Part 1
Self Healing
How This Page Came into Being—an introduction
Long before becoming a Presbyterian
pastor I owned a woodworking shop specializing in custom cabinets and furniture.
I had owned it for several years before my work became hindered by a crippling
pain in my left elbow. It started
gradually enough, but continued to get worse until finally the pain so severe it
was crippling. The hurt was centered
primarily in my left elbow, but I could feel it all the way down to my wrist.
In the beginning I thought I had merely strained a muscle or pulled a
ligament somehow and that all that would be necessary was to let time heal it.
So the months passed but time
didn’t seem to be doing its thing.
Nor were the liniments and balms I was using.
In fact, no matter how much I babied my arm, it just got worse.
Then one morning I dropped a sheet of ¾” oak plywood because my arm was
too weak and the pain so severe I couldn’t handle it.
At this point I knew it was time to
quit fooling around and take action.
Because I felt reasonably sure the problem was arthritis, and not knowing a
doctor who was able to cure arthritis, I felt it was up to God.
So, in a state of meditation I asked God to heal my arm.
As I prayed I heard a “No” in my mind
Shocked, I asked, “Why not?”
Believing that God loves us, I couldn’t believe He didn’t want me well.
The same ‘thought-voice’ said, “I only help when it is beyond your own
capabilities. You can heal yourself.
Heal yourself and then write about it.”
“Ah,” I said.
No
amount of words can replace the total understanding that occurs when something
is learned through meditation. That
simple, “Ah,” meant I fully grasped the meaning.
This writing is the result of that single word, “Ah.”
(If you meditate regularly, you know what I mean.
If not, by learning to meditate you will find out.)
I knew that ‘thought-voice’ in my
mind was accurate because I had healed
myself before. Several years earlier
I had sores on my chest that continually oozed, burned and itched and would not
go away no matter what I did.
After several months of treating
them with alcohol and antibiotic creams, I became frustrated and figured it was
time to get rid of them. I went into
a deep state of meditation and simply “willed” them away.
When I awoke the next morning the sores were gone.
That thirty or forty minutes of focusing on nothing but those sores,
willing them out of existence, wiped out months of burning and itching.
That was not the result of prayer,
but a case mind over matter, pure and simple. By refusing to allow the burning
and itching to be a part of my life, I willed the cause out of existence.
Never have I concentrated so completely and deeply on anything in my
life.
About a year later they came back.
This time, though, they were high on the side of my face and just inside
my hairline. Again I put up with
them for a few months before deciding to take action.
(I don’t know why I’m so slow.)
And once more I had positive results.
This time, though, it took me by nearly two weeks.
Why so much longer?
Because, instead of willing them
away, I asked God to heal me. (It
feels bizarre to write that.)
After about a week, I realized that
God didn’t seem interested in healing me, so once again I used the more direct
approach. Only this time I didn’t
will them away as before. Instead, I
focused on them while meditating and visualized the sores being eaten away by my
body’s natural defenses. I mentally visualized and directed my body’s good cells
to eat away the malignant ones. This
method took several days. BUT, with
each passing day there was noticeable shrinkage until nothing was left.
I believe in God and God’s ability
to heal. Because I do, I try to be a spiritual person by meditating and praying
daily. I would love to say to you,
“Get right with God and you will be healed.
You will be well. Your
children won’t throw tantrums and your husband won’t snore.”
Yes, I’d love to say that.
But, it wouldn’t be true.
This is not to imply that God can’t (or doesn’t) heal, for I know He does from
time to time. It’s simply that He
doesn’t seem to interfere in any area where we have full control.
This is true even when we don’t realize we have the healing capabilities.
I believe it’s because of our free will that he so rarely does for us
what we can do for ourselves. This is a case where the old adage, “God only
helps those who help themselves,” definitely applies in healing.
That’s because individual sovereignty appears to be an integral part of
“free will.” All this means is that
we have full control over every facet of our own immediate sphere of existence.
For God to do anything for us that we can do for ourselves would violate
our sovereign integrity. It would
also hinder our learning process. You have the ability to heal yourself because
you are a child of the universe. As
a son or daughter of the living God, you have been granted the full power and
authority over all decisions concerning your life.
You are allowed to do anything you want, good or bad.
And without interference, but not
without cost.
The kinds of ailments we can
overcome are primarily non-contagious diseases, such as arthritis, cancer,
rheumatism, shingles, etc.
Contagious disease, such as the flue, need medical assistance, as do strokes and
heart attacks.
Most (not all) contagious diseases
hit and are gone before we can gather enough presence of mind to overcome them.
Also, when we are sick and running a fever, we don’t feel like doing
anything but lay around, “a moanin’ and a groanin’.”
In the case of heart attack and
strokes, medical assistance is required immediately.
When they happen, it’s too late for meditating.
They are the final result of a life of stress, aging, poor diet or any
other numerous causes.
I recommend seeing a doctor for
everything. Then help the doc out a
little with some mental supplementation.
[1] I
read an interesting study a few years back that I can’t recall the source of,
but in this study patients were placed on a bed balanced in the center.
The experiment was to see if their minds could influence their bodily
functions. The volunteers were told to will blood to their head.
When they did so, the bed tipped in the direction of their head.
When asked to will their blood to their feet, the bed tipped in that
direction.