A Season of Grief and Healing: Healing
By Kam Cook
Stephen Ministry Coordinator
He heals the brokenhearted and binds their wounds. Psalm 147:3
We have learned that we don’t go through orderly, predictable and sequential stages of grief, with clear-cut beginnings and endings. If we don’t work through our grief, we lose the opportunity to heal our souls, psyches and hearts. We can only heal what we feel.
The search for meaning is the sixth stage of grief, the stage where healing resides. Time doesn’t heal all wounds – we heal because of what we do with that time. Meaning is what we make happen. While we can’t control our loss or our need to grieve, we can choose to heal. Healing is heart-based, not head-based. It takes courage (derived from the French wordCoeur,meaning heart) and strengths we never knew we had to heal ourselves.
One of our greatest roadblocks to healing at HHBC has been our refusal to forgive those we hold responsible for the situation in which we now find ourselves. Mahatma Gandhi said Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. In 2022, let us resolve to refuse to hold grudges against our fellow members. As Scott Nash reminded us at the Christmas Eve service, we need to don the cloak of forgiveness.
Healing is a holistic concept that embraces the physical, cognitive, emotional, social and spiritual realms: it gives us closure; it helps us become whole again and it gives us the courage to continue our changed lives with fullness and meaning. But we, as individuals, can’t become whole until we have first forgiven.
Healing requires the support and understanding of those around us. Communal healing requires an environment of empathy, caring, and encouragement. We heal by receiving and giving affirmation and empathy. Sharing our grief with others in our congregation won’t make the pain go away, but reaching out to others has connected us to other grieving people and strengthened the bonds of love we have for our church family. We will never forget what we have lost, but we can forgive and make every effort to move forward towards what God intends for HHBC in the future.
“Forgive” or “forgiveness” appears in the Bible nearly 100 times, including the Lord’s Prayer:and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Let us acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the only physician who can bind up our deepest wounds and make them whole again.
If you need forgiveness or need help forgiving someone else, our Stephen Ministers are available. For more information on how Stephen Ministry can provide you with trained, confidential, nonjudgmental one-to-one lay pastoral care, contact Referrals Coordinator Peggy Williams at (478) 719-3340 or by email.
Recognizing that God is the ultimate Cure Giver, the Mission of the Highland Hills Baptist Church Stephen Ministry is to serve God and bring Christ’s healing love to individuals who are experiencing life’s challenges through confidential, non-judgmental, one-on-one Christian care.