Mtr Mary Trainor

There is a balm in Gilead…*

Dear friend,

Healing is a difficult topic. Not the skin-your-knee-wait-for-the-scab type of healing. But the kind of healing that Jesus does in the Bible.

In the Office Gospel for the Seventh Saturday of Easter, we encounter two healing stories in Matthew (9:18-26.) One is the story of a daughter brought to life, because her father asked. One is the story of someone else’s daughter, whose twelve years of hemorrhaging ended because she touched Jesus’ cloak.

A hopeful father. A desperate woman. Both who recognize that they have hit their respective “bottoms,” and that Jesus’ alleged powers are worth checking out. We can imagine the testimonials they give later about the wonder-working power of God in Christ.

Most of us have prayed for healing, so this is territory with which we are familiar.

To make the wounded whole...

Early in my ordained ministry, a parishioner asked for a few minutes immediately prior to the start of service. (A note seems called for here: This is not the best time to seek your priest’s attention.) But that is what she did. And the question was powerful and in no way could it be addressed in the moments before church.

The question: “You know how in the Gospels, when Jesus healed the woman who touched his cloak? Do you think it happens like that?”

The unspoken question was this: Will/can Jesus heal me? She had just been diagnosed with the ovarian cancer that would claim her life. And her question was potent and immediate. Urgent even. She had to know if God’s healing touch could cure her cancer.

We agreed to get together very soon to explore this. But I also asked her to think more about healing and its various possibilities, and to consider this question: What does healing look like?

There is a balm in Gilead…

It’s one of the regrets of my parish ministry that we never got together on that subject. Her cancer took an aggressive turn right into the doorway of hospice. And while we spoke in a limited fashion then, it was not the conversation for which either one of us had hoped.

Nevertheless, ten years later, I am left with the unanswered question: What does healing look like? Maybe the question was more for me than for her.

Most of us have prayed for healing. For things both minor and major, we have asked God’s intervention on our behalf and on behalf of others. I certainly have and still do. I believe God can and does heal everything from broken bones to broken hearts. But I don’t know how and when, or what criteria God uses to say “yes” to one, and “no” to another.

I can only conclude that healing is about so much more than binding a wound or mending a heart right on the spot where everyone can see.

To heal the sin-sick soul.

Maybe when I pray for healing, God sees the wound that is greater than cancer or divorce or addiction or what have you. Maybe God looks deep inside for the source of hurt, and sets to work on me from the inside out.

What does healing look like? If I am only willing to see the answer I had imagined, I may be disappointed. But if I can allow God to be as large as God is, well...

Mtr. Mary

*There is a balm in Gilead, No. 676, Hymnal 1982
Here’s a link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fcMxI_6xsk