Healing

Grief has given me a very different perspective on healing. Healing is defined as “the process of becoming well again, especially after a cut or other injury, or of making someone well again or the process in which a bad situation or painful emotion ends or improves” by Cambridge Dictionary. Dictionary.com defines healing as “to make healthy, whole, or sound; restore to health; free from ailment”. Before Briella went to heaven I would have agreed with these definitions and yes there is truth in these definitions. The problem becomes when we want something healed that can never be healed here on earth. Sin and Satan reign here on earth. It is because of sin that there is sickness and death. This is not the way God designed the Garden of Eden. And He has made a promise to make everything as it should be…as He designed it to be. Heaven is where ultimate healing is real.

As a Christian, I have seen so much focus put on the miracle of healing here on earth. It truly is a miracle when something is made back to the way it was before and yet we continue to age, injuries happen, sickness comes, and ultimately, we all die. So, if there is a healing in some area, we will go on to experience living in a fallen world.

We prayed for Briella to be healed from DIPG when she was diagnosed in November of 2022. My idea of that healing was that the tumor would be gone and there would be no lasting effects from it. She would be the way she was before the tumor started growing. God could have done this as nothing is impossible with God. He is above all. And yet Briella would have gone on to experience injuries, sickness, etc.

Briella has the best healing possible; she is living with God just as He always intended it to be. Everything is made right. No more sickness, pain or death. This is what I long for in a whole new way since Briella passed. Before life felt mostly good and I enjoyed life here on earth and because of that I was content and did not long for heaven the way I do now. My perspective has changed.

This past winter I heard a song that I had a very hard time worshipping with. Jesus is My Healer by Gateway Worship. Here is the chorus:

Oh, Jesus is my healer, He's everything I need
He alone has triumphed, over sickness and disease
Fear, where is your power? Oh, the cross is your defeat
Jesus is my healer, He has won the victory
Oh-oh, Jesus is my healer, He has won the victory

I think as Christians we place too much focus on healing here on earth and not enough focus on ultimate healing. Living in the world and experiencing the sadness, the pain, the sickness, and death should make us long for something more. I know that ultimately that is what my heart has always longed for. My perspective was messed up and I think many people’s is. I wanted heaven on earth…the best of both worlds. I now understand that this is not possible. I rewrote the words to the song.

                        Oh, that rugged cross, the selfless pain He bore

                        He breathed His final breath, that I would be saved and someday restored

                        By His body that was broken, precious blood freely shed

                        The spotless lamb of Heaven has forever conquered death

                        Chorus:

Jesus is my redeemer, He’s everything I need

                        He alone has triumphed, over sickness and disease

                        I don’t have to fear sickness, cancer or death

                        Come Lord Jesus come and take the final victory!

                        Oh, how great a love,

I’m now held in perfect peace because He’s always with me

                        He walks with me through valleys, understands my suffering

                        Every joy and every sorrow, every triumph, every loss

                        I know everything is covered, by the shadow of the cross

                        Oh, because of the cross I need not fear the future

                        Chorus:

                        DIPG will bow at His name

                        Cancer will bow at His name

                        Sickness, darkness, chains

                        Break at the name of Jesus

                        Satan is defeated and sin no longer reigns

                        Everything will be as it was created to be

                        Chorus:

As I looked at the healing miracles of Jesus what caught my eye is how Jesus focused on spiritual healing more than the physical healing. Looking at Jesus healing the paralytic in Mark 2:1-12, I see Jesus' heart to heal spiritually over physically.

“And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men. And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.” (Mark 2:3-5)

Jesus first healed spiritually and then when questioned He healed physically.

“And immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they thus questioned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you question these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.” (Mark 2:8-11)

Jesus has been and always will be most concerned about healing us spiritually, bringing us back into right relationship with Him, saving us from eternal separation from Him. He also cares about physical healing and in many instances He healed physically. The most wonderful new is that if we are children of God we will ultimately experience FULL healing in heaven! Briella has experienced this and I look forward to the day that I will experience it.