Healing

Matthew 9 : 18 - 26

I recently rediscovered the Enneagram, a 'tool' that helps us to recognize our brokenness. According to the authors of a book I read, "It is a great help to those of us who want to open ourselves to the healing power of God. It allows us to see our hidden sinfulness with a clarity which we might never experience in any other way. What the Enneagram does is reveal to us at depth that what we are seeing is distorted by our own typical outlook and that there are eight other basic and very different ways of viewing reality. Using the Enneagram helps us focus on our shadow side...it opens us up to the spiritual dimension within us, to our need for conversion and to our inability to turn our lives around by our own unaided efforts."

Well, the 'shadow' is a part of our personality that has been around in us for a long, long time.......I can imagine how the woman with haemorrhage must have felt those twelve long years. She felt alienated from others, from herself, from God (being considered 'unclean' because of the issue of blood). What a burden it is to carry in us, with us something, whether physical or part of our personality that hinders our freedom to be our true selves.

I discovered that I am "Perfectionist (No 1 on the Enneagram)- Helper (No 2, secondary trait)". A combination that makes me, at my best, diligent and caring but at my worst I can become resentful and manipulative. It is easy to get trapped into the unhealthy mode, which is usually the 'default' one programmed into us. It is from that place of brokenness that we can cry out to the One who passes near by. He is our true hope, in the midst of all the other 'healers' and self improvement programs we have sought over the years. To even be in his presence brings the sense that it will be all right. He can do something about it. Even the synagogue ruler hoped against hope in the face of death.

"Lord, you love each of us individually with a unique and personal love. Touch my life with your saving power, heal and restore me to fullness of life. "