Thank You Lord: For Your Healing Hands

'Your daughter needs to go to hospital, so I shall have to send for an ambulance,' said the doctor.

Close to tears, I stood at the foot of Sarah's bed, where she lay, semi-conscious.

'She has encephalitis,' the doctor explained. 'It's a serious condition – inflammation of the brain.'

I'd only recently recovered from influenza, and now, it seemed, I had to face the fact that my two-year old might die, or be physically disabled.

Following the ambulance down to the local hospital, I learned more of the condition when lumbar punctures confirmed the doctor's prognosis.

When I returned home, a neighbour I'd never met before came to visit. It transpired that he had seen the ambulance and, being the local Vicar, he asked if he could pray with me. Of course, I was more than happy for him to do so.

THEN . . .

This had to be God's intervention. Despite my having been sent to Sunday School as a child, my parents had never attended church. It turned out that Rev Michael Cole and his wife, Stephanie, lived only three houses down the road from my husband and I and, with a daughter the same age as Sarah, it was only natural that we became good friends. For the first time in my life, I began attending church and my faith developed.

Daily visits to the hospital, while Sarah lay in a coma, meant that I prayed regularly for her recovery.

'If you'll only heal her, Lord, I promise I'll bring her up to know and love you,' I told him.

Sarah not only survived; she thrived. Decades later, having married a farmer, and set up a prayer group for others during the horrific circumstances of the foot and mouth disease, she was told that she should go into ministry. Which she did. Clearly, God had a plan for her. As a child. And now, as an adult.

. . . AND NOW

In Church, last Sunday, we read about the ten lepers whom Jesus healed (Luke 17:11-20).

'Jesus, Master, have pity on us.' they begged of him.

'Go, show yourselves to the priests,' Jesus told them. And as they went, they were cleansed.

However, only one of them thanked God. He turned back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him.

'Were not all ten cleansed? asked Jesus. 'Where are the other nine?'

LESSONS TO LEARN

Not only had they failed to praise God for their healing, but the one who did, was a Samaritan – a foreigner, hated by the Jews. The lesson we need to learn from this, is that God loves us all, and that we, too, should love our neighbours, no matter how alien they may seem, nor, given that we are too, how sinful they may be.

Secondly, with the Samaritan having shouted his praise for God out loud, we, too, should learn to make God's goodness known to others. Only thus will they come to know him and follow him. So please share this now, and give thanks to God for the love he has for us all.