The Healing of the Lord

A Vision of Healing

One morning a few weeks ago, I was lying in bed in a state of semi-consciousness when I saw a picture in my mind. In it, I was lying facedown with three horizontal gashes running across my back, and the Lord stood over me holding a roll of gauze.

Knowing myself to be unworthy of His touch, and even His very presence, I said, “Lord, what are You doing?”

“Binding your wounds,” He answered, unrolling the gauze.

“Why, Lord?” I asked, feeling wretched.

“Because you asked it.”

There the conversation ended, whether because my overactive imagination couldn’t come up anything else or because the Lord saw no need to “say” more, I am not entirely sure.

However, even if this picture came wholly out of my imagination, I do know that He can use imagination in His plans if He so wills. Thus, I prefer to think that this vision of myself as wounded and Him as Healer did come from Him in some way.

What It Meant To Me

This picture has some personal significance for me because, in truth, He has bound many wounds for me, but they are not tangible—after all, my back was no more torn when I got up than when I had laid down. I would guess that the wounds appeared on my back because a few years ago, I would think of the scourging at the pillar and tell Him, “Lord, it was I who should have been scourged, not You.”

However, while I’ve never experienced any physical wounds close to being flagellated to within an inch of my life, I have known much suffering. My physical disability, while the most obvious manifestation of it, is actually the easiest for me to manage. Most of the time I don’t even remember that I have it. No, my greatest pains are the ones that no eye can see.

One Day’s Healing

These wounds are in the form of memories with varying degrees of pain attached to them. But, one might think, some bad memories wouldn’t affect my day-to-day life on a large scale, since they only exist in my mind. That is partly right and partly wrong. Some days I’ll be fine, and then other days I’ll feel suffocated by my mistakes. But, no matter how bad my day is, I don’t normally will myself to be incapacitated by my memories, and most of the time just try to live life as anyone else would.

Nonetheless, the painful images keep coming, and I fight to overcome them, though I don’t always succeed. Then, too, most of the time my struggle is easier when I ask the Lord for help, as my weak human nature is never truly strong enough without Him.

One example of this happened on the very same day that I saw the image. An unfortunate memory rose to the top of my consciousness, but, instead of dwelling on it, I thought of the image of Christ and was comforted. Then, too, thinking that the image came from Him at all gave me further consolation in thinking that He chose not to have me experience the same pain as usual.

The Meaning of Healing For All of Us

So He lessened my pain on that day, but does the picture I saw really mean anything? I think so, because it was a picture of healing. With the Lord, a specific kind of healing can be requested but its exact fulfillment can never be guaranteed.

For example, since I was little, I wished many times for healing for my body, but clearly never got it. When I studied abroad, I wanted to go to Lourdes for the miraculous water there, but I ended up finding very different water and a new type of healing instead.

Furthermore, this past October I attended a miraculous healing mass, though I did not have a very specific intention in mind. I still don’t know what, if any healing He chose to effect at that mass, but I am glad I tried to open myself to His grace.

The Divine Healer

Similarly, that morning I did not specifically ask Him for a sign that He was near, yet, for His own reasons, He gave me one, and while a few happy waking moments one morning have not changed my life, they made my faith in Him a little bit stronger. I knew for a long time that whatever kind of healing for which someone may ask, Our Lord’s type and time of healing will always triumph.

The picture also helped me to better understand that Christ truly is the Divine Healer. Among all healers, His knowledge is complete, His touch steady and sure. No matter what form it takes, His healing will manifest itself at the right time, whether we know it or not. Finally, the vision reminded me of something all too easy to forget; that, no matter how far away He may seem, He will never leave us.

While I can only speak for myself, and though I have experienced healing in some forms already, my wounds are far from completely healed. But, I hope I can trust in Jesus, as should we all, to continue His unerring treatment of them as only He can. Thus will He reward those who love and trust in Him until the awaited day when He will heal every wound for all eternity.

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