Tim Stafford - Miracles: A Journalist Looks at Modern Day Experiences of Gods Power

Jeff Moore was a high school student in my church, a dark-haired, good-looking teenager, with paper-white skin and a slight build. He was well liked, polite, quiet but friendly. He never drew attention to himself or his problem.

Jeff had lost the use of his feetthey hurt so much that they would no longer carry his weight. He came to church in a wheelchair.

I didnt know Jeff or his family then, but I often saw them at morning worship. I attend a Presbyterian church with about six hundred members. It is a warm, Bible-believing, multi-generational church that is a little traditional but tries to be flexible. We sing hymns with an organ, but we also try to bridge the gap between generations by using contemporary songs with a band. Jeffs mother, Sheri, was one of a handful of worship leaders very visibly singing in the choir at the front of the church.

Jeff was visible because he was the only young person in a wheelchair. Every week his father wheeled him into church. It could not have been easy to come to church that way, and their faces showed the strain, I thought. Yet Jeff was always present with his parents and his two younger brothers.

It made me sad to see this healthy young man so crippled. It brought mystification, too. I had never heard of a young person whose feet hurt so much he couldnt walk. Why couldnt the doctors figure it out? Somebody told me his case baffled them.

Then one Sunday morning, our pastor announced that Jeffs mother had something to share. Sheri stepped out of the choir and quietly said that Jeff had been healed. He had gone to a service at a church in another city, several hours away, and after healing prayer, he stepped out of his wheelchair. His pain was completely gone. He could walk. He could run. God had healed him, his mother said.

I heard several spontaneous expressions of praisetwo or three exclamations of Praise the Lord! Later in the service, our pastor prayed and thanked God for what he had done for Jeff. But truthfully, the response was restrained. No whooping. No delirious thanks. And not a lot of buzz afterward. Maybeand here I might be projecting my own feelingsthere was some uncertainty as to how we should react.

I heard that Jeffs family was disappointed by the response. They had been bubbling over with joy, but they werent met with the same emotions.

Why the restraint? Im guessing at what others felt, because there wasnt any public discussion. I know what I felt, and I suspect it was typical.

I was very glad at Jeffs news, but I was hesitant to put too much weight on it. I didnt know what had caused Jeffs problem, but it seemed possible it was psychosomatic. The mind is a very tricky thing. What if we whooped it up over a miracle and then discovered that the problem came back days or weeks later? That wouldnt put God in a very good light. It wouldnt build anybodys faith.

I also worried about Jeff being disappointed. Sometimes people want so much for God to heal them that they convince themselves he has done so. But the problem doesnt really disappear. It comes back, and eventually the hurting person has to face realityno miracle. Then he or she is left wondering why God put them through such high hopes and disappointment.