There will be a healing

While at lunch with my colleagues the other day I heard a story that made me really think about the work of healing.  This pastor told the group about a visit he'd had with someone who was unwell. He explained that he had begun his prayer by saying:  "I'm going to anoint you with oil and there will be a healing.  I don't know if it will be physical, or emotional or spiritual, but there will be a healing."  He prayed for her and anointed her, invoking the holy spirit to heal her. He said that when the prayer ended, he heard her exhale a deep sigh - as if some unseen burden had dislodged itself and departed.  What intrigues me about this story is not the ending but how it begins.  It begins with the confidently spoken expectation of God's will to heal.  

Very early in my ordained life I was asked to pray the last rites for a woman I'd never met who was dying of cancer; she was in the worst pain I had ever seen.  I remember sitting alone with her in that stark hospital room feeling so completely inadequate.  As I opened the book that contained the prayers for anointing the dying, I wondered to myself, "Holy God, what good are these words? They are only words.  What good can come of my simply speaking words? Who am I that my words should carry such weight?"  Nonetheless, I proceeded.  When I came to the words of the rite: "Depart, O Christian soul, out of this world . . ."  she did.  She died a peaceful death, quiet, still, calm, restful, and free, wholly free.  People of faith expect prayers to be answered.  How bold, how beautiful a thing to say it up front. Today, right now, there will be a healing.

Naturally, we have specific things in mind when we pray, said or unsaid.  But sometimes our desires and expectations don't match the greater need.  What I wanted for this particular person at the end of her life was that she longer be in pain, and that her death, whenever it came, would be peaceful. But the goodness and mercy of God provided both.  

I recently read in an article in Christian Century magazine that many a good Christian spend their days searching for God's will for their lives.  It was pointed out that, in fact, no searching is necessary.  God's will has already been made quite clear:  that we love God with our whole heart, and love our neighbors as ourselves.  To conform our lives to these two ends can easily fill every waking moment of a lifetime.  Truly, we know what is required of us, but it is often easier to keep searching for that one right thing that will make all the rest of our lives make sense.  This perspective can really make a difference in the things we pray for as well.  Imagine if we framed our every prayer as an act of love for God with the sole intention of blessing the life of another in as much as we would wish to be as blessed?  Perhaps we would begin each prayer by saying, "By your hand, O God, there will be a healing."