Miracles

"Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." That phrase, uttered by a leper as recorded in Matthew 8:2 in The New Testament, was playing through my mind when I woke this morning. In the account, Jesus immediately heals the leper. I lay in today's 4:00 a.m. dark wondering if He would work a similar miracle for the world this weekend.

When President Russell M. Nelson, whom we Latter-day Saints consider to be a prophet to the world, invited the global community to join in fasting and prayer on Good Friday for relief from covid-19, I felt that we could ask for a great, immediate miracle. President Nelson urged us to petition God in the midst of this pandemic. I have faith that God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, the Master Healer, have power over the elements and infinite love for mankind. I thought if the world woke Saturday and found that coronavirus patients were well and testing revealed no new cases, that would surely be a miracle the world could not ignore. We we would have to acknowledge God's miraculous power, as well as the power of faithful fasting and prayer.

But miracles don't always work the way we want them to. In the five days between President Nelson's invitation and my own family's start to the fast, I read the petition a few times, and it didn't feel like enough. It feels like we are asking for less than a great, instantaneous miracle.

Our worldwide prayer was for the pandemic to be controlled, caregivers protected, economies to be strengthened, and life normalized. It sounded to me like we are asking for a gradual miracle. Would a gradual miracle be obvious enough to be recognized by the world?  Is there enough belief in this world that God would eradicate covid-19? Do the faithful even have enough faith to ask for instantaneous healing?

Different scriptural account, same principle:
"Help thou mine unbelief."
(If anyone knows the artist, I will give that
credit here. It's a great depiction.)

One of my favorite lines of scripture is found as part of another miracle. In Mark 9, a man brings to the disciples, and then to Jesus, his adult son who had been afflicted with a violent spirit since childhood. Jesus tells the man, in verse 23, "If thou canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth." With tears flowing, the father's reply bursts out, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief." Jesus then commands the evil spirit to depart, which it does, leaving the man's son as if dead. Christ takes his hand and raises him to life and health. In the next two verses, the disciples ask Jesus why they weren't able to heal the man. He answers, "This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting." Had the father been fasting? The story doesn't make it clear, but I assume it was Jesus who had given himself to prayer and fasting, since it was his word and his hand that healed the man. Prayer and fasting are powerful and lead to healing. I believe we invite God's power into our lives through those practices. I've seen prayer and fasting work miraculous healing for others. I'll share two such experiences.

In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we prayerfully fast on the first Sunday of each month. Usually we decide as individuals what to fast and pray for. Sometimes a congregation of saints will fast for a united purpose. I participated in one such fast almost two decades ago. A woman in our ward (an LDS congregation) had received news that she had a new brain tumor. A few years before, she had gone through surgery and treatments to remove a cancerous tumor, and so received regular check-ups to monitor for new tumors. A scan revealed early in the week that a new tumor had formed, and she was scheduled for surgery the following Monday. Our bishop asked everyone in the ward to fast from Saturday to Sunday that she would be healed. I think we all expected that healing to come in the form of the doctors doing their best work. Much to our surprise, God worked a different miracle. As I remember it, our bishop stood the next Sunday to report, looking at the woman who was again seated in the congregation. She had gone to the hospital Sunday, the day we were finishing our joined fast, to check in for the next day's surgery. Her doctor had ordered another brain scan to reference during the operation. The new image revealed a healthy brain. The tumor was completely gone, and this twenty-something young wife returned home to the family and friends who had been praying and fasting for her. No one could deny the miracle, and I remember being surprised that God had seen fit to heal her completely and instantaneously.

Five years ago, in my current LDS congregation, we saw another miracle of healing. At that time, there was a mysterious outbreak around the world of paralysis among children. By the end of the outbreak, 118 children in the U.S. had been affected. One of those children is our neighbor. He woke up one day unable to move one of his legs. He dragged himself to his parents' bedroom that morning. They eventually believed that he wasn't just joking around, and took him to a doctor. His symptoms matched those of other children in the news whose limbs were going paralyzed, and no one really knew why, or if recovery was possible. So we, his ward family, prayed and fasted for him. On fast Sundays, during our worship service and after taking the sacrament, members of the congregation are invited to come to the pulpit to share their testimonies. We are supposed to share our thoughts about Christ, but often those come with other anecdotes and opinions. I remember one woman standing to share her certainty amid the uncertain prognosis that this eleven-year-old boy would fully recover. I thought that was a bold and perhaps too-optimistic statement. And yet, his parents also felt the peace that all would be well for their son. Over the coming weeks, he did heal and was eventually running around the neighborhood with his friends. In the months that followed, most of the afflicted children did heal. Our neighbor's recovery was much faster than that of other patients, and it was counted as a miracle by those who fasted.

I wonder what kind of miracle the world will see this year. Will it correlate to the amount of faith demonstrated in our prayer and fasting? Will everyone wake up this weekend to discover that the virus is gone? Or will it run a shortened course with its devastating effects being reined in? Or will the miracle be increased love across the globe and better relationships between God and Their individual children?

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland, whom Latter-day Saints recognize as an Apostle of the Lord, spoke about the Mark 9 miracle seven years ago. His words are still powerful today:

“Lord, I believe.” I would say to all who wish for more faith, remember this man! In moments of fear or doubt or troubling times, hold the ground you have already won, even if that ground is limited. In the growth we all have to experience in mortality, the spiritual equivalent of this boy’s affliction or this parent’s desperation is going to come to all of us...The size of your faith or the degree of your knowledge is not the issue—it is the integrity you demonstrate toward the faith you do have and the truth you already know...Let me be clear on this point: I am not asking you to pretend to faith you do not have. I am asking you to be true to the faith you do have...if you and your family want to be healed, don’t let those questions stand in the way of faith working its miracle.

This Easter weekend, I am excited to see how the Lord responds to the faith of His children of all faiths. Because I want the whole world to undeniably acknowledge God's power and care, I decided to go ahead and pray for the big, immediate healing. But perhaps my desires are not God's. Maybe He doesn't need a showy miracle to be able to still show up in His children's lives. So I tacked on to my prayer, "Lord, if Thou wilt." Whatever the miracle, I am grateful to know that we are in--and on--the Lord's hands.