I had an interesting experience today. I was scheduled to see Dr. Carpenter for the pain I’m having in my right knee. I “killed two flies in one swat” because I had lab work done for my “physical” later this week and then the appointment with the bone doctor. I had to wait for my appointment with this doctor, so I opened The Book to my reading in Psalms, this day in chapter 6.
Psalm 6 talks about bones. How interesting that I should be reading about “bones” when I visited a bone doctor! I had plenty of time between appointments so I went ahead and looked up some more about bones. I discovered that there is a connection between the well-being of the bones and a well-adjusted attitude. I’m including some of the passages here, but to really understand them you will have to read the context.
Psalm 6:2,3
Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am faint;
O LORD, heal me, for my bones are in agony.
My soul is in anguish.
How long, O LORD, how long?Psalm 22:14
I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me.Psalm 31:10
My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning;
my strength fails because of my affliction,
and my bones grow weak.Psalm 32:3,4
When I kept silent, my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;
my strength was sapped as in the heat of summer.Psalm 34:19,20
A righteous man may have many troubles,
but the LORD delivers him from them all;
he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken.Psalm 42:10
My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long, “Where is your God?”Psalm 102:3-5
For my days vanish like smoke;
my bones burn like glowing embers.
My heart is blighted and withered like grass;
I forget to eat my food. Because of my loud groaning
I am reduced to skin and bones.Psalm 102:5,6
Because of my loud groaning
I am reduced to skin and bones.
I am like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins.
From the Psalms we go to the book of Proverbs. This first passage I have used for years to pray for my well-being.
Proverbs 3:7,8
Do not be wise in your own eyes;
fear the LORD and shun evil.
This will bring health to your body
and nourishment to your bones.
Proverbs 14:30
A heart at peace gives life to the body,
but envy rots the bones.Proverbs 15:30
A cheerful look brings joy to the heart,
and good news gives health to the bones.Proverbs 16:24
Pleasant words are a honeycomb,
sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.Proverbs 17:22
A cheerful heart is good medicine,
but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
We are spirit, soul and body, and there definitely is a connection between a positive outlook and the healing of our bones. I had a shot to lubricate my knee. It was painful when receiving it but worse to drive home, since it was the right knee. If I’d had I stick shift car I would not have made it home; but I managed to situate my right foot on the accelerator and then do the brake with the left foot. It worked. If I ever do this again I’ll ask someone to drive me to the doctor’s office.
It was interesting at the doctor’s office. We discovered he speaks Spanish so we talked in Spanish. Then I remembered an experience my father had with pain in his knee and how God used it to work healings. Here is the story, taken from the book he wrote together with my mom.
Expert from “A Life of Adventure” by Per and Brita Anderas
One thing that we may never understand is God’s intervention in healings. Some people who firmly believe in God’s power to heal suffer anyhow year after year from illnesses while others get healed in the blink of an eye, some even without knowing anything about divine healing.
I became involved in a chain of happenings that had to do with sickness and divine healings. In the month of December 1970 I traveled to Peru after some months in Sweden. I flew with Islandic Airlines to New York and then continued from there with bus to Pittsburgh to visit our friends Anders and Lillemor Otterland. From Pittsburgh I took the bus to Miami and then I traveled further on a flight to Lima. While sitting on the bus I noticed a swelling on the left knee and it hurt a lot in the narrow space between the seats in the bus.
To teach in a Bible seminar in Huancayo came a brother from Seattle, Lennard Darbee. After the seminar we went to Tarma for some meetings. One evening several people came forward to be prayed for and among them a lady, Maria de Camarena, supported with two crutches. Some month’s prior she had been in a traffic accident. Both her legs had been broken in the middle. To help with the healing, the doctors had put sticks of stainless steel in the bones. They had also removed some splinters, which made one leg shorter than the other. The other leg was crooked and she walked with great difficulties, limping. She got prayed for and set down on a bench.
Behind her stood her husband, Lucho. He had fallen into a hole in his workplace and had big bruises on his leg and was hurting. I asked him about his problem. “My legs were hurting a lot,” he said, “but the pain just disappeared.” We didn’t even pray for him. God healed both in one instant.
The following day we went to visit them in their home some miles outside of the city. There they came running, both Maria and Lucho. God had healed them and none of them had any symptoms of the hurts. Maria’s short leg had grown to normal and the crooked one was straight. All Lucho’s bruises and pain had disappeared. They were of course extremely happy.
Although God healed others when we prayed for them, I still had the swelling on my knee. I went to the hospital in La Oroya and talked to doctor Polo. He was the one that operated on Maria after the accident. I asked him if he believed in divine healing. “What is that?” he asked. I told him what had happened to Maria and that she now was completely well. I also told him about other healings that we and other people had experienced. The doctor was amazed and it seemed hard for him to believe what I told him. He asked me to come back another day to take a sample from the swelling on my knee.
A while later I was standing in a corridor in the hospital. The doctor came and asked me to follow him to a ward. In a bed was a young girl with wounds full of pus that wouldn’t dry out. She had also lost all feelings in a foot as a nerve was damaged in an operation. “I want you to pray for her,” said the doctor. “There is no hope of healing for her.” The doctor stood on one side of the bed while I prayed for her and after that I left the hospital.
The next time I came I was told that the girl was healed. The wounds dried out and the damaged nerve was restored. “Now I have another case for you,” said doctor Polo, as he asked me to come back another day to take a sample from the swelling on my knee. Then he took me to another ward. There lay a nurse whose both kidneys had stopped functioning and I understood that she was dying from urine poisoning. The doctor asked me to pray for her, which I gladly did. She was also completely healed, but I had still the swelling on my knee.
Doctor Polo gave me an appointment for some time later when he would operate on my knee, but when I came back to the hospital the knee didn’t hurt anymore and the swelling had disappeared. It looks like God let me have that swelling on my knee for a time and by that led me into a chain of events when he healed those sick persons. The ways of the Lord may sometimes seem strange, but they are always wonderful.
If you would like to read the complete book, here is the pdf file: A Life of Adventure
Kerstin Lundquist's Blog 