Palm to Palm

Dear friends, I want to thank you all for journeying with me on this road of discovering who God is, as healer. I know discussions like these can bring excruciating pain, bitter memories, and heartache to the surface. My friend Christine says, “God breaks our hearts to bring breakthrough.” The reason I am pleading with God for breakthrough in our understanding, is because of my own broken heart.

We all have walked through different sorts of pain. I’ve not walked through yours and you’ve not walked through mine. It serves no purpose to compare our wounds. They’re different.

Several years ago a friend of mine died of cancer, at age 36. I prayed fervently for her healing. She left two young children. My dear Mama has suffered from Parkinson’s disease for 12 years. Nothing has broken me wide open like watching my precious Mama walk through pain, humiliation, suffering, frustration. It seems that daily I hear more news of young Mamas and Daddies dying of cancer, of sweet children’s lives cut short. Certainly suffering isn’t new to the scene, but I wonder if God isn’t stirring up in our spirits an Enough already broken-heart that might breakthrough, that we might see Him move mightily in our day?

I don’t know, friends. I don’t know exactly what He will do.

But I know Him. He’s my Dada-God. 

And that is what I’d like to put front and center today.

This weekend I read a sweet book called Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet. I’ll admit, I believe that theologically we need to be very careful with that saying. Everything is NOT good and everything is NOT sweet, But God. God is good and God is sweet and God is gracious in all things. Let us always be certain we say that He is the gift, not the evil that He sovereignly allows.

Evil is evil and God is good.

But what I appreciated about hearing Sara Hagerty’s story of suffering, is that she brings all healing and suffering into the context of relationship. Similarly, in Heidi’s Baker’s phenomenal book Birthing the Miraculous, she always points back to the supernatural and miraculous happening in the context of an intimate, abiding relationship with Jesus Christ. As Sara says,

“To know God as Healer is a relationship, not a moment.”

If we truly want to know healing, we must know Jehovah Rapha, The LORD our Healer. She also recognizes that for years she saw herself as a beggar, unnoticed by God, who needed to whine or beg to try to get his attention. She says,

“My request, around which my fingers had been clenched for years, was meant to be delivered palm to palm as I sat on His lap in confidence.”

Let us always remember our identity–beloved children of the King. He promises His goodness because of who He is (the Good, Omnipotent God) and who we are (His beloved children). We need not scrap and beg and whine. We’re not street urchins tugging on the robe of an uncaring ruler. We ask palm to palm. We need only crawl up onto His lap in loving relationship, immersing ourselves in the truth of His Word, and frame our requests in the context of relationship.

There is more, much more, I’d like to share, from the Scriptures on God’s power to heal, and how we are to proceed from here.  I think there are some dangerous ditches on either side, and I want to be careful we don’t wind up there. So I’ll write some more in the following weeks, but wanted to pause here first. Because no matter what type of suffering we’re walking through, one thing is the same.

If you’re experiencing the suffering of persecution: Draw near to Dada-God.

If you’re experiencing the pain of sickness: Draw near to Dada-God.

If you’ve lost a loved one to tragedy: Draw near to Dada-God.

Instead of shaking a fist at God or recoiling in fear that it’s all your fault, crawl up onto His lap and honestly pour out your pain to Him. It does no good to mask it or make up our own theologies to explain away the hurt. It doesn’t work. The reality is that who God says He is, and what we see in our daily lives, don’t always seem to match up. Turn to Him with those areas of apparent contradiction and humbly ask Him to reveal Himself as Daddy, as Healer, as Redeemer.

God loves you. I pray that as we continue to travel this road and wade through the Word as it pertains to this topic, that you will know the love of God who bore our pain on the cross, who was acquainted with grief and sorrow, who walks with us through every valley of the shadow of death.

As we wait for our healing, hoping, hand-in-hand with Him, we are being healed.

Thank you for reading.