Healing
The Healing
I lay in the hospital bed drifting in and out of consciousness, the screaming pain in my head caused me to moan – “My head, oh my head!” over and over. I couldn’t quite remember just where I was, or what I was doing there, all I knew was - I felt like someone had taken a saw and savagely ripped the top part of my scalp off. “My head, oh my head” I continued to moan, as though the very act would at least bring some relief.
“Mr. Lang, how do you feel – do you need something for the pain?” came the voice of the on-duty nurse.
In my semi-conscious state I thought “Boy, you people always know just the right questions to ask don’t you?” but I replied “That would be nice!”
In the moments that ensued, I started to piece together the events of the past 24 hours with the help of the nurse’s routine of questions for any brain-surgery patient. As I clumsily received the painkiller and gulped it down with a cup of refreshing water I heard her say - “Can you tell me where you are?”
My mind went blank! Try as I might, I just could not remember where I was! In an effort to assist me I heard her say – “You’re in Vancouver General Hospital”. I panicked! The worst of my fears suddenly came flooding in upon me. I had lived a life of steadily worsening epileptic seizures and now, here I was, coming-to in the main hospital for the Vancouver Island / Lower Mainland Region of British Columbia. What had I done, who had I possibly involved ? - one thousand and one questions were racing through my groggy mind.
The nurse looked at me and saw the horror on my face.
"Don’t you remember?” she quietly asked “You had brain surgery yesterday ??”
“For the epilepsy!” my memory came flooding back “How did it go?”
"As far as they know, quite well, Dr. Jones will be in later” she replied, and went about her other duties. I lay there reviewing the chain of events that had finally brought me to this scene. How good God was – when we allowed Him to be. When we could come to that point in our lives where we could say “God, I don’t want to serve You for what I can get from you – I want to serve You because You are Almighty God!” It was amazing to me how many times He would let us try our own ways and yet, when we came to the end of our own strength, He would still be there with open arms - waiting - just because we are His children, and He still loves us.
Ah yes - epilepsy - the disorder so long misunderstood that it caused more spiritual
and emotional scarring than it ever did physical harm. Quite simply put, epilepsy is a neurological disorder. In my case it was due to the fact that a part of my temporal lobe was shriveled - probably due to a high temperature when I was an infant. This would cause a build-up of nerve impulses at that point and, periodically, they would start arching – much like an electrical circuit. Thus the epileptic seizure effect. So the proposed cure was to open the skull, expose the shriveled portion of the temporal lobe, snip it off, and, presto! No more seizures!
So that’s where I was, and as near as anyone could tell, the worst was behind me. The next few days were a hum of routine hospital recovery life, amazing the doctors with my rate of recovery. Within 10 days I was back at home, living an almost-normal life, but God had other plans. My physical healing may have been 90% complete, in that I am seizure-free. I still periodically felt the nerve endings in my scalp doing their “healing-thing”, but there came a day when I heard the Lord saying “Now it is time for a little emotional healing”.
It came to me in the form of that “still, small voice” as I was preparing for breakfast a few days after coming home from the hospital. The overwhelming thought occurred to me - “Do you realize that you will never again have to come back from a shopping trip, put the groceries on the table, turn to Anna (my lovely wife) and say - “Did something happen in the mall today ??” - hoping against hope that it didn’t, but knowing that it probably did! “Did something happen” was our little family code, meaning “Did I have a seizure and do something foolish in public today??” and I had to check it out, because I would remember having the “aura” or pre-seizure feeling, but whether or not it actually developed into a seizure, I would have no recollection. But now I was free!! And that would never happen again!! EVER !!
As I was reflecting on the total awesomeness of that thought, another thought occurred to me. “Do you realize that you will never again have to sit down to the supper table, and have Anna look at you, and almost apologetically say – “Did you know that you had a seizure in the bank this morning, Dear?” The first thing that would flood through my mind is “Oh God - What kind of idiot did I make of myself this time? I don’t even recall feeling a seizure coming on in the past 24 hours!” But again, I would never have to worry about reliving that scenario EVER AGAIN!!
Just considering the goodness and the mercy of God overwhelmed me. My eyes were flooded with tears of joy as Anna called me for breakfast that morning – I could hardly ask the blessing on the food. I haltingly explained what the Lord was doing in my emotions that morning, and she suggested that I telephone a brother in the Lord. I saw the wisdom in that and did so. He understood the healing God was doing in me, and we prayed together. After I hung up from that telephone call, I went into our bedroom, lay across the bed, and the floodgates broke. For two and one-half hours I lay there as wave after wave of emotion washed away forty years of anger and frustration.
I was reminded of the times I had stood there in my disappointment and shook my fist at God saying “If You really love me – why don’t You heal me?? Aren’t I good enough for You??” and I thought “Oh God - How can You ever forgive me for moments like that?” And as I lay there that day, I felt the arms of Father God wrapping around me, and His gentle voice saying “It’s alright, my child, I am big enough – I can take it!”
I thought of the countless times I had been prayed for. When my condition remained unchanged, the cause was attributed to one of two things – I didn’t have enough faith, or I was demon–possessed.
The thing that hurt all the more was that these were people I loved and cared for, but here I was, face-to-face with my emotions in a place where all I could say was - “Father, forgive them, they didn’t know what they were doing!”
I had many smaller “healings” over the next few months, and little wonder, when one considers the fact that, for forty years I had regarded my disorder as a point of shame and weakness. Although it was never put in those terms, a growing adolescent and teen gets that distinct impression when not allowed to get involved in competitive sports, high school social clubs and other related “teen things” because “you might get hurt”. Or it doesn’t take a young adult long to pick up on the idea when he is terminated from a job simply due to the fact that "he doesn’t fit the company image .” Whenever Anna would see me with tear-filled eyes, and sniffling nose, over the next few days, she would simply say – “Another healing?” to which I would nod affirmatively.
Each day as I awake now, my first thought is usually - “Thank-you God for another day of freedom! Thank–you Lord for another day in which I can praise you - free from the fear of what might be! Knowing that today I am not going to have a seizure – because You have healed me from all of that!
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this. It is very well written and very
inspirational. What
wonders of God's Glory come out of'
such pain.