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Yahweh Ropheka; The God Who Heals
And said, “If you diligently heed the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.”
Exodus 15:26
Prayers for healing
Have you (and there’s a good chance you have, or you eventually will) ever prayed for someone to be healed from a sickness? If you’re anything like me, you watch heavy-heartedly as your normally perpetual motion toddler lays quietly while a fever works to rid their little body of a simple cold virus.
Other times the illness is serious and our hearts aren’t just heavy, they’re broken. We’re broken. And we cry out to the Lord for His healing touch.
Where we break
The past couple of months two friends in their prime of life (that’s our 50’s, to be clear), were met with unwelcome and complete change-forever more. Here they were living life, comfortable and happy in the third decade of marriage, looking forward to watching their young adult children getting married and giving them grandchildren to enjoy, and peeking around the corner at retirement with its own hopes and dreams.
It’s times like these where we break.
Suddenly, each of those pleasures, and even just ordinary expectations, of life were gone. All things married ceased in just a breath. Instead of planning for retirement, weddings and grand-babies, they were planning funerals.
Sad, lonely, angry, confused, and wishing they could change their harsh reality, they can’t stop the turning tides as nights end and days begin the same way, without their husbands next to them.
Where’s God?
I know prayers were screamed out to the Lord that He would heal these men, because I was just one part of them.
Yet, when the calls came, prayers seemed to drop down with the tears that fell. Where’s God? Why didn’t He heal them?
God Heals
The Lord tells us He DOES heal, so why are my friends widows today?
“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits; Who pardons all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases.”
Psalm 103:2-3
Hope and Great Grief
God, You heal all our diseases. And day after day we bury those we love whose bodies succumbed to every disease we can list.
Knowing You are good, You love us, You created us, You hear us, we have to reconcile the truths we live in the mix of hope and great grief.
These, Lord, seem contrary.
My boys, I wish you could know them, they’re amazing. Separated by a decade of life, each is as wonderful as the other.
When my mom was unexpectedly rushed to the hospital and then into brain surgery in quick succession, my oldest put his college plans on hold and stayed home with his brother so I could be with my mom. Together they were strong; for each other, for their grandma, and for me.
We Prayed
Oh, we prayed. The doctors told us her time was short, but we didn’t want to believe them and we knew GOD could heal her. She desired- and petitioned- the Lord to take away her tumors, her cancer and her terminal diagnosis.
We longed for her to return back to the full and vibrant life she was living just days before. Though none of the medical staff could believe it was her reality, we knew it was true.
The Lord was gracious, so very gracious and full of mercy, compassion and love in the 12 months to follow.
My boys were more incredible than ever.
We prayed. All our friends prayed. Our family prayed.
And, Mom died.
My youngest, a brand new 10 year old, said to me, “God healed her, Mom.”
He did. Her body would no longer fail her. The pain and suffering she ever so gracefully endured would never again shadow over her.
She was healed.
God is There
We knew God’s presence. We begged for His healing hand the way we wanted it to be. His will was not like ours. Even so, God was there.
Certainly Mom has no desire to return to the broken, sinful, painful world where she’d spent nearly 75 years living. God is there. He’s there with Mom because she knew and lived for Him, and He’s there the same way for all of His children.
Even when we can’t understand His plan.
In all the times our prayers for His will are vastly different than our own, He is there.
Hurting
I’ve been a mom for 27 years. This week I was visiting with a young mom who asked me what my favorite age was with my children.
Like my own mother, I love, love, love the newborn and baby stage. From there, I loved every single stage to follow. (Except for the leaving home for the last time part! I’m still not too crazy about that.) I just love being Mom to my children, and no matter the joys and challenges that brings, it’s ok by me.
Choices that Hurt
In these years of motherhood, at times I’ve made choices I knew would hurt my children. Some were done unintentionally and quickly followed by apologies and hugs. Thankfully, I have forgiving people in my little family.
Other times I knew the decision I was making would go harshly against their desires. These were never times of celebration even with the knowledge I was doing the right thing. It was never fun making choices I knew would cause pain. Can you recall any specific time you did the same?
There is no shortage of good reason when it comes to making the wise decisions even when it leaves our children angry or hurt. Sometimes we just have to play the part of the mean mom. The mean mom who knows much better than her vulnerable child or teenager. Who sees the whole picture with much more clarity, and who then makes the hard choice knowing it will hurt her own child, because it’s the best for them.
Choices made out of Love
Our children won’t understand our love for them in those times. These decisions will look, sound, and feel counterproductive to our love for them. They’ll probably push us away, cry, burst out in anger and even scream in their own despair.
It’s OK.
What we know that they do not, just yet, is though it appears starkly different, it is in fact our great love for them which drives us to these choices.
I think you may be getting the picture here. In a very human and therefore vastly ineffectual way, this is the best I can convey the most divine attribute of Yahweh Ropheka, The God who Heals.
The God who Heals
Of course, we have multiple examples of miraculous healing throughout the New Testament. Furthermore, as many times as we have had to wipe our tears and physically hold our hearts inside our chest from the pain this life brings, we can share time and time again where the Lord did indeed show us our own miracle.
Yet, sometimes in God’s answers for our loved ones, ushered into heaven by Yahweh Ropheka; healed at last, we’re left with broken hearts.
To keep going in life, to put one step in front other other where pieces of our own hearts fall before us, is one of life’s greatest trials. We comfort ourselves in strange ways, saying things that weigh our loss with what could have been, but the truth is it’s our drastic attempt to ease the pain.
We want to be able to breathe again. We try to feel and reach toward the blessings of the life we had with the one we’ve lost. Yet, in it all, it’s our pain we’re trying to keep at bay, so we ourselves can keep on living.
Brokeness
Good news is in our brokenness the Lord is there, too.
Yahweh Ropheka: The God who Heals, heals both our diseases and our hearts. When it IS too much. When our heart IS breaking. When we can NOT go on. He Heals us.
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
Psalm 147:3
He knows
I’ve never buried one of my babies, but I’ve lost many. When I sit with friends who’ve placed tiny caskets filled with their heart’s purest joy into the ground, I come up short in understanding.
My words are lacking, my empathetic understanding is shallow, and I just cry with my friends through their pain.
Not unlike the pain I feel when my children hurt, especially when it was my decision-right decisions- that spurred it on, our Heavenly Father hurts when He sees our pain. Furthermore, He KNOWS our pain of loss.
Jesus Wept
Jesus lost His friend Lazarus. He knew he’d rise again to life, but you know what? That fact didn’t change the very real grief and pain Jesus realized to see His friend’s body lying there lifeless.
Jesus wept.
God the Father knows a bit about grief too. He has watched so many of His children turn from Him, and each time He grieved their choices.
Adam and Eve hurt their Creator when they chose disobedience. Their choice cost all of mankind in a big way. This is a great reminder that our sin affects others, too, we don’t sin unto ourselves. But the greatest cost of their sin, of our sin, was to God in the life of His own Son.
Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.
Romans 5:12
He is our Shepherd comforting us through the valley of the shadow of death because He cares for us in times of pain and sadness.
He knows the pain of loss as He gave His Son to be crucified on the cross. Jesus suffered the most painful, cruel death, and was ressurrected so that we can live with Him for all eternity. Praise God!
For God so loved the word that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes on Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
John 3:16
Healing at the Cross
Hanging on the cross, hanging on to the last breaths of life since being born in a manger, Christ bore the pain of our sin, and He bore the pain of His Father turning away from Him. In that same moment, God the Father bore the pain of His Son caring our sin.
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Mark 15:34
Isn’t it just like our God to show Himself true? Yahweh Ropheka the God who Heals is there at the cross. In the very same occasion God heals His Son’s body~
So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?”
I Corinthians 15:51
~and, for those who will be His, He heals our souls- our sin is ransomed through Christ’s flesh and blood. No longer separated from our God.
And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost. And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.
Mark 15:37-38
Healing at the Cross…our God Heals.
Bring your prayers, your sick heart and soul, all your brokenness –bring it to the Father. Yahweh Ropheka.
Let Him heal you.
