Celebrating Love
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God And that is what we are! 1 John 3:1
It took me 2 to 3
months to recover from my 95th Birthday celebrations. LAVISH they were.
Overwhelming in the intensity and volume of the loving expressions of love.
Happy - yes - I was walking on air. Birthday - yes - I felt like a little kid
again.
This opening verse, from the DOK Province IV Newsletter, The
Messenger, Lindy Kirk, Editor. Reading exactly how I feel prompted this
missive. My friends wrote, came, gave me gifts, then thanked me. We all had JOY
to share.
Since GOD is LOVE, and Love makes the world go around, it is no wonder I feel lifted up and carried along. I am experiencing proof of what The Bible says. IT IS ALL TRUE! I am filled with Joy. My heart sings! I have completed 95 years and I am energized for the 96th year.
I am reminded of a verbal gift from an old friend. “Never let the devil steal a blessing!” The way to be sure of that is to take Jesus with you each morning, and end the day with grateful prayer.
No storm can shake my inmost calm,
While to that Rock I’m clinging…..
The peace of Christ makes fresh my heart,
A fountain ever springing!
All things are mine since I am his;
How can I keep from singing?
Robert Lowry
THE HEALING OF MEMORIES
(Part 2)
When I pray for people, I ask them to visualize Jesus as the
one who receives the baby at birth. Lest some be offended by an imaging
of something that seems a fantasy, let me add that all who
are born into love are received by hands that may belong to
another, but it is Jesus who does the receiving through one of us in flesh.
There is a point of trauma people rarely consider. When the parents
find out the sex of the child, there is often rejection of
the baby because it was not the "right" sex. If the
parents had wanted a boy, and the baby turns out to be a girl, the
baby interprets being the wrong sex as a failure.
How many little girls have grown up trying to be the boy the father
wanted? How many boys have grown up feeling they have not made the grade
because they were not a girl? How many children have grown up with
names that were more suitable for the other sex because parents did
not really accept them for what they were at birth?
The problem may be compounded, if shortly after the birth of a
girl whose parents wanted a boy, a boy is born and the little girl
is cast aside while the focus of family love is directed to the boy.
There is no way to conduct a study on such things, but I wonder if some
homosexuality does not find its genesis here.
The prayer is to ask Jesus to go back to the newborn
child and pick it up and speak His love to it. By this time we know if
the child is boy or girl so we pray in that knowledge. "Jesus,
will you go back to the little girl and let her know that it is all
right for her to be a little girl, that she is exactly what you
intended her to be, and you love her very much. Lord, let her
know that she does not have to be a little boy. She is
a delight to you as a little girl."
That is only one of the crucial places where healing may be
necessary. If it was not all right to be a girl, then
it is worse to become a woman. So it is that we pray
for the young lady when she has reached puberty and the changes in her
body are the source of anxiety and shame.
We pray "Jesus will you go to the young girl who is becoming a
woman and let her know that is all right for her to become a
woman. She is just exactly what you want her to be, and that you rejoice in her
transformation."
If either the baby or mother had some problem that caused a
separation that prevented bonding, it may help to ask Jesus
to bring His mother to nurture the baby. This would always be true
for a baby that was given up at birth for adoption. The feeling of
abandonment that the baby records on such separation may be
healed very simply.
It is also helpful at times to ask Jesus to bring His mother to
touch with the adolescent girl who is becoming a woman. Very few
girls receive adequate nurture from their mothers at
this point in their life.
The prayer asking Jesus to bring His mother is one I was led to
pray when praying for a woman who could not relate to her own mother. We
were praying for the healing of the woman as a young child. When
she imagined herself in a situation where her mother was
unable to relate to her, I was led to ask Jesus to bring
His mother. He did bring her to the little girl, and she was
able to relate to her own mother so they were reconciled
before her mother died.
This practice is a bit difficult for some who have not found a
relationship to Mary. When I asked for some indication about where
I could find Scriptural support, I was led to John's story of the
crucifixion of Jesus. At the foot of the cross we find Mary, the
mother of Jesus, and the disciple whom Jesus loved.
Most people make the translation of the disciple whom Jesus
loved as John, but the text does not require that. When praying about
it, it seemed to me that I heard, "You are the
disciple whom I love. Everyone who elects to accept my love is a disciple
whom I love, and I share with them my mother.
This interpretation is in accord with the saying of Jesus in the
Gospels, "Who are my mother and my brothers and my sisters?
These who hear the word of God and do it."
This would seem to be the creation of a new family with God
our Father and Mary, our mother. We are found then in the blood line
of Jesus Christ. As His brothers and sisters we share His parents.
This was the last act of Jesus before He said, "It is finished."
If anyone is uncomfortable with
this idea, then do not pray in that fashion. Healing is not a matter of
our arguing with any person for whom we pray. It is a matter of reconciling to
Jesus, the people for whom He died. When they are reconciled, He can do the
revealing and teaching. I have found some things impossible for
people to accept from me are easy for them to accept
from Jesus.
While there are other places in our lives where we share
a common set of crises, we will simply list some of them here. One of
the places where prayer is important especially where there
was an overdue birth, is just prior to birth. We ask Jesus to go back to that
time and give the baby permission to be born. Some of us do
not have the permission, and spend a great deal of
energy in life justifying our presence in the world.
The day a child begins school leaves a sense of abandonment, when
the significant adults leave a child in the midst of people they do not
know. Ask Jesus to go take the hand of the child and give her the assurance
that she is not abandoned.
Forgiveness is an element that may be needed in every memory within
a child. Where there has been rejection at the time when mother finds out
she is pregnant, the baby must forgive both the mother and itself. When a
baby is born a girl when parents were expecting a boy, the baby must
forgive both parents and herself.
The procedure I have been led to use is to ask the
person for whom healing is sought to image that place in their life, and
speak forth the forgiveness, "Mother I forgive you, and Daddy, I
forgive you, and (we will call her Jane) Jane, I forgive
you." Following that I pray, "Jesus will you go to the
little one and enable her to release that forgiveness toward her parents
and her own self."
Wherever there is a remembered situation where
forgiveness is needed, I will follow the same pattern until we have
covered all that the Lord has brought to the conscious level for healing.
If and when He brings more, then we will pray for the healing of those
also.
A common event in the life of most children is losing
some significant person through death. This may also be a problem
if we lose someone later in life either through death,
or often today, through divorce.
I ask that they visualize themselves at the funeral of
the loved one. I ask them to forgive the person who died and
left them alone, and to forgive themselves. Often children will blame
anything that goes wrong on themselves. Then I ask Jesus to go to
that one who suffers the loss and enable her to forgive and
relinquish the person to Him. Where people are able to
image Jesus' presence with them, they do well with the release of
the loss in the past, so they can get on with their
lives in the present.
I will also ask Jesus to allow them to see the departed one
with Him so they will know he or she is in good hands. There may be some who
will object to this prayer on the basis of the belief that we don't
know where the particular departed person was
consigned. We do know, as we have said before, that the Psalmist believed that
God was there; and unless He changed His mind about them, He loves them.
The effect of the prayer is to enable the people to leave their departed
loved ones in the hands of God for His judgment rather than ours.
Divorce is very similar since it too is a breach of one
of our close relationships. Since two are made one flesh in
Holy Matrimony, a divorce is much like a death in which a part of each
person dies.
In the event of a divorce I ask the person to visualize the
time when the decree is final. At that point the death of the
marriage is complete, and the person needs healing. In the event Jane
and Sam are divorced and I am praying for Jane, I ask her to
say, "Sam, I forgive you, and Jane, I forgive you." I
then ask Jesus to go to that one who has been hurt to comfort her, and
enable her to forgive so she might get on with her life.
Another of the phenomena of the inner life is the inner vow. We
make them as emphatic statements about what we will or won't do,
and our memory promptly records them and seeks to use them as limits which are
very difficult for us to pass. There are few of us who have not said at one
time or another, "I'll never do that again," or "I will
never forgive the one who hurts me."
I once had a woman in my parish whose husband had died. She later
began courting another man. It appeared to me that they were
headed for matrimony, and so I took the liberty of asking
when they planned to get married.
Her answer was, "I don't know. Every time we talk about our
getting married, I feel like you all are going to kill me."
Knowing her well, I could ask the next question. "What
did you say when your husband died?"
Her reply was, "I said I'd die before I got married
again." That gave us the connection. She was willing to renounce the
vow then and there. With very little trouble we asked Jesus to go to the
one who had made the vow and release her from it. He did. The
couple is now happily married.
Inner vows are not always so easy to find. Somewhere in my
own unconscious there is a vow that I would never let anyone see me cry
again. As a result I find crying openly a very difficult thing to
do. It has been prayed over, and is somewhat better, but I still
pray that one day God will enable me to locate it and renounce it, that I
might be set free to release the tears that come to the backs of my
eyeballs and stop there.
When you have prayed over the areas God has revealed to need
healing, the closing prayer is one that I find important. Since I have
never seen anyone healed completely in one prayer session, I always pray for
God to continue the work He has begun.
I will pray something like, "Lord I ask that you go into the
unconscious areas of this child and heal all in the unconscious
that is open to your touch and let it fall away. If there is any memory
that needs to be brought to the conscious level, please bring
it gently so that he might not be overwhelmed, but might be able to offer it to
you for the healing you desire in him."
As the healing begins to manifest in a person, he may
also find that other memories come up to be healed. That should
not be surprising since we are aware that much of our memory
is at the unconscious level. When the memories we can easily
access are healed, we are able to access those hidden at a deeper level.
The way to healing is opened when we begin to pray. It does not
happen just because we have read the material. Healing of
Memories is a gentle ministry, and one we will learn by doing. I commend
to any of you finding a group of people who are willing to submit
one to another with respect to Christ, and try it out.
AFTERCARE FOR
INNER HEALING
The
normal context for Christian Healing ministry is a community of God's love
where He can send His people to be loved into wholeness. While privacy is to be
respected and confidentiality kept sacred, there must be at least one loving
person to whom a seeker can relate completely and without fear.
Everyone of us needs at least one SAFE person. We need someone to
whom we can open our entire hidden life without fear of rejection. There is a
need for a praying person who will help us bring all of our needs to God without
criticism. There is a need for a counselor who is willing to share the
sensitive things of her own life as a means to help us handle ours.
When someone is going through inner healing of any kind, they are
experiencing changes within that impact the very ground of their own identity.
As God begins to remove or alter some of the interior forces that have
determined my behavior in the past, there is a time of readjustment in getting
acquainted with the new ME.
When I do not react to the same things in the same way, I must have
time to adjust to those basic changes God has wrought. There may be a new
freedom in my life, but there is also a strangeness to the new. When I am not
compelled by some force that has determined a lot of my life, I may be freer than
before, but I must also find an appropriate way to act. When the old me is
changed, I need to practice becoming the new ME.
When we are involved in Inner Healing, we must be aware of the
needs of those who come seeking healing. We are not to pray and assume that it
is a done deal. We are to continue to pray for the complete healing of the
person, and we are to seek to surround that person in love until the new person
begins to emerge.
THE NATURE OF THE CHANGES
When I make a confession to God in the presence of another
person, I often find a freedom from guilt that I have not known before. I must
practice forgiving myself, and others. When my habitual guilt has become a way
of life to me, I must practice habitual reception of grace if I am to learn that
it is permissible for me to be free from the fear that tells me that I have no
right to be normal.
There is a need for someone to love me and help me receive the
changes that are occurring within me, and which leave me wondering about what
others see happening in me. There must be someone who is available to me, one
that I can call, who will listen to me talk my way through the changes I am
experiencing as God begins to set me free within from the images that have held
me bondage in the past.
When I experience Healing of Memories, my reaction patterns will
often change. I no longer react to the past from which I have been set free. I
must learn how to respond to God in the present. I must be able to assimilate
the new found freedom that I have been given and develop the habit of seeking
God's will in the present that I might grow out of my bondage to the past and
learn to live with God in the now.
As I seek to walk with God in the present, I would do well to have
someone with whom I could share the changes that are occurring within. As I
move out of one set of bondages, God is free to bring another set to the level
of consciousness. When He does, I will need prayer for the new one He reveals.
God is not equipping me to live in isolation. He is equipping me to live in a
community, and become an expression of His presence to the others in that
community.
When I experience some form of deliverance, whether it is from
Satan or some spirit of the flesh or some alter ego or some other bondage that
grips me from within, I need someone who will be available to me to talk my way
through the transition to become free to walk in Holy Spirit rather than be
compelled by some spirit of bondage.
If I have been walking out a path that is chosen by Satan, I need
to learn to walk in the Spirit in a path that is chosen by God. If I have been
walking a path wherein I have been driven by anger or fear, I must learn to
walk in the Fruit of the Spirit which are the character of Jesus Christ, the
love and joy and peace being formed in me.
PRAYER TEAM CONCERNS
When
ministering using any of the inner healing tools, the prayer team should be
ready to help the seeker find some measure of after care. There is no way that
we can force fellowship on anyone who does not desire it, but we can make sure
that it is available to them.
Inner healing is much like tending a garden. The intent of the
garden is to bear fruit. There are times when the weeds make the plants of the
garden unfruitful. We pray to remove weeds from the garden so the fruit might
grow. Confession will not generate the love which must displace the guilt, but
it will get rid of the guilt and unforgiveness that seem to block the growth of
the love. We remove the weeds where they are choking the fruit.
The prayers for the healing of memories will not make people
respond in love, but it will remove the weeds that keep the people from
responding in love. They must learn to bear the fruit when the weeds are gone
from the garden so the fruit is free to grow.
Someone who is set free from some spiritual bondage through a
ministry of deliverance or exorcism will not be free until they are bearing
fruit. Holy Spirit must enter to bring forth the fruit of the Spirit. Pulling
weeds will not bear fruit, but it will set the garden free to grow fruit that
is no longer bound by the weeds.
We should stay in touch with the seeker so that more prayer might
be offered where it is needed. There should be an ear available for them to
talk through some of the inner feelings so they might get a grip on the new
freedom that must find expression as it grows within the seeker.
There must be a development of a personal prayer life in the one
who is seeking more freedom. The prayer team must be prepared to help the
seeker find someone who can help them with that quest. There would be great
help in frequent visits the altar for Holy Communion, and where it is
indicated, further Confession and the Absolution which follows.
It would be helpful to anyone who does not have a Rule of Life that
will help them bring order into their lives. It is a matter of deciding what is
needed for growth into the new person who is being set free from bondage to
walk in the freedom of God's loving presence.
Does my discipline in seeking my new life include an adequate practice
of prayer? Am I making it a point to be prepared when I come to the altar for
Holy Communion to give my entire being to God as my offering, and receive His
resurrection life as His offering to me? Am I willing to read the Holy
Scriptures regularly to receive the revelation that God gives me there? Am I
willing to share with others the love God has given to me.
Am I in some relationship with at least one person who will hold me
accountable for keeping my Rule so that I do not lay aside an area that is unpleasant.
Inner Healing is not just another pray and go operation. It is a
process of change in which the person who has received the ministry must then
find stability within the community of God's love wherein they found the
healing power of God that set them free.
The Internationationl Order of St. Luke the Physician is an ecumenical organization dedicated to the Christian healing ministry. For more information write to The International Order of St. Luke the Physician, PO Box 780909, San Antonio, TX 782 780909 or see http://www.orderofstluke.org.
NEW! Complete Manuscript for "Commissioned to Heal", by Al Durrance Read These First. What is Christian Healing? What is Prayer? http://www.durrance.com/FrAl/intro.html