith' to mean the same thing as atheists: 'clenching your fists, making a face like you're constipated, and asserting something you know to be complete rubbish.' So in that sense, I don't like 'faith' either.

98dechudce

On the other hand, I think the Bible uses the word 'faith' to mean 'taking action on the basis of reasonable evidence'. 'Saved by faith' describes a person judging Jesus' claims to be intellectually and experientially verifiable; and not just stopping there, but handing over direction of their life to him. Or to put it another way, it's deciding you've seen Jesus demonstrate that he's a good guy and does actually have some involvement in reality, and so trusting him enough to follow his instructions, his example. It's a calculated risk.

The Bible says, 'without faith it is impossible to please God'. No wonder. When someone trusts you and opens up; when a friend lets you help; when the fireman looks the petrified little girl in the eyes amid the burning building, says 'trust me', and she lets him carry her out to safety; don't you feel like cheering? I like this kind of faith.

So when we come to supernatural healing, what do we do with faith? Jesus seems to think its important. Simply having a go is faith - that's an action which could leave you feeling stupid, taken on trust. I didn't feel anything as Ian prayed and put his hand over my ear; just my usual self talk of 'this could actually happen right now; this time.' More often in life, I'm noticing a confident eagerness swell in my chest that makes me want to do impossible things. I think that might be faith as well. But I have to say, the only thing I contribute to bringing it on is to consider Jesus, and other things he's done in the world (especially my world).

gueqi

Which is all to say, I can't in any way claim credit for this. And that I'm not worried about realistically assessing whether I have actually been healed. A few minutes after, I blew my nose again- and felt the hiss. All very uncertain. I took these considerations home to my housemate Tim, and he said, 'let's pray again'. So we did a couple of times, and the hiss stopped again. Yesterday the same happened - I tried it, hiss, prayed, no hiss. So I guess I'll carry on like that until my ENT appointment at the end of the month. That'll be real confirmation, either way. I don't want to 'test' the ear drum too hard and make it holy again. Is that stupid?

I have to say, though; the moments when I thought, 'I'm not going to have to have an operation now. This is actually over', were quite something. I'd wish them on anyone.

I find it strange how little I feel or react when Jesus does something mental like this. I've got this idea in my head that I ought to scream, jump around, and act like an overweight middle aged american woman; but maybe that's not from the Bible. I do honestly feel like I'm missing out though. We've agonised over my emotions before, so let's not go that way; but it does occur to me that people will have bigger reactions to miracles when they don't actually believe they're going to happen. In a sense, apart from that feeling of,' woah, my future actually looks different', I only got what I might expect to from a living God who died for me.

Anyway, it's good to be loved. I haven't been in pain from the ear thing, and honestly I haven't been dragging Mum's illness round with me like a rough sleeper's pack. She's in southampton world, I'm in norwich world, and the worlds interact only about once a week. But Jesus still got involved. He must really love us.