I can pretty much guarantee that when someone prays for healing for themselves or for someone else, they are actually praying for a cure!

Same thing, right?

Well actually no! Even though they are often used as being alike, they mean different things.

Cure Means Treat and Fix

To pray for a cure means that you wish to eliminate or put into permanent remission some disease or illness like cancer, or mental illness, or addiction- or maybe a disability like blindness, deafness, or loss of mobility.

You want a physical recovery that permanently alleviates some harmful condition.

Curing looks at the how and what of illness. It views the body as a piece of physical machinery that can be treated and made better.

It sees organs, and systems and wants to understand how they break down and what can be repaired to eliminate the problem.

It doesn’t take the mental state into consideration.

Curing is what doctors and nurses, and medical procedures, drugs, surgery and chemo and radiation all attempt to bring about. They are striving to discover what is wrong physically and remedy it.

Healing, on the Other Hand…

However, healing implies the involvement of the attitude, mind and spirit- to become whole and sound in body and soul.  True healing is the attaining of a sense of well-being over and above and in spite of any physical difficulties.

“All healing is first a healing of the heart.” – Carl Townsend                   

To restore wholeness is the true aim of healing— not the level of wholeness from before the diagnosis, but a wholeness that is different, new, and better than before the disease began.

“Healing does not mean going back to the way things were before, but rather allowing what is now to move us closer to God.” – Ram Dass

Healing does not necessarily remove or stop the symptoms.

Instead, it is an integrative process that goes beyond the physical and includes mental, emotional, and spiritual vitality, renewal, and wellbeing.

Starting with the soul, healing seeks to identify, transform, and remove any obstacles preventing the mind, and the body from working together in a combined way.

This healing is to make us better than we were before we became ill and to re-establish “wholeness” so that we can become truly healthy.

Looking deep within, we are able to get in touch with those things from our past that contribute to disharmony and reach a much more profound level of understanding.                                                                   

We get in touch with who we are and how different we can be if we  free ourselves from the limitations of our past experiences.

“Healing may not be so much about getting better, as about letting go of everything that isn’t you – all of the expectations, all of the beliefs – and becoming who you are.” –Rachel Naomi Remen

Healing views health as being physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually in balance

The ideal situation would be a total cure and full health in body, mind and soul. That is frequently not the case.  There can be a cure, but not a healing, as well as a healing without a cure.

Heal, Schlemiel…What’s the Point?

So, why this concern with the differences between curing and healing?

The reason is because some people tend to dump God and any faith they ever had when the cure doesn’t happen. God is the easiest one to blame for the failure. And, if you were young then, children often have a very simplistic concept of God.

So many times people have desperately prayed for a loved one- parent, sibling, spouse, child, friend. Prayer chains were set up, churches prayed, friends held vigils, but the person still died.

I’ve been told repeatedly that a particular death caused them to lose all faith in any God. Because if God is not loving enough to listen to prayers and produce a cure, then that’s no God they want to believe in…

Besides, so-and-so was prayed for and they got better and it’s been years and they are still well. What kind of God is that to pick some people and not others?

The anguish and heartbreak are understood, and completely normal. Even the anger makes sense. However, the reasoning does not.

Who Knows the How and Why of God?

If someone’s belief is that God grants all wishes, like Santa Claus, or drops down desired results like a vending machine, then their concept of God is limited and unrealistic.

So, am I saying that miracles never happen? That cures don’t take place? Emphatically no! I have even witnessed some miracles.

Why they happen to some people and not to others is a question beyond our finite understanding.

However, not knowing doesn’t endear God to grieving individuals, I know. The desired cure didn’t happen, and so God can’t be trusted- is the conclusion for some.

Attention: Healing Miracles in Progress

And because loved ones are so focused on a cure, they often miss the small miracles, and don’t recognize the healing that frequently takes place.

• Perhaps the person was alienated from a family member or friend, and they reach out and heal the breach in the relationship.
• Maybe they’ve been hurt badly by someone, and they feel a final need to forgive.
• Perhaps they reevaluate their life and discover the good in it, and what they contributed in the living of it.
• Often they are able to forgive themselves for something they once neglected to do, or find forgiveness and peace about something they did do.

The bigger meaning of healing is a ‘wholing,’ a filling out of the missing pieces of a person’s life. Sometimes this may even mean facing death in a more fully realized way. Certainly it is an opportunity to come more deeply and fully into life. -Patricia Reis

A True Healing Story

Let me tell you about Edna (not real name)). Bedbound and emaciated from cancer, family and hospice couldn’t understand why she didn’t let go, or why she was hanging on so fiercely.

That’s when I entered the picture.

I didn’t know her, but she lived in the neighborhood. This exhausted woman decided to trust me, and told of some things in her past that made her fear God would never forgive her, and she only had hell to look forward to.

We talked for a while, and I promised to come back the next day and perform a little forgiveness ceremony.

The following day, I returned with a small amount of oil with which I planned to anoint her.

“Am I dying today?” she asked.

She seemed much less restless and agitated, and a certain quiet peace surrounded her. I anointed her and prayed, assuring her that she was forgiven and that she had nothing to fear because God truly loved her.

She smiled and thanked me.

And died peacefully that night.

Not cured, but healed.

Is Your Idea of God the Problem?

Believing in a God who purposefully creates bad things, or who will always step in with a miracle is what causes a loss of faith. In believing such, we become victims of a wrathful, distant God who then proves God’s uncaring or non-existence by not granting our fervent wish.

Therefore, some people either want nothing more to do with such a God, or they come to think that there is no God at all.

The base problem is not in God, but in one’s conception and understanding of God. And that is such a complex issue that I will continue to address it in future blogs.  Suffice to say for now- that I would not care about or believe in a God like that either!

Call to Action-

Here’s an exercise for you to help clarify what and why you have God issues- pro or con.

Where and from whom did you get your ideas about God?

• Home? Peers? School? College?
• Did you ever have a major, desperate prayer go seemingly unanswered? What was your reaction?
• Are you conceptualizing God in mostly human images or configurations?
• Do you think believing in God is a weakness or intellectual flaw?
• In hindsight, have you ever seen how something like a disappointment or loss actually worked out for your highest good?
• How and in what ways has your concept of God changed over the years?
• If your concept has not changed and remained the same- why?

Thought to Ponder:

“Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. You can’t see the future, yet you know it will come; you can’t see the air, yet you continue to breathe.” Claire London