The Gift of Healing Part 4: The Oft-Neglected Link in Healing Yourself...and Others

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Light as a Feather

Anyone who knows me knows that I love sports-related movies (ironic considering I don't watch sports at all; I have no idea who played in the SuperBowl, World Series, etc). 

In the movie Rocky III, Clubber Lang had just defeated Rocky Balboa. Soon thereafter, Rocky announced that he'd fight Clubber Lang again. His trainer, Apollo Creed, worked with Rocky to prepare him for what promised to be a brutal fight. 

It was soon apparent that Rocky's top nemesis wasn't Clubber Lang, but himself. He had so many doubts, so much self-negativity. He had literally lost the will to fight again, despite his being in probably the best shape of his life. He wanted to quit. "How did everything that was so good get so bad," he asked his wife, Adrian. "You wake up after a few years thinking you're a winner, but you're not. You're really a loser."

"Nothing is real if you don't believe in who you are!" Rocky yelled to Adrian. "Don't you understand?"

When you watch this scene, you can just feel all the emotional and psychological rocks Rocky was carrying. Maybe not rocks. Boulders.

"But none of it's true," Adrian said. "And you can't live like this. Look what it's doing to you now. Apollo thinks you can do it (take on Clubber Lang). So do I. But you gotta do it for the right reasons."

"And if I lose?" Rocky asked.

"Then you lose, but at least you lose with no excuses," Adrian replied.

In the next scene, we see Rocky and Apollo jogging on the beach. Rocky punching. Practicing, and as he does so, he is practically dancing on air. As he gets lighter, he also gets stronger, faster, more powerful...exceeding his own expectations.

Eventually, Rocky would knock out the man who decisively knocked him out months earlier.

The psychological, emotional and mental boulders Rocky had been carrying from his prior loss to Clubber Lang were formidable to Rocky. But the others in Rocky's life saw those boulders as lightweight, practically nothing, if Rocky chose to offload them. Once he did, he became light as a feather yet as quick and lethal as a cobra.

Give Him Your Rocks

You, too, likely carry a lot of rocks with you. 

We humans are so adept at burdeneing and weighting ourselves down. All our past screw ups, stupid tendencies, sins and more. 

Rocks, definitely. Boulders? Quite possibly.

Sometimes I think that one of the hardest things about the Gift of Healing is "Letting Go and Letting God." We don't give Yeshua near as much credit for his eagerness and enthusiasm in taking our burdens from us. So, we choose to carry our burdens rather than (supposedly) weight down He who loves us the most.

And when we knowingly, willingly choose to do this, we not only weight ourselves down, but we also reject the single-greatest gift God has even given mankind: His atonement. 

That's right: When you choose to carry your own burdens, you blatantly reject Yeshua, His atonement and His mission. You turn your back on God and the greatest manifestation of love in the history of history.

How can you possibly help another heal -- or maybe even expect yourself to heal -- via the Gift of Healing when you're rejecting the greatest gift ever?

A friend of mine had a dream two years ago about the rocks she was carrying:

"This was given at a time when I struggling to work through some really painful and hard things that had happened to me years before. These were things that had always brought me a lot of pain and suffering for a long time, and had also kept me feeling very alone and completely isolated wherever I went. 

In the dream, I was sitting on the ground, heavy and plagued by sorrows that draped my body. I thought the sorrow and sadness must be that I was very, very innately bad and irrevocably hurt. I felt like I did in life, that maybe that my whole eternal identity was forever hurt or altered.

Then, from my right, Christ came near me very softly. When I registered that it was him, his presence was just as natural and comfortable and calm as if he had been in the “room” of my life the whole time. He had a backpack that he gently showed to me, the top already unzipped, as he knelt down closer to my level.

He addressed me with the softest gentle dignity and said, so extremely kindly and tenderly “You carry so many heavy things. Why not put them in my backpack and let me carry them for you?”

I was so touched and surprised that he would not mind coming near me, and talking to me. I was also so amazed that ANYONE would spend time expressing a desire to help me.  

I was now surprised that I really *could* give him my heavy things, and I started to look for a way to do it. In the dream, I started handing him these rocks as big as softballs, that each represented different kinds of hurt, sadness or pain. I knew that I had SO many rocks like this, that all of them would never fit in a backpack. I also knew I could never remember all of my terrible traits, sorrows, and hurt to to hope to be able to remember them all. 

I felt shameful in my heavy perception that I had so many more terribly abundant rocks than all the other more “normal or special” people that I seem to know.  But I did give him as many as I felt able to give. After a little while of handing rocks over, I did NOT feel like I could ask for him to take any more, because I knew that I had too many and I did not want to ask too much, or be greedy to someone perfect and kind. 

I looked around and sadly saw that there were still rocks of my sadness and hurt everywhere on the ground for a many foot radius, but I was grateful that he would take the ones that I had been able to name and hand to him. So rather than ask for too much, I said thank you and signaled that this was as many as I felt able to ask for him to take.

I just really felt ashamed and hopeless that I still had so many more rocks, strewn about the ground all around me. But again, I didn't want to be greedy, or bad, and I pretended that partial relief was going to be enough, since I believed I SHOULD NOT ask for more (those “modest” expectations).

 (My self worth felt SO low! He has really helped me with this since then, in such loving and sustained ways).

Jesus was so kind, and treated me with so much respect. He did NOT look at all the other rocks that I felt so hopeless and ashamed about and embarrassed of. It was like he didn't even see them. (He wanted me to feel dignity). I knew he saw them, but was not looking at them. He did not want me not to feel unworthy or self conscious or bad. It was VERY noble and kind and gentlemanly.  

When he saw I was done giving rocks, he didn't comment on how many I had been able to give. He just quietly zipped the pack, stood up, and put it on his back. 

I looked at him in his white robe, with the backpack on his back and I thought. “Wow. he looks like a normal man, wearing a backpack filled with rocks.” I wonder what this meant to me, for my sadness and for all these rocks. I also noticed that so far, I felt the same way inside as before. With the difference of feeling so much kindness and dignity, interpersonally. 

As soon as I was done noting that thought, Jesus looked at me in the eyes, and while holding eye contact, He slowly raised both of his arms high into the air. As he did, every rock on the ground in every direction unanimously lifted off of the ground several feet, and floated, now weightless. Every single one just hung, completely still, and suspended. 

My jaw dropped, and even my mind gaped open in awe and amazement. It was so unexpected and so incredible. Everything held so still. 

To see the rocks so still, and so silent in the air, raised by him, I could feel his supreme and law-defying strength. By feeling it, I felt SO MUCH RELIEF. 

Every weight was now lifted by him, and all of them now irrelevant to me.

I remember that in the dream I was so shocked and amazed by the lifted rocks holding so still that I even looked at the backpack and it was also looking lifted and weightless. EVERY rock was lifted and suspended. All of the weight was made irrelevant to me, by Him!

The BEST part was that as Jesus watched my expressions and my experience of his lifting of all my sorrows and weights, every terrible sorrow and pain and hurt, he smiled the most joyful and radiantly pleasure filled smile that I had ever seen (up to that moment in time). He was so filled with joy and personally deep and gratified pleasure and happiness to see my relief. This was his greatest pleasure and happiness and delight. And it was plain to see that He LOVED his experience of watching my awe and relief. 

He was just so filled with life and happiness and joy to watch me “know” his miracle, and for me to experience His rest and relief. He was SO HAPPY to do what he was doing, with the ability that he has, and was *loving* to use to help me.  

His smile was so warm and so real. In it, I knew he wanted me to know and experience how joyful he was to preform it through the power of his strength. His joy was personal, REAL, radiant, joyful, bright, happy, expressive, and amazing. It was SO personal. He LOVED showing me the ease and joy with which he lifted every sorrow and pain for ME. 

It was emotionally incredible to experience this in contrast with the heavy and exhausting many previous years during which I had suffered in silence, very greatly."

Uncondemned

If you'll recall, Yeshua never condemned the woman at the well. He never condemned the woman caught in adultery. He never, ever said, "Well, read these scrolls and come see me weekly for six months, then we'll see if you're sufficiently repentant enough." No. Did you read what I just wrote? HE DIDN'T CONDEMN THEM!

Yet today, we allow ourselves to carry equal or even lesser burdens, and somehow justify it...all while demeaning and diluting the power of a non-delaying atonement.

All things are created first spiritually, then temporally (D&C 29:31-32). That includes healing. And that healing starts with you, for "God has said that the inward vessel shall be cleansed first, and then shall the outer vessel be cleansed also." (Alma 60:23).

If you want to ensure, with a 100% guarantee, that you have made Yeshua smile, then start by valuing His atonement. Give Him ALL your rocks. Every one of them.

"For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." (Matthew 11:30)

And as you'll see in your mind's eye His joy, His indescribable pleasure, in YOUR giving true value to His atonement, you'll not only feel lighter...

...but also in your spiritual healing, you'll discover a newfound spiritual lightness about you, and an enhanced ability and enthusiasm to heal others, too.

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