2 of 4

It did make sense. Hyung Goo spoke with our pastors about his desire for healing prayer. They planned a service for a weekday night in February, and invited the elders of the church, the members of our Bible study group, and any others of our friends who wished to come.

As the date of the healing service drew near, both Hyung Goo and I wondered how we should approach it. Hyung Goo found himself caught between faith and doubt. He wrote to a friend, "I ask myself: Do I really believe that miraculous healing is possible? There is a skeptical side of me, and there is also the side that desperately wants to believe and hope." For me, the tension was between faith and anger. If God really desired our good, why hadn't he kept Hyung Goo well in the first place? And did I really want to ask for healing from a God who had already shown himself callous enough to let Hyung Goo get as sick as he'd already gotten?

And what would it mean to approach prayer for healing with "faith"? What exactly were we hoping for? For reversal of Hyung Goo's HIV status? For him to feel better? Live longer? Be affected in some more spiritual or personal way? Did we honestly believe that he could or would be healed? What would happen if we prayed for healing and no healing was granted? Would Hyung Goo lose heart and die sooner than he might have otherwise?

How ought one to pray for healing, anyway? Church historian David Steinmetz, lecturing in a class for which I was a teaching assistant, offered a description of the difference between conventional Protestant prayer and the psalmists' prayers. The Protestant prays, "O Lord, we're not worth much. We have these people we want you to heal. We don't think you'll do it. Thy will be done. Amen." The psalmist prays, "O Lord, remember the deuteronomic law code? It says you will vindicate the righteous. Well, I'm righteous, and I'm a little short in the vindication department. Hello? Hello? Is there anybody there?" The psalmist's prayer certainly seemed the more robustly faithful, but I wasn't sure I was up for such prayer.

Perhaps, we decided, what we could hope for, in the most basic sense, was good: that whatever happened, God still had good things for us. "After all," I wrote to a friend, "we've been married almost four years now, under circumstances that most people would think pretty lousy, and we have received wonderful gifts of companionship and love and comfort. So suppose we pray for healing and Hyung Goo's health continues to deteriorate at its present rate, or faster. Does this mean there can be no good for him, or for us, in the midst of this? I don't think so. But I'd rather he just got well."

The healing service was attended by thirty or forty people. All the members of our Bible study group were there, along with other friends from church and elsewhere and most of the elders of the church. Everyone prayed for him and for us. It was obvious what Hyung Goo's role in the event was: he was the reason we were all there. It was less obvious what my role was. Was I there to pray, or to be prayed for? That night I had a dream in which someone had died, and a crowd of people were praying around the casket while I looked on, not sure how much a part of the scene I should be.

next page... |  2 of 4

share this page

August (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47