thriving. Cures are about what the experts think they know about you or a disease process. Healing is about what you come to know and believe about yourself and your own journey.
Before I moved into a private practice dedicated to healing, I worked in hospice for several years. During much of that time, I worked in a hospice house and had the opportunity to be with literally hundreds of people while they were dying and at the time of death. While working with adults, a common theme was the desire to be “healed,” and we would often discuss the differences between healing and curing. The truth is that I haven’t seen a lot of “cures” in my life, although I have seen some. In my work, I’ve seen what would be considered miracle cures by the medical establishment: tumors evaporated from scans; bones, tendons and ligaments inexplicably knitted back together; addictions removed as if by magic; hearts, arteries and organs mysteriously restored as if brand new. But the truth is that most people I worked with in hospice still died from their illness– they were not “cured.” Yet scores of of them were healed in a deeper sense as their relationship to health, self, wholeness, family, friends and God was restored.
I have worked in healthcare (alternative and western medicine) for years. I have come to believe that you can be healed and not cured, just as you can be cured and not healed. Sometimes grace filters in like spiritual penicillin and we experience both. Healing can take place at many levels, many of which may not be recognized by a scan or a doctor or anyone else. But healing can take place nonetheless, often in invisible yet profoundly tangible ways…Relationships can be mended. Life traps can be worked though. Old