Short Story: John is healed halfway, but he never credits God with this healing.

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John had been suffering from a debilitating toothache for three days now. He could not eat much food. He could not sleep much at night. He could not even go to a dentist. The dentists were all currently closed in his home state, because of the lock-downs in place, due to some global epidemic, currently gripping the whole world, in its clutches. John lay awake all night, praying to every God that he knew, for healing. He tried distraction of his incessant pain, by his practising various spiritual techniques, that he had come across, during his long life, so far. John tried chanting, visualising healing taking place in him, meditation, even self-hypnosis. These did work to some degree, but the pain always dragged him back to it again, after a few short minutes. Then, he tried directly praying again to God, asking for healing right now for his aching tooth. Then he got out of his bed. The pain was unbearable. John thought that he would try a triple whammy of cures. First, he took a pain killer tablet. Then he brushed his teeth with a toothpaste, renowned to help people with sensitive teeth, which had cost him a fortune to buy, just the day before. Lastly, he used his old mother's method. He coated his tooth with bicarbonate of soda. He was also hungry, having eaten nothing for the last three days either, except for his drinking lukewarm water. Hot water made his tooth worse. John got through the night, and in the morning, about half of the level of his pain had quietened down, and subsided. John silently thanked his old mother, who always knew what to do in these situations. But, he never thanked God. He knew that there was no way that God could be responsible for healing him only partway here. God, if he was God, would never heal someone like himself in only a half-baked way, or would he? A thoughtful afterword, and answer to John's question: Perhaps, we are all a bit like John, but God does heal, as much as we require to be healed. God heals, and he heals fully, but the healing must be allowed to take place through the channels that he provides, and when we turn on these channels, the transmission of the healing comes through. God needs such a channel to heal through, unless you love him so much that love itself is then the healing channel for you, but also God then sometimes allows pain to endure, to show you that his message is never complete, but ongoing in you, and that nothing is final. Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com John was usually a happy chappy like this (see photo), but he wasn't himself, when he was in pain. Are any of us really still ourselves, when we are in such pain too?