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I've had such a growth spurt in the last 2 months. It's taken a while but I've had a complete revelation on healing, Lily, life, faith, belief, gospel - my world and thoughts have dramatically changed.
I know I haven't blogged in a while - I guess I just didn't know how to formulate into words what's racing round in my brain. But I'm going to give it a shot now.
Some of you might call me crazy - might even call the men in white coats - but hey - I'm living the dream.
I've been looking back over the last 2 years and trying to figure out this whole Lily and cystic fibrosis saga. I know now what my coping mechanism was. It was to ignore it. I didn't go crazy, I didn't get hysterical - I simply chose to ignore it. We prayed for healing - it didn't happen, and I know that I stopped asking. There was something in me that didn't want this affecting my view of who God was and is. He is our healer - but hadn't healed Lily. You can do a few things with that, throw the head up with God, crawl into a hole, be hysterical and overwhelmed - or just refuse to let anything bother you. If she's healed, great, if she's not great.
I stopped worrying about it - knowing that yes God was in control, but I didn't want the questions of 'why isn't this healing happening' getting in the way.
I've been so apathetic with this! My daughter with her life threatening condition - and I'd just accepted it. She looks good and to be honest we'd got so used to 'managing' it, that it was second nature.
Josies arrival has definitely made a difference. I've a completely healthy girl there - and if this did anything, it highlighted how much we actually have to do with Lily.
A few visits to CF websites had me totally scared that I would outlive my daughter and the harsh reality sunk in that this was serious. The drugs where masking it and doing a great job - but this needs to be dealt with. I don't want it anymore.
This has lead to me chasing after healing. I've been reading like there's no tomorrow and in many ways it's been sprinting after it.
The biggest revelation I guess I've had is that God did not make Lily sick. We're not a special couple who have been blessed with a sick child. God indirectly will teach us something because of this but did not cause it to teach us something - and the big part - God definitely wants Lily well.
I know this sounds really basic - but Jesus bore our sin and sickness on the cross. We have no doubt whatsoever in believing that our sins are gone, but our sickness??? Why do we find it so hard to believe.
The sin part is easy - or is it? We can't see if it's been dealt with. We have no way of proving it. But yet for many of us - we totally believe that Jesus has dealt with it. Our sickness on the other hand is a totally different story. This is the part that involves a physical sign.
Believe and you will receive..... what a simple phrase, but yet it's so flippin hard.
Lily's healing is totally dependent on us believing. God has already provided her healing. It's there - it's our for the taking. And the only thing that's stopping us from getting it is us. It's not God. He's is our healer!!! He just doesn't choose to heal some people depending on his mood. He's the same yesterday, today and forever. Jesus healed everyone - and in doing so demonstrated the will of God.
It is all about us believing.
That sits so much better with me than viewing God as someone who heals sometimes. I always knew that there had to be some formula for healing. I just didn't think it would be this simple - just believe!!
How profound - but yet crazy!
Healing is there - just grasp it!
What a journey - there is tons more to say, but my hand is sore typing lol plus it's dead late.
This is such a ramble, but there's way too much rattling round in here that I can't do it justice.
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Just a girl ......
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- JILL BOYD
- I'm a girl... Wife to Aaron, Mummy to Lily and Josie, daughter to Jim & Liz, daughter-in-law to Wes & Sadie, sister-in-law to Jason and friend to many (I hope). I'm a little bit of everything really
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25 comments:
I hear what you're saying Gill, but I don't know. I can recall twice where I believed that my faith/belief in receiving 'healing' could move mountains. Twice I've been crushed by the disappointment because that belief never manifested itself physically. So I don't know. It's a subject rattling around in my head just as much as it is in yours, hopefully we can find the answer together!
Also have justed posted my own blog in response to yours. that way you can see where I'm coming from. www.angiebeingangie.blogspot.com
Hi Jill,
Lilytodd here, sorry for anon status, I've forgotten my password. Great to see you back writing, I love your honesty and hunger for truth.
I hope you don't mind me saying though, I feel I must, that your conclusions have really worried me.
One instance, of many similar ones i could quote, is my friend's dad dying very young from brain cancer and Christians telling the family this sort of stuff. We all prayed, believed, hoped, trusted and healing didn't happen. Were we all just not good enough at it?
I think shifting the responsibility onto ourselves to 'believe' enough is one of the worst cruelties we can put on ourselves.
I've seen this theology leave people angry and bitter at the church and at God. Awful stuff happens to great people and with all the faith in the world, God heartbreakingly has his own agenda.
Also, although my sin has ultimately been defeated, I still battle with pride, gossiping, selfishness everyday. We still live in a fallen world and the end of sin and sickness is promised for the new heaven and earth.
I think you are so right to read everything printed on the matter, so right to believe God can heal Lily. Although I've never met her I pray for her healing.
I think that's all we can do.
Her healing cannot be your shoulders.
Lots of love
debbie x
Dear Jill,
Somehow I found your blog because I'm a fan of bluetree, you know how things go with the internet... one link takes you here, there, and everywhere in between. Your heart for God stood out to me the moment I started reading everything you have on here. And how adorable your girls are!
I just wanted you to know that I'll be joining with you in praying for Lily's healing. The way I look at it is this: Pray until you get it. And if I don't get the answer I was hoping for in this life, well, God is good just the same and I'll keep on loving him with my whole heart and pouring out my life for His cause. Psalm 62:8 - "Pour out your hearts to Him, for God is our refuge!" What else is a desperate mother to do but cry out to God for her daughter to be healed? This I do know... that God will make beauty out of your ashes, and that the prize of knowing Him more b/c of all this will be worth it. He's in the business of redeeming things. Good will come!
I am praying for all of you,
Jessica
USA
In response to Angie:
I totally get you.
My whole revelation has been about who God is and what He says is true.
While we may not see things mannifest - it's not because of God. God has already done, and provided everything we will ever need by Jesus death on the cross.
Scripture really does make it clear what this formula is - to pray without wavering, to believe and receive. I know that I have prayed at times - and deep in my heart it's been more like 'I hope this works' - I haven't been 100% confident.
It's not that we need more faith - we just need to get rid of unbelief. And when we're faced with a physical battle - that's when unbelief takes over. You see something physical that completely contradicts the spiritual.
But what are we to do?
We're to live by faith, not by sight.
I am choosing whole heartily to believe God's word - believe in Him as healer because that's who He says He is.
We are desperately trying to irradicate unbelief. It's hard when the physical signs are so evident, but the more I focus on the word and not my circumstance it all makes sense
Hope that makes sense.
I've way too much to say lol
I love you
In response to Debbie - aka Lily:
I’ve been rattling this stuff round in my head since the beginning of our journey.
Why aren’t people healed?
It seems that no-one has an issue with putting the blame on God - like it’s not his will or something. I know in my heart of hearts that that is not the answer to that question.
I’ve been asking loads of questions - wondering why people who seem to have great faith in healing die? I’m not direclty placing the blame on people - but I’m definitetly sure that it’s not God’s will for people to be sick. He’s provided an answer to sickness - and according to his word - it’s believe, pray without wavering all of that.
I feel a lot better with the idea that it’s my belief and faith in healing that’s makes the difference. I can renew my thinking - but if it’s God I can’t change him.
I’ve known people who have the church round to pray for healing while having their funeral planned. Is that right?
Do we really believe with all our hearts - that is the key!
Thanks Jessica for you comment - the more claiming this the better lol
I guess the whole thing with healing sometimes gets covered in pseudo spiritual talk that masks our lack of understanding and our laziness and I really feel that we need to get a more complete grasp of what Christ has actually achieved and what our responsibility is as believers.
Lets even just think about it logically. God in his very nature is "the God who heals you" (Rophe) If God arbitrarily decides not to heal some people then He is a lier and is in violation of his own nature. If that is true then we are all in trouble - If God violates His nature in respect of healing then in what other areas (Salvation?) does he do that an how could he ever be trusted? We are all in big trouble if this is the case. On the other hand if He never is in violation of his nature and He is TRUTH then we maybe need to look a little closer to home.
The heart of this for me is simple. Its way more easy to shift responsibility onto God for stuff that He has made clear we need to be active in. The bible is so clear on the area of healing and to ever suggest that a loving Father blesses his children with pain, sickness and death is absurd. What kind of God is that? Jesus has taken care of sickness and death - it is defeated - and not for when we get to heaven - for now, today. That is what the word for salvation means (SOZO) - it means among other things, healing!!!! and not just in your spirit - in your body too. Jesus has provided the healing and we need to access it. Now here is the rub. To be people who walk in this kind of authority and command healing requires a level of committment dedication to the Lord that few are prepared to pay. It is a whole life that is lived and not just a magic healing wand that you wave whenever we get sick. People like it easy though and will not count the cost. It takes more than that. (Why do we pray for cancer when we have never seen a cold cured and we pop pills at every opportunity? Its like trying to run a marathon without doing any training - that is a stupid thing to do..)
In the world that we live in experience is king - that is what is real. For a christian however that is not the way that we are called to live. The bottom line truth is the promises of God shown in the bible in the person of Jesus Christ - and He was, is and forever will be the God who heals us. So lets take that as the starting point and if our experience does not match up to that then look at ourselves and get in front of the Lord and press in to being the people that we are called to be so that our experience comes more into line with the revealed truth and not the other way round. My God is not a cruel psycho who decides to heal some people but let others die.... we need to grasp that and have utter confidence that Jesus is for us and not against us. He wants us well!!!!!!!
Jill and Aaron you are so on the right path - do not listen to the unbelief around you but keep pressing in and standing on Gods unswerving love and commitment to you and Lily. We are with you on this and our God id a good, loving dedicated father who is absolutely true to His word.
I love you both
Andrew
PART 2! I'm on a rant - sorry!!
Just had more thoughts - can someone please point for me to the place in the Bible where Jesus met someone and blessed them with sickness? I mean gave it to them so that they would have a deeper understanding of experience of a "loving God" who actually felt it was better for them to suffer???? Nope - I can't find it either.
I have a son who I love with such an intensity it sometimes freaks me out. I am so passionate about him. Lets say tomorrow I decided to have him ingest a poison that would do him serious harm. I could argue that I (in a mysterious way) know better than him and as he struggles with the effects of the poison I am actually doing him a favour by building character in him. If he were to ask me why I let him be poisoned I would simply reply that it was not for him to question me, but simply trust that I did love him and that it was all part of plan that he would never understand.
What would happen if I did this? I would be arrested, put in prison and rightly vilified as some kind of depraved monster - because that's what I would be. Now why do we do the same with Jesus and apply the same thinking to him???? I think that the heart of this goes way beyond healing and touches the more central issues of do we really, deep down have an unshakeable conviction that God is absolutley at his core deeply committed and absolutely loving in ALL things towards us. I think some of us if we are honest struggle to answer that deeper question. That for me is the key one.
If God is a schizophrenic that cannot decide whether he wants our best or not then I am out. BUT - I am deeply deeply convicted that my God is a good God, a loving God, a truthful God, a God more committed to me in more ways than I could ever dream or imagine. A God who despite my failings sets my feet on a sure place each day and goes before me in all of life's stuff. A God who wants me well. A God who wants my wife and son well. A God who wants my family and friends well.
Thats my God. What about yours?
Love y'all
Andrew
So God is a perfectly loving Father that wants us healed.
The problem with our healing is not him but ourselves.
There is some path or other of belief / faith / dispelling unbelief that we must find in order to receive healing.
If I as a father could give healing to my child but withheld it until certain conditions were in place isn't that a bit strange?
Sixmiles
Just a question that has been speeding round my head. In Acts 14:9 Paul healed a cripple, (seeing that he had faith to be healed), but in 2 Cor 12:9 he couldn't heal himself of the thorn in his side. Why?
Andrew, one of the things that we need to realize is that God doesn't 'bless' his children with suffering pain and sickness but he allows it. There is obviously a higher reason, how else do you explain what happened to Job. Often when God healed people in the NT, he was more concerned with there spiritual well being than their illness. I believe that for God, the soul, not the body, is what is important, as that is eternal.
ok the one example of Job in the old testament - which is old covenant.
Why does this outweigh what Jesus did in the new testament.
We are part of the new covenant - God's wrath was poured on Jesus - why - so we can have 'zoe' life (life as God knows it).
Jesus was here to reveal something of God. He acted out God's will. Jesus healed everyone - not one person did he deny healing from.
It is Gods will for all to be healed, just as it is God's will for everyone to be saved.
But it's about us accepting it.
US!
God has provided everything we need through Jesus death on the cross.
I can find infinitely more verses proving that God is for healing than any that say God allows it.
Give me a reference that tells me God allows sickness. I can't find anywhere and I have been looking.
I'm reading the word - and all I can find is words that are telling me that we are healed , we only believe.
with regards to Pauls thorn - it's got nothing to do with sickness and paul is referring to persecution due to his revelations.
What is salvation anyway?
Is it just the forgiveness of sins
Jill I sense a wee bit of hostility in your response!! You know I love you but I'm merely trying to verbalize everything that is in my head. I just feel there is more to us being healed than merely just believing!!
Hi Angie Andrew Here. I'm def not shouting so please read on!
I dont believe for one minute that God is at all confused on the healing issue. Whenever we say that God does not give us sickness, but he lets us be sick for some mystical "higher reason" (ps where is that in the bible? where did Jesus even once say to someone "i see that you are sick, I could heal you but it is better for you to suffer because there is a reason for it which is not immediately obvious and will remain a mystery..." that is not anywhere to be found...!
It is clear that God is anti sickness. If even we concede that God allows us to be sick to teach us lessons (which is what is inferred here) then we need to ban the medical profession as we are totally steping outside of Gods will for us for wanting to get better.
God is for us - Eternal life (according to John 17) starts NOW TODAY... that is what the atonement was for EVERY aspect of mankind - Body Soul and Spirit.
Let me correct something you said that is incredibly fundamental to our faith. I think that you have slipped a little into greek thought that Paul spent many letters in the NT trying to correct - that is that somehow the body is less important that your spirit (the bit that lives forever) - he actually describes our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit - he said that we were to honour God with our bodies and that they were part of his redemption plan (that will culminate in heaven when we get new ones) Your body today is important - it is Gods temple! The greeks romans started to think that spirit was more important and it manifested itself in terms of sexual immorality - Paul made it clear though that God says our bodies are important - as is the health of them. If that were not the case Jesus would simply have forgiven peoples sins (spirit was then healed!) and would not have healed sickness (what would have been the point??)
The truth is it is simply, even on a logical basis, impossible to have a foot in both camps when it comes to healing. Either you believe that God wants you well and is 100% committed to your health (Jesus would appear to fall into that camp) or actually sickness is sent by God, allowed by God or whatever. A mixture of the two positions does not bear scrutiny from scripture.
The issue for me remains this - our responsibility scares the life out of us and so it remains easier to shift the blame back to God. We so need to get past that.
Bless y'all!!
Andrew
I'm not saying that these are my views but merely stating that these are the questions that come into my head and so I'm verbalizing them in order to try to find an answer. I really do pray that Lily will be healed and and the glory will go to God. all I can say at this point is using the words of Thomas, 'Lord I believe, help my unbelief'. But read my blog and maybe you can see where I'm coming from.
God bless You.
Angie
just to correct myself, it wasn't Thomas but the father of a boy who was sick ref mark 9:24!!!
It sounds complicated and hard to fathom, but it may be simpler than you think – though a lot less comforting (perhaps).
If there’s a god, there is absolutely no evidence that he has ever intervened to prevent a bad thing happening. It doesn’t mater how many times a catholic says the rosary or how many times a Muslim kneels to Mecca or how much you really really believe that Jesus loves you … it just doesn’t work other than by following the law of averages.
The evidence all points to a delusion of wishful thinking – I think you’d probably agree with me re: other faiths but not your own – that’s something to ponder on.
Be wary of any cult or religion which invites you to ‘lean not on your own understanding’ or ‘do not put the leader to the test’. Sick people are more likely to get better in 2008 than 1008 not because people are better at praying but because humanity has advanced its medical knowledge though rational investigation and thought – nothing in the New Testament helped in anyway with this.
Uncomfortable and unacceptable, I know.
Hey Hey.
Jill i am not going to get involved in the theological ramblings on this subject.
All i know is that lily is being healed. I think to me that says a lot.
The Kernoghans love the Boyds!
HI JILL,
I JUST READ RECENTLY THAT A MISSIONARY IN AFRICA HAD NO PROBLEM PRAYING FOR HEALING ,RESSURECTIONS AND MIRACLES ETC DUE TO THE FACT PREVIOUSLY THESE GUYS WORSHIPPED SATAN,OCCULT WITCHDOCTORS, VUDU
(THATS NOT SPELT CORRECTLY)ETC AND WHEN THERE WAS A HIGHER POWER MANIFEST THEY HAD NO PROBLEM BELIEVING.
IN THE WEST WE ARE BOUND BY THE SPIRIT OF DOUBT AND UNBELIEF AND A RELIGIOUS SPIRIT WHICH KEEPS US CHAINED AND INEFFECTIVE.
STAND ON THE WORD OF God pray without ceasing,Jobs comforters were all around him too. in your heart tell God though he slay you still you will serve him, but believe that by his stripes we are healed.
Hi Jill,
John Ashe here, Just found your blog never been here before so was interested in somethings you said.
I found some of your thinking on subject of healing hard to get my head around. I am not saying i am right on this and am open to be changed but if your saying it is our condition! that brings healing I would strongly disagree. The 1st point I would make is from Paul in 1 Cors in talking about the gifts of the Spirit, we are good at the first 3 gifts and the last 3 but we leave out, or very rearly talk about Miracles, healing and faith in church, if we have already been healed then there would be no need for the gift of healing to be employed, it would only require believe or faith. If you are saying what i think your saying that its US that implements or our willingness or hunger that brings our healing, its our condition or our will that brings it in. I would have to strongly disagree with this theology. Jesus is the only healer,and it is so not our condition that makes it happen. Whos condition raised Lazarus from the grave? The only thing i see in scripture is that we have to believe that Jesus can do it. By the cross it was made POSSABLE, not PROBABLE or DEFINATE. We could use this for all sorts of arguments salvation, hell or heaven. This is if we are are all healed and is our faith that perfects it i am struggling with this. If God so chooses it is up to him, I do believe there is perhaps a way of tapping into healing through the Holy Spirit but WE have nothing to do with it. God does not suggest anything other than to believe. I know there is some teaching out there that would differ from my thinking on this. I suggest you read some other views on healing from the likes of Peter Horrbin or John Wimber or even dare i say it Todd Bentley. I just back from Lakeland and i have also had new revelation on healing and am now seeing the fruits of what I pray for I have now seen 3 full instant healings and Paul Reid made ref to 1 on sunday. I love debate and its good. Id love to chat more
love u 4 J
Not sure where you picked up that's it's to do with our condtion.
I'm simply meaning that from reading the scripture - it all has to do with us believing.
That is the key. Of course Jesus is the healer, but belief is what appropriates that.
Jesus couldn't heal in a certain town - why? because the people didn't believe.
I'm not saying we heal ourselves, but every healing involves an active or passive act of faith - which is our part to play - Jesus already played his card so to speak, our move is to receive it.
I have to disagree with the cross making it possible. It was totally definite and a done deal. It's possible for people to reject it - YES, but it's definite that the cross dealt with sin and sickness.
Is it "by his stripes we are healed" or possibly healed?
Love you too lol
I think i have used words that don't really explain what i am trying to say very well. If all sin and sickness was finished on the cross why are we all still sinning and sick, Romans clearly says in 7-11 about the sinful nature and the stuff we have that is seperate from God its a fallen world. The kingdom of God is here but is not yet fully come. I think we might be saying the same things in a different way. It was a done deal at the cross. But if we are not seeing the mannafestations of this then what, who or why is it not happening. I pray often with loads of faith totally believeing for healing but it does not happen. Should i blame myself for not believing or not having enough faith. I agree the village of unbelief prevented Jesus from the mariculous. But was this because He is not a dictator and bulldosses his way in wether we want it or not or was it that God choose not to do it there because he was sad that they did not want it and because of free will could not, not because he could not do it, he could if he wanted to but because of the unbelief choose not to. I think we have free will to choose his gift of life, healing and salvation which was all done at the cross. It would be the process of how we get there that the issue is. Our job is to responed in faith. If i do this and it still does not happen then what? It is in this that i think the issues are. I still think the need for the super natural gifts in 1 Cors are the key here. I have faith but there is an impartation of the gift of faith that i have never experienced before that has rised up in me. I want amazing healings more than ever and long for it more and more.
I am really not having a go but when you said in your blog "And the only thing that's stopping us from getting it is us. It's not God" Perhaps God has stopped us getting it because we don't want it bad enough. Its the guilt that this may bring in peoples lives if they feel like a complete drop outs because their faith is not good enough.
I just think God is God and nothing we do is conditional for God to do it if he so chooses.
I hope i have sort of explained what i am tring to say? but i doubt it lol.
J
OK - get some of you. You're right - Romans talks about our sinful nature. It also says that through the cross we are slaves unto righteousness - not sin. We have a new righteous nature.
Our spirit is complete.
The reason we still struggle with issues of sin - isn't because of a sinful nature - it's due to habit.
Which is why in Romans 12 - Paul urges us to renew our minds. Our minds is where half of the battle is.
So I would argue - that it has been dealt with.
When I said the only thing stopping us from getting it is us - I meant that God has already done it.
Faith is required on our part - to receive something that God has already provided.
We have an authority in christ to grasp these things thought.
As for the gift of healing - of course we need that too.
There are people who have been given that gift and have the ability to demonstrate in a miraculous way the power and love of God.
A demonstration like that is shunning unbelief in people and making them realise that God is a supernatural God.
But the person who operates in that doesn't recrucify Jesus or anything like that?
The cross dealt with it 2000 years ago.
Ok - hand sore - we need to do coffee lol
I love this
Hi there Jill, its Dave Caldwell or DC, you spoke at our youth club camp a few years ago.
I just want to encourage you that I am praying for you and your family.
God bless!
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