Inner Healing and Soul Care

The term my European interpreters use when I say Counseling is seelsorge. It means, Soul Care.  When I spoke last week at the Global Awakening conference on Unbroken I found almost 200 people eagerly wanting to learn more about inner healing. However, most approached the topic from a point of view that I held for many years but altered some time ago.

I began the journey of Soul Care from the point of view that God could and would heal people with early childhood wounds through the prayers of faithful Christians. When we first heard about inner healing from a visiting Episcopal Priest from Atlanta in 1972 we were ecstatic. We had hope that it was possible to carry out the promises of Isaiah 61 to Heal the broken hearted and set the captives free.

From the late Sixties until 72 we had been overwhelmed with people with broken hearts and spirits captured by addictions, evil habits and evil lives. We prayed for them but, like many before us, we did not know how to pray for their deliverance and healing. Now came the word that inner healing had arrived on the scene to set all the captives free.Visions of former addicts, prostitutes and devil worshipers dancing in the Spirit as free from evil as the day they were born.

That year we began to experiment with inner healing prayers. For some of the people healing and deliverance came swiftly and  happily. But many lapsed back into their old ways or did not leave them in the first place. We had more to learn.

I went on to study Psychology and received an ED. D in Counselor Education. Ten, after graduation,  is when my education really began. My colleagues and I continued to pray fervently for the wounds of past hurts to be healed. In fact, I still pray that way.But we learned how to add prevention and follow up to Surgery of the Soul. An Orthopedic Surgeon can fix a knee or hip but the work of healing is not over until the patient has follow up with Physical Therapists, Nurses, Nutritionists and so forth to strengthen the muscles of the legs, and regain balance as well as eat right. It is important to do follow up to prevent the surgery from failing.

This is very true also for Surgery of the Soul. Over the years we learned how to help people renew their minds, bring healthy change to themselves and their families and connect with God's Spirit at a deeper level. All of these are required to keep going without a relapse.

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