What brought this about? There were a number of factors, but the main one is Dorothy’s faith. During the course of her illness she made a decision that if God says something she will believe it. This applies both to the words of Scripture and also to personal messages which the Lord gives to her.

The quotation from Smith Wigglesworth, the famous Pentecostal minister, best describes Dorothy’s belief – ‘God says it, I believe it, that settles it.’

No room for doubt

Dorothy would not allow doubt to come in. At the end of each of her operations in the 1990s she would not take a medical prognosis. She was concerned that if the medical prognosis was bad doubt would be given an invitation to take root. If anyone approached Dorothy with doubt she immediately began to fill her mind with verses of faith and encouragement.

When we are trying to live by faith there is always the danger that most people will not believe that a person suffering from serious illness can be healed through the prayer of faith. Canon Jim Glennon, from St Andrew’s Cathedral in Sydney, one of the great men in the healing ministry worldwide in the 20th century, said that if he had cancer he would not tell more than half a dozen people. He said that for everyone who believes there are 100 who don’t believe. He would want to be surrounded by faith and not by doubt.

Before each of her operations in the 1990s Dorothy invited me to go to the hospital to pray with her. To this day Dorothy could tell me what I specifically prayed for. And she believed that God would answer. Dorothy also prayed in faith herself. She says, ‘as I was receiving scans and chemo I repeated psalms and verses of Scripture to myself.

I thanked God for the promise of healing and for sending treatment which would kill off the cancer cells. As I swallowed anti-cancer pills I again thanked God for his promise that Christ had come so that I might have life and have it more abundantly. I also thanked Him that the pills were preventing the regrowth of cancer cells.’

Dorothy regularly said ‘Thank you’ to God by faith. She learnt this from a great book on the healing ministry by Agnes Sanford, The Healing Light.¹ Agnes says that when praying for healing she says ‘please’ once and then ‘thank you’. In other words, when she prays in the name of Jesus, she assumes that God has heard and is responding.

Not thanking us – but God

I know a young man who exercised faith in this way. His name is Andrew. He had a bad motorbike accident, suffering injuries all over his body. Miraculously all of the injuries were clearing up, except one. That was in his lower leg. The surgeon said, at the beginning of August, as he was about to go off on holiday, that if the leg had not improved by the time he came back at the end of the month, he would have to do a bone graft. During the course of that month we prayed a great deal for Andrew. His response to that was ‘absolutely terrific’. He obviously believed that God answers prayer because every time we prayed he began to say, ‘Thank you, thank you, thank you.’

He wasn’t thanking us. He was grateful for all the prayer he was receiving, but now he was thanking God by faith that He was responding to the prayers. When the surgeon came back at the end of August he found that Andrew had made so much progress that the bone graft was not needed. I have no doubt that our prayer and anointing with oil made a significant contribution to Andrew’s healing. But the key factor was surely Andrew’s faith, praying with us absolutely convinced that God was bringing healing.

I think Andrew must have been familiar with the Book of Proverbs, chapter 4 verse 23 – ‘Be careful how you think: your life is shaped by your thoughts.’ Dorothy also asked God if there was anything He needed her to do or stop doing. At that very time her father rang her. He had been watching a programme on television in which Jane Plant was talking about the health benefits of giving up dairy. Dorothy felt that this was a word from the Lord, so she made the decision to stop taking dairy.

She was not saying that everyone has to take this step, but she did feel it was what God was asking her to do. Since that day Dorothy has never taken dairy again. It makes life more inconvenient. She cannot eat out in case there is dairy in the meal. When she does her shopping in the supermarket she examines the label on any item of food, to check that there is no dairy.

God is not asking everyone to take this step. But I think, especially if we are suffering from a serious illness, it would be worth asking the Lord if there is anything we need to do, or stop doing, to receive healing – and then be obedient.

Repentance playing a part?

Photo Credit: Stephen Barnes/Medical/alamy.com

Dorothy also took seriously what Agnes Sanford said about keeping the channels clear between ourselves and God. Faith, she says, allows us to approach God with confidence. But keeping the channels clear between ourselves and God allows the power of God to flow. And what is it that keeps the channels clear? – love, forgiveness, repentance.

Mother Basilea Schlink, leader for many years of a women’s religious community in Germany, told a story about how the power of God was released through repentance. The Sisters were building an extension to the community building, and they were doing the work themselves. But they kept being held back. They had constructed a railway line to help move the building materials. But the trolley kept coming off the lines.

Basilea Schlink felt there was a spiritual dimension to this problem. So she stopped work and took all the Sisters into the chapel. They sat in silence for a while. Eventually one of the Sisters said she had been holding a grudge against one of the other Sisters, and she apologised for that. Gradually other Sisters offered apologies, or said they forgave someone who had hurt them.

After this period of reflection, when they went back out to work, the trolley never came off the rails again. Dorothy worked hard to make sure she kept the channels clear between herself and God. It seems to have been a very effective way to treat the problem, because almost 25 years later she is still cancer free.