A Medic Explores Miracles and Healings, Part 3
By Dr Mark Houghton MB, BS (Lond.), MRCGP
As a family physician, my heart would sink before seeing a patient with bipolar disorder. Privately, amongst colleagues, bipolar disorder was in that group we called ‘heart sink patients’, because these dear souls are so difficult to help with conventional medicine.
So when the third Charis session began with a testimony from Nicole, with severe bipolar, I sat up and listened. The speaker, Carrie Picket, was an energetic lady who noticed that God’s love began to unlock the Bible whilst working as a missionary in Russia. Here is the takeaway point for me:
I learned in the playground that if I gave to sweets to a friend, I should expect two back in return. Growing up, we bargain like that with God, but He isn’t like that. He doesn’t say, “You did a good job teaching Sunday school – I’ll give you that well-paid job you want.” No, rather God says, I love the whole world so much that I’m giving my only Son, just because I love you all (John 3:16). My Son Jesus loves you so much He is ready to die for you.
It’s the same in healing. It’s hard to receive healing if we struggle with, “Does God really love me?” For me personally, after 27 years in pain, this question has become all too familiar. I still find myself saying, “God you have left me in pain, and the pain says, ‘God doesn’t love you.’”
I’ve begun to change my views on this very point. I’m learning to say, “Sickness, pain and Satan, you can’t touch me because I am God’s son and God in Jesus loved me so much that He gave His life for me, and He carried away my sicknesses and sins on the cross (Isaiah 53:4). I know He has healed me, and I know this pain is passing and temporary.”
“In fact,” Carrie went on, I can say to myself, “I am the favourite of God. I am the apple of his eye, not because I have pleased Him, but because He loves me and I know it by what He did for me, and through the Holy Spirit, who tells me in my heart that I am loved.
“Who are you, devil, to bring any charge against me, the apple of God’s eye? You can accuse me of my bad thoughts, bad language and bad attitudes. But God says, ‘I love you.’ For it is written, ‘Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died – more than that, who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship [or pain]? … Neither height nor depth nor anything in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord’” (Romans 8:34–39). Finally, thank you Nicole and your husband for such a tremendous testimony that the worst form of bipolar can be healed. Despite a terrible history of childhood abuse and self-harm, you are living proof of the power of God’s love.
