I will exalt you, Lord, because you have lifted me up and have not allowed my enemies to triumph over me. Lord, my God, I cried to you for help, and you healed me. Lord, you brought me up from Sheol; you spared me from among those going down to the Pit. Sing to the Lord, you his faithful ones, and praise his holy name. (Psalm 30:1-4)(CSB)
I want to give praise to my Lord---Jehovah-Rophe---God my Healer.
It was a little over two months ago, when my wife, Lisa, and I began to feel a little sick. It began with her coughing, then to me coughing, then to both of us running a low-grade fever over night. The next morning we went to the doctor to get checked out. After looking us over and giving us a couple of tests, we were told that we were positive for the coronavirus. We were a little dismayed, because we thought we had been careful around others, but we got our prescriptions and went home to quarantine.
The next week and a half were pretty rough for us. In fact, there was a time or two when I felt like I may need to go to the hospital because of difficulty breathing, but each time we prayed, things seemed to get better. After we each got past that phase, then we started wondering if we would ever regain our strength again. But each morning as we prayed for God to heal us, we began to slowly feel better and regained our strength little by little. We had our loved ones, and our church family checking in on us and praying for us, and it made a big difference. Through all our fears and pains, the Holy Spirit was there calming us. We continued to improve until finally we were restored to normal (or some might say "abnormal") again. We still had to deal with the isolation and boredom from being quarantined, but it was obvious to Lisa and me that our God had answered our petitions and healed us.
I share all of this to give praise to our Lord, the Great Physician, and to hopefully encourage others. You may say that all the medical statistics and reports show that most people recover from this virus, and you would be right. But I have no doubt that God heard our prayers--our cries for help--and healed us. As in the above passage from Psalm 30, God spared us and lifted us up from the pit of sickness that we had fallen into. And just like verse 4 encourages, we want to be faithful by continuing to sing to the Lord and praise His holy name. Our Healing God is so much more than worthy!
Joey Culpepper