God's Touch

I had a very powerful experience this week...

We had a patient who was very bad off and was sedated for medical reasons. So, I started visiting this patient's bedside twice a day and praying.

The first time I prayed with this patient I took his/her hand and held it. I don't remember my exact prayer but, I eneded it in the same fashion that a prayer I read in Agnes Sandford's book The Healing Light. A minister prayed for her son's ears to be healed, and he concluded his prayer with, "We thank you Heavenly Father because we know this is already being done."

As my eyes were closed and I thanked God for the healing He was doing in my patient, and observing my somber [prayerful] expression and my closed eyes the doctor said, "Chaps, the patient isn't going anywhere."

I guess the doc thought I was giving the patient last rites or something. I laughed and said, "No, I'm just praying."

After that I kept my head bowed but was distracted from the prayer, so I just stood there in silence holding this patent's hand. No, I did NOT feel like Jesus when the power left him after the woman on the road touched His garments to be healed, but it felt neat to be able to pray to Jesus for my patient without using any words. I let the Holy Spirit flow through me...what a neat feeling!

The following day I came and stood beside the patient's bed and touch his/her arm. The experience from the night before was so powerful that I decided to stand there and let the silence and touch be the prayer for this patient. As I touched the arm, the patient jerked to life and sat up. Confused and disoriented the patient started looking around frantically. Meanwhile, stunned, I jumped back behind the nurses station. As the nurses laughed at me, it took a second for me to realize that this was a good thing!

Throughout the day the patient eventually started responding to the nurses and thus started his/her journey out of the woods of danger into the brush of recovery.

During today's meditation I read Romans 8:26, "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words."

Man, I feel like a "grown-up-preacher."

Out of everything I've ever gotten wrong in my life, I finally got something right! In my weakness [and distaraction] I knew I could not help this patient so I let go and allowed the Holy Spirit to fill the silence and breathe the prayer for me...with sighs too deep for words.

One of the best things I like being about a chaplain is I don't have to get it right...in fact when I try to interfere then I block the paths of the Lord from being straight. This time all I was, was there. The Holy Spirit did the rest. It's movements in that moment were breathtaking. Life flowed all around.

Agnes Stanford shared her insight after the minister's prayer helped heal her son's ears, "This incident turned on the light for me.... Now I know he [the minister] had no gift except that which is open to all of us, the infinite gift of life of God Himself...He was in harmony with God. The life of God flowed through him, and could therefore be turned on by him for the healing of the child."

Whenever healing occurs people always have an opinion, "God or medicine." This debate has gone on [and will to continue to go on] for years. People will take sides; this is nothing new.

This experience reiterated something I've been in the process of learning during the past few years, but especially during the past few months:

*Doing nothing

*Just being there

*Silence

*The fact it's ok not to use words during prayer

all of these usher in the Holy Spirit just waiting to breathe life into a lifeless situation.