Healing Humpty's Hurting Heart

My recent visit to Russia along with the political campaign and the ceremonies marking 911 have had me in a reflective mood. I sure am glad I am not the President of the United States. It is a very tough job.

I am also thinking about the importance of healing the emotional wounds from past shock, trauma and abuse. With so much terror and warfare occurring I know from personal and professional experience that the pain inflicted today will resound from generation to generation until the peace of God reigns in the hearts of the victims and their children.

I spent two hours on Wednesday with Sherri Brock, an American living and serving as a missionary to abandoned children in Vologdova, Russia.I met Sherri during the retreat outside Moscow last month. Dr. Galina Chentsova, the head of Lifeways Russia, has been training Sherri and her team how to bring healing to the broken hearts of so many kids.

Sherri indicated that the members of the Lifeways Leadership Team experienced the healing touch of Christ during our Breaking Free workshop. They were especially blessed in the small groups during the times of waiting upon the Lord and sharing what He had said with other members.

Marie, a brilliant woman lawyer in her late thirties, was accidently locked in her dorm room by the roommate who did not realize she was in the toilet. Marie was stunned to discover that the door was locked and faced a critically important decision. What do I do to get out and join the workshop? This must sound very simple to us Americans. Just bang on the door and shout out for help. Someone is bound to hear and open the door.

But Marie is the child of Communist rule and systematic family abuse and making a decision to help herself was not easy. Any sort of assertive behavior in the past would have meant certain punishment by Communist authorities if done at work and by an evil father if done at home. No knowing whether an action will lead to success and rewards or failure and punishment leads people to develop what Dr. Martin Seligman calls, Learned Helplessness, a passive and depressive state of withdrawal from all attempts to change ones life.

So, Marie made one of the most healthy decisions of her life. She walked over to the door and gently and silently attempted to open it. One of the members of the class who was running late heard the noise and shouted, "Who is it?" Marie answered and the door was opened successfully.

But this is not the end of the story. After Rich and I went to bed the Russians spent hours drinking tea, talking, laughing and sharing insights. During one animated session Marie told the group that her bold action was proof that she had experienced a healing breakthough from God. "Before this I would have simply laid down and passively assumed that I deserved this terrible fate and accept the fact that I could not change the outcome."

The group asked Marie why she had not shouted and made a fuss but she insisted that such a thing was simply impossible. "My walking to the door and trying to get it open proves to me how much healing I have experienced. It is beyond anything I have ever done before and I am satisfied with that small change."

Healing is a long, slow process marked by many very small but significant changes in thinking, feeling and behaving. The next day Marie was bold enough to ask for the anointing with oil and laying on of hands for her physical healing as well. This was another bold move for she comes from a religious tradition that forbids such things.

Almost every one of the Lifeways Leadership Team experienced the gentle but powerful touch of God's healing love and power. Now they can help hundreds of other Russians have the same breakthough love in the groups and churches in which they serve.

Our latest book is, Hope and Change for Humpty Dumpty. Contact me for a signed copy.

If you can support Lifeways Russia contact us soon!