God’s answers sometimes take a long time coming
Tom Swift • published September 14, 2008 12:15 am



Two months after being diagnosed with ALS, I asked my church for a healing service.

My friends, Jeff and Eunice, led the service. Another dear friend, Enoch Nyador, from Ghana, West Africa, joined us to deliver the sermon.

He began by saying that I was a man of great faith.

I sat up a little taller in my chair.

Enoch continued, “Tom taught me how to drive, using his car, on the narrow roads of east Tennessee. I drove in the middle of the road and how he managed not to jump out of the car shows how much faith he had!”
He went on to speak of God’s desire to heal and love us. One of the best things I ever did was to accept Enoch as my seminary roommate years ago.

Prayer for healing

Jeff placed a chair in the center aisle, asked me to sit in it, and invited the people forward to pray for me.

Friends from the church and friends who had come from east Tennessee placed their hands on my shoulders and began to pray.

Another friend from Ghana began praying with his beautifully accented African voice.

To our surprise, a cell phone began ringing in the back of the room. The owner of the phone was up front praying for me and it took her a while to get back to her phone.

The cell phone was not exactly ringing; it was playing a tune: “When the Saints Go Marching In.”

People behind me started to giggle and I started smiling.

Not ready yet

When my African friend was finished with his prayer, everyone let out a deep breath and I said, “I like the song but I am not ready to go marching in yet!”

We all laughed and kept on praying.

The service was beautiful and moving. I was deeply touched by the number of friends who came to support me.

We worshipped, we prayed and we asked God to heal me. Although the service was for me, it was not about me, but a loving God who seeks us out to love us.

Several of us went out to eat afterward. We laughed and told stories and had a great time. It was a wonderful evening.

A year and a half later I am still sick. God has not healed me, at least not in the way I most want to be healed. Instead, my condition has worsened.

I am in a wheelchair all the time now and my speech is less and less understandable.

Why hasn’t God healed me?

The best answer I have is this: I don’t know.

It is a faithful and humble answer but also terribly frustrating.

I am a 6-foot-3 inch, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an only child male with an earned doctorate. None of these characteristics help me be humble!

I want answers and I want them now.

All of my years of seminary education and a lifetime of faith do not answer the question: Why hasn’t God healed me?

I simply do not know.

Tom Swift, D. Min., is a chaplain with CarePartners Hospice & Palliative Care Services. A monthly ALS support group for patients and caregivers meets in Asheville. The next meeting is today. Contact facilitator Pamela Brown at 252-1097 or at pbrown@catfishchapter.org for more details.

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