by Elena Tafone (www.guideposts.org)
The mother-in-law of his disciple Peter was very ill. She was bedridden in her home in Capernaum, burning up with fever. But when Jesus entered her room and laid a hand on her forehead, the fever broke. The woman “arose and served them” (Matthew 8:15 KJV). She was cured.
This is just one example of many miracles and healings Jesus performed in the Bible. He didn’t just stop fevers that might have passed on their own. He also cured leprosy and made the blind see. As it says in the Book of Matthew, “Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people” (Matthew 9:35 KJV).
One can only imagine all the stories those few words contain. But such miracles are not just relics of the past. People today still experience miraculous recoveries and healings—the kind that just can’t be explained. Here are a few of them…
Greg Thomas
After he was diagnosed with cancer in May of 2009, Greg Thomas’s family was told to start planning his funeral. The disease, which had spread throughout his neck and head, had reached Stage 4. It was inoperable. He didn’t have much time left.
Greg often took long walks. It was on one of these walks that he came upon the church. It was abandoned. But Greg felt drawn to it. The crumbling building became his place of refuge in the coming weeks.
One evening, he was sitting on the church’s steps, deep in conversation with God. At one point, he looked around and realized the church was in bad shape. He promised God that before he left Earth, he would rebuild this dilapidated church. If it was the last thing he did.
Inside, the church was in ruins. The floor boards were rotting away. Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust. So Greg got to work. He swept and dusted, re-shingled the roof and re-painted. And as he worked, he found his energy slowly returning.
When Greg returned to his oncologist, he received shocking news: his tumors has begun to shrink. And they kept shrinking, until Greg’s cancer officially went into remission.
As he told the Star Tribune: ““It was like as I was rebuilding the church, God was rebuilding me.”
Kali Hardig
In July of 2013, the 12-year-old Kali Hardig visited a water park. A few days later, her parents were rushing her to the hospital. She was complaining of a headache and had a fever of 103 degrees. Tests revealed that Kali had contracted parasitic meningitis. It’s a rare infection caused by brain-eating amoebas. It’s also a deadly one.
Kali was quickly put on antibiotics, but her doctors prepared her family for the worst. Even with treatment, the infection’s survival rate was less than 1%. At that time—in the whole of North America—only two people were known to have survived. But Kali would become the third. Not only that, but, six months later, she’d made a complete recovery.
“It was God’s grace,” Dr. Matt Linam said in an interview with Reader’s Digest when asked how Kali survived. “Other than that, it was countless little things that went her way, countless little miracles that happened every day and made the difference between life and death.”
Jean-Pierre Bely
Lourdes, France has a reputation for miracles. The small town drew international attention when, in 1858, a young girl named Bernadette claimed to see a vision of Mother Mary. Since then, Lourdes has been a destination for pilgrims and those seeking healing. Jean-Pierre Bely was one of those people.
In 1987, he traveled to Lourdes. Years ago, Jean-Pierre had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune disorder that attacks the body’s central nervous system. He was now confined to a wheelchair. But during a service in Lourdes, Jean-Pierre felt something strange.
“As the priest was giving me unction on the forehead and hands, I had the impression that everything was turning around me,” he was later quoted in the book Near-death Experiences Examined: Medical Findings and Testimonies from Lourdes. “In a fraction of a second I lost all sense of time and space. God was coming to cure my heart. I was invaded by a powerful feeling of liberation and peace that I had never experienced before.”
After that experience, Jean-Pierre began to feel a tingling in his legs. A few days later, he took his first unaided steps in years. Subsequent examinations would show only minor traces of the illness that had once dominated his life. Though still a medical mystery, Jean-Pierre’s cure was deemed an official miracle by the Vatican in 2002.
Luke Burgie
For six months, he wasted away. When 4-year-old Luke Burgie fell ill with a mysterious stomach virus in 1998, doctors struggled to find a diagnosis. Then, as suddenly as they had developed, Luke’s symptoms disappeared.
His doctors were baffled. They didn’t know why Luke had been sick and they had no explanation for why he’d improved almost overnight. But Luke’s mother, Jan Burgie, had an answer: Prayer.
As her son lay in his hospital bed, Jan had called nuns from a local convent—Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration—and asked them to pray for him. Over the course of nine days, they did just that, praying to Mother Maria Theresia, the nun who began their order back in 1863. Within a month, the little boy had made a full recovery.
“I just remember Luke’s brother saying, ‘Jesus’ healed Lukie! Jesus healed Lukie!’” Jan told FOX31.
Fourteen years later, the Vatican declared Luke’s healing a miracle and Mother Maria Theresia was named Saint Maria Theresia.