A couple months ago, in March of this year, I went for a walk on the university campus after worship practice one Saturday morning. I had some free time and wanted to take a step of faith and pray for someone in need of healing. I had been watching videos on YouTube of people getting healed and wanted to try it for myself. After walking around for 15 minutes or so and not feeling confident to approach anyone, I started to turn back toward Sproul Plaza, the main gathering area on campus. It was a cold day and it was threatening rain so I decided to head back toward the church, disappointed that it seemed like I wasn’t going to have the opportunity to pray for someone.

As I came through Sather Gate, I saw three people who looked like graduate students walking together towards me. One of them was walking with a limp and his leg in a brace from the knee down. I asked if I could pray for his leg. He shrugged and said, “sure”. So I knelt down to pray a short prayer as I had seen in the videos. I commanded full healing, and all pain to go, in Jesus’ name. He thanked me and began to walk away but looked a little confused. I asked him how it was feeling. He looked at me, puzzled, and said it was feeling better! His friend got excited and asked what the pain level had been before and what it was now? The man said with surprise that it had been a 5, but now was a level 4! We all got excited and I was about to cry! I told them that this was my first time praying for someone but I had seen videos of healing where if the pain goes down it will go to zero and so I asked if I could pray again. He said yes, so I knelt down to pray again a short prayer, commanding the rest of the pain to go. I got up, and he said there was no more pain!! We were all so amazed at what Jesus had done! We all started hugging and crying with joy right there under Sather Gate. The man’s friend said “that was so beautiful” and he was crying with joy! It had started to rain and their friend had put her umbrella over us as we hugged and prayed and thanked Jesus together. It was a feeling of indescribable joy. All I wanted to do was praise Jesus over and over with everything in me! And I don’t normally feel like that, but I could have stayed in that moment forever.

I invited them to come to church, and asked the man where he was from. He was from Venezuela. In all the excitement I forgot to ask him his name. I didn’t even get to find out the details of his injury. Hopefully he will get in touch!!

After that experience I felt so bold and asked lots of people if they would like prayer for anything. I prayed for a maintenance man I met at the seminary campus as I was on my way home who’s knee had been injured, he was wearing a brace. He told me the pain totally left! I saw him again a week later and he confirmed that it had been totally fine since I prayed. His name is Fred. I have prayed for others over the months since then as well. Yesterday at the bus stop I prayed for a girl who had injured her toe, and she said her pain went from 7 to zero!

As I have asked the Lord what he wants me to do with this, I have felt that it’s important for me to tell others my experience. Firstly, because if God has done something I feel responsible to tell what happened. Not to toot my own horn but because others may be unaware, as I was, that Jesus is still healing today. Although I had prayed for people in the past and certainly thought God can do anything, I had never seen or expected anyone to be instantly healed before so this was a major revelation to me.

While it’s true that our ultimate need is salvation, and that healing only fills a temporary physical need, it does much more than that. Healing says something much louder than we can put into words. The Venezuelan man was not crying for joy because he wouldn’t have to wear a brace anymore. When God heals it shows us in a tangible way that he loves us, that he is our friend. It shows God’s power and it validates the message that Jesus is who he says he is. Jesus told his disciples that if they couldn’t believe based on his words, they should at least “believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves” (John 14:11). So miracles do serve a purpose. Healing also goes hand in hand with the gospel message because it demonstrates how simple it is to be saved - just as we receive healing as a gift through prayer, salvation is simply receiving God’s gift of forgiveness.

Finally, I want to share my experience to encourage other believers to go out and give it a try! Peter and John said, after healing the lame man, it is not “by our own power or godliness... but by faith in the name of Jesus” that he was healed (Acts 3:12). You don’t have to have it all together as a Christian before you can be qualified. You have everything you need inside of you by the Holy Spirit. You don’t even have to have a whole lot of faith, a mustard seed sized faith will do! The only reason the man’s leg was healed that day is because I went out and prayed.

Jesus still heals today, and people are longing to see that he is real. Let’s go out and show them!