Balm in Gilead

Some months before I found Christ - many years ago now -  I heard Paul Robeson sing an old negro spiritual.

"There is a balm in Gilead
  To make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead
  To heal the sin-sick soul."

The phrase "sin-sick soul" spoke to my heart. There is only One who can provide healing here. A psychiatrist might shed some light on the need. A psychotherapist might give some idea of its effects. But only Jesus can dispense a cure.

It's like a nasty sports injury. It's painful, and you long for a balm to ease away the pain. Unlike a sports injury, it's not a physical pain. "Come unto Me," says Jesus, "all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest."

"Come," he says. Don't think it over. Don't philosophise about it. Do it.
         

The woman who came back to life

A remarkable story from the United States.

Forty-year-old Ruby Graupera-Cassimiro had been delivered of a healthy baby in a routine caesarean section when there was an unexpected complication. An amniotic fluid embolism in her bloodstream stopped her heart. Doctors say the condition is almost always fatal.

A team of more than a dozen doctors and nurses fought for 45 minutes to save her. They took turns to give CPR and gave repeated electric shocks. Nothing worked. Eventually the doctors stopped all lifesaving procedures. They told relatives there was nothing more they could do. Ruby's husband, mother and sister said their goodbyes and left the room.

They were about to record the time of death when Ruby's heart started beating again. Her family were praying in a room nearby when a nurse came in. "Keep praying," she said. "Her heart just started." 

When Ruby came round, despite being without heartbeat for 45 minutes, there was no trace of brain damage. There were no burns from the repeated shocks and there was no bruising from the CPR.

Then Ruby remembered what she thought was a dream she had had while she was unconscious. She met her late father, who told her it was not time for her to die.

"It was a complete miracle," said nurse Julie Ewing. "It was answered prayer. We were all there. We all witnessed it."

According to the doctors, there was no explanation for her heart starting beating again. Said Dr Amthony Dardano, president of the hospital's medical staff: "There's very few things in medicine that I've seen, working in the trauma centre myself and doing all the things that I do, that really were either unexplainable or miraculous. When I heard this story, that was the first thing that came to my mind."

Later, Ruby went back to the hospital with her baby for a tearful reunion with the doctors and nurses. "All I know is that I'm grateful to be here," she said. " I don't know why I was given this opportunity, but I'm very grateful for it."

You can read the full story here.
  

Dealing with the pain

Next Monday, October 27, is the National Day of Prayer about abortion. Statistics say that one in three women in England, Scotland and Wales will have had an abortion by the time they are 45. Eight million unborn babies have been killed since abortion was first allowed - equivalent to almost an eighth of the present population.

Yet there are many churches where the word abortion is never mentioned, leaving people who have had a connection with abortion afraid to confess it and unable to find forgiveness and healing.

Says author Jonathan Jeffes: "Christians can be reluctant to engage with the issue because they do not want to appear judgmental or bigoted; thus a powerful silence has grown up around the subject in the church. Two generations of Christians have grown up with little or no understanding of church tradition or theology in this area."

Many Christians are burdened to see a practical and compassionate response to deal with these issues in a church setting.

"Our churches have many women (and men) who feel trapped by the silence and unable to talk about their past personal experience," says Jeffes. "The place they can find themselves is one of real darkness and pain.

"This is where the church could begin to make a real impact. Not by campaigning or protesting but by connecting with a theology of compassion and understanding and humility. If we can start to change the culture of our churches so that women and men who have been through abortion feel welcomed and able to unburden themselves, then perhaps we can start to influence and change the worldview of the surrounding culture."

On the day, will you pray for the silent taboo to be broken so that people can be set free from the pain that binds them?

Details of the day here.
     

So what other explanation do you have?

Terez is a schoolteacher in her forties living in Israel. When she went to the Rabin Medical Centre in Tel Aviv she had a cancerous tumour on her leg the size of an orange.

The biopsy showed it was a sarcoma. "This is one of the most aggressive and terrifying of all cancerous tumours," said Professor Yaacov Bickles, head of the orthopaedic oncology department at the hospital. "With a tumour developed to this degree, the only treatment we could offer was to amputate her leg."

Terez sent the laboratory test results and x-rays to the USA to check the prognosis. The reply said the same thing: the leg must be amputated to save her life. Terez began to prepare herself for life with one leg.

On the day the amputation was to take place, Terez was told the operation had to be rescheduled because of "technical difficulties." On the day of the rescheduled operation, she was about to be wheeled into the operating theatre when she was told the amputation would again have to be postponed. There were no surgical units available because of the number of emergency cases. Then her mother fell ill, and Terez had to postpone the surgery to take care of her mother.

"Three times this surgery was delayed," says Terez. "This was a clear sign to me from heaven that I should not have the surgery." She reported her decision to the hospital. "When she told me she had decided not to have the leg amputated, it was clear to me she would soon die," said the doctor. "I was sorry about her decision."

What happened after that left medical staff - and the nation - speechless. "If someone had told me the story of what happened to Terez, I would have said they are crazy and sent them to a mental hospital," said Professor Bickles. "But I was there. I saw it with my own eyes."

Terez walked into Professor Bickles' office three months later with a big smile on her face. "What happened?" he said. "I prayed," she told him

They gave her an MRI scan. The results were undeniable. "This just does not happen," said the professor. "A growth of this kind cannot recede like this." They sent for another biopsy. 

There was no cancer. "We kept checking her records over and over. We just could not accept that the cancer had gone without any treatment."

News media began to report on the incident. Hospital staff and newshounds travelled to Terez's home to look for an explanation. They tasted the food she eats and checked the water she drinks.

They were left with no explanation other than the one they were given: Yeshua, the Messiah of Israel, heals today.

David Lazarus tells the story on his blog here.
   

Fried chicken, anyone?

Col Harland David Sanders opened a service station and started to serve ham and steaks cooked in his home nearby. (This is the man with the glasses and goatee beard. Kentucky Fried Chicken. That Col Sanders.)

The first Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise opened in 1952. The company grew until the colonel was unable to manage its growth. He sold it for £1.5 million in 1964.

Now his face appears in 17,000 towns and cities in 105 countries. The company sells 114 million hot wings each year in Britain alone.

One night an American preacher knelt beside the colonel and asked: "Would you like to get born again?" "I really would," said the colonel. "Do you think that Jesus could save me to the point where He would take away my cussing?" "God is going to save you tonight," said the preacher, "and you'll never cuss again."

Col Sanders accepted Christ that night and never again took the Lord's name in vain. He was baptised in the River Jordan.

According to a biography written by Bob Rodgers, the preacher's son, the colonel was once needing surgery for a growth in the colon. The same preacher went to the hospital and prayed for him. When the surgeon operated, there was no growth there.

"God has been so good to me," said Col Sanders.

He died in 1980, aged 90.

'I lost everything, but God sent His angels'

Leslie Haskin was one of 15 children. Her father was a Baptist minister, her mother a choir director. Despite being brought up in a godly home, she decided when she moved to New York to work that she wanted nothing to do with God.

She was an insurance company executive, nicknamed "the Ice Princess" because of her attitude to her underlings.

At 8.46 am on September 11, 2001, she was in her company's offices on the 37th floor of the World Trade Centre when an airplane hit the building.

Through the window she saw bodies falling as people threw themselves from windows to escape the flames. Ceilings were collapsing and you could see flames through the seams. Someone shouted "The building is coming down! The building is coming down!"

Elevators were not able to be used. Leslie joined others on the stairs. The stairway was narrow and progress was slow. The force of a second airplane hitting an adjoining building jammed the door below her so it couldn't be opened.  She was trapped near the ninth floor, and sure she was going to die.

She closed her eyes and said "God help us." She suddenly remembered a hymn her mother used to sing to her to waken her in a morning. "Pass me not, O gentle Saviour, Hear my humble cry; While on others Thou art calling, Do not pass me by."

After 10 minutes, the door opened and Leslie reached the street. She saw the body of a man who had been decapitated. Bodies of those who had leaped from windows lay around. The body of a man exploded near her and splattered her with blood.

She couldn't speak properly. Doctors found she had had a nervous breakdown. She was in a psychiatric hospital for several weeks, then under continuing care by doctors and therapists, still heavily medicated. She boarded up the windows of her home because she believed the Taliban were in her shed and wanted to kill her. Doctors said she would never work again.

One day her 12-year-old son came into her room and jumped up on the bed. "Mom, are you ready?" he said. "Ready for what?" "To receive Jesus Christ as your personal Saviour. The Bible says if you are lukewarm in your faith God will spit you right out of His mouth."

She prayed with her son to accept Christ.

Slowly she improved as she stopped taking the medication. Doctors were amazed when she started to fly on planes again.

Leslie has written several books, appeared on television and become the subject of a film. Now she travels the world telling people Jesus Christ is the answer.

"I lost everything," she says, "but God sent His angels to help me."

You can read the full story here.

'Help me!' he cried - and then. . .

Mechanic Bruce Van Natta was lying underneath a massive truck when the jack gave way and the truck fell on his stomach with the loudest noise he had ever heard.

Blood shot into his throat. He coughed and spat out a large blob. He was bleeding internally from major arteries severed in five places.

"Lord, help me!" he shouted out, twice. He saw that the left hand side of his body was only one inch thick, thinner than the thickness of his spine. The right hand side of his body was two inches thick.

The driver of the truck looked at Bruce and went into shock. The driver managed to call the emergency services and replace the jack, but only in an unstable position under one of the truck's springs.

Bruce pulled as hard as he could on the truck's bumper to pull himself clear, but passed out. "My spirit left my body," he said, "and went up in the roof of the garage. My spirit was up there looking down, at perfect peace."

Then he saw, he said, a huge angel on either side of his body, dressed in white. Their arms were underneath the bumper.

An air ambulance arrived, but could not winch his body up because there was no ambulance equipment below.

A woman knelt next to him and began slapping his face. "Bruce Van Natta, open your eyes," she said. "Bruce Van Natta, open your eyes." His spirit shot back into his body and he felt excruciating pain. Every time he closed his eyes, his spirit left his body and began to travel down a tunnel. Then the woman slapped his face and his spirit returned.

"Do you want to live?" she said. "Do you have a wife and kids?" He remembered his wife and four children. I can't die, he thought. I've got to be here for my wife and family. He decided he had to keep his eyes open.

It was more than two hours before he was in hospital. Three doctors attending to him got into a disagreement. The CT scan showed he should be dead, but his heart was still beating. "We couldn't make sense of it," said one. "We didn't know what to make of it."

They repaired the major arteries but attempted nothing more, convinced he would die within hours. Twelve hours later, his heart was still beating.

Bruce had five operations in the next 12 months, then 18 months of rehab. But there was still a problem. The average adult has 20 feet of small intestine. All but three feet of Bruce's small intestine had been destroyed, and that three feet wasn't working properly. The doctors could feed him intravenously for only a year and then he would die.

A man named Bruce Carlson heard of the problem from a prayer chain and woke up two mornings in a row feeling he had to go to the hospital to pray for Bruce.

When he arrived, he laid his hand on Bruce's forehead and prayed for the small intestine to grow. Bruce said he felt an "electric shock" and heard a snap. He could feel his intestines rolling around.

X-rays and CT scans showed his small intestine had grown an additional seven feet in answer to prayer.

Bruce left his business and is now engaged in full-time Christian ministry.

You can read the full story here.

Putting the pressure on those Christians

Unbelieving secular organisations are still telling Christians how they can and how they can't live their lives. There have been at least three examples in the news in the past week.

In Bath, a group of Christians belonging to a number of different churches - the group are a registered Christian trust - have gathered over the past three years outside Bath Abbey to pray for people, including people who are sick.

Presumably they go there out of the goodness of their hearts. Presumably they make no charge for their prayers, and presumably they only pray for people who are happy to be prayed for.

A woman complained about the group and the group has been censured by the Advertising Standards Authority. What has it got to do with the Advertising Standards Authority, you might ask? The woman said the group's claims "could not be substantiated." The Advertising Standards Authority upheld the complaint, and has ordered the group to stop stating on their website or in literature that God can heal in answer to their prayers.

In London, the Student Union at University College London has voted to take a pro-abortion stance and affiliated itself to the organisation Abortion Rights. It has said that a Catholic Society at the university organising a meeting with a pro-life speaker must also have a pro-choice speaker and an independent chairman "to ensure there is a balance."

A barrister versed in religious discrimination law says the Student Union's motion is illegal. It is also claimed that in affiliating itself with Abortion Rights the Student Union has breached its own constitution.

In America, the US Government has announced that religious organisations will have to offer their employees contraceptive services, including sterilisation and drugs that induce abortions, as part of their healthcare provisions. Churches will be exempt, but faith-based organisations like colleges and hospitals will not.

Catholic churches and the National Association of Evangelicals have protested. As a concession, the Government has given the organisations a year before they have to violate their consciences in obedience to the new law.

Critics say the new law contravenes the US Constitution, which promises freedom to practise a religion, and should be ignored. The battle goes on.

Does God answer prayer?

Have you ever prayed and felt like God didn't answer prayer any more? Bill Courtemanche was like that.

He had had a faith as a youngster, but had had a problem with alcohol, and had drifted away. One day a gun went off near his ear. He became completely deaf in one ear and lost 40 per cent of his hearing in the other. He learned to lip read, but still had problems.

He rededicated his life to Christ, and felt his faith had grown strong over the years since. But then there were problems in his local church. A 36-year-old mother died of cancer. Things continued to go wrong.

Bill knelt at the front of the church, pouring out his heart to God. "Lord, what is going on? Why do we have all this suffering? Do you even hear our prayers?" Suddenly he felt a terrible burning in his ears.

"I felt like my head was on fire, like it was about to explode," he said. He went home and slept for a while. When he woke up, the burning and nausea were gone. Then he noticed. After 17 years, he could hear with both ears.

He went to an audiologist, who told him there was nothing wrong with his ears.

You can read the full story here.

Later, Bill's mother was found dead in her bathroom. Paramedics worked on her and took her to hospital, where her heart stopped a second time. She was placed on life support.

Bill sat by her bed, praying for her, reading to her and "doing the things you do when you don't know what to do."

He explained his dilemma to a chaplain. His mother was technically brain dead. He did not want to say yes to removing her life support and let her die, but she was only alive because she was hooked up to machines.

The chaplain said life support machines were man-made and only God could terminate a life. If she was meant to go home she would die, and if she wasn't, she wouldn't.

They fixed Saturday to remove her life support. On Saturday, they told Bill to kiss her goodbye. When he did, she woke up. The doctor said it was a miracle.

It turned out that although she was supposed to be brain dead, she had still managed to hear.

She told Bill "You know the most annoying thing? You know how hard it is to sleep when someone sits there all night reading to you?"

God loves to answer prayer. Don't limit Him.