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As I get older, I spend more time thinking about where I came from and where I’ve been through the years… from picking up pecans to earn a nickel for a trip to Harry’s

Amoco, to working with my dad in his electrical business during high school, to making and serving ice cream at the Cream House in Atlanta, to graduating from Emory with a degree in biology, to marrying way above myself, to teaching biology at Fayetteville Georgia High School, to running a special chemistry lab in the Navy, to graduating from Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky, to serving churches in South Georgia for forty-four+ years.

And I learned something from every step in my journey, especially lessons about people and healing. I learned about physical healing from my time in the Navy; I was selected, with a dozen other men, to form the first Medical Technology class at Bethesda Naval Hospital. We went to classes with the pathologists-in-training during the mornings and in the afternoon, while they made their rounds, we worked in the various departments in the laboratory. And we once, were invited to participate, hands-on, in an autopsy!

After Jesus and his parents came home from Jerusalem to Nazareth, Mark says he grew “in both body and spirit, blessed by God and people.” Those are the areas where we need healing; in our bodies (physical healing), in our spirits (emotional healing), in our relationship with God (spiritual healing), and in our relationships with the people around us (social healing).

From Mark 1:29-39, “[29] Jesus and his disciples, including James and John, left the synagogue and went straight to the home of Simon and Andrew. [30] Simon’s mother-in-law was sick in bed with a fever, and as soon as Jesus arrived, he was told about her. [31] He went to her, took her by the hand, and helped her up. The fever left her, and she began to wait on them.”

E. Stanley Jones said, “God heals in seven ways; through medical doctors, through surgeons, through mental suggestion, through climate… through deliverance from fear, guilt, resentment, and loneliness, through miraculous interventions, and through the resurrection.”

My mentor in this healing ministry, Dr. Frank Stanger, told us to pray for wholeness rather than healing.

Most of us, when we hear the word healing, immediately assume it’s a physical healing; wholeness conveys the idea of a complete healing of body, mind, and spirit.

I like the line from Mark, “…and she began to wait on them.” Jesus didn’t heal Peter’s mother to sit up in bed; he healed her to resume her normal life. Therefore, I pray for wholeness for all of you. complete and total healing of your body, mind, and spirit!