The following is my personal, first-hand account of how Jesus Christ healed me in answer to prayer.  The prayer that He powerfully answered in real time was not the first nor the only prayer offered to Him for my healing over a period of 18 months or so.  This account is based on a contemporaneous entry in my prayer journal dated two days after the event.  It has been lightly edited for readability.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I am keenly aware of the sensitivity around this topic.  Although some people are unquestionably healed by God in response to prayer, His higher purpose and will for each individual differs. Some receive healing while still in their mortal bodies, and some may not.  Sometimes the means God uses are miraculous and sometimes not. God is sovereign and does not think or act as we do or as we might like.  In the Bible, God explains that His strength is made perfect in weakness and that when we are weak, His power rests on us.  He is pleased and glorified when we place our faith in Him, and learn to trust Him, to depend on Him, rather than on ourselves.  God loves all people and offers forgiveness by grace to everyone who repents of their sin, confesses Jesus as Lord and calls on His name, believing that Christ died for our sins, was buried and raised again by God from the dead, according to the scriptures.  God considers our salvation far more important than the transitory health of our corruptible mortal bodies.  His promise is that every child of God will ultimately receive a perfect, immortal, glorified body from the Lord.

So, why share my personal experience?  I do so for three main reasons:

1. Jesus commands it: “Go home to thy friends, and tell them how great things the Lord hath done for thee, and hath had compassion on thee.”  (Mark 5:19)
2. As an encouragement to those who wonder if God answers prayers for healing in this day and age [Some insist that He doesn’t.  It’s a nice theological argument, but Jesus healed me, so there is only one side of the debate that I can take take.]
3. Like the Apostles who were ordered to stop teaching people in Jesus’ name, “[I] cannot but speak the things which [I] have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).

My Story

On my birthday in 2002, I took the day off to mark the event. From 10:00 – 11:00 AM, I watched a Christian program, on a Christian TV network.  I had started tuning in while on medical leave the year before, recuperating from radical cancer surgery and months of debilitating chemotherapy.  During my recovery, I heard some amazing testimonies on the show and saw some unusual things. I began to look forward to the next day’s broadcasts and eventually became a regular viewer.  Even as I joined in lifting up the prayer requests of others, I suspected (and later became convinced) that God was using the program to change my perspective on who He is and how He works. I was sure that He was building a new kind of faith inside my heart—a belief that God still intervenes directly in our world and still performs miracles (regularly, in fact).

I was not looking for a miracle as I watched the show this day and knelt in prayer with the hosts. Yet, my new perspective allowed me to keep an open mind about the possibility.  I was a little disappointed at how brief the prayer time was, near the end of the show. And as the program ended, a prayer line was displayed on the screen.  On impulse, I decided to call the number and ask for prayer.  After all, it was my birthday…

Things got off to an unpromising start.  I misdialed, tried again.  This time, I reached an automated answering system, which informed me that there were 42 calls ahead of me. Incongruously, the wait time was estimated at one minute.  Dubious, I debated whether to hang up or stay on the line awhile.  I chose to wait.  About 30 seconds later, an update informed me that there were still 16 calls ahead of me.  Again I debated and once more I hung on.  Twenty-six calls had been cleared so quickly…

Seconds later, a woman named Mary, asked how she could help me.  I told her my first name and that it was my birthday.  She wished me a happy birthday.  I thanked her and quickly continued, conscious of her time and of the many other callers.  I said that I’d had surgery and chemotherapy in 2001, for a cancer with a 5-year survival rate [at the time] of 4%.  Once again, tests showed signs of active disease in my body.  I told Mary that since it was my birthday, I thought I might ask for prayer to be healed of the cancer and to be freed from fear of its reoccurrence.

Mary said, “Sure” and asked me something like, “…and your relationship with Jesus Christ, today?”  I chuckled softly and said, “I’ve been walking with the Lord for as long as I can remember.”  She acknowledged this and asked, “Are you ready to agree with me in prayer?”  I said, “yes” and Mary began to pray for me.

I don’t remember much about her prayer, which was short and not terribly profound.  It began, “Father, we come before you today…”  I did not feel particularly moved or inspired, as I listened and agreed with Mary.  But then, as she said something about asking Jesus to curse the root of every cancer cell in my body, that the cancer might wither and die and never return, a strange thing happened.

My mouth flew open in a sharp gasp of surprise. I immediately began laughing and crying and shaking.  I just couldn’t stop.  I sensed at once that I was free of the cancer and the associated dread, though I couldn’t say how I knew or why I was so sure.  I kept saying, “Thank You, Jesus!  Thank you, Lord,” etc.

My jaw kept dropping in shock.  Tremendous joy, relief and gratitude kept bubbling up.  I experienced no other physical reaction—no burst of power, no tingling sensation, no feeling of warmth spreading through my body.  There was no hint of any intermediate process of change.  My spontaneous reaction was triggered entirely by an event that had already occurred.  I felt only the after-effects of realizing what had happened.

Gradually, I became conscious of the fact that our gardeners were in the back yard and could see through the patio door.  I thanked Mary for praying for me and offered to return the favor, if she could spare a few more seconds.  She consented and I prayed briefly for Mary and for her family, thanking God for her and the important work He had given her to do.  I thanked Him for His gift of faith to Mary and for her faithfulness in using it to intercede in prayer for others.

After disconnecting, I went into the living room and stretched out on the floor, continuing to laugh, cry, thank and praise. The realization that God had graciously answered prayers for my healing and for release from bondage to the anxiety that had accompanied the illness was incredibly humbling.  I was amazed that His action had been so strong, swift and effective that I could not even detect it in the moment.  God’s power had been unleashed, had touched me, completely changed me, and passed on so quickly that I had not even felt it.  I was conscious only that because of Jesus, I was different now.  I felt no fear of the future at all and was certain that I would never fear the cancer again.  Jesus Christ spoke it out of being.  It’s impossible that I should worry about it anymore.

When I felt that my body, mind and spirit were “normal” again, I checked my watch.  My joyful celebration and thanksgiving had lasted 10 minutes.  Still, I did not want the precious, intimate communion with God to end just yet.  So I went upstairs to my room, knelt by the bed and prayed a few minutes more, thanking and praising God for all He had done for me.

I remember my continual amazement that Christ had done this act of love and mercy—a true miracle—just for me!  A touch of God’s grace and power just for me…I asked God to show me how He wanted me to use the life and health and time He’s given back to me.  That answer did not come immediately.  But I was confident that God would reveal His will for my new life, in His own good time.

I want to stress that I did not then, nor do I now believe that there is any special power or spiritual potency in having the staff of some television program pray for me.  I simply wanted a believer to pray with me, and knew that I would find a fellow Christian on the other end of the line—that’s all.

That night, I had the chance to tell my brothers and sister what happened (they called to wish me a happy birthday and to ask how I was doing).  I told them only that I’d had an experience in prayer that day that enabled me to quit worrying about the cancer.  I said I’d tell them more about it some other time. [The experience was too new and I was still trying to absorb it, myself.]

Anyway, how could I explain it?  How could I put it into words?  How could I present it so that it wouldn’t arouse concern that I’d gone into deep denial over my recent string of test results?  Would my exciting news evoke only pity?  That would be worse than simple disbelief in my story—the idea that I’d gone on a wishful thinking binge, a one-way flight into fantasy, a pathetic grasping at straws.

I faced the same dilemma with my wife and kids. What would they think if I told them the truth?  It would be the cruelest hoax and cause the worst kind of harm if my belief that I had been healed by Jesus Christ, should turn out to be wrong.  Would they dare to believe me?  How could I not share the most wonderful day of my life with those closest to me, with those I love the most, with those to whom my news would be of greatest comfort and relief?  So, I told them what I have written here.

My wife was silent at first, hesitant to hope.  Then she mentioned two people we know whose cancers had been confirmed by repeated tests and for whom prayers had been offered in the name of Jesus, with the result that the cancers appeared to have vanished, baffling the doctors.

Our eldest daughter seemed almost speechless. When she found her tongue, she said that this was wonderful news.  Our middle daughter said she’d been praying for this, then rose to hug me and burst into tears.  Our youngest daughter said she’d had a feeling from the beginning that everything would somehow turn out okay.  Then added that, even if I died, it would still be okay, because we know that God loves us and would take care of us.  I told her that I agreed with her.

It was in the early hours of the next day that I went to bed, thanking God once again and meditating on what had happened to me.  I opened my Bible and read a few pertinent passages; especially Mark 5:29: [After Jesus had healed her] “…she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague” and (verse 33) “But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her…”

Jesus touched me on my birthday in 2002.  My cancer died and the dread of it left me. I know that I am well, just as the nameless woman of Mark’s Gospel who was healed by Jesus knew that she was well.  Like her, I knew what had happened to me.

I have another CEA level [active cancer marker] test soon.  Since my last reading was more than twice as high as a “normal” result, my oncologist is “a little concerned” and has moved the test up by a month.  But I am expecting this and all of my future tests to be completely unremarkable.  [Update: THEY WERE.]

Jesus says to me, as He said to the woman in Mark’s Gospel, ‘Your faith [in Me] has healed you [the faith that He Himself gives us, not some super-strain of our own, not ‘the power of positive thinking,’ not ‘mind over matter’…] Go in peace, free of your suffering.’ (Mark 5:34)

Thanks be to God for His wonderful birthday gift, and for His far more precious gift of eternal life!  If you don’t know the Great Physician, the One who grants new life both now and forever, isn’t it time you met Him?  Jesus’ cure for sin, death, and hell is 100% effective.  His resurrection proves that.  Come to Him now.  Experience His love.  Enjoy a spiritual birthday, and start living!