We were warned, before we entered the room.  I had gone with a friend to visit a lady he once worked with.  She was dying with cancer and had been placed on a ward for those with no hope left.  No more medical treatment was to be done; just giving them pain medication, to try and keep them as comfortable as possible.  A family member said, “You won’t recognize her.”  I saw the shock on his face when the door was opened.  They were right.

A ward, in an up to date medical facility, where the better situated folk were treated; a last stop ward.  I looked across to the other side of the room and what I saw was terrible.  It must have been a middle aged woman; no hair, and just a left over bag of bones.  While we were visiting with the other lady, this one, began to cry so pitifully.  She called out, “mama, papa.”  I could not help myself.  I walked over to her bed, a total stranger, and took her frail hand between both of mine, and lightly rubbed her hand.  A real wreck; emaciated, almost beyond words.  I wiped her tears with my fingers.

I said I would be real here.  I thought about how much power we were told that we have; how we could do the same things the early church did.  How Jesus gave power to his disciples, even then, to heal the sick, and to cast out devils.  And I couldn’t do anything for these two people, but try to be as supportive as I could.  There’s been some times in my life, when I felt plain absolutely helpless; this was one of them.  Maybe I shouldn’t tell you what I was thinking; but I will.  I had to walk out of that room, and leave those two souls, in that kind of shape; and I was hurt, and I was very angry about it.

The very idea, that anyone would seek to suppress the gifts of the Spirit, is almost more than I can fathom today.  Do you know what we’ve done; what we’ve let others do to us.  We’ve been robbed; we’ve been robbed of some of the greatest gifts and operations that was ever afforded the church.  And it’s things, that a very dear price was payed for; bought with His very blood.

I have a friend that says, “It won’t go in my head.”  Tools, that were placed in the body of Christ; some of the things, we need the most today.  It just seemed like something broke, or snapped inside of me.  The actions of trying to control the moving of the Spirit; preventing those, with these gifts.

I won’t be the same; I promise you that; how could I be.  Claiming so much power; yet failing to use it, or even know how it’s even done.

Jesus healed them, everywhere He went; and He healed them all.  People were healed, just from the apostles walking by where they were laying.

I am more than a hundred percent sure, we could have had it; if we hadn’t allowed someone to stop us.  Tell me, what would the real Jesus have done, if He had walked into that room?

What would the real apostles have demonstrated there?

The friend we went to see, died shortly after we left.  What are we going to do about this.  What will Jesus think, when we stand before Him?

The no hope ward.  Will we go forward this time; how desperate, have we finally become?

Robert Blackburn