March 23, 2006

Emotionally and physically healed

By Lester Dean

My father, Bruce Dean, had lived in the Shoals area of northwest Alabama for more than 50 years. So it was a definite warning sign when in his early 60s he began to get lost while driving around our community.

Late one evening after we had attended a church service, I let my father out of the car at his home and left, never thinking something was wrong. We had lived in that house 35 years. He wandered around our neighborhood completely disoriented.

He fell out of bed the next day and broke his hip. We called an ambulance, and he was taken to Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital.

My father’s mental and physical health continued to deteriorate. He had to be restrained in his bed. He did not recognize his family, and he lay in bed wasting away. Medical personnel told us he would eventually become comatose and die.

One evening I attended a home Bible study with friends. After the minister finished preaching, he and I prayed fervently for my father to totally recover from his illness, adhering to the promise of James 5:15,16: “And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up. … Pray one for another, that ye may be healed.”

Other ministers, friends and acquaintances began to faithfully pray for my father to be restored emotionally and physically.

Soon afterward, he had surgery on his hip. He used a walker for a few weeks, but his mind and body steadily improved. Today, he is fully recovered and remains active at 80.

Lester and Bruce Dean attend The Father’s House Church in Petersville, Ala. (Jerry Balentine, pastor).