INTERCESSION

March 24, 2008

"Reconstructing Memories"
At a recent conference, a friend of ours was talking about some things Our Lady has been saying in Medjugorje. He said, "She talks a lot about becoming a child." And she does; she calls us little children.  Suddenly, he stopped and he just kind of looked at some of the community members and he said, "You are all children! You are all children!"  I thought that this was one of the most beautiful compliments you can give the community, "You are children."  He said, "That is exactly what she said you ought to be."  And I said, "Well that is what she says, but it is only because that is what her Son says."  Jesus tells us that we must change and become as little children, if we want to have that kingdom, here and now. 

In this course we want to constantly get back to what Jesus says.  What does He want?   He wants us to become little; He wants us to have this freedom of a child.  He wants us to be healed.  This is why He came.  In Luke 4, He said He was sent by the Spirit.  You know so often He says He was sent by the Father but here, in Luke 4, we read that He was sent by the Spirit to heal the downtrodden, to heal the bruised, to heal the broken hearted.  It is a beautiful verse.  It is the ministry of the Spirit to bring us into wholeness. The Sanctifier brings us into holiness.  In this verse we hear Jesus' public pronouncement of God's commission to Him to heal.  He is very focused in the beginning of His ministry on inner healing because He knows that the heart has been through so much emotional trauma which keeps hearts crushed, broken, hiding and afraid.  He knows that the heart has to be healed.  Maybe this is why He said, "The thoughts of My heart are to all generations."  Maybe this is why John picked up so often and said, "God is love."  That is heart conversation.  That is heart to heart. 

Martha sent word to Jesus one day about her brother, Lazarus, using a very simple little sentence.  I remember years ago, when I first heard this Gospel, I thought "Oh!  It is speaking to me, Lord!"  Martha said to Jesus, "Lord, he whom You love is sick."  We can go to God anytime and say "She or he whom you love is sick.  I am sick, Lord.  I am sick. I am heart sick and I need Your healing touch."  We have sick hearts.  God's healing Heart is waiting to touch our hearts in every area.  

There is no time with God.  Jesus can go into every area of our life span.  And He can heal by simply dealing with the memory - the memories in our past.  Whether they were yesterday, last year, ten years ago, twenty years ago, makes no difference.  The memories are what we retain there if they are hurtful.  There are good memories that we can retain and they will not hurt the heart.  They will constantly feed the heart and bring deeper gratitude to the heart. 

Many times we can start daydreaming or suddenly bring up a thought that is negative.  And we can hang on to that thought and develop that thought and all of a sudden we begin to go down hill really fast.  You know how quickly that happens. 

I think this was Ruth Carter Stapleton that suggested in one of her books, that we can take those thoughts and turn them into positive fantasies.  Use your imagination.  Through the guidance of the Holy Spirit you can take that same mechanism and put a positive thought there and let the positive thought start to develop and that, she said, (and it works) will begin to erase the old memories, because you are replacing the old memories with faith empowered images.  These images become reconstructed and they fit into the memory sequences.  This is interesting.  There is a natural law in the universe that says that two things cannot occupy the same space at the same time.  It is true, isn't it?  One must go. Let the negative one go.  Replace it with the positive. Fill the emotional space, she said, occupied by a negative thought or memory with a new more powerful positive thought and image.  Replacing those memories with this new God inspired reconstruction of these memories, will be one way of healing.  It is one way; there are others, but this is a very powerful way. 
Excerpt from Mother Nadine's, "Introduction to Inner Healing," Omaha, 2004