The 90-Minute Cure

By Ken Walker –

At my doctor’s recommendation, after my first two heart stents nine years ago, I started getting a flu shot every autumn.

That typically helps me make it through the winter flu season unscathed. However, since then I twice survived the worst of the cold weather, only to come down with some kind of dreaded virus during May.

The latest incident happened the Friday before Mother’s Day. After an appointment, I had intended to stop in the park and walk on its large track as I resumed exercise after months of suffering from back pain. However, I felt so rotten I went on home, attributing my tiredness to a hard work week.

Feeling Rotten

I felt steadily worse as the weekend wore on. By Sunday, I remained in bed all day. At 3 o’clock that afternoon I got dressed and headed for an urgent care facility. After taking an anti-nausea medication they prescribed, I headed back to bed.

After arising at 6 p.m. for dinner, I stayed up until bedtime. Feeling my strength returning, I figured I would be good as new Monday morning. Instead, I got up with Montuzema’s revenge rearing its ugly head. Plus, I felt worse than I had 24 hours earlier.

However, with several urgent matters to tend to, I headed up to my office. During a check of e-mail, I found a greeting a friend at church had written Sunday afternoon: “Missed you today. Hope you’re feeling better.”

I wrote back, “No. In fact, I’m feeling worse. I have to start writing a 2,500-word feature today that is due Thursday and I’m not even sure I will be able to work the rest of the day. I need prayer.”

Quick Recovery

On impulse, I jotted notes to two other editors I work with regularly, asking them to pray, too. I sent the last at 10 a.m. A half-hour later, I threw in the towel and went back to bed.

There I tried reading a magazine, but gave up after a few minutes and went to sleep. I figured I was done for the day. That long feature would just have to wait until Tuesday.

After an hour I woke up and marveled at how much better I felt. So I sat up and started reading. About 11:45 a.m. I thought, “I’m hungry. I think I’ll go have some lunch.”

Once I had heated up some leftovers, I thought, “I feel good enough to work. Might as well take this upstairs while I check e-mail again.”

A God Who Delivers

I tended to odds and ends until 1 o’clock, then over the next three hours wrote the first half of that feature story. At 4 p.m. I set it down to edit the latest chapter of the book I was working on.

I didn’t wrap up work that day until almost 6:30. I finished that long feature on Tuesday and Thursday sent in the final version.

Now, I’ve heard all kinds of stories over the years about miraculous healings, some of which later prove to be embellished, exaggerated, or not even true.

While I believe that God can heal this way, that doesn’t mean He always does. He has gifted doctors and other medical professionals with insights and tools that quite often help accomplish the task.

Indeed, after a friend showed up at my door on the eve of my double bypass surgery, wanting to pray I wouldn’t need it, I accepted his prayer. But I still had the surgery.

However, I can’t deny the reality of what happened in mid-May. I have never seen such a rapid answer to prayer. It had to be because others prayed; I was too weak to pray for myself.

We can never put God in a box, but I’m glad I serve the kind of God who can help us at the very moment we need it.