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From
Mary Graff (continued)
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And in response to prayer, I've
seen God heal the whole range of human ailments: cancers, heart
disease, mental quirks, obsessive-compulsive disorders, knee
problems, allergies, sinus infections, skin lacerations from dog
bites, impetigo, broken bones, skin rashes, bone spurs on feet,
addictions, destructive attitudes, and so on.
In some of these
cases God has worked spectacularly and has shown His power in an
instantaneous, awesome way. In other cases the healing has been
slower and and has taken longer to manifest in the body.
God’s response to our prayers has been as varied as the
things for which we’ve prayed. (I use "we" because
often I have not done the praying alone, but have done it with
my husband or another prayer partner, or with staff from our
Healing Center.)
At times the healing has occurred almost the instant the
prayer is said. At other times the healing has taken longer to
manifest, from a few minutes to several days to several weeks.
At times the person being prayed for has felt tremendous heat or
light coming from our hands. At other times the person has felt
nothing.
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A
tremendous outpouring of light
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At times the persons doing the
praying have felt a tremendous outpouring of light or energy or
what feels like heat in the hands. At other times nothing at all
is perceptible to the "pray-ers". The perception of
light or heat or electric energy-charges doesn’t seem to
affect the way God heals. He can heal with or without
these perceptible manifestations.
And thank God His healing doesn’t depend on our perceptions
of these things. As awesome and as powerful and as spectacular
as these manifestations are, they do not define His healing
power in the lives of those people prayed for. He
can heal with or without our awareness of the spectacular.
Besides, we don't base our faith on electric charges or light
rays or heat in our hands. We base our faith on God's Word about
healing.
God’s methods of healing are
infinite and varied, and we need to be open to all the
possibilities and to all the different ways He heals people.
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I
perceived this healing power as light rays
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I would like to share with you
just a few instances of healing that I have observed over the
last several years. I share these examples with you so that you
become aware of the variety of ways that God demonstrates his
healing power. Also note that the time frame within which God
has healed has been as different and varied as the things for
which we have prayed.
One of my early experiences in healing was in praying for a
child who was about three years old at the time. He had hurt the
index finger on his right hand and the finger had developed an
infection in it. It swelled up and I prayed for healing. Nothing
happened as I continued to pray over and over again for the
finger to be healed. Finally his mother took him to the doctor,
thinking that the doctor would lance the infected area. The
doctor did nothing, but he said the infection was not serious
and would go away by itself.
I prayed for the boy once more, and while I was in prayer, the Lord quietly reminded me to forgive
someone against whom I carried resentments. I forgave, and the
next thing I knew the healing power of God was flowing off my
body in the direction of this child. I perceived this healing power as light
rays. It happened so fast that it was startling at first, then
rather pleasant to perceive. We finished lunch and went home for
his nap. By the next day the finger was almost totally healed.
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The
healing of our choir director's knee
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Another example was the healing of
our choir director’s knee. The choir director of the church
where my husband was serving had a skiing accident and severely
hurt her knee. She was on her way to the doctor one morning and
had called me just before she left. I asked her to stop by the
house for prayers on her way to the doctor’s office. She said,
"Can’t we just do it over the phone?"
I explained to her that I wanted to actually lay my hands on
the knee and pray. Also my husband was home from work that day,
so he could help me with the prayers. "No, I want you to
come," I told my friend, so she agreed with some
hesitation.
She came to the house, hobbled in on her crutches and sat
down in a chair. My husband and I put our hands lightly on her
knee and prayed for her. She got up and hobbled out on the
crutches to go to the doctor’s office. Her doctor examined the
knee and told her that it probably would require surgery, but
that she should come back after the swelling went down in about
a week.
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The healing felt like warm oil
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One week later the knee was healed. It happened like this.
This person’s daughter had a fever one night and came into her
mother’s bed. The mother could feel the feverish child’s
skin next to hers and got up out of bed to get the child into
the bathroom into a tub of cool water. As she bent over the
child to sponge her off, the child said, "Mom! You’re on
your knees! You’re healed!" "I am, I’m
healed," said the mother.
I experienced a healing once when
a friend prayed for me for a puncture wound in my heel near the
Achilles tendon. I had been painting the outside of our house
and on my way down the ladder backward had jammed my heel into a
branch of a newly trimmed bush. The sharp branch penetrated my
heel area and was very painful. I called a friend and she agreed
to pray for me.
During the prayers she put one hand on my left shoulder and
the other hand on my foot. When she started praying, the power
of God moved all through my body. This time the healing felt
like warm oil being poured throughout my body starting with the
left shoulder and left arm and traveling all the way down the
trunk of my body into my legs and then back up again. In this
instance, the healing power of God was perceptible.
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God
had been faithful to His Word
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At another time on a women’s
retreat, a group of friends and I laid hands on a woman for
spurs on her heels. She was in a lot of pain. We anointed her
with oil and prayed the prayer of faith for her healing. The
next morning as I was walking down one of the halls of the
church, she was at the other end of the hall and saw me. When
she got to me, she threw her arms around my neck and said,
"I’m healed! I’m healed!" And indeed she was. She
was stomping her feet on the floor as hard as she could and
without any pain. God had healed again and had been faithful to
His Word.
There are many more examples of headings that I have either
seen or personally experienced, which could be written down
here. I include these to show that God seldom does any two
healings alike. Also, His time-frame is different for every
healing. After years of praying for healing, I
finally figured out that it is our responsibility to pray and
that it is God’s part to heal.
How and when He chooses to accomplish the healing is up to
God and God alone. We have no control over that, but only need
to trust Him to do it.
--Mary Graff
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