“How do you find your healing through God and Jesus? What is that like? How does it happen?” These are some of the questions I received in an email response to my last newsletter regarding loss, grief, and freedom. These are not easy questions to answer. I wish they were. We like easy. We like certainty.

We want to know the way things happen, and we want to know the why and the how. We look things up on the internet, and we seek direction from friends. We ask experts, we try to follow rules, and then we rebel against them. All the while, we seek healing through righteous behavior defined by the world or our own personal perspectives.

There’s a story in the Bible about a lame man who sat at the edge of the Pool of Bethesda. It was believed by the people that an angel came to the water of the pool and stirred it up. The first person to enter the water when it was stirred would receive healing. For thirty-eight years, this lame man sat at the edge of this pool and attempted to be the first one in the water each time it stirred. This was the way he hoped to find healing. Enter Jesus.

Jesus saw him lying there and knew the man had been sick a long time. Jesus said to him, “Would you like to be healed?” The sick man said, “Sir, I have no one to put me in the pool when the water is moving. While I am coming, another one gets in first.” Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your bed and walk.” At once the man was healed and picked up his bed and walked. This happened on the Day of Rest.

John 5:6-9 (New Life Version)

Recently, I watched an episode of The Chosen about this story. The scene was beautiful and heart-tugging. The man had been trying for so long to be healed. Jesus looks deeply into his face and asks him if he wants to be healed. The man doesn’t reply with a resounding, “YES!” Instead, the man answers Jesus with the reason why he hasn’t been able to get to the water. He begins justifying his actions and the rightness of his efforts.

Isn’t that what we all do? Instead of just responding to Jesus with a “Yes, please heal me,” we spend time wrestling and struggling to find the righteous way. We want to be healed by our efforts. We place our hope in the actions, words, traditions, and laws of the world. We look for healing and righteousness in the wrong places. We place our hope in the wrong things.

For a very long time, I was this lame man laying beside the pool, hoping against hope I would be healed from the shame of my past transgressions. I was bound by the sins of my past. I was a slave to the shame I had placed on myself for every wrong decision and every wrong belief I had packed up and carried on my shoulders. 

Had I asked God to heal me? Yes! But I also had my expectations for how that would happen. I wanted an easy fix. I wanted Jesus to just miraculously heal me with one deep and meaningful prayer. I asked good and faith-filled friends to pray for me. I sought counseling. All of these things were good. I encourage others to do these things as well. They helped but only to an extent. 

The reason? 

I believed the lie that I didn’t matter and that nothing I did would ever heal me from my past. I believed that to pick up my mat and be healed was going to cause me more pain, and I was afraid to face the shame. I believed I could find peace from my past without being willing to let the healing disrupt my life. I was justifying and being self-righteous even in my brokenness.

This is what the lame man was doing as well. 

Friends, we have to be willing to answer yes to Jesus’ question, “Do you want to be healed?” without knowing the how, the when, and the what. We need to put our hope in Jesus, not in the world. 

For me, I had to get to the root cause, the core motivations of my being, keeping me stuck in my woundedness. It still didn’t happen instantly. There were too many layers to uncover for that. For the past 4 years, I have truly sought healing through reading scripture, listening to devotional podcasts, reading and seeking self-understanding from the use of the enneagram and continuing to pray for the stronghold of shame to be broken. 

Bit by bit the layers came off as God revealed to me in all I was reading and learning that I was not too broken, too sinful, too closed off, too unredeemable for Jesus to heal me. The work is not done, but my burdens are much lighter. I am being redeemed. I am being made righteous, and I am being healed.

The Lord your God is with you, a Powerful One Who wins the battle. He will have much joy over you. With His love He will give you new life. He will have joy over you with loud singing. I will gather those who have sorrow for the special days and take away their shame.

Zephaniah 3:17-18 (NLV)

What’s Next?

Processing through our past wounds can often help us let go of them. If this is something you desire, our coaching may be just what you need. 

Set up a free consultation and together we can determine if Rubberband Creations is the right avenue for you to begin the process of discovery.