Healing through Prayer

Richard Foster, in his book entitled Prayer, tells about a man who lived in constant fear and bitterness for twenty-eight years. The man had trouble getting to sleep at night, and when he did sleep he often would wake in a cold sweat, screaming. He had not laughed for many years. One day he told his pastor what had happened that caused such a deep sadness to hang over him. During World War II, he was in charge of thirty-three men. They became trapped by enemy gunfire. With deep sorrow in his eyes, the man told of how he had prayed desperately that God would get them out of that mess. Then, he sent his men out two by two—only to watch them get killed. Finally, he was able to escape with six men. From that experience he felt that God was very far from him. His heart was filled with rage, bitterness, and guilt. His pastor said, "Don't you know that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who lives in the eternal now, can enter that old painful memory and heal it so that it will no longer control you?" Together, the two men prayed that Jesus would go back those twenty-eight years and walk through that day with him. "Please, Lord," the pastor prayed, "Draw out the hurt and the hate and the sorrow and set him free." He asked for peaceful sleep to be one of the evidences of his healing work. The next week this man had a sparkle in his eyes and a brightness on his face. "Every night I have slept soundly and each morning I have awakened with a hymn on my mind," he proudly exclaimed. "And I am happy—happy for the first time in twenty-eight years." He was healed through the power of prayer.