Bountyfull Healing – A Guide for the Broken-Hearted
Larry Mackey
Novalis
Healing Through Prayer – Health Practitioners Tell the Story
Larry Dossey & others
Anglican Book Centre
From Fear to Freedom – Abused Wives Find Hope and Healing
Sheila A. Rogers
Path Books
Winter Grief – A Personal Response to Grief
Donna J. Mann
Essence
Struggling with Forgiveness – Stories from People & Communities
David Self
Path Books
The most unhealthy individuals are those who think there is no sin in them. Coming a close second are those who fear or know something is terribly wrong and can't or won't deal with it. Pity both, and pity those around them. The garbage becomes more deeply entrenched, seeping out to poison all systems: the person's own body and spirit, marriage, family, congregation, church, from generation to generation.
Of course, we believe, "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God?" But there's only one perfect Person. Do we, or do we not, want to have God destroy that internal garbage heap that separates us from a joyful, well-lived life? Do we, or do we not, want to receive assurance of forgiveness? The Lord's Prayer, if reflected upon and not just monotonously chanted like dusty memory work, is a health-giving gift, "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who have sinned against us."
Though not sufficient in themselves, some books can provide the encouraging voice of someone who's been there, really been there, and survived, even triumphed. The books listed above tell of persons working their way through pain towards healing. In every instance, there has been a counsellor or a group, a truly safe place in which to drain the pus and heal.
Donna's been there (Winter Grief). A retired Anglican priest, now a grief counsellor, she thought she'd coped with the accidental death, right beside her, of her toddler, Debbie. She tells of wrong decisions just after it happened: no visitation, quick, private service, no graveyard time. Everyone was trying to make it easy, so easy she had to find ways to simulate those important rituals much later. Donna speaks of unhelpful, theologically unsound things that were said, like "God needed another angel". People, unable to bear listening to pain, told her not to dwell on it. It took 30 years of accumulative grief before she could tackle it thoroughly.
Too many persons have lived and died in agony because they've not been allowed to say to themselves or anyone else, "I'm a Christian, but I don't have it all together. I've been badly damaged. I need help."
For the person who does dare, too often the response has added injury. In From Fear to Freedom we meet Lily, a wife who was abused, experienced with her minister who wanted a sexual response and also Barbara who heard from the church’s women: “You should love him (the abusive husband) more, so God will change him.” Spousal abuse breaks the marriage contract. The injured person needs to be able to forgive. That does not require her to remain in the damaging situation.
In Bountyfull Healing, community founder, Fr. Larry Mackey, describes the personal stories of people who want help to heal. Most of the sufferers have been through 12-step programs in their hunger to be freed from pain, but this isn’t enough.
One process he suggests involves drawing an image on chart paper. It is the person’s life-story beginning with the present trauma. Guided, the broken person tells his own story. It works back, before his eyes, through to buried pain, the root of the problem, to the significant person and situation involved in the apparent murder of his spirit.
Meet Bill, who’d served 18 prison terms and was considered an incorrigible violent offender. No conventional behaviour therapy had worked. Assisted through the feelings in his life-story diagram, he was able to track down the pain, grief and guilt, which were the sources of his self-protective, uncontrollable rage. Finding new faith in God, dealing with the source of pain, he has begun to heal.
Buried evils must be recognized and forgiveness must occur before healing can begin. It’s not because the evils are taken lightly. The victim says and means, something like this, “It was very wrong. However, regardless of whether you repent, or are still alive to repent, I forgive you. I wish you no further harm.”
