Healed Enough to Move Pianos

Healed Enough to Move Pianos

by Genevieve Parkhurst

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

If we believe in a thing which Margaret has just said, that babies are influenced by the thoughts which the mothers think, how can we doubt that all of us are influenced by what we think regarding God? As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. It’s a very ancient truth. And we are learning and our doctors are telling us that the things we think do have a great deal to do with our state of well-being.

Medical statistics have told us that eighty-some percent of our illness is from causes other than physical causes. Eighty-some percent of our illnesses are due to our mental and emotional distresses. And when that is true, there certainly is a place in life in the scheme of healing for the infinite God. Because there is nothing in the world that gives poise and calmness, assurance and peace, as much as to rest in the Lord and to feel His presence round about us. Knowing that that is true, how can anyone dispute the fact of God’s power to give us health?

And when the great Adler, the great psychiatrist, has made the statement that of all of the people past thirty-five years of age who have come to him, a psychiatrist, with their life troubles, that all of these people’s troubles are basically spiritual.

When a great psychiatrist like Adler would make a statement like that, how can thinking people say there is nothing to spiritual healing? As long as we have minds and think, our thinking will affect our bodies because our thinking affects our nervous system. And our nervous systems affect our health.

So, of course, as we rise higher and higher in this scale of thinking, we come eventually to God. And we may think of that little triangle regarding fear and the dissolving of fear, because probably fear brings more illness than any other one thing. And in the scriptures we read, “Fear hath torment,” and everybody who has been tormented by fear will readily agree. Fear hath torment. What shall we do about it? Perfect love casteth out fear. Where shall we find perfect love? God is love. And you go around that triangle, and you find the method of dissolving fear, and it’s focused around the eternal.

And it’s focused around love. Perfect love casteth out fear, and God is love. So long as that is true, we must all admit that there is great power in spiritual healing. And as a man thinketh, so is he. And as one comes into the presence of the infinite God in great faith and great trust and utter relinquishment, and rests in the Lord and waits patiently for Him, it is to be expected that a man’s nerves will grow better. And as the nerves grow better, the body grows stronger.

It’s too bad that the church is so far behind in this thing, because really medical science is getting ahead of us. I had a group of college students whom I was teaching, and our church was just bursting out at the seams. And these young people came over to the parsonage and met in my living room every Sunday morning for our class. We had some very free discussion there, and I enjoyed it very much. And one morning I said, “If the church doesn’t watch out, science is going to run ahead of us in discovering some of these great truths of life, even within the realm of the mind of man.” And one very bright young fellow said, “Oh, I hope it doesn’t.” And I agreed with him. I do hope nothing runs ahead of the church. But when the church stops like a balky mule and will not go forward in these great avenues of thinking, nobody stops the progress of the Almighty God. And if one institution stops, something else goes on. It’s like a great river that changes its course and breaks its banks and makes a new channel.

The thinkers along the realm of the mind are opening up avenues. And it is good for the church to be alive and awake and alert and abreast of the thinking of the world. When the avenues of the mind and the power of mind are opened up before us, we realize that, well, don’t say that anything cannot happen. The possibilities are so great. The walls are pushed back in such a tremendous degree that we are beginning to realize the truth of the great Steinmetz, the electrical wizard, the man who made such a great contribution to the world. And before he died, he said that the great exploration of the next era would be in the minds of men. And it is so. Thomas A. Edison said the same thing. He said, “I have lived through the 50 years of the greatest mechanical inventions the world has ever seen. I wish I might live through the next 50, for that will be the development of the mind of man.” And truly we are in the age of the mind. The development of the mind, the resources of the mind, the exploration of the mind, and the powers of the mind. And as we make some of these explorations, we learn a great deal. But if we go only so far as the human mind, we have only started.

For it is as the mind of man makes contact with the mind of the infinite, that the great things truly are opened. For it was the eternal mind of God which spoke creation into space. By His word, the scripture says, the heavens were formed. By His word. By His word.

The word, the mandate of His mind and His will. God said, “Let there be light.” And it was light. The mandate of the will, the mind of God, is the force back of creation. And we are His creation. And it is the force back of us. The mind of God. The creative power back of all of this universe.

And when we can open the avenues and the channels of our mind and our thinking through faith and touch the infinite, we have touched the greatest power in heaven or on earth. It is the power that Jesus opened to the world. Demonstrated again and again. I was surprised when I learned that one verse in every seven in the Gospels pertains to a physical healing. Did you know that? One verse in seven in the Gospels pertains to a physical healing.

If Jesus gave that much time to it must have been important to Him. And when He gave His commission to the disciples, He said to go and to disciple the earth, yes, to make disciples of the world, to heal the sick, to cast out devils.

Freely you have received, freely give. That was the commission. We have not been true to all of that commission. For 300 years after Jesus left the earth, this commission was carried out by His disciples. 300 years is a long time. How old is this country of ours? We think we’re quite important, don’t we? How long have we been in existence? For 300 or 400 years, there was great healing in the Christian church.

And then, eventually, when the church went on crusades and turned to the power of the sword and the might of men and the wisdom of men, and then the power began to leak out of the early church. And it lost its power. Because it had put its trust in arms, in crusade, in forces.

And it had shifted the emphasis from the power of God to the might of man. And healing dwindled and died. We draw back from spiritual healing because we are afraid. We are afraid that if we should undertake it, we might fail and then we would be criticized. We are afraid that we will be called crackpots. And perhaps people will raise the eyebrow and look at us askance.

But perhaps it’s a good thing that we have to hurdle all of those barriers because if you are not able and are not worthy to make the hurdles, well, you aren’t worthy to try it anyway, are we? But I do believe that fear is the thing that keeps us from venturing out into the realm of spiritual healing. We are afraid we will be criticized. We are afraid it will not succeed. We are afraid that we will not stand well with the powers that be. So on and so on and so on and so on and so we are cringing. And we drop back.

But the power of God is eternal and the same. God has not changed. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And the commission of Jesus Christ stands today as it did when He left the world. And still there are all those wonderful stories of what He did when He was here. It must have had some importance.

This is the city of the Mother Church of Christian Science. Christian Science has had a great influence in the world. I can’t agree with it fully because I believe in my body. I think I have one. And I think the body is important.

I do believe in the power of the mind. Indeed I do. I believe in the power of the spirit even to transcend mortal flesh. But I do believe, too, that Jesus had a great love for human bodies and human peoples.

It was a tremendous thing that Jesus allied Himself with mortal flesh. Mortal flesh, human bodies. In my prayer time after my healing, when I was spending three hours a day in seeking the will of God to know how to pray, I would take great themes of the church and read everything I could find on those themes and then pray, God, that He would give me some light on these great themes. And while I was praying over the great theme of the Eucharist or the Holy Communion, the Last Supper, when Jesus took the cup and He took the bread, gave them to His disciples, I read all the rituals I could find and I studied them and I read everything in the scriptures. And then I relaxed and said, “Lord Jesus, what have You to teach me regarding this great commission, this great communion, this great sharing?” And then it began to unfold to me what it meant for Jesus Christ, for Christ, the Christ of God, to come into the world and take on Himself a human mortal body.

He became like us in the body. That is His alliance with us. He came down to our plane and took on Himself a mortal body. And I remembered the story of Jean Valjean in Victor Hugo’s immortal Les Misérables, how Jean Valjean, a young man, stole a loaf of bread to feed his sister’s starving children, and he was apprehended and sent to the galleys for the terrible crime of stealing a loaf of bread. And as they dragged him away, he cried, “Oh God, You who are pure spirit, how can You know what it is to be hungry?”

That’s a question, isn’t it? How can God know what it is to be hungry, a mortal human physical hunger? But when Jesus fasted 40 days and nights in the wilderness, God knew what it was to be hungry. Jesus became like us. Christ of God became like us when He became the man Jesus in a mortal body.

And then it came to me how God loves all mortal flesh. The flotsam, the jetsam, the broken, the diseased, every bit of mortal flesh upon the earth, God loves it. Because Jesus allied Himself with every scrap of mortal flesh when Christ came into the man Jesus.

And I had visions of the men in the Bowery. I had visions of the broken life thrown upon the shores of time and the yearning heart of God for every bit of mortal flesh, for every body. And that’s the meaning of the bread. Jesus became like us in the body. And as He shared the bread, saying, “This is My body,” it was a sharing of the mortal woes of mankind.

And it was saying, in a sense, “Since I have taken a mortal body and become like you, I am leaving now, and I give this commission to you. Carry on My work among mortal peoples, as I cannot do since I am leaving the body. Can you carry on in the body as Christ did?” The next time you put the bread to your lips, ask yourself if you are worthy of the commission. The body.

And that’s one reason that physical healing was so close to Jesus. Living in a mortal body, He knew our needs. He knew our griefs. He knew our great yearning for wholeness. And it seems to me that Jesus yearned and longed for people to be well. And He poured Himself out to them.

And with His great yearning for all mortal flesh, it seems to me that the great yearning heart of God is wooing us, and He loves us in our bodies. And He wants our bodies to be well. True, it is greater to heal the spirit than to heal the body, because the spirit is eternal. And the body is merely our earth house. We’re just living in it while we’re here. We’re going to move out soon, and it doesn’t matter so much about this body. We shall not keep it long. Wasn’t it Oliver Wendell Holmes, who was asked when he was, oh, about 80, asked one day how he was? And he said, “I’m fine. This old house I live in is about to go to pieces, and the roof is bare, the shingles are off, and so on, but I am fine.” That’s it. It’s nice to say when you’re 80, but until you’re 80, let’s try to keep just as well as we can.

I believe it’s Christian to stay as well as we can. I really do. And I believe that since Jesus was so interested in the bodies of people, since He took on Himself a mortal body and shared with us, that He is very interested in our mortal needs.

The healing of the body is by the very same power through which our souls and our spirits are healed. In the 103rd Psalm, we read, “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not His benefits. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases.” The double cure for the double need. Who forgiveth all thine iniquities by the great grace of the eternal God, who healeth all thy diseases by the very same power and grace. It is the same God, it is the same grace.

It’s just a different need of the same person. We all need our souls healed. And if we stay in this world very long, we’re going to come to times when we need some mending of our bodies too, because it takes it out of us just to live and to meet the things of life. So I believe very, very definitely and strongly, and I believe the Scripture teaches, that it is not only our Father’s good pleasure to give us the kingdom in the spirit realm, but it is our Father’s good pleasure to give us all good things, as He would give us bread and fish. Those are material things for the material body.

And it is His good will and His good pleasure to give to us physically, that we shall be restored to health and to wholeness. I do not know how this can be, that the Spirit of Christ can come into me and create my life anew.

But this I know it is for me, and this marvelous grace is for you. It is ours. It is the gift of God. It is the gift of grace. I can’t explain it. When Nicodemus came to Jesus and asked about how he could enter into the kingdom, and Jesus said, “The wind bloweth where it listeth, Nicodemus, and you hear the sound of it, but you can’t tell where it comes from and where it’s going. So is everyone that is born of the Spirit.” And if Jesus would tell Nicodemus that this is as impossible to grasp as the wind is, can you catch the wind in your hands? Oh, no. You can’t even see the wind. You see the result of the wind. You feel it pressing against your body if it is strong enough, but you don’t know what the wind is. You can’t tell whence it cometh nor whether it goeth. So is everyone that is born of the Spirit, and so is the Spirit of the eternal God. I can’t catch it in my hands. I can’t tell where it comes from, but this I do know it comes. And that’s all I need to know, isn’t it?

It isn’t that we shall know where the winds of God blow from so much as it is that we shall hoist our sails and set our courses because the wind bloweth. The wind bloweth. That’s a present tense. The wind of God is blowing right now. And only those who hoist their sails catch the winds and are carried to great and high destinations by the winds of God. He who draws in his sails and says, “I don’t understand this. I don’t believe this.” He’s drawing himself from the sails that would blow him into great harbors.

The wind bloweth. The wind bloweth, Nicodemus. Hoist your sails. And that’s the way I feel about this great power of physical healing. It is just a part of the great healing of God because God’s healing is for all of life. It is for the spirit. It is for the mind. It is for the emotions. It is for the body.

And the spirit is the greatest need and to heal the spirit of man is greater than to heal his body. We all know that. Once Jesus had been healing a great deal and finally He said to His disciples, “Come, let us go to the next town that I may preach there, for this cause I came into the world that I might preach, see, that I might spread the good news.” That was more important than healing people’s bodies, that He might preach the gospel of the good news. That is most important. I want to put physical healing in its place. And I never want to get out on a limb. I want my first emphasis to be where the first emphasis should be. The healing of the spirit.

I want to do it. But I don’t want to stop there. I want to go all the way that Jesus commanded us to go. And that is to launch out in faith in the power of God and to do everything I can do and to leave the results to God. I’m sorry there were no more questions. There were only four. Either you know it all, which I suppose is the case, because you would have asked them. And most of them were personal questions, which I would not answer in a talk before the public. Some of them I may touch on as I go along. If I do, you won’t know what they are.

But surely there must be a questioning in the minds of people. There must be a hungering. There must be a reaching out after this great thing. Surely. Surely there is. Because there is so much need in the world.

And when you read that promise that God shall supply all your needs, according to His riches in glory. Have you not thought that that might apply to your physical needs as well as the needs of your soul? My God shall supply all your needs. All your needs.

How? According to His riches in glory. That’s the limit of His grace, and we needn’t stop until we have exhausted it. According to His riches in glory. I do not know how the power comes any more than Nicodemus knew when Jesus got through speaking to him. I know it comes.

Sometimes it is more evident than others, but I do not ask to know. I do not know when I put my hands on a person how much power will flow or what the result will be, but I’ve come to the place where I trust God for it, and I leave it with Him. And if the person isn’t healed, that’s not my business. My business is to do the will of Him who sent me. God did not send His disciples out to succeed, but to do the will of the Father.

And my commission is not to succeed. And I don’t always succeed. And people have asked me, “Why is it that everybody isn’t healed that you pray for?” Does everybody get well that the doctor ministers to you? Do you go and bombard the medical profession and say, “Why doesn’t everybody get well that you minister to? Something wrong with you doctors? People die. You have them in your charge, and yet they die. Why don’t they get well?” Well, I won’t have a doctor then. People die who have doctors. I’m never going to bed because 90% of the people who die in bed. So I’m just going to bed.

Just about as logical as that, isn’t it? No. Not everybody who’s prayed for gets well. Suppose they were. Suppose that everybody who’s prayed for would get well. Why, this world would be so overburdened with the very, very old and the infirm that we couldn’t get around.

There, the Scripture says there’s a time to live and there’s time to die, and there is. There’s just a time for going on. And the time for going on isn’t, oh, it is near as great a tragedy as we think it is. The time for going on, it’s a beautiful thing. There is something in the Old Testament that tells of how people should go on like ripe corn which comes to its fullness of fruitation. Isn’t that beautiful? Life should be like that. Like corn that matures in the stalk. And when we have matured and have lived out our days and have lived in richness, we have come to the time not just to hang on tenaciously, but to go on and release and turn loose and let go. If we could get over the idea of death being such a terrible thing, our health would just spring up because a great percent of our sickness is a subconscious fear of death. It is, really. We have a subconscious fear of death and that subconscious thing keeps gnawing like a rat. Down in the corners of our subconscious mind, there is a dark and hideous monster and it’s death and we’re terribly afraid of it. If we are truly Christians, now truly Christians, we shall rise above that sort of thing because death has lost its sting in Christ.

And Christians should have no fear of death whatsoever. And if we get over that, then we get over the nagging thing that makes us half sick. That subtle thing that pulls us down. It seems to me that radiant life flows in after we have come to the place where we don’t care debonair. Oh, yeah, that was a good word. I’m glad that Norman used it this morning. The debonair. Blessed are the debonair. I like it.

Just so utterly carefree that it doesn’t matter what happens. A kind of a radiant abandon to what takes place. And when we are released of all fear of death, we become that sort of thing. It’s a sort of a debonair atmosphere that… attitude that we have. “Why, death can’t get me down. And if death can’t get me down, what else can?”

Well, we’re just above everything, aren’t we? And when we come to that place, then we’re ready to live. And I don’t know any way to pray for healing of people except to pray that if the Lord wants to take them, why, all right. And that’s about the first step. “Now, Lord, if You want to take these people and if it’s time for them to go on, okay, I don’t want to interfere in any way. But if You can make them well and make them radiant and give them that spiritual daring, then, Lord, just put on Your power and let’s have it.” Lots of times it comes. That’s the only way I know to pray for people because that’s the way my healing came. I was willing to die. I had released myself. I was perfectly resigned to die.

Oh, that’s wonderful when you pass through it. Then nothing can touch you. Perhaps that’s what it is to be debonair in regard to this thing. The fear of death and the sting of death is absolutely removed. But if God wants us to go on into heaven, it’s going to be a whole lot nicer than it is here.

And why should we shrink from it and why should we have such terrible fear of it? For eye hath not seen and ear hath not heard all the wonders that God has prepared for them that love Him. And it’s just waiting for us there. This is a school room. Here we are preparing to live.

I was talking to a friend the other day who is a psychologist. And we were talking about this and that and the other things and the subconscious and childhood traumas and so on. And I said, “Well, if I have any of the sorts, I want to get them out of my system before I go on.”

I want to be free of all that sort of thing before I go on because I want to be perfectly free and untrammeled when I get there. Well, we need to get free of those things when we are here. And it is good to get free of all of the things which do pull us down. It is good to get our subconscious minds cleared out, to be free of all of the childhood traumas, of all of the things which have disturbed. That’s a good thing. Very fine. I recommend it highly.

But it seems to me that when we just simply take ourselves apart, we are like a clock that a child takes apart, and we just scatter the screws all around. And sometimes people never get themselves put back together again.

That’s the tragedy of it. We need to be put back together after we get through taking ourselves apart. Even after a psychiatrist gets through taking us apart, if a psychiatrist can link a man up with the infinite God who is able to put him back together again, and to cement the cracked places, that’s wonderful.

But I’m just sorry for psychiatrists who don’t have God, because they really can’t finish the job. And I’m sorry for people who get themselves taken apart and don’t have this cementing love of the infinite source of life itself to flow in and cement all the cracks and put them back together again. And I’m sorry for that. Our God can do it. And can supply all your needs according to His riches in glory.

I don’t do great healing like some. I like to have my own people, a clientele, something like a doctor perhaps. And my people come to me, and when I take one of my people on, I stay with that person. I stay with that person, and I keep on praying for them until I know they’re safe. I have seen people who were healed momentarily in a great campaign of healing, but they seem to be lifted up by the emotion of the hour or by the power of the one who was doing the healing. And when they got home, the effects of the healing vanished. I’m saying that very honestly because I would not undertake any healing which I was not willing to follow and to help and to love and to help to carry through to a completion of perfect wholeness. And I believe I’ve had better than an average God has had.

Better than an average of wonderful healings. Because I know He does it. I cannot tell when the power is going to flow in great power, but sometimes I put my hands on a person and the power comes on me with such tremendous force that I am just shaken clear through.

Sometimes the power flows without any great evidence and the person receives something tremendous. Sometimes I don’t know that anything happens at all and then the person goes his way and later tells me that he was tremendously healed at that hour. I was in Shreveport.

I guess it won’t… it’s alright to tell this now. I’m very cautious about telling of healing stories. Very, very cautious. I’m almost leery of it. For this reason. If you tell of a healing before the healing is completed, you are apt to upset it.

If you are praying for healing of anybody and the healing is in process, do not tell it while it’s going on. Jesus said, “Go in the closet and shut your door.” And that is especially true of healing prayers. And this is the reason when people find you are praying for a certain person, then there is a great mountain of doubt that rises. And a lot of people say it can’t be done. And before you can do anything for this person for whom you are praying, you have to surmount all this great mountain of doubt and thought is force. And if you have to work against a great disbelief, oh, you’re at a terrible disadvantage. Do you know that Jesus could do no mighty works in His hometown because of the disbelief of the people?

Well, if it affected Him like that, what can you expect of you and me? What can we do when disbelief is rampant? So, when I pray for the healing of a person, I’d rather nobody knew it but the person and God and myself. We got along wonderfully when it’s like that. Wonderfully.

I was in… George and I were in Alaska a year ago this last summer. And the husband of the secretary of our church was taken to Oklahoma City and had an examination. And she called me, Alaska, to pray. Thursday morning there was to be an operation. Well, I went to prayer. These folks are very dear to my heart, very close friends, personal, beloved friends.

I went to prayer immediately. I was in prayer during the night. I was in prayer during the operation. I just lived in prayer. I just breathed it. I didn’t try to do anything but just take the time off and pray this thing through. A biopsy was taken and the lump was malignant, according to the biopsy. They gave the man one x-ray treatment, took him in the next morning, took the lump out, put it under the treatment again, and there were no cancer cells in it. And before them lay those two, these two findings. The one taken when he first came in definitely was malignant. The one taken the next morning when the lump was removed was absolutely clean. What happened?

Well, when I got home from Alaska and went to meet this man, he looked up at me and he said, “We know what the power is, don’t we?” Mm-hmm. We do. We know. The power of God which made our bodies is able to change even the chemistry of our bodies when we have enough faith. But nobody knew that I was praying up there in Alaska.

Nobody at home even knew what the verdict was down at the hospital in Oklahoma City. And that’s a wonderful way that you have power there. You have a sealed power there. And the doubts of all the town don’t thwart it, you see. And that’s tremendous. But I started to tell you about Shreveport.

I went to a camp in Oklahoma. George and I just went for one day. But these people whom I had never seen had come to the camp, but they were with some friends from Dallas who knew us. And that day I took the prayer group and this strange man was in the prayer group. But he was… he’d been brought there by these friends from Dallas. And after the prayer group he said, “Won’t you pray for me?” So we just waited in the prayer room till the others had gone out and I prayed for him and blessed him and George and I went home. I didn’t know what had happened until a year later. I just gave it to God and released it. And when I was there this December, he told me his tremendous story. He had been in the war. He had been terribly injured. He’d had two back injuries, but he had one which he thought was the cause of his trouble. He and two other men were lifting a bomb into a bomb bay and they had it right up over their heads holding it and somehow it slipped and the other two men lost their grip on it and the full weight of the bomb rested on his arms which were uplifted and just crushed the hunk of his spine down there.

Those vertebrae mashed them together. Well, the injury was so terrible that he lost the use of his legs. And he kept going until his legs absolutely became useless because he didn’t want to be chicken and cry out. But when he got so he couldn’t use his legs, he was shipped back to Seattle, Washington and there he was operated on his spine. The spine was restored to such an extent that he could use his legs, but the pain was excruciating all the time. And if he would move himself the slightest degree, these vertebrae would slip out. Or if he would forget and stoop over to pick up a piece of paper or something. Or if he would reach too far on his desk to get his pen or anything, to give his back a twist, then those vertebrae would slip out. And the top half of his body would be twisted and the lower half would be another way. And the pain was so terrible that all he could do would be to go to the Veterans Hospital and be put in traction. And it took two and three weeks each time he was put in traction. Now this man is a principal of grade schools and has, I think, 24 grades under him. A very intelligent man, a very fine Christian man, delightful person, very handsome young man.

And while I was there, we sat together and talked this over and put it on a tape as he told me this story. And he said he had just come out of traction three weeks in the hospital when they went over to this camp. And we had this prayer together and when he walked out, I left the room, he walked over toward his wife and she said, “Oh, you’re straight.” He said, “Well, so I am.” And he realized the pain was all gone. And he went over to his room and began to experiment and to stretch and to twist and nothing gave. And then he lay down on the floor and kicked his feet up like this. Good test for your spine. And there was no hurt, there was no pain, nothing gave, nothing cracked.

And he discovered he was perfectly well. And from that hour to this, he has not had one pain in his back. And he said, “I just look around for pianos to move.” How does it happen? I don’t know. It is the power of life which made the man in the first place. He said that when I put my hands, he put my hand on his neck and let it slip down until it came just to that place. I didn’t know where it was, but the Spirit stops my hand when it gets to the right point. And then the hand held there. And he said it was as if bubbles. Just a bubbling sensation in that area of his back where the great healing took place. And then he was flooded with a great peace. He said a liquid peace. I don’t know what liquid peace would be, but it must be something tremendous. But I’m just like the man who said, “Whereas I was blind, now I see.” Whereas I know that this man had a very, very bad back injury and probably never would have been well. I know he’s perfectly well now, by the grace of God. How does it happen? Nicodemus, where does the wind come from?

It bloweth where it listeth. I can’t tell, well, but there is a power. A power that blows from the eternal. And it is life-giving. And when we touch it, we are made whole and we are renewed again. And I know that this power works. There are some cases which are easier to handle than others. There are some cases that I just get a shiver of delight when people come to me with those things to pray for, because as far as I know, God has healed all of them who have come to me.

There are some kinds of people I love to pray for. I love to pray for babies, and especially for unborn babies. For expectant mothers, there’s nothing gives me a greater thrill than to pray for expectant mothers and the new life which is coming into the world. Because I think the lives of unborn children can be blessed by the Spirit of God until a great radiance surrounds them as they come into the world and as they live in the world. I have a definite feeling. And the Spirit witnesses to that. Pray for unborn babies. Surround expectant mothers with the love of Christ. Oh, it’s a wonderful thing to do. It’s a wonderful thing.

But they won’t all be healed. No. Sometimes I sense in a person a sort of a density, shall I say, and the Spirit cannot flow through. Something stops it. I pray just as earnestly, I try just as hard, but it’s as if there’s a wall raised and the Spirit doesn’t get through. I don’t know why. Because I don’t know that person well enough. I don’t know whether it’s something in the person or whether it is time for the person to go on. And we just shouldn’t block the great plan. There is a time. And if you have read the last pages of this book, they’re given over to those whose time has come and the joy there is in releasing them. And to you ministers, let me say, I think we do miss something and a great opportunity in visiting the sick people in not preparing them to die. I think it is unfair and deceptive when you know the verdict is said to go and kid them and try to say something smart and cute or something light and frivolous and go out and they know and their hearts are heavy and they expect something else from their minister. They expect the paving of the way into the eternity.

And I have found the greatest joy in doing this very thing. If one dearly loved to me was going on a long journey, it would be my pleasure to help to prepare her for that journey and to tell her of the country she would see and to help her pack her bag and to give her all of the joyous anticipation. Why should I not do the same if she is going on to the last long journey into the realm celestial? Why should ministers cower from it? Why should we not sit down and talk to people about heaven and the radiance and the joy there and give them the thing that they are yearning for and not walk out of the hospital room and leave them with their hearts sinking? I think ministers miss a great opportunity there. It is a wonderful privilege.

Death is part of life. And life in this world and life in the eternity is all of one great peace. One flowing stream. And when we are completely released to Him, it doesn’t matter just when we pass over. There are not many instantaneous healings. There are a few. But most of the healings are like that which is told in the Scripture, from that same hour he began to mend. Usually a person begins to mend at the time they are prayed for. And it is more like this than anything else. It is as if a tight band were shut around your arm and the blood was shut off from going to your hand. And your hand should wither. And then someone with great wisdom and the ability to do so would cut that band off of your arm and allow the blood to circulate once more.

And the blood would have to circulate until the life came in your hand and your hand eventually became strong. A prayer healing is just like that. It snaps the band which has shut help out of you. It snaps the band which has squeezed you into sickness.

And from that same hour you begin to mend slowly, gradually, as your faith continues and as your faith takes hold. And lots of times after a person has had a healing prayer they feel worse than they ever did before. And I sometimes forget to tell people they might do that, especially with arthritis or something of that sort, in which a great deal of poison is stored up around the joints. Because it is like house cleaning, it has to get worse before it can get better. And when this poison begins to break up and is thrown out into the bloodstream, oh, you feel terrible. But you just got to stand it until it is cleaned out. So sometimes after when the healing starts you will feel terrible until your system becomes cleansed. Don’t give up and say, “God isn’t healing me. This is all a fake. I feel worse than I did before she prayed for me.” Thank God. Thank God a whole lot of poisons are being thrown out into your bloodstream. Carry it off. You are going to feel better when you get all cleaned up. It often happens that way. So as your faith holds, as your faith holds, even if you feel worse, just keep on thanking God for His healing touch.

And God always justifies Himself, if your faith holds. God bless you all. Someone ask if we should tell when we have seen a vision of Jesus, or if we should keep it secret. Don’t tell it unless there is a purpose, unless you can glorify Him by it. Don’t tell it just to let people know that you have had a great vision. No. We might have more of them if we didn’t tell them. But God can’t trust us with too much. It seems to me that these things come in order to fortify us for some great work which is ahead of us. And when the task gets hard, we can turn back in our mind and review, as Moses must have done when he looked into the burning bush, and know the reality of His presence. I’ve talked too long. I’m sorry.

It is right now time for our prayer groups within about five minutes. So, I’m going to say thank you, God bless you, I’m glad you know all of the answers. Blessings on you.