A Change In Direction

I have been trying to figure out healing all my life. Supernatural healing. God healing. 

Most of my life, I have believed in healing. The churches I have attended believed in healing. Despite that, I don’t think I have actually witnessed a supernatural healing. I’m sure healings have happened to me and those around me. They just seem to be the natural kind as opposed to the supernatural kind. My lack of experience with the supernatural became a problem when I turned 50. My mind and body seemed to turn against me when I crossed that threshold. I started dealing with potential heart issues, joint pain, stiffness and depression. Because of this, I really began to pursue supernatural healing, without any success. I believed all the healing verses, “by His stripes we were healed”…… But healing remained elusive. 

Then I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. A progressive, degenerative disease for which there is no cure. My bodies immune system could not fight this one. The diagnoses did make all of the things my body and mind had been suffering over the past number of years make sense. I continued to seek healing without any physical success. 

Then, out of the blue I felt a desire to write. I decided to write about my journey as a Christian with Parkinson’s. As I began to write, I began to develope a theology that allowed me to be a Christian and still have this disease. It was a theology based on experience and I tried to back it up with common sense and things I could pull from scripture. What I wrote made me feel better. Because almost all of the comments I received were positive, I thought I was close to the mark on what I was writing. Many people said they were helped and blessed reading my writings. This went on for a couple of years. I even published a book and put it on Amazon.

About a month ago, my theology came crashing down. My wife sent me a link to a YouTube video. The title said something about healing. She would send me something like this once in a while. I usually deleted them without watching. I didn’t want my comfortable theology threatened. For some reason, I decided to watch this one. An hour later, I found myself standing still, unable to move any farther down this ( healing had all but ended ) path I had been traveling down. The Minister on the video made too great of a case and I realized that most of what I had written over the past couple of years on healing was wrong. Then my pastor said something during his message that clicked in my spirit. He basically said, ” if you wait to get to heaven to be healed, its not on God,it is on you.” 

So I began to study and seek God. I very quickly changed from a man that believed supernatural healing ended with the Apostles to a man that now believes that Jesus paid for our healing on the cross for all of us. 

What do you think happened next. I was instantly healed? Nope. My symptoms got worse. Obviously something or someone doesn’t like my change in direction. Not only did my symptoms get worse, but last night my wife and I got into a very uncomfortable discussion and some unexpected things came out that showed some of my remaining insecurities about events in my and our past. I think there are some things I need to work through. 

I am now part of a group that deals with past and hidden trauma. There may be some things I need to confront that are hindering my ability to receive healing and are in the way of my becoming the Christian man I was meant to be. Based on the uncomfortable discussion with my wife, I’m not looking forward to digging deeper into those internal things in my past. If the end result is freedom for me to do what God created me to do and be the man he created me to be, it will be worth it. When I’m healed in the process, that will be wonderful.

I thought about removing all my old blog posts regarding healing. Then I decided I would leave them as a record of the progression of my thoughts, even though my thoughts have changed. So, as we travel down this new path, let’s follow Philippians 3:13, ” Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.”