There are moments when I meet with others that I can see Jesus moving in supernatural, incredible, and creative ways. About a month ago, I led an inner healing prayer session with a young lady who is around 25 years old. She was suffering with great anxiety and depression. She had little will to live and was carrying a tremendous amount of accumulated pain. I’ll call her “Sara.”
Sara is a young married woman who suffered abuse by one of her teachers when she was younger. She also comes from a family in which both of her parents were abused as children, and her sister suffered abuse as well from someone outside the family. Imagine four innocent victims carrying the weight of this. It was stunning for me to hear of so much damage and destruction.
On these occasions, I like to employ spiritual exercises using the imagination to interact with the pain and abuse, which helps to get close to the situation without having to relive the full scope of the memories of the event.
Sara had never done anything like this before and as we started the session, an image of a Roman courtyard came to my mind. At that moment I didn’t understand this image, but I was convinced that for some reason Jesus wanted to meet with Sara in this place. Sara accepted Jesus’s invitation to go there in order to work through her pain, her desire to stop living, and to express her anger and other feelings she felt towards the people who had wounded her. Sara was so courageous to be able to step back into those heartbreaking memories. She wept but she also discerned truth about those dark places, and she was able to begin a journey of forgiveness.
After a while Sara found herself in the courtyard in the company of Jesus. She began to take his blood and wash off the horrible “tattoos” of pain which had been etched into her soul through the lies and messages declared over her by the enemy and by those who had harmed her. I was solely a privileged bystander guiding the process; Jesus did all the beautiful healing.
As we were finishing, I finally understood why Jesus provided this courtyard image. It was the Roman courtyard where Jesus had been whipped, the place where he had been abused, insulted, made fun of, experienced the lack of compassion, and where the darkness of evil cast a shadow over him. Jesus understood Sara’s pain and he was united with her there. Jesus identified with Sara in the midst of her suffering. When she realized the importance of the image, she was overwhelmed by the beautiful grace of God and wept profoundly.
Sometime later, Sara wrote to me, expressing how amazed she and her husband were that her anxiety was completely gone! I received the following couple of texts from her:
Hello Doralicia, I wanted to share with you something that happened to me recently. My two closest friends are not believers. They know what I am (a believer), and every now and then they ask me about it, but the conversation never goes much further. In fact, one of them has declared herself an atheist. For some time, I have been burdened because I’ve felt that I have not been reflecting Jesus to those around me who don’t know him, but I always fell back on the excuse... “When I’m doing better, then I will.” But I began to feel like God could use me in the “in between time, while I’m in process.” The other day I met up with my friends, and in a very natural way, the topic came up that I have been meeting with you for inner healing prayer. They had noticed the absence of anxiety in me, literally from one day to the next. I described to them my inner healing session and they were completely astonished! What most surprised me is how interested they became and the questions they were asking. I’m certain they did not leave our time indifferent. I pray for his work in them and for further conversations together.
A few days later, I went out with another friend who also declares herself an atheist. She was asking me why I looked so peaceful and serene. So, I described to her my inner healing experience and I loved her response. She said, “I don’t believe, but as I listen to you and seeing you now makes me believe in the God you believe in. You transmit something to me which I can’t describe, but I know it’s real.”
Jesus continues working in Sara’s life. She is pursuing her healing journey with him. And as you, and those in her life can see, she is not the same after her encounter with her Lord.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Doralicia Gonzales lives in Málaga, Spain with her husband Randy and their two daughters. Her ministry includes strategic prayer, spiritual direction and mentoring, and walking alongside others who are searching for more of what God has for them with the goal of seeing more Kingdom movement in the region.