Order of St. Lukc No Chapter Chapter

September  2009

     

 


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