Everybody in life goes through painful experiences. I think often the most painful experiences happen with our relationships with others. I went through a tough relationship experience and I had to learn about healing in Jesus’ way. When I was going through this experience and trying to recover from it, I felt that I had been wronged. I knew that my God loved me and understood, and that Jesus Christ had suffered for me. I knew that I would have to undergo a healing process that was offered to me by my Savior, Jesus Christ.
At first, I wanted justice. I felt that I was validated and that because I felt I had been wronged, the pain would be instantly swept away and the injustice righted in a way I felt was appropriate. Because of this misguided attitude, I spent a lot of time treading the water of this situation instead of swimming forward in the direction of progress.
Through this experience I had to learn some hard lessons. I learned that I had to be healed Jesus’ way, not my way. One skill I had to work on was controlling my thoughts to be above the pain - not dwell on the hurt and mistreatment - and choose to think about happy things.
It may sound silly, but this was the hardest part for me. I found out that my healing was only going to come through humbling myself, recognizing my own faults and trusting in Jesus. A hard truth to swallow was that I couldn’t hold on to those offended feelings. For some reason (and I still struggle with this), I didn’t want to, or felt that I shouldn’t have to give up those validated feelings of injustice.
Incredibly, one of the hardest parts for me to learn how to be healed was opening my heart and giving all those pained, angered feelings away. This seems strange because giving away those feelings should be easy. They were only causing the pain after all. However, it wasn’t easy for me. I think this might be because I was scared to let go of control. I think I was scared of releasing a hardened exterior because I was afraid I would get hurt again. And I will get hurt again – that is life. But the important thing is to know how Jesus heals.
I have learned through personal experience, through health challenges as well as other emotional and spiritually painful challenges, that the key to healing is through learning to live abundantly in Christ.
The only way to overcome the pain is to let the Savior, Jesus of Nazareth, into our hearts. And we can only do this by following Him. In essence, I am learning in my own life that we have to adopt a whole new lifestyle – that of a follower of Jesus Christ. We have to try to be like Him in order to be healed by Him.
Some practical things I learned in my life may sound basic, but they have made all the difference. I have found that healing cannot occur unless I am looking outside of myself and helping others. I must be praying endlessly, constantly, to my Father in Heaven.
Another hard lesson to learn is effort. Healing through Jesus Christ takes great effort to abandon what I currently know and risk it all to know what Jesus knows. It takes great effort and faith to abandon self-defense and pride.
I know that this is not an overnight process. I know personally that it’s a long road and I often fail. But the good thing I have found is that the Savior doesn’t wait until you’ve become perfect on your own. No, He starts healing the minute we take the first step. He will never leave us.