Healing from the Inside Out

  For the last few weeks I have thought continuously about healing.....being well....being whole & healthy. Most of the time when we think of sickness we focus on the physical realm.....we fully understand our need for healthy bodies. When we  break a leg it's pretty obvious what needs to happen and why...we can't walk and the focused pain of a broken bone lets us know where the problem is! Soul healing is just as needed but more difficult to discern and understand. God has created us in an interesting and complex fashion. We exist in 3 coexisting realms: we are body, soul and spirit. We have a body that enables our soul (mind, will & emotional self) and spirit (eternal self created to worship God) to interact in a physical world. 

  Just as our bodies can become injured and sick, our souls can also suffer the consequences of a broken world. It's more difficult to 'see' and diagnose a wounded or ill soul. Medical diagnosis has yet to discover a blood test or MRI that can pinpoint the places on the inside of us that are broken in the soulish realm. There is overlap between these 3 realms and healing in one area does have impact on all the others. When we are well physically  it can improve the condition of our soul and spiritual life.

  Since we can see and observe the physical realm more readily we often know more about the condition of our bodies than the condition of our souls. We have measurable things that we discuss with our physicians and families. The older we get the more we know about cholesterol, blood pressure, blood sugar and weight. But real healing often never comes to those whose only focus is on the physical. Feeling well is often a 'matter of the heart'.

 We were created for love and relationship. The Bible teaches us we live in a sinful (broken) world where people love imperfectly. From birth, we are subjected to relationships which can be toxic and dangerous to our health. Our souls get injured and often don't show immediate symptoms that something is wrong. We can be well fed, athletic and attractive on the exterior and yet deeply broken and ill on the inside. People who are gifted and trained in counseling and psychology can sometimes help us discover the root cause of our soul injuries and disease. Often by the time we seek for help for inner healing much damage has been done. Sometimes we lose hope of ever being totally healed or well. For those who have been wounded or harmed in childhood, a sense of 'normal' is far removed from reality.

  No matter how severe someone has been harmed in their soul they can still be healed, though it might involve a huge commitment of time and interaction with our loving God and loving people. Our sense of reality is distorted by how we are treated in harmful relationships. When we are abused and hurt on the inside, we don't know what it means to be loved in a healthy sense. We expect to be abused, controlled and injured..... and thus we lose touch with the most essential elements of a healthy interior life: faith, hope and love.

  Hurt people live in a realm of distrust, fear and hatred. This realm is an environment of evil far removed from what we were created to enjoy. Hurt people become so damaged and distorted by this life of darkness that they become carriers of their hurt..... and carry on a vicious cycle of hurting others...even those trying to break through the pain and emptiness of living injured.

  Healing is something we all desperately need. All of us have sinned in some way. There are NO perfectly moral people. Instead of condemnation, a truly Godly response to hurting people is humility and compassion. We need to be willing for God to heal us.... and to become part of a community of people who love people to healing on the inside and outside: body, soul and spirit.  Healing is process. It takes time and relationship. We need one another to be healed. No one gets healed in isolation. We are not truly well until and unless we are rightly related to one another... and to God.

  Perhaps as I get older and after many years working as an R.N. and now as a Pastor, I am more sensitive to hurting people. I want to be well...but I want others to be healed also. More and more I realize the truth that when one of us suffer we all suffer. Our desire for healing truly is not selfish at all. When we get well, we're all touched and impacted by it. Today, I am praying for God to heal me on the inside....and I'm praying for you too. We need to be healed... we must be healed....from the inside out.

Jim