Healing Prayer (second installment)

Posted on August 17, 2012 by Claudia Dickson Greggs

Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. (Psalm 150:6)

In my previous post I referred to a passage in 2 Chronicles 20 and wrote about what we can learn from it about how to pray when we are under attack from an enemy or an illness.  The story begins with news that a vast army is bearing down upon the kingdom of Judah.  The way King Jehoshaphat responds to this crisis is a great model for all of us in how to pray.  He turns immediately to the Lord and he places his trust in God alone.  But before he petitions God for help he first offers praise.

Praise is an essential component of King Jehoshaphat’s prayer and he continues to praise the Lord as he and the people of Judah wait upon God to act.   Continual praise is essential in prayer for healing, as well, which I’ve learned  over the past months.  There are several reasons for this.  The first is that praise reminds us God alone is our Savior – and he is mighty to save, as Scripture tells us over and over again.  The Creator of the universe has power and authority over everything, including whatever is making us ill.  When we begin our prayers for healing with praise, we are reminding ourselves of all that God has done in the past and that he can certainly act again on our behalf.  Praise makes way for hope.

Second, praise also helps us remember that we belong to God:  it is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. (Psalm 100:3) We can count on him to save us and protect us. Our part is to place our trust in him and it is so much easier to do that when we are continually recalling his attributes, character and mighty deeds – those done on our behalf and on behalf of his people down through the centuries.

Praise is something that is offered to God continually in heaven, so as we praise him, now, we join our voices with the cherubim, seraphim and all the saints who have gone before us and who now stand before his throne, night and day, offering praise.  I Continue reading →

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Healing Prayer (first installment)

Posted on August 7, 2012 by Claudia Dickson Greggs

This is what the Lord says to you: ‘Do not be afraid or discouraged because of this vast army. For the battle is not yours, but God’s…’ (2 Chronicles 20:15)

“Doctor Weissler is on the phone.”  My husband, Gil, had taken the call while I was upstairs getting my luggage together for a trip to Asheville, NC.  My denomination, the Anglican Church in North America, was hosting a gathering of its lay people and clergy from across the United States.  I had been looking forward to attending this Provincial Assembly and one of my colleagues in Raleigh, the Rev. Dr. John Gibson and his wife, Lisa, were due at my house in thirty minutes to pick me up for the four-hour drive to Asheville.

I was surprised to be hearing from Dr. Weissler, my E. N. T. oncology surgeon, who last December had skillfully removed a massive tumor from the right side of my jaw, where it meets the ear.  Just the day before this phone call, on June 4, I had undergone a CT scan of my lungs, done as a precaution.  When a similar CT scan was performed before my surgery last December, it revealed the presence of two small “nodes,” most likely scar tissue in my lungs.  However, medical protocol stipulated that a follow-up scan should be done six to nine months later, just to make sure those “nodes” were truly harmless.  I had always assumed they were and had never worried about them.

a machine performing a Computerized Tomography (CT) scan

“Two additional nodes have shown up on this most recent CT scan and the radiologist and I think you should see a thoracic oncology surgeon.”  This surprising news was the reason for the phone call.  I was stunned.   “What about the two original nodes?” I inquired.  “They’re fine; they haven’t changed.  But the new one in the upper left lung is of concern.  There’s also a smaller one in the right lung,” reported Dr. Weissler.  “Hang in there; Continue reading →

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Light in the Valley of the Shadow of Death (part six)

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Claudia Dickson Greggs

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:7)

Sitting in a doctor’s waiting room is not often a pleasant way to pass time, even for a routine visit, but especially so if you don’t know whether you will be getting good news or bad.  It’s hard to stop yourself from over-analyzing symptoms and nervously recounting a list of possible diagnoses.  In fact, sometimes the longer you spend in the waiting room the worse your symptoms seem to become.

Just before Thanksgiving of last year I made the trip over to the E.N. T. oncology clinic at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for my first appointment with my cancer surgeon – an expert in the area of parotid gland tumors.  In preparing for that appointment, I spent a lot of time in prayer, knowing that I might receive news that could be difficult to bear.  I didn’t want to sit in the waiting room and fret, as had been my habit in the past.  This time I wanted it to be different, because, by God’s grace, I was different.

The Lord has been seriously renovating my character for the past several years, transforming me into a much more faithful Christian.  I was now ready, in a way I would not have been a decade ago, to trust the Lord to see me through whatever lay ahead.  So, fearfully looking inward, thinking only of my own worries and concerns, was not an option anymore.  Doing so would be a flagrant demonstration of unbelief.  If the Lord’s job was to heal me, then my job was to trust him to do that while allowing him to use me for his purposes.

So the day before my appointment, Continue reading →

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