My healing...

“One may be cured and healed, or cured and not healed. It is also possible that one may not experience a cure to their disease, but be healed in the midst of it. … Cure is temporary, since all die; but healing is forever (Health Human Life, Bruckner pp. 212-213).” These two sentences encapsulate my personal journey of healing this semester.

I wrote during the first blog of this semester that I had not yet experienced my healing moment. At the time I understood healing in light of cure rather than in light of the wholeness is discussed throughout Bruckner's book. I expected my struggle to go away, to be taken care of, to be cured. However, at least for now, I join Paul in stating that “my thorn” has yet to be removed. I stand “un-cured.”

Yet, my healing moment has begun. I am learning that healing (wholeness) in the presence of, even in spite of malady and imperfection is possible. I have found wholeness even without “perfection”. (Perfection being the idea that a whole, complete and optimally functioning physical body is necessary to be “healthy”.) I found peace with my God (e.g. right relationship). I am trusting his healing work in my life.

As noted above my “thorn” remains. There are days when it causes more pain and days when it causes less. There are days where I am ever mindful of its impact upon my life, and days when freedom reigns in my heart and mind. I am not cured, but I am living into my healing. Paraphrasing the words of Paul I can now proclaim, “Thanks be to God who makes me whole through Jesus Christ.”

--Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
--Jesse Letourneau



















Coming Next week, a review of my semester, via my review of the films I have viewed this year.

Imagining Mud

This semester my goal is to post four monthly blog entries arriving on the first Wednesday of each month. My guess is that they will revolve around my class “Christian Perspectives in Health and Healing” and the main text book “Healthy Human Life: A Biblical Witness” info here.

Health and its relationship to spirituality has been an underlying focus of my time here in seminary. This class has given me language to express what the Lord has been teaching me during my time in Chicago. I enrolled in the class to gain a fuller understanding of Shalom. The idea of Shalom carries a sense of wholeness to it.

This is something I wish to explore more deeply. My faith has long been one of segregation. My mind, body, soul, and spirit were all viewed as separate things. My faith was tied to my mind. If I thought correctly, I would act correctly; and my spirit would be at peace. Care for my body was relegated to right actions. These actions focused on the negative, what I didn’t do (smoke, cuss, or chew as the old adage goes). During high school, I didn’t drink alcohol. This wasn’t because I was young and it could harm me, but because it wasn’t what “good Christians did.” Again, my actions were driven by right and wrong. My care for myself was based on avoiding sin.

Since I have come to North Park, words like, holistic, self-care, and Shalom have begun to become a part of my vocabulary, and are finding their way into my practices. Yet, I still struggle with right and wrong. I still wonder if I am doing the things that please God. I too often fall back on a false theology that states God is only pleased with me in relationship to the number of right things I do. I fall back on the false perception that right thinking leads to right action, and wrong/sinful thinking leads to wrong/sinful actions.

God is good, and God heals, however, I often feel like I am still waiting for my healing experience. I have some issues that pride and fear, as well as prudence keep me from describing in detail here on-line. What I have come to understand is that I do believe that I am loved by God. My theology states that I was created by God, but I do not think of myself as created by God.

My imagination does not see the hand of God reaching down to craft my form from mud. It does not sense the breath of God filling my lungs. I do not recognize myself to be one who reflects the image of God. Instead, I see myself as less than.

But this is okay. Because it simply is. What is cannot be changed. What can change is what will be. I currently live in community where my worth is held for me. Others know what I know (that I am made in the imago Dei) but more importantly, they see that I am made in the image of God. They see my worth, and they speak truth into my life. They give light to my soul. They hold for me what I cannot hold for myself.

Someday it will be that I see my own worth. On that day I will hold my own story, and the light in my soul will come from my imagination now freed to view myself as a worthy child of God.

 --Serving Him alongside all of you, just from further away
 --Jesse Letourneau