In the matter of healing very often the power of prayer is overlooked. When we pray for someone, our prayer should be for God to have His way with the life of the person and the carers of the person for whom we pray. Our faith is in the efficacy of God's response to our prayers. It may be the will of God that the person speedily returns to health, but this is not always the case. God may allow a sick person to continue suffering  as was the case with Saint Paul's "thorn in the side". Suffering more than anything else tends to strengthen our dependence on God. God has the big picture in mind. When compared to eternity, our lives on earth are but fleeting moments.

There are cases when inspite of considerable prayer, the suffering person's condition progressively deteriorates and ends in death. Death is the relief all pain and suffering and should be regarded as a perfect healing.

Whatever the situation we should have faith in the perfect will of God and remember that God comforts the sick in ways that are not apparent to observers.

When a person who by reason of illness is incapacitated in some way, whilst there is a limitation of the range of that person's activities, by the grace of God, there is no limitation on te depth of the remaining functionality. God provides for all of us.

Sickness of loved ones provokes us to pray, but what about the situation in which our loved ones are living a life of sin? Shoud this not be of more concern to us?

Sickness and death entered the world because of sin and yet inspite of the forgiveness we Christians have through the merits of our salvation, there are many who continue sinning thereby rejecting salvation and the love and mercy of God. It is as though they believe that because they have accepted Jesus Christ as their saviour, all of their future sins are already forgiven. I cannot accept this point of view. Salvation is an on-going process and those who live in sin will most likely die in sin and be lost forever. These are the people who have the most serious form of sickness which is often made worse by their seeminly prosperous lives. It is far better to have a life of sickness and suffering and enjoy God in heaven than to have the most prosperous life followed by an eternity in the fires of hell.

In this regard the need to pray the prayer of faith for those who have strayed from the narrow way cannot be over-emphasized. If we truly love them, we should pray for them every day until God does whatever is necessary to get their attention. Sadly most of us do not take heed of the scriptures or the Godly advice of our loved ones, and as a consequence we need to be stricken with some adversity wherein we are awakened to our need for God's mercy and help. In this sense some of the most terrible happenings in our lives are really wonderful blessings in disguise.

Private Reply to Denis Gibbon