Unexpected healing
Mark Chapter 5 28 – 34
This poor woman, an outcast in society, considered unclean for 12 years… then she heard Jesus was in town… this could be her chance to be healed…
I was in church and the reading and sermon was about the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years and knew that if she could just touch Jesus’ cloak she would be healed…
When Ross, my son, was 14th Months old he wasn’t very well. My sister-in law was looking after him while I was at work and she phoned and said “I think you need to come back, Ross is quite poorly”. He had about a month before been in hospital over night with tonsilitis and a virus but had been well since the antibiotics
It was a bit too long after for that to be causing him a problem. I rushed back home and sure enough my little baby was looking very poorly….and he was very, very hot… I called the doctors and asked them to send someone out, they used to do that 28 years ago. The doctor called back and wasn’t very happy about coming out and said she would be 2 hours so I told her not to bother I was taking him to A&E. She said quite sarcastically …” do you think he has meningitis?” “Yes! Yes I do” I said… She was there in 15 minutes. After much discussion she agreed to call the hospital to tell the children’s ward we were coming… I was relieved…
Ross was rushed for a chest X-ray – creamed up on his hands and feet so they could get a blood sample and then sadly a lumber puncture was needed…He was diagnosed with Pneumococcal Septicaemia…. He was in a special isolated room right behind the nurses desk and was pretty poorly lying listlessly in the cot with nothing on but his nappy as his temperature was so high it was off the scale – he was like an oven… this was Thursday - by Sunday he still wasn’t getting better and they started talking about next steps – changing the antibiotics what else they could try …. I was beside myself!! Things were bad – My husband and I had been given a room in the parents accommodation flat at the end of the ward so we could take it in turns to rest and be with Ross.
I was on the payphone (no mobile phones in those days) just outside the ward and was crying down the phone to my mum “he’s going to die, I just know it, no one in our family has lost a child, it’s going to be me” this was about 9pm… after my mum had calmed me down a bit she said – I’m calling Peter and asking him to ring round the church prayer people and get people praying . I said thank you, put the phone down and wandered back to Ross in a bit of a fog and sat with him praying – I had nothing else to hold onto but my very wavering weak faith – questioning where are you Jesus ? Are you even listening to me?
2am in the morning – Ross was awake, sitting up in his cot and asking for a drink… I was amazed…. By 9am Monday morning Ross was sitting on a little trike while my husband pushed him around the ward.
When the senior consultant came to see us a bit later that day, he was staring at Ross and said “Well this isn’t what I was expecting – I’ve just had his blood culture results back – he should have full blown meningitis”
God heals – He can use doctors, nurses and medicine to accomplish his purposes. And often he heals without their help too…when people pray in faith.
God is moved to action by our faith, even when He’s in the middle of doing something else!
Jesus could have healed the woman and kept on walking to His original destination. Only He and the woman would have known what had taken place. But He didn’t do that. Jesus stopped what He was doing and acknowledged the result of this woman’s faith: her complete and instant healing.
I have no doubt that Jesus healed Ross that day when people of faith started praying.
