TOS076 Healing Beyond Skin Deep (Part 5)—The Lord Healed Them All For audio only PPN
Today’s episode is Healing Beyond Skin Deep, part 5 of our series The Lord Healed Them All with Patti Brunner. Inner healing unlocks the heart which, due to a pain of the past, has hardened and formed a barrier to prevent future pain at the cost of living the abundant life promised by Jesus. Inner healing repairs emotional injuries from the past. Accepting the presence and the peace of God bring many people inner healing especially the healing of memories. One method is called “Theophostic”. It consists of bringing Jesus into the memory of the hurt.
Lack of forgiveness for those who have wounded our hearts is a barrier, too. Recommended is Fr. Robert de Grandis’ Forgiveness Prayer. Available at:
http://www.livepentecost.com/The-Forgiveness-Prayer.pdf
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There are three types of healing: spiritual, inner and physical. Spiritual healing starts with salvation, a free gift for those who accept it, from Jesus who paid the price for sin which is death. It continues with confession and repentance. The Sacrament of Reconciliation offers immediate spiritual healing to those who struggle with sinfulness but with a repentant heart ask Jesus to help and forgive them. Regret from sinful actions, thoughts and omissions can keep some from accepting God’s forgiveness when those who know God turn from him, even in weakness. The greater sorrow is in knowing that they offend him and they accept the lie that what they did is unforgiveable even by God and thus the forgiveness is especially needed inwardly. There is nothing that God wills not forgive. There is nothing that we can do to stop God from loving us. There is no condition that God cannot overcome. Our emotional and physical well-being is directly tied to our spiritual well-being.
Welcome to Truth of the Spirit; I’m Patti Brunner. Today’s episode is Healing Beyond Skin Deep, part 5 of our series The Lord Healed Them All.
Inner healing involves emotional injuries from the past. Sorrow and grief can hide us away from love to insulate us from grieving and hurting again thus grief keeps us from God’s fullness.
Inner healing unlocks the heart which, due to a pain of the past, has hardened and formed a barrier to prevent future pain at the cost of living the abundant life promised by Jesus. I have heard Paul Rymniac, whose healing ministry started in Medjugorje, say that “One thing that inhibits healing is anger in heart—not lack of faith”. Hmm, that sounds wise doesn’t it? Hardened hearts have difficulty trusting and loving God. Rebellion towards an unloving parent can cause rebellion towards God and authority. Pain from abuse by those who should be our caretakers can keep us from trusting God who is the Good Shepherd. Inner healing can reestablish ‘in God we trust’.
Fears, both logical and abnormal, can arise that limit God’s loving gift of freewill. Inner healing can give us peace from all anxieties.
Ephesians 4:31-32 “31 Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, 32and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.” NRSV
Unforgiveness and regret build up layers of what seems like protection from additional hurt but actually can cause a more serious infirmity—that of severing relationship with God. Unforgiveness is like a poison we take expecting it to harm the other person.
Forgiveness is an act of the will, not a feeling. If we pray for a person, we can be assured that we have forgiven that person. To help accept an individual and open ourselves to a particular person more, visualize them with the Lord Jesus. Say to the Lord, “I love them because you love them.” Forgiveness is a lifelong obligation. Daily we need to forgive those who hurt or injure us. Forgiveness is one of the most powerful forces in the universe. It overcomes jealousy. It overcomes hatred. It overcomes pain and allows healing to take place. Forgiveness does not mean that we feel that what the other person did to harm us was ok. A person who was abused can forgive the abuser and continue to stay at a safe distance.
Lack of forgiveness for those who have wounded our hearts also keeps us from the fullness of the harvest. In the prayer Jesus taught us are the ‘dangerous’ words: “Forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Luke 11: 1-4 Forgiveness is an act of our freewill. When we forgive someone it doesn’t mean we agree with what the person has done to hurt us. It means that we give the issue to the Lord and ask that his mercy come upon the situation. When you can pray for salvation and mercy for the person who harmed you, you can be assured that you have forgiven that person.
I highly recommend the Forgiveness Prayer written by Father Robert DeGrandis, S.S.J. He instructed us to pray it every day for 30 days and let the Lord remind us of past hurts that need forgiveness. I’ll put a link to the prayer published online on my website, Patriarch Ministries.com. http://www.livepentecost.com/The-Forgiveness-Prayer.pdf
Forgiveness is key. We must forgive, like Christ forgave those who crucified him. Forgiveness doesn’t change the past but can and does change our future.
I also want to tell you it is important that we ask for physical healing for those who need it as we pray because it demonstrates God’s power and love. Jesus certainly healed a lot of physical ailments. Remember physical healing is not the goal of the Kingdom. The goal is the unity of the people with their God for all eternity. Physical healing builds faith by repairing the body for a season—at the most maybe a season of a hundred years or so. The mortality rate of humans is 100%. Sooner or later all of mankind dies. Through the resurrection of Jesus we have eternal life to seek and find. Only Elijah, and perhaps Mary and Moses, were able to enter eternity without mortal death.
Most people can comprehend the effect of physical impairment. A business man with a weak heart can’t take the stress of a high power job. A waitress with a broken arm can’t carry food to her customers. A farmer with a broken leg can’t run a tractor. When a harvester is disabled, there is a reduction in the harvest. The same can be said of the spiritual impairment. When we are clogged with sin our spirit cannot manifest a bountiful harvest for the kingdom. If we are clogged with sin, we need unclogging. Jesus calls us to get unclogged with him.
In Luke 5:18-25 Jesus healed the man lowered through the roof by friends first by forgiving his sins. Only then was the physical healing available. Jesus provides the beautiful sacrament of Reconciliation to free up the flow of grace.
Paul wrote to the Philippians 4:19 “And my God will fully satisfy every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.” The Lord pours out his riches and glory on us through the Holy Spirit so that a bountiful harvest can be shared.
John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”
But that doesn’t always happen. Why not? What limits a heart that has repented and received reconciliation? What could be interfering with the abundant life God has chosen for us? It is the heart that is scarred by pain and hurt. In the parable of the sower and the seed in Luke 8:14, Jesus tells us about the seed that fell among thorns, they are the ones who have heard, but as they go along, they are choked by the anxieties and riches and pleasures of life, and they fail to produce mature fruit. Anxieties have many sources but result in fear and lack of trusting God.
Scripture has given us the way to unlock the locked heart. God calls us to take his gift of healing and share it with those he loves who suffer without peace. As hurts, sorrows and shameful memories surface the light of love shall heal them and the people shall be truly set free. The more you pray with the power of the presence of God the more you will find that the peace of God is very important.
John 14:27 ” Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.”
Accepting the presence and the peace of God bring many people inner healing especially the healing of memories. One of the ways Jesus brings healing is called “Theophostic”. It consists of bringing Jesus into the memory of the hurt. Sometimes our memories are buried deep within us. They might be so painful that we cannot easily release them to the light of Christ. God can reveal to the healing minister the memory by way of a special gift of grace or charism such as a word of knowledge or a vision.
In adoration one time, I was quietly praying and all of a sudden I “saw” in my mind’s eye someone’s head with blood running down. Immediately I prayed. A few days later I was kissing my sleeping child good night when again I saw a child with a gunshot wound. This was a bit upsetting but again I kept it in prayer. Soon after that at a healing service I was helping to call out the healings [that the Lord was doing] when again the Lord put the traumatic vision in my mind. Immediately, gently, I called out that the Lord wanted to heal someone who had seen someone die. I purposely was vague and general. Later, a person came forth privately to a team member and shared that as a child he had accidently shot a childhood friend. Jesus cared so much about this person that He prepared me to be able to call that person to healing of that traumatic memory.
In the late 1990’s I helped sponsor a boy’s prayer group. After we had a training session on the gift of Word of Knowledge we immediately put it into practice praying for others. Most of the words the boys received were very encouraging words. Then all of a sudden one of the boys, Andy, heard the word “spider”. At first he was reluctant to call it out, but he had been encouraged to be open to the Holy Spirit’s prompting. As we tried to discern the word, we were thinking that the woman we were praying for was afraid of spiders. But then the woman spoke up and told us that as we discerned she started remembering that when she was 5 years old, she and a new girlfriend stomped a big wood spider and hundreds of baby spiders ran out and they had great fun stomping them, too. As we continued to pray for her, she recalled and shared with us that this young girl had contracted polio and died shortly after this incident and that it had greatly affected her. We prayed for healing for her. Isn’t it interesting how the Holy Spirit can give the word “spider” at just the right time!
Another time, I was praying for my husband Rick. He was having difficulty remembering his childhood that had much trauma in it, but wanted to be healed. As I prayed for him to remember, instead of him remembering, the Lord started giving me his memories. We prayed about these memories for a couple of hours. One of the memories was of a childhood acquaintance, a couple of years older than Rick, who had climbed a tower close to his house and was electrocuted and died when Rick was 11. Other memories about Rick’s family were just as painful. We continued to ask Jesus to heal these memories. Towards the end of our session the Lord started putting joyful memories in my mind like Rick eating watermelon with his family and swimming and bathing in the nearby river together. The next morning, all Rick could recall were the happy memories.
A particular healing exercise I have used is to allow Jesus to remind us of 3 memories. By allowing Jesus to choose the memories we don’t force painful memories before we are ready. We then invite Jesus into each memory and then take note of what he does. God is eternal. He is truly present in the past, the now and the future. By the power of Jesus’ presence, we receive healing and the ‘clog’ that overwhelms us is removed. Let me share one of the examples I give in my book “Healing the Sorrowful Heart”:
The first time I did this exercise my memories came very easily. I recalled watching a particular television episode of “Sky King” when I was about five or six. The young girl on the show, Penney, had been kidnapped and was tied up in a cabin that was on fire. The second memory was of the morning my mother came and sat on my bed when I was 7 and told me my father had died from injuries from a truck wreck. My third memory was the day my mother dressed us up to appear at the trial for wrongful death concerning my dad’s accident. I wore my First Communion dress because we were supposed to look nice, but I was distressed because the sleeve seam had come apart a little at the shoulder.
One by one, I saw Jesus in each situation. Then, one by one, I noticed what Jesus did. In the first memory, Jesus reached over and turned off the TV. I thought, “That sure was easy!” And that memory has never come to mind again. It’s never bothered me since that healing. In the second memory, Jesus came and sat on the bed with us and cried with us. My own tears began to fall as Jesus took me into our living room and held me until we were all cried out and I fell asleep in His arms. In the third memory, Jesus took out a needle and thread and stitched up my dress. It was this last memory that overwhelmed me the most: to think that the Lord God Almighty, Jesus Christ, cared so much for me that He would personally sew my dress! Jesus cares about every hurt in our lives even little hurts to our pride. There are similar kinds of healing whenever we allow the presence of Jesus into the situation.
Another time the Lord reminded me of three different memories: 1. Shoes that hurt my feet 2. In the hospital after my miscarriage 3. Going fishing with no bites. As I invited the Lord into the memories Jesus: 1. Presented me with a box of new athletic shoes. In the second one Jesus appeared at the hospital holding our tiny baby and took him with him In the third one, Jesus jumped into the water and put a fish my hook. I almost laughed out loud at number one and three and a shed a tear at the second one, Jesus. He is so caring!
I have used this exercise whenever prompted by the Lord to provide a personal way to allow the Lord to bring inner healing. One lady, Christine, that I was praying for, was grieving tremendously for her son who had died a few years earlier at age 18. The Lord led us to an exercise where she thought of three memories of her son, that she should notice Jesus in the memories and then take note of what Jesus was doing. She began to cry and I began to cry. I asked her what Jesus was doing in her first memory and she said he was laughing. We were crying and Jesus was laughing? In the second memory He was standing there with his arms folding and the third one he was praying. I asked her to share her memories with me. She said the first one was when her son was a toddler and running around with his diaper falling down and it was so funny; Jesus was watching her son and laughing. The second one he was 10 and playing a board game with a friend, Jesus was standing there watching her son at play, and the third one was the morning before he was killed in the car wreck and Jesus was praying. As we continued to hug each other, I realized God wanted her to know that Jesus was with her son all his life, laughing, watching, and praying. Even though she was not with her son when he died, Jesus was! She was greatly comforted and healed of her extensive grief. I have seen Christine since then at annual Charismatic Conferences. She always shares a big hug and a smile with me. We are forever connected through that precious healing gift of the Holy Spirit and the presence of Jesus.
I used this tool several times as I ministered for a season as a volunteer at a Juvenile Detention Center. The Lord reminded either them or me of what he wanted to heal. As you learn your faith, the truth sets you free. As you share that formation with others you share the bountiful harvest and give God glory. As love speaks healing shall take place. God loves us. As we step inside our pain God shall be at our side—just as he has always been.
Let me end this episode with a quote from St. Paul in
Ephesians 3:20-21 “20 Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, 21to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.”
Today’s broadcast is taken from my book, “The Lord Healed Them All.” And the scriptures are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible. I invite you to subscribe to my podcast on audio or YouTube. It’s free and it makes it easier for you to come back next time for part six, “TOS077 Overcoming Demonic Barriers to Healing”. Remember, there’s more; with the Holy Spirit, there is always more!
