Episode Transcript
Welcome Bonnie McClure to the Wake-Up Call for a mini-series on Psalm 103. Bonnie is from Bremen, Georgia. She is married to Matthew, and mother of two sons ten and eight, and a dog named Kudzu and a cat named Rose. She’s a high school bookkeeper by day and a writer by calling. She writes regularly at the Pointed Arrow.
PRAYER OF CONSECRATION
Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.
Abba, I belong to you.
I lift up my heart to you.
I set my mind on you.
I fix my eyes on you.
I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice.
Abba, we belong to you.
Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
Psalm 103 (NLT)
Let all that I am praise the LORD;
with my whole heart, I will praise his holy name.
Let all that I am praise the LORD;
may I never forget the good things he does for me.
He forgives all my sins
and heals all my diseases.
He redeems me from death
and crowns me with love and tender mercies.
He fills my life with good things.
My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!
The LORD gives righteousness
and justice to all who are treated unfairly.
He revealed his character to Moses
and his deeds to the people of Israel.
The LORD is compassionate and merciful,
slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.
He will not constantly accuse us,
nor remain angry forever.
He does not punish us for all our sins;
he does not deal harshly with us, as we deserve.
For his unfailing love toward those who fear him
is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth.
He has removed our sins as far from us
as the east is from the west.
The LORD is like a father to his children,
tender and compassionate to those who fear him.
For he knows how weak we are;
he remembers we are only dust.
Our days on earth are like grass;
like wildflowers, we bloom and die.
The wind blows, and we are gone—
as though we had never been here.
But the love of the LORD remains forever
with those who fear him.
His salvation extends to the children’s children
of those who are faithful to his covenant,
of those who obey his commandments!
The LORD has made the heavens his throne;
from there he rules over everything.
Praise the LORD, you angels,
you mighty ones who carry out his plans,
listening for each of his commands.
Yes, praise the LORD, you armies of angels
who serve him and do his will!
Praise the LORD, everything he has created,
everything in all his kingdom.
Let all that I am praise the LORD.
CONSIDER THIS
A friend of mine was diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer on Thanksgiving Day 2022. Though I cannot imagine a scenario where a diagnosis like this would come as anything other than a complete shock, this case was particularly surprising as routine scans had been clear only six months prior and yet the progression of the metastasizing was severe.
A young mother of four, the news was as devastating as you can imagine for the family. I remember crying out to God over the injustice, the why so many of us have shouted into the face of undeserved tragedy. The community of lives her vibrant and special spirit has touched over her lifetime followed anxiously and prayerfully along with the words of her husband as he kept us updated via online postings while they processed this life-changing news in real-time.
Not coincidentally, I’m sure, I had recently become intimately acquainted with the concept of healing prayer. I put my amateur understanding to immediate application and began praying fervently for her healing daily.
. . . and heals all my diseases. (v. 3)
It was this verse that first introduced me to Psalm 103. In all of my study of healing prayer, I was continually pointed back to its simple proclamation. At first, to be honest, I thought it was too simple. “Heals all my diseases” seemed too straightforward, not nuanced enough, not poetic enough to cover the scope of suffering we witness here. But I would come to learn that the definitive belief that God’s nature is, indeed, to heal, would be perhaps the most important thing I could internalize if I were to utter any words of healing prayer at all.
It was one of the ways I began to practice what some might call a “holy reframe.” Every time doubt or fear entered my mind and heart about outcomes, loss, grief, conflict, turmoil, diagnosis, scans, tests, or prognosis, I would speak back to them all the powerful words of Psalm 103:3, “[he] heals all my diseases.”
It didn’t necessarily teach me how, why, or when God heals, but it taught me his unwavering identity as Jehovah Rapha, Healer. No circumstance or outcome could change or be an exception to this truth.
Over the course of my friend’s treatment, her husband updated us regularly on the physical, medical realities of her condition, as well as the spiritual morale of the family. It was there I first saw evidence of God’s healing.
Through her husband’s writings, I watched God turn their helplessness into hope, which arguably is more difficult than even physical, bodily healing. Imagine the condition of beliefs we harbor in our hearts for receiving the miracles of God. There is no textbook for this, no clinical training. What doctor could teach a tangible process for transforming helplessness into hope? For us to truly, deeply, intrinsically surrender our devastated feelings and shattered worldviews and exchange them for the little, delicate, living spirit of hope, is a miracle.
It is by this miracle of hope that we gain the vision to really see God's greatness, goodness, and glory. The hymn "Whispering Hope" captures the unique quality of how the contrast of our hardest days actually becomes the gifted glimpse of the ever-present God.
“Will not the deepening darkness
brighten the glimmering star?”
As of my writing this, my friend has lived over 670 more days with family and friends since diagnosis. Though by far not all of these were happy days, I have no doubt each one was materialized and sustained by the hope given directly to them by the only God that can issue such a salve: Jehovah Rapha, Healer.
Each day through bearing witness to our friend’s journey, we all grow more appreciative of the fleeting, finite time we have here. Each day we lean into the solid, trustworthy nature of God to pull us through inevitable trials and suffering. Each day we look our circumstances, trying as they may be, square in the eyes, and proclaim that God is actively involved in a healing work in our lives, one of which even if we never see physical evidence of in this life, we remain no less confident in his eternal restoration.
THE PRAYER
Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals. Thank you for being our physician, in all manner of ways. Treating us spiritually, physically, mentally, emotionally, we are grateful for the ways you bring about healing. Help us identify and connect to the movement of your love in our lives, the eruption of joy that is your presence, the subtle beauty that is all around us in your natural world. Let us come alongside the healing work you began long ago, show us the ways we can participate in offering your healing and hope to those around us.
