Ending Well – Reflection 16
April 11th 2026
I had a dream about you… I think you have been healed
Jesse Rowe writes:
This month’s episode of my dad’s podcast Ending Well has been years in the writing. It brings together a deep understanding of pain and the theology of suffering. It’s one thing to think about it, but another to hear it from someone living through an uncertain yet hopeful journey. What do you do when someone says you are healed? There are many paths to take after hearing this, but which is the right one?
It finishes with the song Tuhia by the kiwi band Te Rautini.
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Episode 16 – I had a dream about you… I think you have been healed
The Sunday before Christmas 2025: Whanganui, Aotearoa NZ.
It was the fourth week of our visit to the southern hemisphere, a choice, as recorded in a previous podcast, to ‘Get busy living’ rather than ‘Get busy dying.’ The warm summer light of a New Zealand Christmas felt so refreshing and life-giving. We had already spent some days on the east coast just outside of Auckland. Jesse had flown over from Mongolia to surprise Caleb for his 40th birthday. Together, we enjoyed a wonderful day in ‘Hobbiton’, dressed as hobbits. A few days on Lake Taupo helped break the journey south; then we arrived in Whanganui, Caleb and Billy’s home and a visit to our new granddaughter [daughter number four]. Here we would settle for Christmas.
On that fourth week, the last Sunday before Christmas, I woke early morning at 2am. This was not unusual because of sensitive bladder routines, but this waking seemed different and I lay there going through a simple form of prayer to help me get back to sleep. This usually took the form of attempting to recite John 1:1-18 in my head and gently reflecting on each phrase for a moment. It suddenly floated into my consciousness that Billy’s dad, Tony, was leading the early communion service at church later that morning. As some people will know, traditional services have never really been my cup of tea. But I felt a deep compulsion to attend the service. I thought it would be nice to support Tony, and I would not be able to attend the Christmas midnight communion later that week, so I decided, at 2am, that I would get up early and take myself to church.
I woke in good time, dressed, and walked the short distance in the warmth of the early morning sun. (So different to a UK winter Christmas). As I walked into the worship sanctuary there were already about thirty people mingling waiting for the service to start. A woman, who I don’t ever recall meeting before, came up to me. She seemed very excited and a little awkward. She told me she did not usually attend this service. In fact, she had never been. But she felt compelled to attend that morning. She said she was surprised to see me there. That she had had a dream that very night… about me. I was inwardly startled but curious, but her manner seemed to be very genuine and humble, like she was also trying to process what had happened. She told me that in her dream I had been surrounded by the prayer ministry team in the church. (I know the team had regularly prayed for me; this was Caleb and Billy’s church). She said, ‘in the dream my hands went very warm and started to tingle.’ I could see that people around us were starting to move to their seats and settle down.
‘I think that you have been healed,’ she said. But she left it in such a way that I did not feel any manipulation. She placed her pronouncement in front of me and then graciously withdrew to take her seat for the start of the service. I could tell that she was anxious not to overdo the moment.
The service began. I looked up on the screen to see that the theme for the day was the angel’s announcement to Mary. Mary’s response, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word’ came flooding into my consciousness.
Tony led us in a special prayer for the day:
‘God, faithful and true, make us eager with expectation, as we look for the fulfilment of your promise in Jesus Christ our Saviour. Hear this prayer for your love’s sake. Amen.’
I noted that Mary was perplexed and pondered on what had been said to her. And it suddenly struck me there were not going to be any physical signs that the angel’s message was true for a few weeks. She had to carry it.
How would I know, physically, if my messenger’s pronouncement was also true. I had heard of this kind of thing happening before, sometimes leaving people bewildered and confused. I recalled Canon David Watson, who was so convinced, for some time, that the promise from a healing ministry team about his own healing was true. It was not to be in the way they expected. Other friends I have known with long term ailments have been accused of not being healed because they did not have enough faith. My friend, Alyn Haskey, was wheelchair-bound with cerebral palsy right into his sixties. But he was such a great minister of the gospel. Another dear Christian friend in one of our parishes with MS remained in her wheelchair until her dying day.
But this encounter I had had seemed genuine, humble, and full of peace. To my mind, it was faultless. If it were to be done, the messenger had delivered the message faithfully.
I am not sure I noticed what went on in the rest of the service but receiving communion was a precious moment and left my heart with thankfulness. I began to think ahead. I have always counselled people not to stop their medication until full counsel with their medical consultant or doctor. It seemed a ‘no brainer.’ How could I get to such a point? All my blood test results were good, and the cancer treatment had held everything at bay for the last sixteen months. I was not about to abandon those, even though coping with the side effects had been the real struggle: loss of energy, low moods, brain fog, increased anxiety, a certain amount of paranoia. The mother of Jesus did not have the privilege of a scan, though she may have had morning sickness. I may not know until I had a scan, and even then, would that show enough? But did it really matter? Where would all this lead?…
Easter 2026: Nottingham, England.
There a is sense in which all Christians should know that we are already all healed. And this is the season to celebrate it. Easter is the great announcement of healing.
Way back early in our experience as humans, we made bad choices. The world was in motion, full of beauty, tranquillity, harmony and peace. We chose to be like God, and what followed was greed, envy, pride and violence. The Bible presents that as the fall, when humans chose their own way rather than God’s. At that point there was a crunching and grinding of the gears and the whole thing was set in reverse. Creation was in bondage to decay. Death reigned. Entropy prevailed as the dominant direction of travel. Relationships broke down, humans hungered for power and were prepared to attain it at any cost. But God… God who always longs for a relationship of love with us would not leave it that way. Through a whole journey of revealing, calling, wooing, God finally comes to us in the person of Jesus and offers us a chance of friendship… at any cost. And so, there is a crunching and grinding of the gears at what we now call Easter, and the whole apparatus is set in forward motion again. The horror of the cross and the overwhelming joy of the empty tomb and the risen presence of Jesus meant we were facing something entirely new.
About that momentous event, G.K.Chesterton writes, ‘On the third day the friends of Christ coming at daybreak to the place found the grave empty and the stone rolled away. In varying ways they realised the new wonder; but even they hardly realised that the world had died in the night. What they were looking at was the first day of a new creation, with a new heaven and a new earth; and in a semblance of the gardener God walked again in the garden, in the cool not of the evening but the dawn.’
As C.S. Lewis puts it in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, ‘Death itself would start working backwards.’
From Easter the direction of travel moved towards healing, reconciliation, generosity, kindness, goodness and love. So, Paul can write, ‘Though outwardly we are wasting away, inwardly we are being renewed day by day.’
Easter means we are healed and the whole movement for God is healing regardless of circumstances. In fact, God uses all circumstances to achieve this process of healing.
‘We know that God works all things together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose’ (Romans 8:28).
Why does God do this? Because he is forever ‘forming us in the image of his Son,’ achieving in us what he always intended, to mould us into the image of Jesus our prototype. He must let us come freely, which is why it takes time. But, essentially, the focus since that first Easter is healing. We are healed in Jesus. ‘I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me’ (Galatians 2:20)
That is why we must grasp four ways of healing for all Christians.
The first is ‘fast track healing.’ We see this often in the ministry of Jesus, at the first coming of his kingdom, and some of us have been touched with wonder at such instances in our present day. An ailment is taken away. A person is restored to health, and often through answered prayer.
Then there is a form of ‘gradual healing’ through God’s gift of surgeons, doctors, caring families, church communities and neighbours. When people are loved back to health. God pulls something out of all kinds of people to assist in this healing process, and some different kind of wonder happens. We grow together.
Thirdly, there is the kind of healing where God says, (and up until now I have felt him say this to me), ‘David, I never intended you to have this cancer, but I am going to use it to form you in my image; and through your journey, form others in my image – both communities and individuals. For grapes cannot become wine unless they are crushed.’
‘…this slight momentary affliction is preparing you for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure’ (2 Corinthians 4:17).
In a sense, both the second and third ways of healing often overlap, but the first is never excluded. I remain open.
Then there is a fourth way of healing, which is a crossing over from this vale of tears into the glory of the full and joyful loving presence of God. Where, as Paul so confidently says, ‘We are convinced that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us’ (Romans 8:18). And ‘For me to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain’ (Philippians 1:21).
So, for me, I am neither disturbed nor overly excited by such a pronouncement that I am healed. Because I knew it already. Both Pixie and I feel a deep peace about how God is leading us through this season. And as the Psalmist so aptly points out,
‘I trust in you, O LORD;
I say, ‘You are my God.’
My times are in your hand…’(Psalm 31:14,15).
It may well be that God is changing the course of my healing process, but he has never stopped healing me since that first Easter day.
I am ready. Bring it on.
‘Let it be with me according to your word.’
God, faithful and true, make us eager with expectation, as we look for the fulfilment of your promise in Jesus Christ our Saviour. Hear this prayer for your love’s sake. Amen.
Song by Te Rautini – “Tuhia” – with grateful thanks
Your love has freed us
And we’re free indeed
Spoken to our pain
Revealing hope again
Your love has freed us
And we’re free indeed
Spoken to our pain
Revealing hope again
There is but one love
And it is your love
Ko te mea nui
(The most important thing)
Ko te aroha
(Is love)
A big thank you to Ali Hull for help in editing my scripts – and to my son Jesse for editing the audio.
Thank you for reading. I am also very grateful for the many people who have sent encouraging comments about my reflections.
My personal email address is: davidbrowe1@gmail.com.
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