William T. Faris - How Healed Do You Want to Be?: Finding hope and wholeness in a sharp-edged world

How Healed Do You Want to Be? is not just a jazzy book title. It is a serious and timeless question. It asks you to think again about the nature of healing and how deeply you desire to experience it. The question of how healed you want to be can be quantified, but not ignored. In this book you will learn how I, and others, have responded to this provocative question. By doing so, you will be challenged to interact with it for yourself.

The question of how healed you want to be assumes that there is brokenness in this world that, at times, catches us on one or more of its shaper edges. Songwriter Bob Dylan, always the cogent observer of the human condition, captures our problem with the following lyrics from his song Everything is Broken on the 1989 album Oh, Mercy:

Broken lines, broken strings,

Broken threads, broken springs,

Broken idols, broken heads,

People sleeping in broken beds.

Ain't no use jiving

Ain't no use joking

Everything is broken.

Seem like every time you stop and turn around

Something else just hit the ground.

Brokenness, it seems, begets more brokenness. Therefore, it becomes very important for you and me to seek healing for ourselves and for othersnow, and for the rest of our lives. And heres the good news: we have not been left alone to do this. Jesus Christ has come to be our Champion, our Savior and our ever-loving Healer. Because of Him and His amazing grace, we no longer have to live as victims in this sharp-edged world. We have, in fact, become the benefactors of the greatest rescue plan of the ages.

There are those who may question the need for yet another book on the topic of healing. I sympathize. An email I received while writing this book asked why in the world another theory book on this subject was needed when, in fact, we dont heal anyoneregardless of method or approach. Healing, the writer insisted, is an act of God alone. He will heal according to His own good pleasure; although He sometimes allows us to participate with Him. Those several observations may put the issue of healing to bed for that fellow, but it is certainly does not for me.

As a pastor and a trained pastoral counselor, I have spent countless hours walking with people through the challenges, needs and hurts of their lives as a part of my calling in ministry. Through it all, I have learned that we need to have an expansive and inclusive notion of healing if we are going to offer any real hope to people in need; therefore, we will explore five dimensions of healing in order to better equip you to address your own needs and the needs of others.

I am not ashamed to say Im a healing kind of guy. Through the years, I have sought to share healing with people in hospitals, in counseling sessions, in private homes, in healing workshops, in the church and even in the marketplace because I truly believe healing matters. Furthermore, I have long pursued healing for myself and others because of my conviction that God cares. Over the years, I have seen His healing power in action in places as far away as China and as close as my own living room. Everywhere I go, I see the relevance of the healing message to the total human condition: body, soul and spirit.

As we begin, I will take you to the scene of the head-on collision that nearly took the life of my wife in February of 2000. You will learn what that experience taught me, and continues to teach me, about healing. I will also take you to that defining moment in my own life when God first asked the question: How healed do you want to be? By these and other means, I will help you develop a more comprehensive notion of healingone that I believe will inspire and excite you.

Along the way, I will help you apply some of the things you are learning to your own needs and to the needs of those around you. You will learn about faith, about transformation, about miracles and about the sometimes long, difficult slogs through mystery and pain that is also a part of the healing journey. If you are ready to confront the question that makes up the title of this book, then I urge you to read on. But be forewarned: if you do authentically interact with the question at hand, you will never be the same.

And hey, hey, hey! Lets be careful out there.

Sgt. Esterhaus of Hill Street Blues

The cords of death entangled me;

the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.

The cords of the grave coiled around me;

the snares of death confronted me.

In my distress I called to the Lord;

I cried to my God for help.

From his temple he heard my voice;

My cry came before him, into his ears.

Psalm 18:4-6

The wipers of our family minivan cycled furiously as the winter rain came down in sheets. Robin gripped the wheel tightly as she peered through the windshield at the storm-drenched road. She had made this part of the trip home from our childrens school many times before. The gentle grade rose up through the old ranch land to the top of the hill where 8,000 new homes were under construction.

Our teenage son Andrew sat next to his mom in the front passenger seat while the stereo competed with the thrumming rain. Behind him our 3-year-old daughter was buckled securely into her child safety seat. It had been raining hard for several days and the roads were slick and treacherous. Behind the wheel, Robin was still feeling a little badly about having to refuse to include one of the neighbor kids in that days ride home from school. The little girl was without her car seat, however, and that was one rule Robin would not break. As she was thinking about these things, she didnt notice the pickup truck coming from the opposite direction as it gained speed, moving down the hill away from the new construction area. She never even saw it slide sideways across the four-lane road and directly into her path, hydroplaning out of control.

In only a second it was overthe mangled vehicles wrapped around each other, steam hissing from the wreckage and dissipating into the falling rain. In the pickup truck, the passenger was already dead on the scene and the driver badly injured. In our familys vehicle, the range of injury was unbelievably broad. Andrew had some relatively minor hurts, while Jeanne Ann had been totally spared. Robins injuries, however, were devastating.

At the time of the impact, I was busy at home. A friend stopped by to show me the new business cards and stationery designed for our new church start-up. How could I have ever guessed that as we sat there imagining the future, half of my family was en route to the local trauma center? I would know nothing of this until I happened to check my phone messages. The unexpected one from Mission Hospital nearly took my breath away. The sober voice on the recording urged me to come right awaymy family had been in a terrible accident.

I prayed as I drove, trying my best to imagine what I would find when I got to my destination. Whatever it was, I knew our lives would never be the same.

*****

Four days before the accident our family had been caught up in a very different kind of excitement. On that happy Sunday night, we stood side-by-side before the leaders of our church at a commissioning service in our honor. The Newport Vineyard had been our church home for 10 years and our ties there were strong. Well-wishers and dear friends joined our senior pastor and his wife in praying for Gods blessings over us as we prepared to answer a call to begin a new church near our home. After months of preparation, our launch day had finally arrived.