Healing and God’s glory

Last week I wrote a post around the topic of healing.  One of the claims I made in that post was that God could heal absolutely anything.  I added the qualifier that in doing so he would do it for his purposes and not for ours.

This morning I learned of just such a case, here where I live in Rochester, MN.  Here are the links to the story as it appeared in the local news.  Part one describes the circumstances and part two describes more specifically what the woman, Ema Mckinley, felt as she was being healed.

Miracles do happen.  While I have seen evidence of many remarkable things happen in my work at the hospital what, in my mind anyhow, separates a remarkable event from a miracle is that miracles serve God’s purposes by bringing him glory in the world. 

God’s power and glory are given powerful testimony in this story.  It is seen in the faithful witness of Ema Mckinley, who never abandoned her faith throughout the many years of her disability.  And it is seen in the testimony of Dr. Stanhope, who states that the healing came in response to answered prayer, prayer that God answered for reasons that are known only to him.

In his letter to the church at Ephesus Paul writes these words in Ephesians 3:20-21, the only words I find to be a response to Mckinley’s miraculous healing:

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.