Guatemala: the girl in the wheelchair, part 2

I left you with a stricken mother, weeping tears of sorrow over the broken physical state of her daughter. I have to share the rest of the story with you, though, because I have come to know our God as Jehovah-Rapha, the God who heals. I wish I could tell you that precious M* got up out of her wheelchair that day and walked. There have been times in my life when I have wished that God healed in the way that I wanted him to heal. Certainly when my dad was gasping for breath as he moved from this world into eternity, I would have given anything to see him sit up, smile, and say that he was hanging around for a few more years. But God chose to heal his body for eternity. That day in Guatemala, God chose to heal M*'s mama eternally as well...not in body, but in spirit.

As we prayed over M*, begging God to heal her seizures and her permanently dislocated hip, one of our team members quietly asked M*'s mom if she knew Jesus. She whispered that she had not accepted Him as her Savior. Would she like to? Her tears rolled plenty as she talked to God, asking Him to save her and heal her heart. And heal her He did.


M* is in the gray shirt on the left; her mama is to the right of her.

I will never understand God's ways, for they are far above my own. Had I had my own way that day, M* would have gotten a few pills from us and been released from her physical misery. She and her mama also would have continued on their way, untouched by the eternal power of God's love and salvation. Praise Jesus that His ways are not the same as my own. Did God give her the seizures that torment her every day? Did God prevent her from receiving medical care after she dislocated her hip? I don't believe so. I do believe that God used M*'s physical brokenness to lead her and her equally spiritually broken mama to our clinic that day, where He gave us the great privilege of ministering to them His healing love. God used their pain and hurt to bring them to the Living Water...to a healing that will not fade with the brokenness of this creation, but that will carry them into an eternity of forever healing.

God may still heal M*'s ailments on this earth. He is certainly capable, and I pray that He does. But I rejoice in knowing that He has healed her and her mother for eternity! People may look at M* and say that she is no better off than before she came to us that day. If only they knew the implications of the spiritual restoration she and her mama experienced that day...maybe they would not diminish eternal healing in the face of temporary physical brokenness.

We saw M*'s mama one more time, the very next day. She had a grin on her face, from ear to ear, and an unmistakable joy in her heart. Praise God, Jehovah-Rapha...the God who HEALS.