Some years ago I had a minor ailment that manifested itself as inflammation of a joint at one end of a rib. It would last a couple weeks and make breathing uncomfortable, but nothing I couldn't live with. One particular evening, before I can quite get to sleep, I get what feels like the same pain, but at twice the intensity, so anything approaching a deep breath is excruciating. For a moment my thoughts collect to form a question that I find myself asking silently: "My God, am I gonna have to live like this for the next two weeks?" Now in that moment I have no thought that He is even within earshot, never mind listening. I couldn't tell you what prompted me to invoke His name beyond whatever societal conditioning accrues from occasionally hearing that two word phrase throughout one's life. So, looking forward to what promises to be the longest night of my life, I begin adjusting my position to try to make the best of it; and the next thing I know, as if someone flipped a switch, the pain disappears. So why would I call that a faith healing? For no better reason, I suppose, that I did nothing to make it happen, and no medical help was involved; but I'm pretty sure there's something I didn't do that could have prevented it from happening, namely take the advice of Job's idiot wife, to wit: curse God, and die. Having related the account above, I suspect that from a Christian perspective a certain something is missing, and I'll be interested to see if anyone calls it out.
It was probably a miracle, so you should make sure that when you die your rib is sent to a church somewhere, where it can be embalmed and turned into a relic for the benefit of the fathful.
I once had soreness in my fingertips when I typed. I even went to the doctor several times but couldn't find a cure. But eventually it mostly went away by itself and I can function again. No praying, things just got better. Maybe you can claim that God healed me without me praying for it. But are you going to explain every thing you can't explain with God? The body often causes ailments and then stops them often for no reason, but then they start again later on. Doctors are often confused by the issues they see in patients. The body is a mystery and sometimes we will get better from the placebo effect, a positive attitude, some laughter, or even stopping medication. Tumors will become begnine or start growing again without good explanation. When Christians get sick, they pray a lot. And since the body is so unpredictable, and will sometimes get better for no good reason, they will credit the prayer. One thing I can't explain are some of the faith healers out there. Some people travel around and heal people in front of huge crowds. We know that these guys are scammers and have a lot of evidence for it. I don't know how they are able to convince people they are healed, but somehow they do.
That sounds similar to something I had as a child. Every now and then it would feel as if (to a child with only a basic understanding of the human anatomy) that one of my ribs was poking into on one of my lungs. It was a light dull pain that increased in sharpness and intensity the deeper I breathed. But also as a child with a typical invulnerability complex, I decided to see if it was actually something to worry about by inhaling as hard and as fast as I could, which resulted in a blinding pain for just a fraction of second, then a 'pop', and then it was gone. It would come back every few months or so until my mid teens, but fortunately I knew how to deal with it
Pride is hardly the exclusive province of children. As adults we don't learn nearly so much to overcome it as to camouflage it.
