today's sermon - healing

Today was our annual healing sermon. Or so it seems. I think DG preaches about once a year and it is always on emotional healing. Why? Because we need it. We likely had not done much since the last one.

DG spoke on having the courage to seek God about our healing. We do not want to face into the hard emotional work it will take to get healing. We must admit that we are broken and we need help. It takes courage to be vulnerable. It takes courage to seek prayer from a fellow human being. Yes, he says, we must include others in our healing. We cannot do it ourselves.

We have experienced external stresses that cause us to be broken. He listed shame, trauma, abuse, betrayal, and abandonment. We have emotional baggage. Perhaps the thing that jumped out at me was the comments about avoidance. I am very guilty there. I sure do a lot of avoidance. Why do I avoid certain movies and certain people? It has to do with emotional baggage, no doubt. But I don't know the details. I have not really wanted to know. Do I have the courage to ask God? Or others?

He spoke on spiritual exercises: prayer, Bible reading, quiet time. That I can do. He spoke of being part of the body of Christ, church going, Life Groups (small groups). That I can do too. But being vulnerable is pretty hard. Courage? Yeah perhaps that's it. Lack of courage.

I can always increase in my knowledge in God's love. I know partially that God is proud of me.

I spoke recently of all the challenges of travel during our July vacation. I know God wanted me to deal with issues of avoidance. Thank God he is still working with me.

DG spoke of opportunities to grieve. I have experienced some of those too and try to use them as opportunities for healing.

I always feel challenged after this annual sermon. The question is always how much am I going to do about it? I will do some.