Healings Great and Small

This post discusses the variety and magnitude of healing we can expect through prayer. I believe God heals in dramatic ways and in ways that seem ordinary.

On Jan 21, 2009 I met a friend at a local hospital. Sara is a paramedic like me. I don’t know her feelings about God or supernatural healing. I asked her how she was doing. She replied, ‘terrible’. She’s had migraine headaches for 2 days and hasn’t been able to sleep since they started. She said it was a chronic condition she’s had for a while. I asked her if I could pray for her to be healed and she agreed. I put my hands on her shoulders and stood behind her and asked God to take away her pain and that it would never return.

I ran into her again at the hospital on Feb 4th and she shared her story with me. She said that shortly after I prayed for her the migraine headache left. It hasn’t returned since then. Interestingly, she added that on a couple of days she felt as though a headache was beginning but as soon as she was aware this was happening, the sensation left.

I was driving home from work on the 12th of January and I had been struggling with a headache for about 3 or 4 hours. God began to ask me why I didn’t ask Him to take it away.

I felt stupid.

Here I am praying for others but I’m too proud or stubborn to ask for my own healing. I finally asked Him to heal me – figuring if it was His idea, He just might do it. The headache left immediately and hasn’t returned. I thanked Him for His mercy and compassion and apologized for my stubbornness.

I would like to contrast this story with one that is a little more dramatic. This article has been published by several reputable sources. The doctor involved is a well-recognized cardiologist who gave his testimony of this event at a conference of physicians.

The news broadcast that covered the story is in the video window below

Dan Wooding/TN (July 18, 2007)

(MIAMI, FL)—The audience of 120 doctors from 50 countries sat in stunned silence as a renowned heart doctor produced evidence of how, after he had prayed for a patient who had died and was being prepared for the morgue, was brought back to life after prayer.
Dr. Chauncey W. Crandall IV, who serves at the Palm Beach Cardiovascular Clinic in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, made his dramatic presentation on Friday, July 13th at the 4th Annual World Christian Doctors Network Conference in Miami, Florida.
He produced dramatic evidence that was shown on the screen and then, afterwards, agreed to tell the story to Assist News Service in an interview with Dan Wooding.

The following is the interview as conducted by Dan:

Dr. Crandall began by saying that the dramatic incident took place almost a year ago in West Palm Beach, Florida. “We had a fifty-three year old man who came to the emergency room with a massive heart attack and actually his heart had stopped,” he said. “The medical people had worked on him for over forty minutes in the emergency room and then declared him dead.

“They called me in to evaluate the patient towards the end of his treatment where they had unsuccessfully tried to revive him. The nurse was preparing his body to be taken down to the morgue when the Holy Spirit told me to ‘turn around and pray for that man.’ When the Holy Spirit talks to you, you have to respond. It’s sometimes a quiet voice and this was a quiet voice and to honor the Lord I did turn around and I went to the side of that stretcher where his body was being prepared.

“There was no life in the man. His face and feet and arms were completely black with death and I sat next to his body and I prayed, ‘Lord, Father; how am I going to pray for this man? He’s dead. What can I do?’ All of a sudden, these words came out of my mouth, ‘Father, God, I cry out for the soul of this man if he does not know You as his Lord and Savior, please raise him from the dead right now in Jesus name.

“It was amazing as a couple minutes later, we were looking at the monitor and all of a sudden a heart beat showed up. It was a perfect beat; a normal beat; and then after a couple more minutes, he started moving and then his fingers were moving and then his toes began moving and then he started mumbling words.

“There was a nurse in the room—she wasn’t a Believer—and she screamed out and said ‘Doctor Crandall, what have you done to this patient?’ And I said, ‘All I’ve done is cry out for his soul in Jesus name.’

“We quickly rushed the gentleman down to the intensive care unit, and the hospital was by now buzzing about the fact that a dead man had been brought back to life. After a couple of days he woke up. He had an amazing story to tell after I had asked him, ‘Where have you been and where were you on that day that you had that massive heart attack? You were gone and we prayed you back to life in Jesus name.’

“He said, ‘Doctor Crandall, it’s the most amazing thing. I was in a dark room and there was no light. It was complete darkness and I felt I was in a casket and I kept repeating that I was so disappointed.’ He said the disappointment came from the fact that none of his family, friends or colleagues, had come to visit him. Then he told me, ‘All of a sudden, these men came in and they wrapped me up and they threw me in the trash.’

“Dan, he was in hell that day and as he told me that story, I cried out, ‘Lord, this gentleman needs to accept You as Lord and Savior.’ I then explained the salvation message to this man as he sat in that bed and I held his hand and I cried out, ‘Father God, in the name of Jesus, I pray that this man accepts you as his Lord and Savior right here in the intensive care unit.’ He held out his hand and accepted Christ as his Savior with tears rolling down from his eyes and now he’s a child of God.

“I told him, ‘You never have to be thrown in the trash into total darkness now. The life of Christ is in you and the light of the kingdom of Heaven is on you now.”

I asked Dr. Crandall if there had been any brain damage to the patient.

“No there was no brain damage at all; his brain was completely normal,” he said. “I was most concerned about his hands because his fingers were completely black and he had some numbness in his fingers and his feet, but now that is totally resolved.”

I asked Dr. Crandall if he could give the name of the man and he said he couldn’t as the patient had requested that it would not be revealed.

“All I can say is that he was fifty-three years old and he was a car mechanic,” he said. “He had a family who were Believers, but he left them twenty years ago because he didn’t believe in the Lord. His family continued to pray for twenty years for his salvation, and his ex-wife was on her hands and knees praying for the salvation of her ex-husband, who came to know the Lord that day.”

I then asked the doctor if he had seen other similar miracles in his practice.

“I’ve been witness to three cases of people being raised from the dead,” he said. “One other case was when another patient came to the hospital with a massive heart attack. It was on the very day that I received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and I’d been praying for weeks that I would receive this mighty baptism that the Lord can give us. We were working on this patient that came in again with a massive heart attack and who didn’t survive in the operating room.

“All of a sudden, that Baptism of the Holy Spirit hit me and I started speaking in a spiritual language and crying over this patient who, in the operating room theater, had passed away. And then, within five or ten minutes, the heartbeat came back and life came back to this patient. Once again, the nurses who are not Believers looked at me as if to say, ‘There goes Doctor Crandall on another case.”

I concluded the interview by asking Dr. Crandall what he would like to say to doctors who do not believe in supernatural healing.

“I would just like to say to my colleagues and physicians out there, that the Lord is real. We’ve seen many miracles and we pray for our patients daily. There is not one week that goes by that we don’t see a mighty miracle in our office. The people need this; they need the power of Christ in their life and they need the power of Christ for healing.
“I would just encourage my fellow doctors to get involved in a church, meet with a minister, and attend a healing service run by people that believe in the power of Jesus Christ. We love our colleagues in medicine—we pray for them.”

I would like to close with this thought; If God heals us with his supernatural power it is a miracle. Every miracle is in reality just as miraculous as another. There is no big or small miracle – Every touch of the divine Father is special and to be treasured.