I just finished watching the movie of the same title about Jeremy Camp and his relationship with his first wife, Melissa, and it gave me the thoughts I needed to write. For anyone who may have already watched the movie, they know what I mean when I say how touching the movie is. 

At the end of Melissa’s life, she wakes from her sleep now free of pain and declaring that she was healed, that her cancer was gone. Many thousands had been praying over the prior year or more for her to be healed. Then, at the last minute of her life, she declared that she was healed. Those were her dying words, and as Jeremy eventually states to an audience, “She is touching heaven.”

How wonderful to have such faith to know when you are healed, even if it may be in the final minutes of your life. Yet, God never did say He would heal us when WE want to be healed. In fact, He will heal us when He is ready to do so. 

Romans 6:4 (NKJV) … “Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.”

And many times Jesus told someone, “Your faith has made you whole,” or “Your faith has healed you.”

This past year was a very trying year, not just for my family, but I am certain for many other families as well. Too many funerals. Too many illnesses. Too many issues of conflict. I am so ready to put last year into the past. Yet, we started this year with another family funeral. 

It is times such as these that cause such a beating upon a person's faith, in what we know to be the truth. That truth being that God is our Savior, our Healer, our Salvation. Jesus endured all the troubles, all the afflictions, and bore all the weight of everyone’s wrongdoings from creation to eternity. He did so knowing fully well the joy that awaited Him in heaven as He would again sit at the right hand of the Holy Father. 

John 16:22 (NKJV) … “Therefore you now have sorrow; but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you.”

John 16:24 (NKJV) … “Until now you have asked nothing in My name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.” 

2 Samuel 14:14 (NKJV) … “For we will surely die and become like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again. Yet God does not take away a life; but He devises means, so that His banished ones are not expelled from Him.”

I take it that this means all life and all death are planned by God. And it tells me that He will sometimes allow bad things to occur, taking the life of a loved one, because it will actually save His loved one from becoming lost. Hence, He will allow the so-called bad event because He will save the loved one from more suffering, and also many times may be the healing event which will lead others to their knowing of God, and to their salvation through Christ Jesus. 

As it was in the movie, “I Still Believe”, the health issues, the prayers, the apparent temporary healing, and even the death of Jeremy’s wife was the hand of our Father touching many at the same time through one event. His hand delivered Melissa to heaven, healing her in the final minutes of her life, and showing her the joy she would now live in. He allowed her that final minute or two to be able to share with her loved ones the truth … she was healed, and heaven was full of joy. 

His hand extended out to so many others as well. Jeremy came to find through his grieving, and lashing out, the final letter from his wife which with God’s hand of love led him to such a successful career in Christian music. The events healed another stranger, a woman named Adrienne Liesching. She approached Jeremy after a concert, telling him about his wife’s events touching her and being “the one” who the message was meant for, and forever changing her life. That concert was during Jeremy’s 3-month concert tour. Later that same year, the two were married. 

How many others may have been touched, and even healed in some way or another by the events of Jeremy and Melissa Camp? 

Many may say they were not. Consider this then … you are listening to a song on the radio, and it suddenly affects you, bringing you to tears, with a burning inside your chest. My friends, you were just touched by God through the message in the song. Whatever healing you just experienced, was meant for you through the unfortunate events in someone else’s life. 

Do not grieve, do not fear, and give God your worries and burdens. And forever live life knowing the joy awaiting us when we come face to face with our Savior. 

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