and then pulled out a small vial of oil. When Pastor Bob approached the bed, I asked if he would give me a blessing at the close of his prayer for my healing—the sign of the cross on my forehead. Growing up as a Reformed Episcopalian, I knew this to be an outward physical symbol of, well … a seal, a kind of amen. So be it. Let it be as the Lord wills. Bob prayed: “Lord God, You can, with a thought, simply take this pain of Joni’s away, and so we pray that in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit that You would heal Joni of this long and tiring ailment.” And at that
