Hallelujah! ‘Miracle session’ proves a hit

Attending US-based televangelist Dr Marilyn Hickey’s ‘faith healing’ session at the YMCA ground on Saturday was a life-changing experience for Shugufta, who had lost her eyesight two years ago.
The renowned scholar and the Marilyn Hickey Ministries president, Dr Hickey is an American Christian minister and Christian television televangelist and personality, who teaches Bible studies both nationally and internationally.
For teenaged Shugufta, the world went dark all of a sudden when she was studying at her home two years ago. As she lost her eyesight, the girl also stopped going to school.
When she heard of the four-day visit to Karachi of Hickey and her faith healing prowess, she also rushed to the Young Men Christian Association (YMCA) ground, where tens of thousands of people from across the city had gathered to attend the public gathering commonly known as “Hickey’s session”.
‘Faith healing’ is a reference to the belief of some Christians that God heals people through the power of the Holy Spirit, often involving the laying on of hands. It is also referred to as supernatural healing, divine healing, and miracle healing among other things.
“I am alright now and can see everything,” she told Pakistan Today outside the YMCA ground. “It feels great.”
Shugufta was not alone to be cured at the gathering. Dozens of people, including children and women, suffering from different diseases were cured by the spiritual touch of the televangelist. Many, brought on wheelchairs to the ground, left the session walking.
‘Faith healing’ is best known in connection with Christianity. Some people interpret the Bible, especially the New Testament, as teaching belief in, and practice of, faith healing. There have been claims that faith can cure blindness, deafness, cancers, developmental disorders, anaemia, arthritis, defective speech, multiple sclerosis, total body paralysis, and various injuries.
According to adherents, the healing of a person can be brought about by religious faith through prayer or rituals that stimulate a divine presence and power toward correcting disease and disability.