Experiencing Healing

Introduction to Healing The Secrets of Healing from the Psalms Get Carl's In Pursuit of Healing Healing Quotations Healing Bibliography

Only a few decades ago one of the most outstanding and successful doctors of the century, Dr. Paul Tournier, lived and ministered from his home in Switzerland. He was so successful that doctors all over the world often sent patients to him that they could not heal, only to see the patient successfully healed after they spent time with Dr. Tournier. Sometimes the doctors would ask Dr. Tournier how he did it, attempting to learn from his success. The answer was quite simple, and Tournier published it in a book that was a watershed in my own life: The Meaning of Persons.

The basic premise was a part of what he called the medicine of the whole person. We compartmentalize our healing process. If there is a twitch in the eye, our family doctor sends is to the eye doctor. The eye doctor then tells is it is a nerve problem and sends us to a neurologist. And then within the field of the neurology there are hundreds of more subdivisions. Tournier says we are a whole person created by God in God's image. We were in the very eye of God before the creation of the world. (see Psalms 139, Isaiah 49). There is no such thing as even the physical part of our being, the mental part, and the spiritual part. We are each a total and unique being.

In Meaning of Persons, Tournier says we live in our roles and wear out masks for most of the day, generally even with our spouse and children. We are father, mother, wife, husband, engineer, on Sunday perhaps a deacon, elder, teacher, or worshiper. We are posers. As a result, we are never in touch what God created us to be. We live our lost to the healing that has as gift to us.

To initiate the healing Dr. Tournier would invite the individual to his house. There, over coffee or tea and by the fireplace, the this individual would drop their roles, games, and masks and share their true heart with Tournier. Tournier would often lead in the dialog, making himself vulnerable to his patient, and in so doing this encouraged his patient to open his or her own heart and be vulnerable. Tournier called the masked person the personage, the true heart and soul that must be touched for healing was the person. No healing can take place until this person is unmasked and revealed. We are all posers to some extent. All healing is first a healing of the heart.

I'm not encouraging you to try this as a "strategy" with someone - counselee, girlfriend, someone you are discipling. At that point you are playing a role, taking on a personage, and it won't work. I am encouraging you, however, to make it a lifestyle. Just a few days ago I spent some time with a lady as she shared her passion from her heart, then later that day it happened again with another lady over a dinner. I wan't "trying" to do anything. I just wanted to hear the passion, burden, and heart of another. In each case I saw healing - not only with the other, but with myself as well. Makes you want to sing. Praise God.