The Story of My One Attempt at Miracle Healing

Over the course of my time as a Christian, I always had one foot in, one foot out when it came to miracle healing.

Due to me being a mostly logical and practical person, my tendency was to slant toward skepticism. However, with that stance came a lot of guilt and shame. After all, the Bible said that miracle healing was real, so therefore by not believing in it, I was not believing a claim made by the “inerrant” Bible.

Somewhere along my Christian journey, I was served the idea that the more “supernatural” aspects of Christianity only happened in “less developed” areas of the world because these “supernatural” methods were what the devil preferred to use in those regions. This was the case because the devil didn’t need to use supernatural tactics in the western world (so I was told). There, he could use money, greed, and envy to tempt people.

This, of course, was simply a feeble rationalization.

At the time, it sort of made sense to me. But still, my firm stance on spiritual healing was something I filed away into the back of my brain to deal with later. I put it on hold until I came across more information or actually had a direct experience.

When I went on the only mission trip I ever did, I wasn’t expecting to dabble in miracle healing. It just kind of happened, as do many things faith-related.

This short-term mission trip brought us to Brazil. The ostensible reason we were there was to bring medical care to the remote villages along the Amazon river. Of course, after the generosity was given, the team did all the usual stuff you’d expect — worship services, sharing testimonies, performing baptisms, and trying to get people to raise their hands to “be saved.”

One day, myself and a friend and a local Brazilian translator who was working with our team were walking through the village as we went about our medical duties. Along the way, we met and started talking to a local man — through the translator, of course. This local man was happy to see us and asked us normal questions about where we were from and what we thought about his country.

Little did I know that my friend was enthusiastic about miracle healing. I guess the subject had never come up between us. As is the case with Christians who are gung-ho about miracle healing, my friend really honed in on this local man’s deformed foot.

The man told us that his foot had been deformed since birth and that while it was challenging to get around the hilly terrain of the village, he’d simply learned to live with his condition.

But to my miracle-healing friend, that simply could not stand. He declared that we were going to pray over this man right then and there for God to heal his foot.

The translator hesitated a bit before he relayed the message.

The man seemed surprised, but was willing to go with it. What did he have to lose?

As you can see, I was roped into the situation. Wrong place wrong time. But of course, it wouldn’t be faithful for me to back out. Besides, I thought that maybe this was the direct experience I’d been seeking.

So we all huddled together for prayer.

My friend fervently prayed out loud for God to heal this man’s deformed foot. As he did, the translator interpreted the prayer for the local man.

All throughout the prayer there was one thought that just wouldn’t leave my mind:

This isn’t gonna work…

I didn’t know how I knew that, but I did.

Then my friend started bringing out the big guns.

“We all have to believe. If even one of us here doesn’t have faith then this won’t work!”

That made sense to me at the time. Why would God step in and miraculously heal someone unless we had rock solid faith that he would do so?

I don’t know how long we prayed in that huddle. I tried very hard to “turn on” my rock solid faith, but it just wasn’t happening.

Sure enough, God did not heal the man’s deformed foot that day. And I felt like it was all my fault.

I beat myself up over it for a long time afterward. I thought that if I had just rooted my faith in miracle healing a long time before, then God would have healed that man.

This cringey, half-assed attempt was the only time I ever tried miracle healing.

As I’ve said before, miracles never happening is one of the main reasons people deconvert. My faith didn’t last much longer after that mission trip (not only because of the failed healing, but for many other reasons that would soon accumulate).

What about you? Were you big into miracle healing when you were still a believer? How did that work out for you? Let me know in the comments below!