by Nina Shoop

When I was asked to be part of the Healing Prayer Team at Bethany my immediate thought was “Yes!” I have experienced God’s healing touch in my own life through prayer. I believe God is the Great Physician and Healer. All power in heaven and on earth is at His command. Therefore, I consider it a privilege and a blessing to take part in God’s kingdom on earth by praying for the healing of my brothers and sisters in Christ.

As part of a newly formed Healing Prayer Team, we ask expectantly for God to meet us right where we are in the broken and hurting spaces of our lives. In the Bible, Jesus says in Matthew 18:19-20,

“Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them.”

My experience with physical healing began in January 1999 when Lynne and Kevin McMahan invited us to be part of an infertility group. My husband Joel and I joined the group because we had been trying to get pregnant for over a year. We also began the medical infertility query and later learned that I had endometriosis.

Throughout the infertility group meetings, we prayed for each other and asked hard questions of God like, “Why are you making us wait? Don’t you want us to have children?” During the previous nine months, I had also been asking—or rather screaming—hard questions in God’s direction (He can take it, I’m pretty sure). I was bitterly grieving the suicidal death of my 16-year-old brother, Ben. “Why, God, did you allow my brother to die? We prayed for his healing, yet he still jumped?” I questioned God.

For the last meeting of the infertility group the McMahans asked if they could pray for each couple. After we were prayed over and anointed with oil, I cried out, “Heal me of my bitterness (for letting my brother die), Lord, against You.” He answered my prayer (almost) instantaneously; my bitterness was gone.
God moves in mysterious ways.

I sometimes wonder if God allowed me that difficult time of infertility in order to process the bitterness, anger and great sadness I experienced over my brother’s death before He enabled me to bear new life. Within a month of the healing prayer, I was pregnant!

God is so good and His healing continues in my life. During that first training session for the Healing Prayer Team, as our leader described the Healing Timeline—which involves re-engaging our younger-self and proving to that younger-self that the trauma is over—I noticed my stomach and chest tightening and my eyes welling with tears as my body reacted to my thoughts about the first major trauma in my life: my dad’s sudden and unexpected death when I was 8 years old.

I quickly walked out of the training session into the crisp air, crouched down, hugged my knees and wept. I was long overdue to revisit the traumatic scene of my dad’s death. I needed to help my younger-self say good-bye to my daddy; to fully believe that it wasn’t my fault that my dad died and to release stress carried in my body.

As our memories are triggered by one of our five senses, we can be instantly transported back to a traumatic experience. What I learned in the training that day was that the neural pathways replay the traumatic experience unless the memory is rewritten or the traumatic pathway is rerouted.

This is where the Healing Timeline comes in and allows us to finish what we didn’t get a chance to say, do or feel at the time of the trauma. The healing of my memories came for me at a time when I could respond to the memories while feeling safe and loved with Jesus by my side. The Lord met me in an intimate, loving way. He healed my traumatic memories!

Healing Prayer Ministry begins in January. Watch for more details in the January Briefs.