Category: Healing

Healing Power #5

8/30/2022

Discussions about intercessory prayer often begin with a question. In my previous post Henri Nouwen posed one. Today, I ponder a question by George MacDonald (1824-1905), Scottish author, poet, and Christian minister: “And why should the good of anyone depend on the prayer of another?” Although he is confident enough to answer, he does so with another question: “I can only answer with the return question, ‘Why should my love be powerless to help another?’”
MacDonald was writing at a time and place when the Christian theology of a loving God, who created human kind in God’s imagine, was accepted and believed throughout the culture. I love his nineteenth century response, which I believe is an affirmation of the power of love; but must work through twenty-first century intellectualism and skepticism to turn his question into a statement of faith: my love is powerful enough to help another.

Healing Power #4

8/23/2022

How important is my intention when I pray for someone’s healing? Henri Nouwen offers this: “To pray for others means to offer others a hospitable place where I can really listen to their needs and pains.”
   Does this mean that if I am angry at the person, or deep down don’t want their healing, my prayer means nothing? That doesn’t sound like a prayer. Rather, it is self-centered me wanting what my self-centered me wants!
   I believe that healing prayer should come from the best me I can be. Sometimes that is mighty pathetic, other times it is my better loving self. Regardless, I must offer my honest self to God. From that point I can listen to the needs and pains of the person for whom I am praying.
   However, praying for ‘my enemies’ while not listening to their needs and pains is sometimes the best start I can offer. I know that God is there for the person. And, God is there for me, to help me move to love of self and neighbor.

Healing power #3

8/20/2022

The gospels are replete with stories of physical and emotional healings by Jesus. Through word and deed Jesus demonstrated that alough people have physical ailments and may need to be rid of demons, they are not sick because of sin.
   However, as the western church grew in power and prestige, it began to ignore this message, as well as Jesus' actions of God’s healing presence in this life. Word of his healings, teachings, and miracles faded, and over time was replaced by the dogma of the ‘church fathers’, with overpowering emphasis on sin and preparation for life after death.
   Most twentieth century theologians, including Bultmann, Barth, and Bonhoeffer, ignored Jesus as healer, claiming that Jesus’ healings were preparation for the church as an institution and thus not needed any more. And yet, there is nothing in the four gospels to suggest that Jesus was founding a church. In fact, he never mentioned the word church. Jesus taught, preached, healed, and offered intercession so people could live a full, joy-filled life in the kingdom of God now.
   For sure, we need many thoughts and ideas to help us pray thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, however, offers a comforting aspect of intercession.

   To make intercession means to grant our brother the same right that we have received, namely, to stand before Christ and share in his mercy.

   Intercession means no more than to bring our brother into the presence of God….

Healing power #2

8/17/2022

The challenges to those who ‘dare’ think they are a healers or intercessory are many. Just the thought of embracing the idea is either arrogant or humbling, or both. If I choose humbling, then I have the chance of believing that whatever I do or however I pray is sacramental. God’s grace working within in and the person I pray for.
Morton Kelsey, in his in-depth study, Healing Christianity, 1995, offers this for us to ponder.

Finally, there is a religious or sacramental healing, the result of the healer’s conscious and deliberate relation to God. The healers as individuals are not viewed as the primary source of healing power. Rather they are seen as an agency through which the Spirit and power of God, the very creative force of the universe, is transmitted. The acts of healing depend on the power of God and are therefore sacramental. Spiritual healing is an outer and visible sign of particular grace, inward and spiritual, at work within both the healer and the one who seeks healing (p, 67).

Healing power #1

8/15/2022

Physical healing, emotional healing, psychological healing, situational healing! Healing can seem so obvious—you get better! You go from something bad, uncomfortable, and fearful, to no longer feeling angry, afraid or sick. You are now are loving, healthy, calm. You feel healed.
   That summary just rolled from my finger tips to the screen. I didn’t have to do much thinking because like many people, I know what bad things need to be healed and the results of what this healing might look like. As a person of faith, I am intrigued with the healings Jesus performed and how they might translate into what we, 2000 years later, might do.
   Jesus prayed, and so I pray. I pray to discern my part in God’s healing; I pray for God’s healing love to surround a person or situation; I pray that my loving heart reaches out to God’s loving heart; I pray Jesus walking with the person needing healing. I pray as I am able, which is the best I can do, all I can do. I’m not looking for results or proof that I’m on the right track, or for some amazing healing, or for some cause and effect result .
   I don’t have THE ANSWER, but I know and have come to believe that healing happens through prayer. Through reading and prayer I have been gathering ideas about healing. I will share them in subsequent posts.

Jesus' healing ministry

8/1/2022

Every Tuesday evening at the Iona Abby is the Service of Healing. Although I missed it this year, healing was the center of my time on the island. I met a mom and dad and their son 12 year old son who had had intensive surgery on his legs—the first wasn’t successful, the second they are hopeful is working. For me, talking with this mom deepened my faith in prayer. Not just deepened it, but raised it to a new level of belief.
According to Morton Kelsey, one fifth of the narrative portraits in the four gospels is about healing by Jesus and his followers. What was Jesus showing us? That healing is real— not just for back in his times, but is for us now. What does this mean for me, who knows and has come to believe that I am called to pray for people? In following Jesus, how can you and I be healers? We mainline Protestant are missing the opportunity of a lifetime-no pun intended.

Healing

10/25/2019

According to Scripture Jesus healed people plagued with extreme physical and mental difficulties. For me it is very challenging to make senses of these healings. My go-to response is to throw up my hands and proclaim them as miracles, which may be true but doesn’t help me as I try to follow Jesus. I may feel called to follow him, but not to heal people in miraculous medical ways. For me, healing is opening up channels for people to feel peace in the midst of difficulties. I can do this by empathic and compassionate listening, providing a meal, running an errand, offering a ride, and by praying.
Curing has more to do with disease; healing with making whole. Jesus did both; I focus on one, healing.

No more wallowing~

8/31/2016

    I have a cold—sinus, stuffy nose, nothing overpowering but clearly annoying. I don’t get sick, so what is this all about? It’s been at least five years since I had a cold.
     First reaction. Poor me. What an interruption to the daily life I plan and control. Poor me.
      Prayerful response. How does God want me to respond? What can I learn from this? How might I NOT wallow as poor me and view it as an opportunity, even a God moment. Hmm, just considering such possibility makes it that very God moment.
      Christ possibility. Let go of this wallowing, and see the Christ is all the people who are suffering way beyond a three day cold: those suffering with complex, all encompassing illnesses; those wandering the streets for food and shelter; those living in fear in war torn areas; those hoping their crowded boat will reach the safety of foreign soil. These people have no time to wallow. Wallowing is an emotion of privilege, certainly not a Christian response. I feel better already.

Praying for healing~

8/16/2016

I’m praying for physical healing for a few important people in my life: my sister Margot who has had serious eye surgery; my friend Ellen who had brain surgery yesterday; a cousin waiting for a kidney transplant; and there are others. You have your list, too.
I know that the ultimate prayer is Thy will be done, but I don’t believe God expects me to leave it at that. God wants me to plead and beg, and to picture the healing complete. God doesn’t want me to be passive. God wants me to co-create with Him. God wants to cry out. God wants me to care.

When in doubt, light a candle~

5/4/2016

When in Italy I lit a candle for a friend’s wife who has breast cancer. A few weeks late on her blog she expressed gratitude.

Yesterday I lit a candle for you all in one of my favorite prayer churches, La Badia.
“It gave me goosebumps and a few tears: all this positivity is coming from all over the world, even places and people I barely know!”

Here is my response to her.
I was touched to read that the candle I lit for you meant so much. I prayed whether I would tell you, and I am certainly glad I did-- for your sake, for the sake of your readers, and for me. Spreading good (God) has to be a good thing.

On a personal note, your response affirmed my belief in prayer and in God’s call to me to pray for others. On a rational level prayer helps me feel better about terrible situations; it connects me with others, and unites all involved so we do not feel alone. But more than that feel-good part, I believe prayer makes a difference beyond anything we can understand, or any action we can take on our own—all beyond our rational mind. Prayer clears the negative, smoky energy so that God (the Good) can enter to give us peace, hope, and healing.