by Meah Arakaki
My own healing story is incomplete. I’ve spent countless hours in the process of and participation in my own healing, and yet there is still so much more to take place. I mark the beginning of my healing journey to a moment in college when a good friend asked if she could interview me for her ethics class. She was required to interview a “child of divorce.” I agreed, not knowing what God had in store for me. I sat in a conference room for several nights telling her my story. My story. No one had ever asked me my story, and I’d never had a reason to tell it. Yet as I shared honestly about my experience, something inside me knew that opening up and being known was bringing healing.
Today, healing has become a way of life for me. That doesn’t mean that all I think about on a daily basis is my brokenness. Actually, it’s been quite the opposite. It is through the healing process that I’ve been able to experience freedom, deeper joy, more presence – life in full color. I’ve realized that I will never fully “arrive” at wholeness on this side of eternity, and that participating in my sanctification means participating in my healing.
Often, our concept of healing is a one time event. However, I would like to challenge us to think about healing as a likeness to sanctification.
Healing is the process of becoming whole. Sanctification is the process of becoming holy. Healing in body, mind, and spirit is integral to the process of becoming holy, to being sanctified. Without becoming whole – relationally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually – we cannot truly be participating in the process of becoming holy.
Over the years I’ve found that different tools, people, and practices have helped me to find healing and have even been the conduit of God’s grace in my life – spiritual direction, healing prayer, counseling, sacred companions (friends), silence, lectio divina, worship – just to name a few. I didn’t and don’t practice all of these at once, but I lean into the ones that God seems to be inviting me into for a particular season.
At CTR, there are many ways to lean into your own healing and sanctification journey. Have you told anyone your story? Do you have trusted companions to share the journey with you? Do you long to live life more fully and more deeply? Then please reach out and engage with some of the people and opportunities for community and healing at CTR: upcoming Breakthrough Healing Conference (October 11& 12), Home Groups, spiritual direction, prayer during services, etc. If you’re not sure where to start, then reach out to a member of the clergy or staff.
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