We heard a story the other week that I'd like to share. There is a family in our church who lost their beloved wife/mother to breast cancer about 4 years ago now. She opted for spiritual healing and not chemo for reasons I won't go into here and partly because I do not remember all the facts. She didn't receive the healing she sought right up until her last breath. We were privileged to have spent a couple hours with her at Hospice the day before she went home.
This story starts with their eldest son of 11 years old. He was involved in a "Treasure Hunt" with other believers of all ages including his father. For those who may not know, a Treasure Hunt in our church circle is for people who need a touch from God. The way it works is by getting together with pen and paper handy and praying for clues as to where God has His treasure (people) to be found. When someone hears something they just call it out and a recorder writes it down. After everyone feels they heard all they can hear, the clues are read out and off they go in search of the "treasure" based on the clues.
They were led to a CVS pharmacy and when they entered, the 11 year old spotted a woman with a bald head. As 11 year olds are known to do, he went right up to her and asked "Do you have cancer?" The woman was very kind and smiled back saying "Yes, I do." The child went on to tell her about his mother who died 4 years ago of breast cancer and she was intently listening. He then explained to her that God had led them there to pray for her. She agreed to let them pray for her saying she was a believer and went to church regularly. He said a short child like prayer for Jesus to heal her of her disease. (What or how we pray is never what brings results but our faith and righteous hearts of love.) She also met the others there on the treasure hunt and thanked them all.
2 months later and armed with little knowledge of these strangers who prayed for her, she began the process of tracking them down to fill them in on what had transpired afterwards. She remembered their first names and that the father of the boy who prayed for her taught music in a school in the area. She called every school asking for this man until she found one by this name and then left her number asking if they would call her back in the evening.
Brian, the father was anxious to call her back that evening and had the presence of mind to ask if he could record it. She agreed and we heard the actual conversation at church. It went something like this: She had 2 treatments of chemo after seeing them but got too ill from them so she never received the last two doses. The doctors decided to operate to take what cancer they could out of her. When the removed tumors were sent to the lab, the results were that there was no evidence of any cancer anymore. (She had a biopsy before and it was a malignant stage 2 fast growing type.) The doctors were dumbfounded and just agreed that she had indeed experienced a miracle of some kind and that they had never seen anything like this before. The woman was in tears and just thanking them for their obedience to the Lord and coming to find her that day.
Many times we've seen the hand of the Lord on people's illnesses and many times we've seen no healing at all. We have learned though that we can not judge God by our experiences. If the Bartch family had judged God based on their experience, they would have never trusted Him to send them to the CVS to heal a woman with an aggressive cancer. We don't understand but what we know is to have that peace that surpasses all understanding, we must first surrender our rights to understand. A seed falls into fertile soil and dies so it can bear much more fruit. Paul wrote almost 30 times just in the book of Romans that we need to die to ourselves. The memory of Heidi Bartch lives on in her family and by the looks of it, will bear a whole lot of fruit.
Please forgive me if I've gotten any details wrong in this story, I recanted as well as I could remember it. The story in general is all true.
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