Miracles by Eric Metaxas

Author:Eric Metaxas
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2014-09-25T04:00:00+00:00

A SIMPLE HEALING PRAYER

I’ve known my friend John Alan Turner for about ten years now, and every time we meet I marvel at how similar we are, especially in our taste in literature and our sense of humor. John studied at Pepperdine University, Pacific Christian College, and the London School of Theology, and then went into the pastorate. One day John told me the story of something that happened in the spring of 2000. It was during a Sunday morning worship service in Columbia, Maryland.

John was then thirty, and he pastored the church—the Columbia Church of Christ. The congregation was a relatively small congregation, with about 125 attending each week. But this was in one of the least “churched” counties in America. “We were struggling to keep the lights on and our hopes up,” as he put it. There was no church building, so they met in the local community center, which they rented for Sunday worship. According to John, the room where they met was depressingly generic, “the kind of place where people might have all kinds of events, from a wedding reception to a child’s dance class.” Every week the church volunteers had to show up early to set up and then tear it all down afterward.

In his congregation there was a soft-spoken parishioner named Michael who was a psychiatrist. Michael was part of the group who had volunteered to be in the rotation to lead worship and that week, it was his turn. But Michael’s father—with whom he had had an incredibly tumultuous and painful relationship—had died recently. His father had been physically abusive, with a harsh religious streak. John said he was “the kind of Catholic who believed kids needed to be spanked periodically for no good reason other than it helped beat the original sin out of them and taught them how to suffer like Jesus.” So Michael’s father’s death was sudden and unexpected, and John could see that Michael was having a very difficult time reconciling his decidedly mixed emotions. More than once Michael said: “I don’t know how people process stuff like this without a church family. I suppose that’s what keeps guys like me in business.”

So that Sunday, John walked into the room where they gathered for worship when Michael, who was already there, approached him. John saw that he was wearing a sling and walking gingerly. For some reason, John had a bad feeling about it. “John,” Michael said, “I’ve pinched a nerve in my neck. It’s made my arm go all pins and needles. It started Friday and was so bad I had to cancel all my patients for the day. I went to my doctor and thought it would be better by now. But it’s throbbing. I can’t lead worship today. I’m sorry.”

Michael’s eyes were shining, and John could see that it was from tears. He was in real pain—physically, emotionally, spiritually. Obviously playing guitar and leading worship was out of the question.

John’s mind began racing immediately. He had a service to lead in a few minutes.

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