The Names of God Part II--The Lord Who Heals

I have been blessed many times to encounter Jehovah-Rophe—the Lord who Heals, both in my own life and the lives of my family members. Today’s post deals with my mother’s healing from cancer that brought our family much joy but was not well received by the Christian community.

In 1991 my mother, who was seventy-years old at the time, was diagnosed with colon cancer. I was both stunned and devastated, and I cried and prayed for three days. After the initial shock wore off, however, I became convinced that God would heal her. She underwent surgery and a year of chemotherapy and, during that time, I prayed for her constantly. The chemo made her very ill, and the doctor finally advised her not to take the final two or three treatments.

During the following nineteen years Mother remained cancer free and healthy. Then, in 2010, at age eighty-nine, Mother told me that she was experiencing occasional “stomach aches.” She said that they were not severe, but she believed that her cancer had returned.

She asked her doctor to run some tests, and they revealed that she had a mass in her stomach about the size of a man’s fist. Even though the blood tests indicated that she might have cancer, because of her age, the doctor did not advise surgery. Mother was adamant. “I want this out of me!” she shouted to everyone within shouting distance—including me on the other end of the phone.

Finally, the doctor told her that he was going to do a biopsy to determine whether the mass was malignant. The procedure would be performed on an out-patient basis on the morning of October 4, and she would be back home by early afternoon.

I prayed that Mother would not have cancer and that the biopsy would come back negative, and I was totally convinced that she was cancer free. However, my husband and I made arrangements to fly to Kansas on the afternoon of October 4 so that I could take care of her in the event that she did not feel well after the biopsy.

When John and I arrived at my mother’s house about 5:00 P.M., no one was at home, and we immediately drove to the hospital. When we arrived, we discovered that the doctor had made a very long incision across Mother’s stomach, and that she was recovering from what appeared to be major surgery. We visited for a while and then took my step father home.

The next day the doctor said that he wanted to talk to me privately. He told me that prior to surgery they had done two different scans to determine the size and location of the mass. He had examined the results and knew exactly what he had to do to perform the biopsy. However, when he made a small incision, he could not find the mass. He continued to make the incision longer in order to locate it. Finally, he made the incision long enough so that he could “look under everything” to locate the mass. But, there was no mass! Mother was not only cancer free, she was mass free!

I was thrilled and did not even try to hide my enthusiasm. “I knew it!” I kept repeating.

When I returned to El Paso, I began to tell everyone what God had done for my mother. I was very surprised, however, to learn that hardly anyone shared my enthusiasm. The most common response was something like this: “Why would God do that? We have prayed for lots of young people with cancer who weren’t healed. They died and left families behind. Why would God heal someone who is eighty-nine years old?”

No one knows why some people are healed and others are not. But we do know this: We have been conditioned to believe that some lives have more worth than others, and we tend to “write off” people whom we believe are too old or too sick or too much trouble to deserve God’s help. Many Christians also have a mind set that God has a finite supply of miracles that He dispenses from time to time. When they are gone, they are gone. Therefore, healing should not be imparted to anyone who can no longer make a meaningful contribution to society. Those people conveniently forget that God’s power is limitless.

Fortunately, God has a different perspective on human life. We are all precious to him. Sometimes He takes us, and sometimes He heals us, but He always loves us. And sometimes, just when things look the darkest, we are privileged to meet Jehovah-Rophe, the Lord who Heals.

Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker. Her own story of teaching her ten children from the first grade through master’s degrees before their seventeenth birthdays is retold in her book, Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother. For more information visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/ or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup.

The Names of God: Part I--The Lord Who Provides

The Bible is filled with names for God that describe various aspects of His personality. Today’s post deals with a time when our family was experiencing extreme financial difficulties, and I encountered Jehovah-Jireh—the Lord who Provides.

After No Regrets was published Alexandra and I both accepted as many invitations to speak as possible, and the money we received as speakers was an important source of income for our family. Our expenses were paid, and we received an honorarium. In addition, we sold our tapes and books at these events.

In the spring of 1991 Alexandra spoke to a group of homeschoolers, and on the return trip her plane was delayed for several hours. When all the passengers were boarded and the plane was finally ready to take off, the stewardess announced that to make up for the delay the airline would be giving one lucky passenger a free round-trip ticket to anywhere in the United States. She then announced the seat number of the winner.

Alexandra did not even bother to check her seat number. The stewardess kept calling for the winner to identify himself, and finally the man sitting next to Alexandra said, “It’s you. You’re the winner.”

I was thrilled for her. Alexandra gave everything she had to the family, and I felt that this was God’s way of doing something special for her. I asked her where she wanted to go with her free ticket. She told me that she did not have anywhere that she wanted to go.

The ticket was good for only one year, and as the months passed, I began to exert some pressure on her to use it. I kept saying that she needed to treat herself to a vacation with that free ticket. She was working as a history instructor at the El Paso Community College and would have been doing well if she had not given every penny she earned to the family. She could use some of her own money to have a nice vacation with that free ticket.

In February, 1992, when my mother was seventy years old, she was diagnosed with cancer. She had surgery and afterwards had to undergo chemotherapy. I really wanted to visit her, but I knew that was impossible so I talked to her on the phone and prayed for her, but I never said anything to my family about wanting to make the trip.

One day Alexandra came to me and said that she was certain that God had given her that free airline ticket so that I could fly to Kansas to see my mother. I adamantly refused; she insisted. Finally she told me that she had checked the expiration date on the ticket and that it would expire in one week.

I quickly made my reservations and was able to spend three days with my mother right after she came home from the hospital. My stepfather was with her, and she had plenty of money. I did not really need to be with her, but God knew that I should be with her, and He provided a way for that to happen a whole year in advance.

I made a 1400 mile round trip with only ten dollars in my purse. I took my best “at home” slacks, a pair of old Dockers with an iron-on patch on the knee, and an old dress that still looked pretty good. My step father had his birthday while I was there, and I did not know what to do for a gift. I finally went to Braums and bought two ice-cream sundaes to go, one for my mother and one for him, and I wished him a happy birthday. When my mother asked me why I had bought only two sundaes, I said, “I didn’t want one. I’m on a diet.” Ten dollars wasn’t much, but it was enough.

The day I flew home was the expiration date for the ticket. God has great timing!

One of the most important lessons that I learned during those thirteen years is that what we want and what we need are rarely the same things. God did not always give us everything we wanted, but He always gave us everything we needed. During that time, I came to know Him as Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord who Provides.

Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker. Her own story of teaching her ten children from the first grade through master’s degrees before their seventeenth birthdays is retold in her book, Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother. For more information visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net/ or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup.

God's Button Box

When my youngest son, Judah, was five or six years old, he went shopping for my Christmas gift in my button box. This was done without my knowledge, but he had seen a particular button there that he thought would make a perfect Christmas gift for Mom.

The highly prized button was made of clear plastic and was about a quarter of an inch across. Shaped like a diamond, right down to its facets and pointed end, it was one of a kind in a box full of ordinary shirt buttons.

When Judah had secured his “diamond,” he found a piece of wrapping paper which he crushed around it so that the finished gift looked like a crumpled wad of Christmas wrapping. He then put his gift under the tree with all the others and waited for Christmas Eve.

When I opened Judah’s gift that year, he was beaming. As soon as the button appeared, he shouted, “I gave you a diamond!”

I told him how gorgeous his gift was and how glad I was to receive it. I knew that whatever I did, I could not redeposit it into the button box. After a little thought I went to my closet and took out my favorite sweat shirt—the one I wore every time it was clean—and sewed the button to it a couple of inches below the left shoulder seam. I then showed the shirt to Judah and told him how wonderful it would be to have that beautiful diamond on my shirt every day.

In the months ahead that small plastic button was the source of much joy for both of us. When I was working with Judah in our homeschool, he would often reach out and gently lay his hand over it, knowing that it was special to me. For my part, every time I saw that button, my heart filled with happiness knowing that it represented a special love connection between the two of us.

Judah is now twenty-eight years old, but even now as I retell this incident my heart overflows with joy. Maybe it’s just a Mom thing, but I don’t think so. I learned a valuable lesson from that gift given to me so many years ago with so much love.

I often think of that gift in terms of how we give to God. There is nothing that we can give Him that is not already His. The Bible says in one place that He owns all of the animals, and in another that He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He talks about the treasures buried in the earth that man does not even know exist. He says in the book of Isaiah, “Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool….My hand has made both earth and skies, and they are mine.”      

Most of the time when we give to God we do so by going to His button box and taking what already belongs to him. God honors those gifts, and they are important because through that kind of giving we are able to help others in need. We tend to forget, however, that what God wants most is our obedience and our faithfulness. He wants us to show kindness to others and to share our faith. He wants us to love Him and spend time in His presence. When we give these gifts, we draw close to Him and share a special love connection with Him that only comes from having a personal relationship.

So, what can you give to the God who owns everything? You can give yourself; it is the only thing that you have the power to give. Fortunately, it is the gift that He wants most.

'Twas the Night Before Easter

Last year at this time, I learned that a new Veggie Tales DVD entitled ‘Twas the Night before Easter was soon to be released. I watched the two-minute trailer on line but was not able to tell very much about it. Apparently, it deals with an Easter Pageant in which the local town’s people (or should I say local town’s vegetables) try to persuade a famous singer to participate. It appears to be full of the characteristic fun, music, and Christian messages that make Veggie Tales one of my favorite gifts to give my grandchildren.

It was, however, the title that intrigued me most, and I could not stop thinking about how neglected the night before Easter is in our celebration of this most Holy season. The night before both Easters—the first Passover in Egypt (the precursor of Easter) and the first Easter when Jesus Christ was crucified—are often given minimal attention because our emphasis is on the deliverance from slavery in Egypt and the resurrection  of Jesus Christ and all that it promises.

The significance of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is, of course, of inestimable importance. It is the basis for our faith and our hope. Yet, the night before Easter also has much to teach Christians about faith and hope.

Both the first Passover and the first Easter were nights filled with death, uncertainty, and fear. In Egypt the Israelites witnessed the death of all firstborn males, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh to the firstborn son of his lowliest slave, and even the firstborn male animals—all who were not under the protective covering of the blood of the lamb. The Bible says, “The wail of death will resound throughout the entire land of Egypt; never before has there been such anguish, and it will never be again” (Living Bible). How incredible! The night before the Nation of Israel was gloriously delivered from slavery, on the last day of the 430^th year of their being in Egypt, the Israelites endured a night of such anguish and terror that God promised “it will never be again.”

Likewise, on the night before the first Easter, hope seemed to have disappeared from the earth. Jesus’ followers were scattered, disillusioned, and terrified. Luke gives the account of the two men on the road to Emmaus who were discussing the crucifixion—this was on Sunday, the day Jesus arose, but these followers had not yet heard the news. Nothing had turned out as they had imagined it would. Now their faith had all but disappeared as Cleopas demonstrated when he remarked, “We had thought he was the glorious Messiah and that he had come to rescue Israel” (Living Bible).

Many of us feel as if we are living in our own night before Easter. Some of us have lost our jobs, our businesses, our retirement accounts and our homes. Things have not turned out at all as we had believed they would. We are experiencing financial upheaval, threats of terrorism, and a flood of uncertainty in almost every aspect of our lives. This is a very scary time.

I hope that as Easter approaches, we will remember how hopeless things looked the night before that first Passover and the night before that first Easter. I hope that we will be emboldened by the knowledge that although on both occasions God’s people felt that they had been deserted, they were never alone. God led them out of Egypt with mighty miracles. On the road to Emmaus Jesus appeared to his followers and walked along with them, even though, at first, they did not recognize Him. He comforted them and told them that everything that had happened was part of God’s plan.

The night before the first Easter was an absolutely necessary part of the fulfillment of God’s promise on Easter morning. Whatever we are going through in our personal lives this Easter season, we need to concentrate on God’s promises to His children and not become discouraged. Jesus has called us his “friends” and has promised that He will never desert us. With a friend like that, how can we fear our enemies?

Joyce Swann is a nationally-known author and speaker. Her own story of teaching her ten children from the first grade through master’s degrees before their seventeenth birthdays is retold in her book, Looking Backward: My Twenty-Five Years as a Homeschooling Mother. For more information visit her website at http://www.frontier2000.net or like her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/frontier2000mediagroup.