Tender love and Carol

I have been a registered nurse for 37 years. Since attending nursing school I always knew I would work in critical care, and in 1981, I entered the field of pacemaker follow-up. At that time, I was conducting aftercare similar to the manufacturers and they greatly valued the feedback I provided. I still work closely with them and enjoy the on-going education and learning we provide one another. I have been working with Dr. Qamar for 13 years. He is great to work with, talks to you, not at you and is a great teacher. In my opinion, he is generally awesome!

As the Pacer Clinic supervisor, my goal is to monitor, access, and educate patients implanted with a pacemaker or defibrillator. I develop long-term relationships with my patients, because I see them every 91 days after their surgery. My patients and I look forward to seeing each other every visit. During their appointment, I listen to them and make suggestions, recommendations, and adjustments based on how they live their lives. We have a ‘patients come first’ attitude at ICE and we try to accommodate each one the best we possibly can — in any way we can. As a clinician I recognize that, yes, my patients have a device in them, but this is what allows them to live the life they want to live. I encourage them in every way, answer their questions no matter how many they have, and enjoy working with them in order to ensure optimal health and happiness following their procedure.

— Carol J. Wheeler, R.N. Pacer Clinic Supervisor

exist?

The vast majority of Americans believe in miracles, but to what extent? Each of us faces situations in life that seem too daunting to overcome; it may be mental anguish, emotional upheaval, or we may even be facing death through terminal illness. Is there hope for each of us beyond what the laws of science say is possible? Is there a chance we can find hope in the most hopeless of times? Can we find a miracle?

WRITTEN BY JIM GIBSON

The Miracle

Leesburg resident Barbara Martin hasn’t always believed in miracles. In fact, when you consider the fact that most of what we consider to be true miracles are of a spiritual nature, it is amazing she has come to believe in them at all. You see, for a large portion of her life, Barbara was a devout atheist.

In the early 1970s, she belonged to a local catholic church and was even close friends with the priest… but she always kept her true beliefs hidden. Her association with the church was purely for social purposes.

When she was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1971, none of that changed. She didn’t seek God for help in her time of need. She simply underwent a hysterectomy and went on with her life as usual — a life that included drinking and late night parties.

Six months later when she returned for a checkup, her doctor discovered a large lump in her right breast. He diagnosed her with breast cancer and scheduled immediate surgery.

This time the diagnosis affected her profoundly. She refused the surgery and withdrew from all those who loved her. She directed most of her anger toward her husband, Edward. One evening, he attempted to comfort her and she angrily told him she planned to enjoy the rest of what time she had left on Earth. She spent that night with a girlfriend drinking heavily at a bar and even met a man she planned to date the next weekend.

The next morning, her mother confronted Barbara and told her she needed to go somewhere and straighten out her life. Even though she still seethed with anger, she decided to attend a retreat for nuns in Tampa for one week so she could have some time alone. Once there, she immediately directed her anger toward the nuns, telling them she wanted to be left alone in her room. She told no one why she was there or that she was ill.

The next day she decided to attend the morning prayers and found herself becoming impressed with the simple faith of these sisters, most of whom had master’s degrees in education. She wondered how they had such childlike faith when they were evidently such intelligent women.

On the third day at the retreat, she was sitting under a large oak tree, and she said, “If there is a crummy God like they say there is, show me and I will believe in you forever.” Suddenly an electric shock jolted her body. Then another one quickly followed. She instantly knew in her heart that God existed. There was no deep spiritual change, just the simple thought that God was there somewhere.

In her anger, she thought, “So what, He exists. He is up there and I am down here. I still have cancer and I am still afraid of dying; nothing has changed.” She fell into deep despair as she realized it was all such a cruel joke to suddenly find faith in God just as she was about to die.

She went back to her room and cried. Sister Louise, one of the nuns at the retreat, came to her room and began to talk with her. The sister told Barbara the Lord had sent her to speak to her. Sister Louise began to tell her things about her life no person could have possibly known. Barbara listened in utter amazement. The sister told her God wanted her to turn over everything in her life to Him… even her mind and her education. Barbara hesitated. Her mind and intellect were all she had.

Then, seeing the sister’s sincerity, she agreed and accepted God into her heart. As the sister prayed, Barbara suddenly had a clear vision of herself sinking into a deep pit. There was a man at the top and try as she could, she could not reach her hand high enough for him to pull her out.

The next day as she prayed at a special prayer meeting, she once again found herself sinking into that pit, only this time she was able to reach up and grab the man’s hand. “I held up my hands and he took them and pulled me up out of the sand. I looked into his eyes and knew it was Jesus.” He laid her head on His shoulder and she experienced “overwhelming feelings of peace and love.”

A sister came over and prayed for God to heal Barbara in both body and spirit. That night as she lay down to sleep, she felt for the lump in her breast, and it was still there, as hard and large as ever. The next morning she awoke and immediately felt compelled to feel for it again.

The cancerous tumor was totally gone. Her doctor examined her and verified that the cancer had indeed disappeared. Barbara has since written a book about the many miracles that have occurred in her life titled Little Book of Miracles. She is a certified lay minister and speaker who spreads the word of her healing to groups around the country.

IT’S A MIRACLE

The word “miracle” has been watered down and lost much of its meaning through constant use in everyday conversation and by the advertising industry. Every cleanser is a “miracle” cleanser, every diet a “miracle” diet; it seems the miraculous has become ordinary. Just because the word has seemingly lost its meaning doesn’t mean true miracles, ones where the laws not only of science but of sensibility are suspended and truly extraordinary, scientifically inexplicable change takes place, don’t happen in the world around us virtually every day.

The scientifically minded may say Barbara Martin’s healing came about simply through her faith in the power of prayer itself and not through a divine source. They will say her belief in the fact her body was being healed simply kick-started her immune system, which in turn quickly destroyed the disease within her. Those of a spiritual nature may believe a power from beyond us, whether divine by nature or simply a spiritual source, actively intervened and healed her supernaturally. And then there are those who walk in that gray area of wonder, seeking proof that whatever their source may be… miracles do exist in the world today.

Miracles Abound

The very concept of a true miracle implies that this force, whether one of intelligence or of raw power, in some way in- tervenes in the natural course of events and brings about change that cannot be explained empirically. This idea of a force existing beyond the natural realm of scientific observation has a foundation built at least 12,000 years ago when mankind built his first temple of worship to the power of creation in what is now southern Turkey.

A world of spirituality sprang forth that is the precursor of all the world’s major religions. Archaeologists, who once believed civilization was built on our need to congregate and farm, now believe the very civilization of all mankind may have been built instead on the desire to worship, seeking help from a force beyond our physical world.

We must also remember that although miracles are most often associated with religion or spirituality, there are instances when through using scientifically proven methods of visual imagery, hypnotism, or meditation a person produces results that are considered by many to be miraculous.

Faith has by no means cornered the market on the miraculous, but it is the place to look for miracles in abundance. According to a survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, nearly eighty percent of Americans believe in miracles and that number may be even larger on an international scale. The fact is, miracles are accepted as commonplace and are believed to occur in most major faiths worldwide.

When considering the world’s major religions, there are many different “denominations,” or beliefs, within each system. Not all members of any faith believe exactly alike. The subsequent views on miracles in the Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, and Christian faiths certainly do not constitute the view of each member of that particular group; however, this sampling can provide a broad overview of how both the spiritual and scientific communities view the miraculous in the modern-day world.

Parting The Seas Of Faith

Spiritual Director Sheldon Skurow has been leading the congregation at Temple Shalom, a Reform synagogue in The Villages, for twelve years. Skurow believes miracles are evident in

“We don’t lay hands on anyone and say, ‘You are healed’; we simply put their names on our prayer list and call them out every Friday night and Saturday morning during our service,” he explains. “Then the congregation remembers them in prayer, and we have seen many miracles happen here.”

Skurow also firmly believes that both illness and healing are “ninety-five percent attitude” and attitude is affected greatly by prayer. “I believe our minds and thoughts play a role in sickness and that through prayer, many times our attitudes change and it brings about healing… and I still consider natural processes given to us by the Creator. In a sense, either everything is a miracle or nothing is! To someone living in an earlier time, for example, telephones and airplanes might seem miraculous, but now we have learned how to harness the natural laws they represent.

“We are born with a sixth sense of spirituality that draws us to an ever closer connection with God, a growing awareness of the unity of all things. The Creator in whose image we are made gives each of us everything we need to achieve happiness, the fulfillment of our unique and divinely given purpose in this life.No matter the Jewish faith from the time when God plagued Egypt in the days of Moses until today.

“I believe there is a Supreme Being who has a plan for our lives and I believe prayer greatly influences what happens to us during those lives,” Skurow says. “In our congregation, I have seen many, many people who were very, very sick and seemed to have no way to survive undergo a complete turnaround, and they are still with us today. I consider those to be miracles.” that to be a miracle,” he says.

Skurow notes that the healings in the synagogue are through intercessory prayer, and though the healer is the same God as the Christian and Muslim faiths, the pathway to healing is somewhat different.

To highlight the subjective nature of miracles and prove that even their very concept varies not only from religion to religion but also within religions, Rabbi Karen Allen of Congregation Beth Sholom in Leesburg defines the miraculous in a much different light.

“Our understanding of God, and of nature, comes about on different levels or planes at different times,” she says. “A ‘miracle’ happens within the physical laws of science, though it may follow principles that are as yet outside our present understanding. The term ‘miracle’ implies something outside of natural laws, but everything that happens is simply the operation of how much our understanding may increase, there are forces at work that we don’t understand — it is all the work of God.”

The Miracle Of Awareness

Mark Winwood is a spiritual teacher at the Chenrezig Project, a local Buddhist group located in Yalaha. Winwood practices traditional Tibetan Buddhism and explains that what most of us consider to be miracles are not accepted as such in the Buddhist faith.

“We believe in cause and effect,” Winwood says. “If someone has cancer, it is the resultant effect of some cause. That cause could be cigarettes or it could be a naturally occurring biological process.

Whatever the cause, we don’t believe it can be miraculously cured by an outside divine power. In many cases, disease can be cured by a physician, and we also believe mental visualization can influence the mind-body connection and enhance the body’s natural processes to aid in physical healing, but we consider neither of those to be miraculous.”

Winwood says that as humans, we should take full responsibility for everything that occurs to us and how we react to it. “The very concept of a miracle implies there is a divine intervening force that takes control and has the power to be responsible for us,” he says. “That idea takes away our individual responsibility for our lives and that is just not consistent with Buddhist teachings. It is for us to do the work and achieve the awareness and enlightenment.”

Winwood states that this primary objective of awareness is a spiritual concept that must be worked at to attain and is not one that lends itself to the miraculous.

“The Buddha or the Dalai Lama did not and does not have the power to heal another person. They are just men who have attained awareness. Miracles are just not something congruent to the Buddhist faith,” he says.

Miracles In Islam

“Absolutely! Muslims believe in miracles,” says Hassan Shibly, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. “Our faith is built on miracles from the past that were performed by God through our prophets and it is strengthened today from miracles we see in our everyday lives.”

Shibly says that in Islam, there are three types of miracles: mujizat, karamat, and istidraj.

Mujizat are miracles performed by God’s prophets long ago in order to establish divine credence to their messages. Examples would

Its eloquence is unmatched and not a single word has been changed since it was first written. This is why in the Muslim faith we believe Muhammad was the final prophet and his ultimate miracle, the Quran, is everlasting.”

Karamat are miracles performed by pious Muslims. These are miracles that happen with regularity today. They can range from healing the sick to clairvoyance (knowing another person’s thoughts or knowing information about that person no one else could possibly know) to having various supernatural powers.

“Muslims who lead consistently good lives and serve God be: Moses’ staff turning into a serpent and devouring the serpents created through the power of the Egyptian magicians; Jesus healing the sick and raising the dead; and Muhammad splitting the moon and writing the incomparably eloquent words of the Quran. can many times perform miracles,” says Shibly. “Also, many times the pious will receive messages from God in their dreams to warn them of impending danger or as a sign He is with them. My own grandmother was very ill and bedridden. In the night, Jesus came to her in a dream and waved his hand over her and told her she was healed. The next morning, she awoke healed.”

“The prophets were visited by the angel Gabriel and imbued with the power they needed to convince people of their day they were set apart by God,” he says. “Each prophet had the specific gift for the time period he lived on the Earth. The last unchanging miracle was performed by the prophet Muhammad when he wrote the Quran, the words of God.

Istidraj are miracles performed by non-believers. Although those performing them are not believers, the miracles are divine and come from God. They are used to either remind all people to turn to God because of His loving nature, or to help convince the person whom the miracle was performed through to turn to God.

“In Islam, we believe miracles can happen through both good and bad people. God works through all as He chooses,” he says. “But we believe these types of miracles can also be abused by the unbeliever to claim their own divinity. In the Islamic community, those who gain attention from the miraculous are frowned upon if they do not give God all the glory and live humble, sincere lives.”

Shibly says that because miracles are so readily accepted in the Muslim faith, the believer has to remain focused on God, the supplier of answered prayer. Once the believer’s focus is on God, then he or she will fulfill their ultimate purpose, which is to live a good, clean, and pious life.

“We have a saying in Arabic,” he says. “Al Istiqama Khayron Min Alfi Karama, which means ‘to be consistent and steadfast in doing good is better than 1,000 miracles.’ Our focus must remain on God and on living good, honest lives.”

According to Shibly, on a personal level, there are three distinct ways miracles affect the lives of Muslims today.

First, they continually have the miracle of the Quran to lead them on the path to God.

Second, they have the consolation that comes through having their individual prayers answered by God, making the seemingly impossible become possible.

Third, they have the spiritual realm of clairvoyance, which can come either to them personally through a dream, or through a pious person who has been given special supernatural abilities by God.

“What is most important to remember is that miracles are intended to show us the love and power of God and are not to be exploited by any individual. In fact, Muslims who are truly pious are so humbled by God’s gift they believe it to be a bad thing if others know of any miracle that comes about through their prayers or gifts,” he says. “The most significant miracles are not the ones we read about or hear about, but rather those we experience personally.”

Lourdes

Because there have been so many claims of faith-based miraculous healings at Lourdes, France, the Catholic Church created the Lourdes Bureau Medical, a panel of objective physicians and specialists whose job is to scrutinize each claim for authenticity.

Our Lady of Lourdes, located in southern France, is home to a shrine built around a small grotto and spring considered by the Catholic Church to be the sight of a visitation of Mary, the mother of Jesus. The first visitation supposedly took place on February 11th, 1858, and was witnessed by a 14-year-old peasant girl named Bernadette Soubirous. During a visitation on February 25th, the vision of Mary instructed Bernadette to dig a hole with her hands and drink from the water that would come forth. Bernadette dug, and a spring appeared which still flows today.

Millions of people make the pilgrimage to Lourdes each year to bathe in, be blessed with, and drink of the “healing” waters of Lourdes. Although tens of thousands of miracles are claimed to have taken place, approximately 7,000 have been deemed inexplicable cures and sixty-eight have been proclaimed as true divine miracles by the board of medical professionals, meaning they cannot be explained in any way by medical science.

The last known miraculous cure at Lourdes took place in 1987, when a Frenchman named Jean-Pierre Bely was instantly healed of multiple sclerosis. Bely had suffered from the disease since 1972 and was paralytic and bedridden. He possessed extensive medical documentation concerning the advanced stage of his illness.

While on a pilgrimage to Lourdes, Bely received what is called the Sacrament of the Sick. According to his transcribed testimony, he became “overcome by a powerful sense of interior liberation and peace.” Although Bely felt a spiritual change, he remained bedridden and paralytic. According to the medical bureau’s physicians, the following day he experienced a wave of intense cold followed by an immediate wave of intense heat flow throughout his body. He immediately sat up on the side of his bed and had feeling return to his arms. The next night, he suddenly awakened from his sleep, stood up, and walked for the first time in over three years.

Following an extensive examination by the Bureau, the Catholic Church deemed his healing miraculous in 1999.

Evangelism And The Power Of The Miraculous

The woman walking back and forth across the platform at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles wore a floor-length flowing gown and her lilting soprano voice filled the entire arena, all the way to the upper balcony where the young man sat doubled over in pain.

The long elegant sleeves of her gown waved in the air as she loudly proclaimed, “I believe in miracles with every atom of my being... because I believe in God!” Her conviction had no effect on the young man; he could barely concentrate on anything she said.

Steven Lochmiller was dying. At only 21 years of age, his body was ravaged by advanced stage nodular-sclerosing Hodgkins lymphoma. A full-body scan revealed malignant tumors and swollen lymph nodes from his head to his feet. A huge tumor bulging from beneath his collarbone and the affected lymph nodes throughout his body caused excruciating pain, and he had taken five powerful codeine tablets in the last hour (his doctor had prescribed one tablet every three to six hours) just to make it to the auditorium. The pain had returned with a vengeance and he was preparing to ask his mother for another tablet — when his life changed forever.

The woman was walking toward the far end of the platform when she suddenly turned and pointed toward the upper balcony in his direction. “Someone in the upper back is being healed of cancer,” she said, and then she turned and kept preach-

Do; http://www.pewforum.org/Press-Room/Pew-Forum-in-the-News/Do-you-believe-in-miracles--Most-A mericans- ing to the crowd that filled the auditorium to overflowing.

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(2002) Little Book of Miracles, Jawbone Publishing, Newnan, GA (Accessed

“I didn’t feel any change at all,” Lochmiller says. “All I could feel was the unbearable pain in my shoulder and chest. Then about five minutes later she came to our side of the platform again and said, ‘That person with cancer who I mentioned earlier up in the back balcony, healing is there for you, but you have to accept it.’”

Lochmiller closed his eyes and prayed, “Father, if this is for me, I accept it in the name of Jesus because I am dying.”

He immediately felt as if someone reached inside him and tugged his entire ribcage forward and he was instantly pain-free.

“The woman’s name was Kathryn Kuhlman, and she was a Christian evangelist who held televised healing services,” Lochmiller says today. “As a teenager, I had watched her shows with my friends and laughed at her and made fun of her; once I got cancer, I looked at her a little differently. I wanted to live.”

Even though he insisted he was healed, his doctors just as vehemently insisted he begin radiation treatments for the tumor, which remained visible in his shoulder. He reluctantly followed their advice “even though I knew I was healed.” When they said they wanted to do further radiation treatments on the rest of his body, he refused and insisted they operate on him and look inside to see for themselves.

His surgeon operated and after a thorough internal examination, found there was no sign of cancer anywhere in Lochmiller’s body. Today, Steven Lochmiller is 60 years old, mar- ried with two daughters, and owns his own Internet search engine optimization business in Roseville, California. Most importantly, he has remained cancer-free since his healing in 1973. He is one of thousands who received medically verified physical healings through the ministry of Protestant evangelist Kathryn Kuhlman.

Outside The Realm Of Faith

In order to appease a scientifically minded medical and academic community who finds the idea of healing through a divine source to be antiquated superstition, Carlyle Hirshberg and Marc Ian Barasch define miracles simply as “remarkable recoveries” in their book of the same name. In their publication, they tell the story of one of the medical fields most celebrated cases of what physicians call spontaneous regression.

In her early forties, Rotterdam resident Geertje Brakel was diagnosed with inoperable ovarian cancer. Up to this point, Brakel had lived a very depressed, negative, suicidal, and reclusive life.

Her doctor told her she had merely months to live and something inside her changed. “Instantly, I decided I would make myself well because they could not… There was a feeling of pure life inside me from that minute on,” she said.

Brakel refused chemotherapy and decided to institute her own healing regimen. She began a vegetarian diet and decided to change her entire outlook on life itself. She had lived her life always bound by what she thought others would think of her. She made a conscious decision to do only the things she loved and not what she thought society expected of her.

She began to laugh more, and then as optimism began to fill her, she would tell everyone she met she was going to defeat cancer and live. She began to avoid anyone who was negative in any way. She spent her days dancing to her favorite music, reading books for pleasure, and seeking out the beauty of nature.

Brakel also voiced the emotions she had held in her entire life. When happy she laughed, when sad she cried, and when angry she yelled. Scans showed the cancer’s spread had halted. For two years, she fought the disease she felt was “trying” to kill her.

At the two and one-half year mark, the cancer suddenly began to spread quickly. The doctors removed both ovaries and pronounced once again she had a short time to live, as it had metastasized throughout her body. At first, she sank into a deep depres- sion and didn’t think she could continue the fight, but after a short time, she rallied.

She turned to a hypnotherapist and began anew. She began to ride a bicycle and love the world of nature in a whole new way. Within ten months, scans revealed all the tumors in her body had completely disappeared and today, just like Steven Lochmiller, she “miraculously” enjoys good health.

Finding Your Miracle

Whether it is by faith in God, reaching out to a “power” that fills the Universe, or simply the belief in our minds that we are going to survive, miracles abound in the world around us.

The best news is that it seems these miracles flourish for all of us, for the most simple-minded and the most intelligent, for old and young, for men and women, for the religious no matter what their personal faith may be, for the agnostic, and for the atheist. The hope that miracles engender knows no ideological, ethnic, or racial boundaries, and whatever force it may be that creates what we define as the miraculous… it is there for all. It takes on a very life of its own and in doing so, offers hope to all people worldwide who find themselves living in life’s darkest hour.