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I believe in healing

By DOUG DEZOTELL
Posted 9/18/21

You know what? I believe in healing. I believe in Divine Healing. I believe that Jesus Christ, the long promised Messiah, is the Healer.   

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I believe in healing

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You know what? I believe in healing. I believe in Divine Healing. I believe that Jesus Christ, the long promised Messiah, is the Healer.   

When Jesus was beaten and tortured by the Roman soldiers and then brutally hung on a cross in public humiliation, He endured all of that for you and for me. Hundreds of years prior to Jesus’ murder, the prophet Isaiah prophesied these words concerning those events.   

He said: “But He (Jesus the Messiah) was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:5-6)   

He went through all of that for me. He endured the shame and suffering for you. He did that for the forgiveness of our sins and Isaiah said it was also for our healing. Now let me share a part of my personal life’s journey with you.   

I was a sickly child; one who suffered with lung issues as long as I can remember. I have hardly ever known a time in my life when I didn’t have trouble with asthma. I was in and out of the hospital more times than I could remember.   

I was raised in the Church, and listened to the preaching of some of the greatest Lutheran preachers in the upper Midwest. And I was called to the preaching ministry myself as a young teen at summer Bible camp. I surrendered completely to that call at the age of 20 and I soon became a student of the Holy Scriptures.   

As I devoured the writings of the Apostles in the Gospels and in their Epistles, I found that miracles of healing were written about again and again.   

I prayed for MY own healing over and over and over. And I had so many others pray for me. There were many times that I had men and women of God lay their hands on me and pray a prayer of faith for healing for me.   

James wrote in his epistle, “Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up… (James 5:14,15)   

So many times I knew I had been healed of many different sicknesses. But there was still this “thorn in my flesh” that remained…the lung issues. But, I believe in divine healing. I believe that Jesus Christ is my healer.   

Why? Not because I always get what I want for myself. I believe that Jesus is my healer simply because the Bible tells me so. The Bible tells me so! And you know what!? I’m simply “fool” enough to believe the Bible.   

I have laid my hands on hundreds of people over the many years of my ministry, and I have anointed most of them with oil as James instructed. I personally know that Jesus healed them, and they testified to it as well.   

Yet, I don’t always get what I want.  

I learned these words of Jesus when I was a child, and I repeat them to myself almost every day: “Nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done.”   

Another prayer I learned as a child is known as the Lord’s Prayer, and the first portion says: “Our Father who art in Heaven, allowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.”   

Thy will be done. Not mine.   

The renowned medical doctor, Dr. William Standish Reed, was an Anglican believer who had founded an association of Christian doctors, the Christian Medical Foundation (CMF). The CMF promoted the holistic concept of medicine to include healing in body, mind, and spirit.   

Dr. Reed and his associates realized that for too long the church and the medical profession had been at odds. These doctors and nurses believe that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit was not only for the healing of the people of the church, but to heal the divide between physical healing and medical healing.   

Reed had once said, “Let’s find a few people in the practice of medicine who believe in the Holy Spirit—people who will pray along in their own operating rooms, “Make me thy intern, O Lord Jesus!” knowing that God Almighty is there working with them. And when nurses come to care for their patients, let there be nothing but ‘Christ’s healing through prayer and medicine.’”   

The late Pentecostal preacher, a former Methodist, Rev. Oral Roberts, once said “God’s different delivery systems—prayer, medicine, rest, exercise, love and understanding—are combined as a part of God’s good which He uses for healing.”   

Dr. William Standish Reed had a great impact on Rev. Oral Roberts, and he was influential in Roberts’ starting a Medical School at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma.   

I believe in the Bible… in both the Old and the New Testaments. I believe in miracles. I believe in healing. I believe in prayer. And I believe in Medical Science. I have struggled for the last year and a half with my breathing issues.   

I was doing all that I knew how to protect myself from COVID-19. And I was tested numerous times, always with a negative result. I received the Moderna vaccine, first dose on February 26, and the second dose on March 26. I wore masks in public. I stayed home as often as I could. I prayed…meditated on the Word of God…and believed in divine protection. But my breathing issues got worse, and I was experiencing chest pains.   

So, the last week in August of this year, my wife, the beautiful and godly nurse Lynn, convinced me to go to the Emergency Department at Vanderbilt Bedford Hospital. I tested negative for COVID-19 once again, but after numerous tests there in the ER I finally received a diagnosis and was admitted upstairs as a patient.   

I was diagnosed with pneumonia and congestive heart failure. I was moved into the CCU, and began my journey of discovery. I was so relieved to finally be given a diagnosis…to know that I hadn’t made all this up…it wasn’t all in my imagination.   

From the moment I was admitted to the VBH emergency room, until I was wheeled out the front door when I was discharged five days later, I received such amazing care by the most wonderful staff of health care workers.   

Everyone, and I mean everyone, was so kind and attentive, friendly and professional, and I am so very, very grateful. The Emergency Department doctor and the nurses; the X-ray techs and the Lab workers; the respiratory therapists; the hospitalist, Dr. Miller, and the cardiologist, Dr. Okusanya; the many nurses and nurse assistants; the dietary personnel and the housekeepers; were all just amazing.   

Thank you for your kindness and your gentle spirits. You all helped this old preacher through a frightening but insightful experience of self-discovery.   

I believe in healing, and every one of these “heroes” played a vital part in my healing process. I believe in miracles. I believe in the Word of God. I believe that my God is “the same, yesterday, today and forever,” and I pray that His Will be done and not my own.