Healing
My friend M. said his sister died on May 23. She had suffered for a long time with cancer. He said she was devoted to God and she was not angry. I didn’t know her, although I have prayed for her.
M. said, “I don't understand why someone as devout and compassionate as she was had to die the way she did.” I don’t understand that, either. I don’t understand why God heals some people’s sicknesses and not others.
Maybe that’s one of those things we won’t be able to comprehend in this life. I’ve added that to the list of questions I want to ask Jesus one day.
In the ninth chapter of the book of John, John writes that Jesus and his disciples encountered a man who was born blind.
The disciples asked, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
Jesus said that neither of the man’s parents was to blame. “But this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life.” Then Jesus made some mud of dirt and spit, put it on the man’s eyes, and told him to go wash off the mud in the Pool of Siloam. He did as Jesus said, and afterward, he could see, for the first time in his life.
The man was pestered by the Pharisees about what happened, and they finally tried to get him to confess that Jesus was a sinner.
The man could not be bullied into agreeing with the Pharisees. He declared, “One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!”
The work of God was displayed in his life, as Jesus said—this miracle showed the power of Jesus to heal physically, as well as spiritually, as we can see in his statement of blind faith. His statement “I was blind but now I see” became a powerful metaphor for spiritual healing and restoration of the soul.
M.’s sister’s body was not healed, as the blind man was. But she must have experienced the tremendous power of Jesus to heal her spirit. Maybe she was an amazing example to someone who really needed to see that his spirit could be made whole. From what I know of her, I believe the work of God was displayed in her life. She was not blind--she could see.
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