I was sitting by our window in Miami, while my child had just come from the hospital having had heart surgery was sleeping. She was born with a partial “av” canal and needed to heal. I saw the video of the surgery and was not completely satisfied with the work; however, the cardiologist said: “Beautiful! It will heal, and she will be like brand new, soon growing, and blooming.” Being a skeptic, I had a nagging feeling that still something might be wrong, but I could not speak about it; I held it in my heart. The cardiologist suddenly turned to me and said, “Have another child.” I said, “Why? What’s wrong?” He said, “Nothing, but still have another child; you either do it now or you do it later.” I didn’t know what he was talking about. His remark so alarmed me. I couldn’t think about anything but my daughter whose body was frail; the color of her skin nothing like the child I had given the hospital for the surgery.

All I knew how to do was pray, read the gospel, preach and teach Sunday school, and at a public school as well; I didn’t know what else to do. I was completely taken aback by the curve ball God had sent my way. I kept asking the Lord,“ What am I going to do?” I knelt down in front of my baby and looked at her with tears in my eyes and told her that we are going to make it through this one too! I couldn’t even breathe; it was so difficult, I reached to the Lord for answers and heard a voice: “Go back to your roots! Go back to your roots!” I argued with the Lord, “Go back to your roots!” What was that supposed to mean? I sat there thinking about this answer for a long time as I kept watching my baby sleeping, and I kept ministering to her and kissing her as somewhere I read that love and attention and lots of hugs and kisses make babies and people bloom. It’s in the touch, so I kept loving my baby no matter what! I started to remember recipes, and I could not feed her anything, so I created my own baby food using the roots of plants yams and other roots, and I baked them, put them in the blender added a few other ingredients to it to see if she was able to hold it down and eat, she was one month shy of six months old. I was terrified and felt totally abandoned by everyone. She was my first baby and I was very scared, I depended on her to tell me how she was feeling, if it hurt, if it didn’t, I was not sleeping just watchful of her and very skeptical of anything anyone had to say.

I kept remembering the sermons my seminary professors would preach: “it doesn’t matter how a person is healed what matters most is that the person got healed!” One professor’s words kept resonating in my mind. He was saying, “Calm down, calm down, let the Holy Spirit guide you.”

I asked Jesus to help me through the whole process to help me not lose my only child; I kept asking God and stayed at that window looking up and out I did not want any interferences to my prayers and supplications; all I wanted was Jesus and me and my daughter. I felt that He was listening but was not sure; I kept looking for him in the skies and wondered if He really did hear me. I used everything I knew in my power to help Jesus perform the miracle of healing. What humankind could not finish, Jesus could!

I told myself not to speak with anyone about this! I said to myself: “I have to have faith, faith in action!” Every day was a miracle, all I could do is pray and love that baby with all my heart, pamper her with everything I had, and ask God and Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit to do the rest.

She started to bloom! Heal and walk, and talk like normal children would. She started to ingest solids, the recipe the Lord gave me, but still the memory of that last conversation with the cardiologist after surgery kept me so preoccupied that the surgery might not have been as successful as I thought it would be. But it was! And still is! I kept telling myself.

Some years later, I went to Puerto Rico still worried sick about this conversation with the cardiologist, and I took my daughter with me. We went to the beach, as I sat on the edge of a small boat feet by the shore, waves coming in, my daughter was lying on the sand and started to make wings with her arms extended on both sides, saying “Angels have wings Mama!” I kept taking pictures of her doing that with her arms, and I looked up and right in front of us as the sun was setting―the warmth was so inviting. I prayed: “Dear God heal my daughter’s heart, please dear God, “ and I kept repeating, “I have to trust God, I have to trust God!”

My daughter is now eleven years old, and I still believe that ultimately the one and true healer of that wound was Jesus! We all had to trust God–the surgeons, the cardiologist, the pediatrician, and me! That summer I analyzed the texts of the miracles on healings that Jesus performed during his ministry. I sought biblical texts that affirmed the Healer and the divine appointment Jesus most evidently still has on earth. My daughter and I experienced that divine intercession of Jesus with God who was ministering to us during the most crucial times of our lives. Remembering how we always will need to pray the prayer of the lame man with cot who did not walk and waters being stirred by Angels, or the man, blind from birth, being healed physically and spiritually as well. Knowing that Jesus Christ was appointed by God to perform these miracles to people irrespective of who or what they were―just knowing that they were suffering, spirit-led, spirit-filled, anointed and ready to be healed.

Many struggle to believe by faith that healing can and will take place; others seek to study and understand the Word as the living Word of God. I lean not on my own understanding but on what the word of God has taught me to trust―the divinely inspired Word.

We should embrace it, make it ours, and seek it diligently―without any hesitancy―as Jesus still heals all those who trust in his divine appointment. As recounted in the bible, Jesus healed 22 times; I am sure there are more healings even as we read this true story, and still there were those who were skeptics, who did not believe that Jesus could heal at all.

When healings happen, we may find them hard to accept them as reality. We may think it is impossible, but they do take place, some as an answer to a simple whispered prayer, while others a result of meditation, fasting, and introspection. Our methods of asking for healing may vary, but they do happen.

It happened to me; it can happen to you.

About the author

Rev. Priscilla Dross Marcial, M.Div., wrote one article for this publication.

Rev. Priscilla D. Marcial is a doctoral student at Florida International University, curriculum and instruction and educational psychology with a specialty in technology. She received her M. Div. from New York Theological Seminary, where she is pursuing a doctor of ministry degree in pastoral counseling and psychotherapy. She is also a K12 educator and a Disciples of Christ Minister. Rev. Priscilla Dross Marcial is also a United States Ambassador for ABI, who was in Puerto Rico at the Obispado de Mayaguez, Puerto Rico studying and researching profound catholic teachings from the Vatican Papal writings and other prolific sources.

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