6. IS HEALING CERTAIN?
1 Healing is always certain. It is impossible to let illusions be brought to truth and keep the illusions. Truth demonstrates illusions have no value. The teacher of God has seen the correction of his errors in the mind of the patient, recognizing it for what it is. Having accepted the Atonement for himself, he has also accepted it for the patient. Yet what if the patient uses sickness as a way of life, believing healing is the way to death? When this is so, a sudden healing might precipitate intense depression, and a sense of loss so deep that the patient might even try to destroy himself. Having nothing to live for, he may ask for death. Healing must wait, for his protection.
I’m glad that Jesus begins by assuring us that healing is always certain, because appearances used to cause me to doubt the healing, and I’m sure others have felt the same way. When I read this the first time it was like a light bulb coming on. I saw how true it is that sometimes people are not ready for healing. I talked about the healing I accepted to be free of allergies. More than once I have listened to people talking about how bad their allergies are and how they suffer for them.
I tell them about my experience and wait for their reaction. A few of them are very excited and ask for a name and phone number, and some of those have later thanked me because now they, too, are allergy-free. Most of them listen to my story (after all, good manners insist we give the other person equal time) and then they go right back to their story of suffering. They love their story and want to keep it. I understand this because I, too, have had favorite stories of suffering.
Why do we hold onto the stories of suffering when we could be free of them? I think we tell our stories so often that we have come to believe we are these stories, and to give them up is to give up our very selves, our identity. I think that the stories are where we hide from God, and to give them up is to become naked before God and that is very frightening for us because we misunderstand the nature of God and fear punishment for our “sin” of separation.
Sometimes the suffering becomes unbearable and we seek relief through death. Sometimes it becomes unbearable and we allow temporary relief, only to take up a different story of suffering as protection from God. And then, sometimes, we begin to change our minds. We begin to allow the light of truth to shine in our minds, and start to doubt the ego story of a fearful God. We are finally ready to accept the gift of healing that has been offered to us.
Like most of the steps I have taken while awakening, this one has not been clear-cut. I have had moments of great clarity and have received remarkable healings of both mind and body. But they did not transfer to every part of my life, and I stepped forward, only to retreat into fear, then move forward again. But no matter how often I did this little dance, I always moved forward with more certainty than before.
Right now, I have a re-occurrence of the bronchial infection I had recently and I also suffer from severe acid reflux. I have decided it is time to ask for true healing rather than simply accepting a magic solution for a magical problem. I’ve looked at the value I have placed in sickness and also at the hidden reasons for sickness. Somehow, I have overlooked something because the problems persist. So, I am remaining open and receptive to guidance and look forward to further enlightenment. Each time I think about the issues, I remind myself that I have no use for this.
One other thing that jumped out at me as I read this was this:
The teacher of God has seen the correction of his errors in the mind of the patient, recognizing it for what it is. Having accepted the Atonement for himself, he has also accepted it for the patient.
You may be familiar with Dr. Hew Lin and his use of the Hawaiian healing practice of Ho’oponopono. Dr. Hew Lin healed an entire ward of criminally insane patients without ever seeing any of them. He simply read their files and forgave himself for what he was seeing.
While he looked at those files, he would work on himself. As he worked on himself, patients began to heal. When he was asked about how this was accomplished, he said, “I was simply healing the part of me that created them.” The Course tells us that our only job is to accept the Atonement for ourselves. The way we heal others is to accept healing for ourselves.
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