I have often prayed with tennis players and their families. I go to a church that believes in miracles and prays as if they believe "that all things are possible with God".
I can think back to instances of my own prayers for others such as knowing the person had cancer and then passed away within a year; passing away suddenly within a few months from cancer; undergoing chemotherapy for cancer; and another in the later stages of Multiple Sclerosis. But on the other hand, my own mother was healed of cancer and a lifelong illness after our prayer together and that is the greatest miracle that I personally know first hand.
What I do know about miracles is that I have met thousands of people that have been totally and significantly changed as the person accepted 'Christ' as their personal Saviour. I have experienced many events in my life that I know were miracles to me personally. Several times I have gone to a Grand Slam tennis event and could hardly walk for a week beforehand because my back had gone out, yet on the very day that I arrived and needed to go to the tournament to minister to others, the pain disappeared.
I have never seen a blind person healed, the deaf hear or the dead returned to life. Does that make me have less faith? No. Does that make me to have been in the wrong location to see it? Maybe. Does that mean I do not believe? No. I earnestly desire to see such events. What I do know is that, if I, my family, or my friend were deathly ill, I want to believe in miracles. I also am prepared to move on if a miracle does not happen. You see, faith and prayer are ours, but the healing, or lack of healing, is in God's power only.
During Easter, Christians celebrate the fact that God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. I have not seen it. I have no proof outside of what is written in the Bible and have experienced in my own life. But I want to believe--that is called faith or as I well understand to an unbelieving world -- foolishness. For me; I chose faith.
Bob,