Friday, December 17, 2010
Inspiration for the Day, December 17, 2010:
from "Alternative Treatments for Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome: Insights from Practitioners and Patients" by Mari Skelly and Andrea Helm:
"Having a chronic illness can make a person totally alter their belief systems, too. A religious person could start questioning why God has allowed them to suffer so. An atheist might start praying for relief. People who were once independent and strong-willed suddenly find themselves weak and dependent. People who always depended on others are suddenly forced to look inside themselves for the strength to go on. Sometimes, when everything else has been taken away, relationships are the only thing that can sustain a sick person.
"Mari says that when she found her support group, she found herself surrounded by people who were going through the same thing themselves, who accepted her friendship 'as is'. Here were people, she says, who had the same condition she did, and she felt so much comfort in knowing this. Eventually, she realized that everything that happens, happens for a reason. She tried to discover what lessons she was meant to learn from her illness. Mari says that she never had a 'faith' or organized religion before February 1996, when she attended a women's purifying ritual for the New Year. That night, she says, she felt connected, a small part of the entire world. After that experience, she began attending regular rituals and co-founded a new women's group. She says it's filled a giant hole in her spirit that she didn't even know she had.
"Her most spirit-altering experience came after she injured herself about six months ago. She was lying on the sofa in great pain and began saying a healing prayer. At that moment, she says, she experienced an amazing, healing love that she recognized as Jesus Christ. She felt a presence that held her and filled the room. 'I knew then that no matter the name of the healer or type of religion, no matter whether it's God or the Source that you believe in, suffering is, in my opinion, universal, and healing of the spirit is possible,' she says. For the first time in her life, she truly understood the words 'mind/body/spirit connection.' . . . .
"Sharon W. says that one of the biggest drawbacks of having FM or CFS is that you get so busy concentrating on how to handle life on a day-to-day basis that you can't concentrate on spiritual matters. 'I've been too busy with other things that have been changing in my life to think about how being sick is changing [my spirituality].'
"Sherry J., on the other hand, has found that her illness has given her a greater spiritual focus. 'Being sick my whole life has meant that I've never had time to think about God. I was always a Christian and lived a Christian life, or tried very hard to, but I didn't go to church. I couldn't have made it this far without God. I have no doubt that there's someone much more powerful than I am. I don't really pray, but I try to give as much as I can. That's my way, and it comes back in return. I now believe God is inside us, and we each have our own ability to believe and be good and do good, or we can go the other way. Usually, if we go the other way, we pay for it. Whatever we give out, we get back. It's been proven to me over and over again in my life, with my grandchildren, my children, my illness, everything.'
"Illness can bring great transformations in our emotional and spiritual lives, some of them positive. For almost three years after the auto accident that caused her FM, Andrea allowed herself to wallow in self-pity and depression. She wandered around in a daze, wondering, 'Why me?' She was angry and upset that something so catastrophic could happen to her. One day, she ran into an acquaintance at the grocery store. His hair was gone, and he had scars all over his head. He looked like he, too, had been chewed up in an accident. She asked him what had happened. He replied, 'Brain cancer'. He had had a massive operation to remove malignant tumors from his brain. She expressed her sympathy and gave him a hug. As he turned to leave, he looked Andrea right in the eye and said, 'Count your blessings'.
Andrea says she did just that with every step she took on the way home that day. She gave thanks for her boyfriend, her girlfriends, the fact that she hadn't been paralyzed or horribly disfigured in the accident, the fact that she could still see and hear and smell and taste and experience this incredible universe. Since then, she's taken time out of every day to remember things to be thankful for. . . .
"Ellen J.'s illness has helped put her more in tune with the universe. 'I use my condition as a way to connect with the source, rather than feeling like I've been abandoned by something. And my spiritual practices have really changed. I found I could no longer go to services, so that forced me to find other says to become spiritual, including meditation, getting together with other women, and doing women's rituals. Also connecting with people on a non-superficial level, in contrast to how I think most people in our society deal with one another. I feel really blessed that I've had the opportunity to connect with people on a deeper level. I probably wouldn't have had this opportunity had I not become ill. I've had to examine who I am, whether my life is going in the direction it should go. Even though I would not have chosen to live my life in pain, I'm finally at peace with it.'" . . . .
"Cornelia is a thirty-nine-year-old actress who is studying to be an Episcopal priest. She works in the field of healing prayer and also has FM. She and her husband have two sons, and they live in Seattle. She believes that prayer can help those with chronic illness . . . .
"Here's one example of how healing prayer has affected me and my family. I had been sick with FM, multiple chemical sensitivity, and endometriosis for some time. Before I got married, the doctors who had been taking care of my endometriosis said they did not think I would ever be able to conceive or carry a child. My friends and coworkers in healing prayer had an all-day prayer session for me - what they call 'soaking prayer'. Three women gathered around me as I lay just under the altar in the church. They prayed for me, they sang, they put their hands on my stomach for hours at a time (they were praying for my fertility). It was one of the most glorious times of prayer I have ever experienced. The women were so loving and so generous, and I felt that the Spirit of God was really there. My son was born two years after I was married. It was miraculous.
"Soaking prayer can be one of two things. It can be a marathon session, like the one those women did for me. Or it can be praying day after day, week after week, just being in the presence of God and inviting God's will to come into your body. And miraculous things happen and the healing that takes place isn't always just physical. God's agenda may not be the same as ours. Healing can come in all sorts of forms. My agenda is not always dealt with in the way that I think but God's agenda always will be. God affects healing in our spirits and souls in addition to our physical bodies (or instead of, in some cases).
"I recall many other examples of how healing prayer has been a blessing. Our family went through a terrible crisis two years ago. Within a two-week period, everything horrific that could happen did happen. I lost my seventh pregnancy, my husband was in a terrible accident, and we were fired from our jobs in the theater we had founded. The church gathered around us in a way that was holy, uplifting, and strengthening. We didn't have to cook for a month. They brought us food; they mowed our grass; they prayed with us and for us; they sent us notes every day to let us know they were thinking of us. It was the most beautiful outreach of the body of Christ that I have ever experienced, and it just blessed us down to our socks. In the midst of our terrible grief and pain, the church was like a dolphin swimming alongside another dolphin that is giving birth, helping to support it as the pain fades and a new life is born. It was a perfect example of how people in the church can be family to one another.
"Currently there's a trend within the medical community to tend to patients' spiritual well-being as well as their physical needs. I know that nurses are learning all sorts of groundbreaking spiritual healing techniques, like laying on of hands, energy work, soaking prayer, all sorts of things. I've read that almost half of the nurses practicing today are doing this. That is just surprising and wonderful! Miracles of healing are happening every day.
"My spiritual director gave me a prayer that has been very helpful as a centering prayer. Christians use centering prayer in the same way that Buddhists use mantras or other faiths use certain centering words or chants. It's an ancient prayer that has been used for almost two thousand years. You simply say 'Lord Jesus Christ' as you breathe in, and 'Have mercy on me' as you breathe out.
"When I am in trouble, when I'm scared or upset, or have a nightmare, that prayer is the first thing that comes to my consciousness. It has become my default setting, if you will. It's very comforting to me, because I'm saying the name of the Lover of my soul over and over again. There's great power in saying His name, we Christians believe. It's very holy to me.
"Some people just say the word 'Love' or 'Peace'. Anything that is holy to you or that pulls you into your experience of God can be used as a simple breathing prayer. It can be done daily in a ritualistic form. It can be done in traffic; it can be done in the bathroom; it can be done anywhere. It's lovely to have a subconscious prayer that happens almost without thought. Sometimes I light a candle and use it as a centering device in my prayer. Some people hold a rock or something else from the earth. I think that women, especially, are very drawn to rituals and altars (which could be just pictures of loved ones). I always have an altar of central things in my room that focuses me. An icon, they say, is a window to heaven. Anything can be an icon for you and help you pray. It will change as you and your spiritual life change.
"I believe that the Creator made us as a unity, as wholeness. The word 'whole' comes from the same root as 'holy', which also means 'healthy', 'hale' and 'hearty'. That is very significant to me. I think we are meant to have a sort of circle, a wholeness within ourselves, and that the spirit should not be ignored in any healing journey. Our spirits are very important parts of the package that make us 'us'. If you ignore your spirit, it will send you dreams to tell you to be more sensitive. I believe one reason I am making such progress in my own healing is that my lovely Lord, my Holy Spirit, partner in my healing, will not let me ignore my spirit. I get these wonderful nudges that remind me to pray or be mindful of God . . . .
"To try healing prayer, you don't need to have a particular faith. You do have to believe in something bigger than yourself. Belief in a 'loving higher power' or however God appears to you, is fine. As you pray, you can imagine that love is coming into you; you can imagine God's forgiveness or healing power washing over you.
"And you do have to practice. It's like learning the piano - you have to do your five-finger exercises. You can't just suddenly play a sonata. It takes awhile to develop openness to the spirit of God. People who are new to prayer sometimes find it helpful to focus on the word 'God'. You don't have to be very verbal about it; healing prayer is wonderful that way. I know one woman who had trouble with the idea of Jesus as a man, so she just imagined a large, beautiful dove bringing her the gifts of God. As you may know, the dove is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, so it worked really well for her. Imagery is very useful in healing prayer. Often, when I pray for a client, I see a little movie or a series of pictures about what is going on in that person. When I describe what I see to clients, they are often astounded because it seems like the Holy Spirit is talking to them.
"You have to be humble, you have to be open, and you have to be receptive to whatever gift God sends to you. It's also important to have a sense of humor about it all. There's a beautiful passage in the Bible (Proverbs 17:22) that speaks to the need to keep a sense of humor through your hard times: 'A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.' Laughter can be blessedly healing, and keeping joy in our hearts is one of the keys to living a better life - for anyone , not just those with chronic illness. As author and theologian Madeleine L'Engle puts it: 'Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.'
"If you are interested in finding a healing prayer group, just call a church in your area. Call some churches that sound good to you. Most Christian churches and some synagogues, too, have a prayer chain. I am an associate of a convent, the Community of the Holy Spirit in New York City. It is a great comfort to me to know that every day those women pray for me, and every day I pray for them. They are very holy women. Their job is prayer. That's what they do.
"If you find a group who will pray for you, you don't necessarily have to 'buy' their whole package or believe in their specific teachings. If you trust them enough to ask for their prayers, they will be honored to do it, because that is a call that Christians share. That is true of other religions, too.
"Come to God humbly and openly, and listen to the Holy Spirit instead of always giving God your list of desires. Listen to what God may have to say to you, present your request in a humble manner, and God will hear you. I don't think any prayer is ever wasted; every prayer is heard and answered. The answer may not be the answer that we would choose, but there is always an answer. There's always a change in ourselves and a blessing from God.
"I think that healing prayer could be, for someone who is open to it, the single most important step toward recovery. I say that with knowledge of what I've seen in people's lives, and in my own life, when we're opened to the power of God. Exploring healing prayer could be a really great blessing to many people. It could bring a measure of wholeness that may be missing in your life."
"Having a chronic illness can make a person totally alter their belief systems, too. A religious person could start questioning why God has allowed them to suffer so. An atheist might start praying for relief. People who were once independent and strong-willed suddenly find themselves weak and dependent. People who always depended on others are suddenly forced to look inside themselves for the strength to go on. Sometimes, when everything else has been taken away, relationships are the only thing that can sustain a sick person.
"Mari says that when she found her support group, she found herself surrounded by people who were going through the same thing themselves, who accepted her friendship 'as is'. Here were people, she says, who had the same condition she did, and she felt so much comfort in knowing this. Eventually, she realized that everything that happens, happens for a reason. She tried to discover what lessons she was meant to learn from her illness. Mari says that she never had a 'faith' or organized religion before February 1996, when she attended a women's purifying ritual for the New Year. That night, she says, she felt connected, a small part of the entire world. After that experience, she began attending regular rituals and co-founded a new women's group. She says it's filled a giant hole in her spirit that she didn't even know she had.
"Her most spirit-altering experience came after she injured herself about six months ago. She was lying on the sofa in great pain and began saying a healing prayer. At that moment, she says, she experienced an amazing, healing love that she recognized as Jesus Christ. She felt a presence that held her and filled the room. 'I knew then that no matter the name of the healer or type of religion, no matter whether it's God or the Source that you believe in, suffering is, in my opinion, universal, and healing of the spirit is possible,' she says. For the first time in her life, she truly understood the words 'mind/body/spirit connection.' . . . .
"Sharon W. says that one of the biggest drawbacks of having FM or CFS is that you get so busy concentrating on how to handle life on a day-to-day basis that you can't concentrate on spiritual matters. 'I've been too busy with other things that have been changing in my life to think about how being sick is changing [my spirituality].'
"Sherry J., on the other hand, has found that her illness has given her a greater spiritual focus. 'Being sick my whole life has meant that I've never had time to think about God. I was always a Christian and lived a Christian life, or tried very hard to, but I didn't go to church. I couldn't have made it this far without God. I have no doubt that there's someone much more powerful than I am. I don't really pray, but I try to give as much as I can. That's my way, and it comes back in return. I now believe God is inside us, and we each have our own ability to believe and be good and do good, or we can go the other way. Usually, if we go the other way, we pay for it. Whatever we give out, we get back. It's been proven to me over and over again in my life, with my grandchildren, my children, my illness, everything.'
"Illness can bring great transformations in our emotional and spiritual lives, some of them positive. For almost three years after the auto accident that caused her FM, Andrea allowed herself to wallow in self-pity and depression. She wandered around in a daze, wondering, 'Why me?' She was angry and upset that something so catastrophic could happen to her. One day, she ran into an acquaintance at the grocery store. His hair was gone, and he had scars all over his head. He looked like he, too, had been chewed up in an accident. She asked him what had happened. He replied, 'Brain cancer'. He had had a massive operation to remove malignant tumors from his brain. She expressed her sympathy and gave him a hug. As he turned to leave, he looked Andrea right in the eye and said, 'Count your blessings'.
Andrea says she did just that with every step she took on the way home that day. She gave thanks for her boyfriend, her girlfriends, the fact that she hadn't been paralyzed or horribly disfigured in the accident, the fact that she could still see and hear and smell and taste and experience this incredible universe. Since then, she's taken time out of every day to remember things to be thankful for. . . .
"Ellen J.'s illness has helped put her more in tune with the universe. 'I use my condition as a way to connect with the source, rather than feeling like I've been abandoned by something. And my spiritual practices have really changed. I found I could no longer go to services, so that forced me to find other says to become spiritual, including meditation, getting together with other women, and doing women's rituals. Also connecting with people on a non-superficial level, in contrast to how I think most people in our society deal with one another. I feel really blessed that I've had the opportunity to connect with people on a deeper level. I probably wouldn't have had this opportunity had I not become ill. I've had to examine who I am, whether my life is going in the direction it should go. Even though I would not have chosen to live my life in pain, I'm finally at peace with it.'" . . . .
"Cornelia is a thirty-nine-year-old actress who is studying to be an Episcopal priest. She works in the field of healing prayer and also has FM. She and her husband have two sons, and they live in Seattle. She believes that prayer can help those with chronic illness . . . .
"Here's one example of how healing prayer has affected me and my family. I had been sick with FM, multiple chemical sensitivity, and endometriosis for some time. Before I got married, the doctors who had been taking care of my endometriosis said they did not think I would ever be able to conceive or carry a child. My friends and coworkers in healing prayer had an all-day prayer session for me - what they call 'soaking prayer'. Three women gathered around me as I lay just under the altar in the church. They prayed for me, they sang, they put their hands on my stomach for hours at a time (they were praying for my fertility). It was one of the most glorious times of prayer I have ever experienced. The women were so loving and so generous, and I felt that the Spirit of God was really there. My son was born two years after I was married. It was miraculous.
"Soaking prayer can be one of two things. It can be a marathon session, like the one those women did for me. Or it can be praying day after day, week after week, just being in the presence of God and inviting God's will to come into your body. And miraculous things happen and the healing that takes place isn't always just physical. God's agenda may not be the same as ours. Healing can come in all sorts of forms. My agenda is not always dealt with in the way that I think but God's agenda always will be. God affects healing in our spirits and souls in addition to our physical bodies (or instead of, in some cases).
"I recall many other examples of how healing prayer has been a blessing. Our family went through a terrible crisis two years ago. Within a two-week period, everything horrific that could happen did happen. I lost my seventh pregnancy, my husband was in a terrible accident, and we were fired from our jobs in the theater we had founded. The church gathered around us in a way that was holy, uplifting, and strengthening. We didn't have to cook for a month. They brought us food; they mowed our grass; they prayed with us and for us; they sent us notes every day to let us know they were thinking of us. It was the most beautiful outreach of the body of Christ that I have ever experienced, and it just blessed us down to our socks. In the midst of our terrible grief and pain, the church was like a dolphin swimming alongside another dolphin that is giving birth, helping to support it as the pain fades and a new life is born. It was a perfect example of how people in the church can be family to one another.
"Currently there's a trend within the medical community to tend to patients' spiritual well-being as well as their physical needs. I know that nurses are learning all sorts of groundbreaking spiritual healing techniques, like laying on of hands, energy work, soaking prayer, all sorts of things. I've read that almost half of the nurses practicing today are doing this. That is just surprising and wonderful! Miracles of healing are happening every day.
"My spiritual director gave me a prayer that has been very helpful as a centering prayer. Christians use centering prayer in the same way that Buddhists use mantras or other faiths use certain centering words or chants. It's an ancient prayer that has been used for almost two thousand years. You simply say 'Lord Jesus Christ' as you breathe in, and 'Have mercy on me' as you breathe out.
"When I am in trouble, when I'm scared or upset, or have a nightmare, that prayer is the first thing that comes to my consciousness. It has become my default setting, if you will. It's very comforting to me, because I'm saying the name of the Lover of my soul over and over again. There's great power in saying His name, we Christians believe. It's very holy to me.
"Some people just say the word 'Love' or 'Peace'. Anything that is holy to you or that pulls you into your experience of God can be used as a simple breathing prayer. It can be done daily in a ritualistic form. It can be done in traffic; it can be done in the bathroom; it can be done anywhere. It's lovely to have a subconscious prayer that happens almost without thought. Sometimes I light a candle and use it as a centering device in my prayer. Some people hold a rock or something else from the earth. I think that women, especially, are very drawn to rituals and altars (which could be just pictures of loved ones). I always have an altar of central things in my room that focuses me. An icon, they say, is a window to heaven. Anything can be an icon for you and help you pray. It will change as you and your spiritual life change.
"I believe that the Creator made us as a unity, as wholeness. The word 'whole' comes from the same root as 'holy', which also means 'healthy', 'hale' and 'hearty'. That is very significant to me. I think we are meant to have a sort of circle, a wholeness within ourselves, and that the spirit should not be ignored in any healing journey. Our spirits are very important parts of the package that make us 'us'. If you ignore your spirit, it will send you dreams to tell you to be more sensitive. I believe one reason I am making such progress in my own healing is that my lovely Lord, my Holy Spirit, partner in my healing, will not let me ignore my spirit. I get these wonderful nudges that remind me to pray or be mindful of God . . . .
"To try healing prayer, you don't need to have a particular faith. You do have to believe in something bigger than yourself. Belief in a 'loving higher power' or however God appears to you, is fine. As you pray, you can imagine that love is coming into you; you can imagine God's forgiveness or healing power washing over you.
"And you do have to practice. It's like learning the piano - you have to do your five-finger exercises. You can't just suddenly play a sonata. It takes awhile to develop openness to the spirit of God. People who are new to prayer sometimes find it helpful to focus on the word 'God'. You don't have to be very verbal about it; healing prayer is wonderful that way. I know one woman who had trouble with the idea of Jesus as a man, so she just imagined a large, beautiful dove bringing her the gifts of God. As you may know, the dove is a symbol of the Holy Spirit, so it worked really well for her. Imagery is very useful in healing prayer. Often, when I pray for a client, I see a little movie or a series of pictures about what is going on in that person. When I describe what I see to clients, they are often astounded because it seems like the Holy Spirit is talking to them.
"You have to be humble, you have to be open, and you have to be receptive to whatever gift God sends to you. It's also important to have a sense of humor about it all. There's a beautiful passage in the Bible (Proverbs 17:22) that speaks to the need to keep a sense of humor through your hard times: 'A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.' Laughter can be blessedly healing, and keeping joy in our hearts is one of the keys to living a better life - for anyone , not just those with chronic illness. As author and theologian Madeleine L'Engle puts it: 'Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God.'
"If you are interested in finding a healing prayer group, just call a church in your area. Call some churches that sound good to you. Most Christian churches and some synagogues, too, have a prayer chain. I am an associate of a convent, the Community of the Holy Spirit in New York City. It is a great comfort to me to know that every day those women pray for me, and every day I pray for them. They are very holy women. Their job is prayer. That's what they do.
"If you find a group who will pray for you, you don't necessarily have to 'buy' their whole package or believe in their specific teachings. If you trust them enough to ask for their prayers, they will be honored to do it, because that is a call that Christians share. That is true of other religions, too.
"Come to God humbly and openly, and listen to the Holy Spirit instead of always giving God your list of desires. Listen to what God may have to say to you, present your request in a humble manner, and God will hear you. I don't think any prayer is ever wasted; every prayer is heard and answered. The answer may not be the answer that we would choose, but there is always an answer. There's always a change in ourselves and a blessing from God.
"I think that healing prayer could be, for someone who is open to it, the single most important step toward recovery. I say that with knowledge of what I've seen in people's lives, and in my own life, when we're opened to the power of God. Exploring healing prayer could be a really great blessing to many people. It could bring a measure of wholeness that may be missing in your life."
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