For Believers, God Always Heals

Our church lost two long time members this week. We gained two more widows. Heaven became just a bit more real.

Byron and Flo had been married for 64 years. Almost every time I talked to Byron, he reminded me of it. They were little lovebirds. The nurses in the hospital said it would be sickening if it they weren’t so cute. His wife has been almost completely home bound for several years but Byron made it to church often. He was amazingly fit for a 91 year old. His last deer hunt was at the age of 90. But things turned quickly and Byron entered heaven’s gates before his bride—something none of us expected.

I was with the family when the doctor entered the room to tell them that despite all his best efforts, he could not keep Byron’s heart beating.  Flo looked at the doctor and with simple faith declared

“Byron is in heaven now.”

The doctor replied with, “We are all going that way some day.” With great indignation Flo looked back at him and said, “Oh no we’re not! Only if you have place your faith in Jesus Christ can you know you are going to heaven.”  Of course the doctor could not argue with her. A woman who just learned she is a widow after 64 years of marriage always commands the room. It was heartwarming to see the reality of faith burst forth in care for the stranger that was, in that very moment telling her she had lost her husband. True faith is like that.

Two days later I accompanied the grieving daughters of another church member to a memory care facility. Bob had gone to heaven the night before and Jo, his wife of more than fifty years had not heard the news yet. They wanted me to tell her. Jo had been my secretary for 15 years. She is like a second mother to me. Almost everyone who has had contact with our church over the past several decades knows—and loves—Jo. She is an intelligent and godly woman who has contributed to God’s work here in more ways that I can imagine. She is one of the smartest and most talented people I have ever met and even the ravages of Alzheimer’s cannot erase that wit.

“Jo” I said, “Bob has gone to heaven.”

The daughters were watching for her reaction. It was immediate. A big smile broke across her face as she said, “Oh wonderful, now he gets to meet the twins!” Jo had lost two boys, twins, in child-birth many years ago. Smiles on faces and then tears flowed from the girls. There was a sense of relief on their part. Then Jo looked at them and said, “Why all the tears? Don’t you people believe in heaven?” She always had a mischievous way of confronting me when my thinking was wrong. This was that same tone of voice I had heard so many times over the years.

It reminded me of a conversation I had with her years earlier when she was working in the church office. Jo has suffered all her adult life from the severe joint pain of arthritis. We were having a conversation about healing and praying for healing. I was not even thinking about her pain, but rather another church member I was trying to help.

“What do you tell people when God chooses not to heal?” She looked at me with an expression of indignation and loving annoyance and declared,

“He ALWAYS DOES sir!”

How we misunderstand the moment of our passing into eternity. Our faithless eyes see it somehow as the end, a day of sadness and of mourning. But the eye of faith sees it as the day of healing, of transformation. It is the day of release from a lifetime of bodily prison and sin into ultimate freedom of God’s presence. It is our inexplicable joy even in life’s most trying moments.

God always heals, if not now, then.

For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

1 Corinthians 15:53-55