Heal me, O Jehovah, and I will be healed; save me, and I shall be saved: for thou art my praise.

Jeremiah 17:14

Antoine and I were not friends in high school. We didn’t run in the same circles; we didn’t sit in the same core classes. As teenagers, passing each other almost daily, we never shared a joke or had a meaningful conversation, not once. More than twenty years passed before we ever would, and it was only one time, but it was one of the most touching conversations of my life.

Since that talk, Antoine has returned to the loving care of our Father, but for nearly an hour one Sunday evening, he was my guru. During a phone interview, for a radio program I once produced and hosted, he popped my skull open and rearranged my thinking. As a recent seminary graduate, he was fresh and vibrant in his faith, even though his body waned considerably due to cancer. I am indebted to him, and others, for some of the most important things I’ve come to know about being healed.

My cornerstone lesson, courtesy of Antoine, is that true healing is spiritual. As we talked about his cancer diagnosis and the unfavorable prognosis, Antoine told me that God had healed him already, in the place that matters most. God had healed his heart, he said.

As a Christian it takes grueling effort to stay spirit-focused and spirit-led when we are inundated by carnal things, with the most carnal of all being our very bodies. We obsess about how they look, feel, and operate. We meticulously clothe them, diligently care for them, – as we ought – hoping and praying that they would never ever betray us. Oh, but do they ever betray us.

Our bodies, like our minds, our cars, our houses, and everything else that is temporal, will inevitably let us down.  Antoine made our entire conversation that day about the intangibles, the things that ‘forever’ is made of. After hearing him, I realized I’d been living an inverted life, where I thought more highly of my body, than my heart. The freedom, the laughter, and the joy in his voice made me know that though he was dying, he was unequivocally right, and absolutely healed.  

My second lesson began at least thirty years ago, but continues to this day. I still remember the moment fairly well. A young man, clad in trademark naval blue, waited casually at the appointed bus stop for recruits headed to the Coral Harbour Defense Force Base. A woman drove up alongside him, with her daughter in the back seat. All too familiar with the signs her body was giving her, she knew she had moments to spare before she’d momentarily pass out, overcome by a panic attack. That kind young officer would be our hero that day, driving me to school, and then taking my disoriented, but conscious mother back home to recover. 

Over the course of her life, panic attacks, undiagnosed seizures and other anxiety related ailments often interrupted my mum’s life, but remarkably, they have never stopped her life. So that afternoon, thirty years ago, my mum was back on the saddle, picking me up from school at 3pm, with her feet firmly planted in God, in faith, and in life.

My mum shows me every day, that to live healed doesn’t always mean that you live cured. When you are in Christ, healing is guaranteed, cures are not. Each day comes with new challenges, and new mercies to go with them. Getting up in the morning and choosing to live a spiritual life that transcends bodily limitations is a miracle; it is healing manifested. She will be seventy years old next year, and she is the most grounded person I know. Healing is not wishing, and waiting, and hoping, and dreaming – it’s choosing to engage life, every chance you get.

The most recent lesson I’ve learned came to me purely by accident. I sat down very innocently across the table from a dashing young man named David. In my mind, I was just passing a bit of time at a work-related event, but he had me locked into his story within minutes. We talked about his life, and central to the conversation was multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic condition that he’d been diagnosed with since the age of twelve.

David’s personality quite literally changed my life. At 36 years old, he is an author and motivational speaker, sharing his journey of survival and faith in his book, Stand Up.  In it, he has a chapter called, “It Was a Good Fall”. If you know anything about MS, you’ll know that it is an autoimmune disorder that scrambles the brain’s messages to the body, particularly to the muscles.  Falling down can happen suddenly, and often, as the disease progresses. David, however, will not keep still! He’s everywhere, sharing his testimony, and marketing his book.

Falling doesn’t frighten him, limit him, or intimidate him. He has a story to tell, and by sharing his life with others, via the book and his Facebook page, he is teaching all of us that healing involves having a godly attitude toward illness. David has demonstrated that we can teach others to live healed, not just by seeking medical advice, following a healthy diet and getting enough exercising, but through opening our hearts and our mouths, and letting the power of our testimonies pour out like a balm in Gilead. His stories are honest, funny, uplifting, heart-warming and sobering. Stories inspire faith in God, and that faith will renew and transform attitudes.  

The common thread that anchors the lessons I’ve learned from these very different people is that each of them has fully surrendered to being utterly loved and carried by God.

God’s love covers everything, including illnesses, cured or not. And while I pray faithfully that the myriad diseases that plague us today would have cures in the years to come, I want my children to know what a healed life looks like. I want them to see it in my unflappable joy, hear it in my testimonies about facing down life’s giants, and most of all I want them to feel it reverberating from my heart, a heart that has been healed by God.