“Do you want to be healed?”
If you’ve seen the show “The Chosen,” you may remember a scene from the second season where Jesus heals a paralyzed man at the Pool of Bathsheba. In Jesus’ day, a legend surrounded the place: the first person to touch the fountain when it bubbled up from the pool would be healed by an angel. This paralyzed man had been waiting there for years, longing unsuccessfully for healing.
This incident did happen. The healing at the pool is a recorded scene in the Gospel. Even though the real scene probably didn’t play out the way it does in “The Chosen,” the conversation between Jesus and the paralytic is a powerful moment.
“Do you want to be healed?”
Jesus asks this question when he meets the paralyzed man, who has spent years waiting at this site hoping that the fountain will save him. At first, the man pleads with Jesus, explaining that he wants his legs, wants to walk, and wants his life back. But Jesus persists, asking the same question again:
“Do you want to be healed?”
This time, the paralytic cannot answer. He wants to feel better. He wants to walk. But this is not the healing Jesus means. And he knows it.
How many of us actually want to be healed?
Do we desire true healing in God’s love and mercy? Or do we seek to keep doing what we want, regardless of His design for our lives and ultimate good? Do we want our lives to work out the way we envision? Or are we willing to accept the hand God deals us? Do we want what we want? Or do we want to be healed?
Seeking Healing On My Own Terms
I can attest that it’s a powerful experience to pray for healing instead of my own intentions. When I was pregnant with Peter, there were too many times I didn’t think I’d ever have the courage to do it again. Pregnancy was more difficult than I ever imagined physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. I was sick nearly every day for nine months. I spent weeks in pain, mentally strained and emotionally overwhelmed about everything happening, and just begging God not to let any harm befall Peter. Too many days I cried for hours because I either “felt too good today, I must have miscarried” or “I felt so awful today, I must have miscarried.”
After Peter was born, some of my symptoms remained. I still experienced abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting. From May to November, I had no idea why I still felt pregnant. I took a test every month, confused and angry that I couldn’t just be healed. Finally, an endoscopy and biopsy revealed an underlying medical condition that was causing my problems, which had intensified during pregnancy and never fully recovered. I began treatments and was recommended an elective surgery, which I declined.
I want to be healed.
Praying for God’s Will
In December, just before Christmas, Peter was having a particularly fussy Mass. I spent most of it out of the pew walking him around. After communion, Joshua took Peter. I was suddenly left alone among the congregation, with no distractions, and had freshly received God in my body and soul. I closed my eyes, bowed my head, took a deep breath, and said words that shook my heart:
“Lord, I want to be healed.”
I prayed that I would stop having expectations, ideas, or even hopes of how I would feel better. Then, I asked God to remove every fantasy I held onto of how I would be healed from my mental and emotional anguish, my fears about sickness and future pregnancies.
I knew it was a dangerous prayer. It was a prayer to accept God’s will, to surrender to His plan, and to renounce my own desires. Even though none of us can change our lives through stubbornness, there is still a dangerous power in saying, “Not my will, but Yours.”
The True Power of God’s Healing
Three months later, God answered my prayer in the form of two blue lines on a pregnancy test. I was flabbergasted to see the positive mark because I had felt oddly tired that day. I had even told Joshua that I was taking a test “just to rule out the possibility.” But when I saw the positive sign, all I could do was laugh with happiness. Several weeks passed before I learned I was already fourteen weeks along. I had not even known I was pregnant for the first two months of a new little life growing inside me. Despite my ignorance, the baby was perfectly healthy.
All my fears about future pregnancies have melted along with my heart at the knowledge of my sweet second child coming this October. I have been healthier mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically than I ever imagined after my difficult first pregnancy. As we await the “two under two” parenting life ahead of us, I feel a peace within me that I had never believed possible.
As we celebrate Mother’s Day, I am praying for the healing of all men and women affected by pregnancy complications, fears, anxieties, infertility, miscarriage, loss and all the struggles of parenthood. I encourage you all to join me in this powerful, dangerous, yet perfect prayer:
“Lord, I want to be healed.”
