My Story
of Healing
April 15, 2013
I am sharing my story of how my
life has changed since reading and praying the prayers given through the book,
“The Healing of Families” by Fr. Yozefu-B.Ssemakula. (Fr. Joseph).
To keep the length of this testimonial more brief I
will try to write of just the changes I have experienced. However, a lot of the transformation
began to take root when I read the book and the foundational truths explained took hold of my heart.
By way
of a little background information about me, I have been a Catholic all of my
life and gone through 12 years of Catholic education and then went on to a good
solidly Catholic University for 1 ½ years.
I am 38 years old, have been living a sacramental marriage for nearly 18
years, and am a home educating mother of 8 children. They range in ages from 17 years to 1 year
old. With all of that information, it
sounds like I should know
more of my faith and live it more deeply.
However, I had fundamentally flawed ideas about who God is, who He
isn’t, the nature of my own free will, suffering (necessary and unnecessary) ,
the workings of angels and demons, and how satan operates. There are more I could list but those came to
mind first of all. The way Fr. Yozefu
(Fr. Joseph) presents the truths in his book was a way I really understood. It was very logical and he took things to
their logical conclusion. For example,
if God is only good, there is nothing evil whatsoever about Him. In my flawed thinking, I had attributed
things to God that He had nothing to do with and He was grieving with me as they
were happening to me. So many questions I have wrestled with have
finally been answered.
As I
moved through the book and things became clearer to me, I could tell that the
Holy Spirit was breathing life into the embers of that Confirmation fire He had
lit so long ago. Through my own neglect
and also through the snares of “the world the flesh and the devil” I had not
allowed His blazing fire of love to consume me.
I think we can all give reasons why we’re not doing what God wants but
we don’t try earnestly enough to seek Him.
I know why I didn’t do this- I had a wrong idea of God and it hindered
my love for Him. Honestly, I didn’t
fully trust Him. The words in the
Divine Mercy image are “Jesus, I trust
in You!” I would repeat those words,
but still I didn’t trust Him like I wished to.
When it came to the words in the
Our Father, “ Thy will be done”, inwardly I cringed. The age old cry of “ How can a good God
allow such evil?” began to eat at me and
I wondered “ Why did God allow all of these bad things in the world to happen?
If He knows all, and sees all, and is all powerful, why didn’t He stop
(fill in the blank) from
happening?” Intellectually, I knew that God could bring
about good in any situation but what I didn’t get is why He allowed it in the
first place. What I didn’t take into
account is my free will. It is so sacred that God will not tread where
He is not invited. Through sin,
(personal or generational) an invitation had been made for evil to enter.
Whether I had intended it or not, I had not chosen God- I had chosen to be a
slave to sin. I think that is the premise of this book, and
why so many people are having such tremendous results when they follow the
advice and prayers in it. When I kicked
satan out , finally God was able to reach me in places He had been patiently waiting to enter. I underestimated the power of my free will to my detriment. No more!
I have seen the light of truth and I choose to walk in it.
Fr.
Joseph presents such a black and white image in this gray world of ours. God came to bring life and give it in
abundance. satan only lies in order to
steal, kill and destroy. Period. No blurring the line as satan would have us
believe. This fissure, seeing things as
they really are, began to crack the flawed foundation my idea of God was built on.
God is good-only good-always good.
satan is the deceiver, liar, tempter and completely evil. This may seem elementary to people but like I
said, I had taken in lies and had heard them so often that they began to sound
like the truth.
Another
important discovery for me was the whole idea of withholding my heart. To explain, I had put a wall around my heart
to protect myself from being hurt. After
reading in this book and seeing that we only have one heart (obviously) and if we close it off to anyone, we close it off to
God. I was struck with remorse. As a defense mechanism I had closed my heart
to certain people (through unforgiveness) and in essence I closed my heart to
God. Initially I had wanted to read this
book because I wanted healing from Lyme’s disease and from an autoimmune
disorder called Hashimoto’s thyroiditis.
I wanted the physical healing of my body. God craved the healing of my soul so that He
could live in deeper communion with me.
To me, my physical symptoms were
the worst affliction I had. In God’s
eyes, my unforgiveness, anger, bitterness, impatience-these were the ailments
he wanted to free me of. Now that I am
on the “other side” and have had the
scales from my spiritual eyes removed, I can see how much more He has in store
for me!
The
third day after the conference and of praying the prayers to break the areas of
bondage and footholds of satan, I had such an overwhelming sense of “ I forgive
everybody! I love everyone!” It came over me like a wave and I felt such
joy! Up to that point, I had withheld my
heart and built a wall around it so that God’s love and healing couldn’t touch me there. I only saw the symptoms (my physical diseases). Jesus, our Divine Physician, saw the cause
and longed to heal me. Not until I
allowed Him in by forgiveness of myself and others could He come. He is a Gentleman and waits for our
“yes”. satan gets us by hook or crook and I could finally see satan’s
plan for what it was for me- lies, destruction, death.
I am
now able to give God the consent of my will because I trust His will for me. It may seem that I attribute all the good
that has happened in me to this book and praying the prayers it contains. I know that faith is a journey and these are
steps on the way. But in the 5 months
since reading this book, delving deeply
into my life and seeing where satan had footholds on me, and attending
the Healing of Families seminar that Father
Yozefu lead 4 months ago, I have
seen an explosion of God’s healing love for me happen. I know God can access the deeper recesses of
my heart now that the footholds satan had in my life are given over to
Christ. The “onion layers” of my soul
are peeled away and God gains greater territory for His Kingdom in me.
Having
said all of that, I want to share some more ways I have seen more life,
freedom, and grace in my life and my children’s lives. After the conference, I had noticed a
remarked difference in the pliability of soul in of one of my children- being
more receptive and less belligerent, and a calming and gentleness for
another. The fears I had been plagued
with were gone! ( constant fear of a
deer jumping in front of my vehicle, fear of dying in childbirth, fear of what
people say about me, …) The anger and
impatience that I always fellowshipped with were amazingly reduced. (I still struggle, but it is not overwhelming
like it used to be!) I am able to
forgive almost right after the offense instead of letting if stew and ferment
inside of me. After landing in the ditch
in the snow I didn’t lose my temper and instead thanked God for the positive
things I saw in that situation. Once
when I was trying to get the hood of the van lifted off, I calmly found where
it needed to be lifted and took care of the problem. I used to get angry and frustrated and
frazzled when I couldn’t do something like that. I feel more in control of my emotions and
don’t let them frazzle or dominate me as they used to. Now I am able to pray heartfelt prayers of
repentance instead of rationalizing my behavior and giving reasons for what I
did. I am repulsed by my sin instead of
coddling it. I can easily ask for
heavenly help more quickly now instead of it being a last resort. My 1 year old spilled a full bag of cereal
onto the floor and my old reaction would have been to lose my temper, throw a
fit and then play the victim who does all the work, and then clean it up. This time, I actually got my camera and took
a picture of him and cleaned up the cereal, salvaging what I could and giving
the rest to the birds. I was free and
detached and was able to see the situation for what is was- an accident,
spilled cereal! The final example has to
do with how I viewed my life. Because I was truly suffering physically from
the above mentioned ailments, I began to wallow in my sufferings and welcome the idea of death. I know we are all meant to live forever in
Heaven, but the unhealthy thoughts I was being tempted with wanted to lead me
on a downward spiral of hopelessness and despair. I shudder to remember that I actually thought
this way, but I am sharing it in hopes that it will help someone else see that
there is hope in Our God and that He only wants life and life in abundance for
us.
Now I
seek a greater communion with God and I want to thank and praise Him. I used to worship Him out of a sense of
duty. I wanted to earn His love and
salvation by being “good enough” to pass inspection. I have been praying for this grace- to see
his love and salvation as pure gift.
While at Sunday Mass recently, He flooded me with the deep revelation
that He loves me no matter what and I do the good works not to earn his love,
but merely in response to that love. To
me, that was so personal and profound and He gave it to me. He knew I could really hear him now that my
ears were opened to His whisperings.
I look
forward to an ever deepening relationship with my loving God and I have shared
my story so that you can see how this powerful tool – this book with its
teachings and prayers- have affected me in the core of my being. God is building a new foundation in me
fashioned with His truth and His love!
In
the Freedom and Truth of Christ,
Sarah
Ruf
Thank you for sharing this. Much of what you speak has been my experience with Healing of Families. every few months, my husband and I do the paraliturgy and continue to see healing in our family. God Bless you, Kelly
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