Heal me, O Lord, and I will healed. Rescue me, and I will rescued. You are the one I praise. -- Jeremiah 17:14

God's name is Jehovah-rapha ~ the God who heals. The God who is in the process of healing the woman with an eating disorder, or the one abused by her father, is the same God that can heal YOU. In Exodus 15:22-26 God wanted the children of Israel to learn an importance principle: when things are difficult, you are to run to God. Listening and obeying Him will bring healing. God can take the bitter and make it sweet, because He is our healer. If you will do what God says, it will work. You can be healed. That does not mean you'll never experience pain again, nor that your past won't come up again. You will be able to deal with your hurt because you have God's answer on how to deal with your hurt, so that it works together for your good.

What Happens When We DON'T Listen to God?
Why Depend on God for healing?
Treatment ~ Counseling
Why Doesn't God Answer My Prayers for Healing?

The Bible Shows Us That God Heals ~
God's Word is truth -- John 17:17

• Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like an eagle; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not faint. -- Isaiah 40:28-31 (NIV)
• They loathed all food and drew near the gates of death. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He sent forth his word and healed them; he rescued them from the grave. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men. - Psalm 107:18-21
• The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the Lord binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted -- Isaiah 30:26
• He (Jesus) was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. -- Isaiah 53:3; 1 Peter 2:24-25
• See now that I myself am He! There is no god besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand. -- Deutoronomy 32:39
• The Lord will strike Egypt with a plague; he will strike them and heal them. They will turn to the Lord, and he will respond to their pleas and heal them. -- Isaiah 19:22
• I was enraged by his sinful greed; I punished him, and hid my face in anger, yet he kept on in his willful ways. I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will guide him and restore comfort to him. -- Isaiah 57:17-18
• He helps the brokenhearted and binds their wounds. -- Psalm 147:3
• Then Abraham prayed to God and God healed Abimelech, his wife and his slave girls so they could have children again, for the Lord had closed up every womb in Abimelech's household because of Abraham;s wife Sarah. -- Genesis 20:17
• ...How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.-- Acts 10:38
• Praise the Lord, my soul, and never forget all the good he has done: He is the one who forgives all your sins, the one who heals all your diseases. -- Psalm 103:2-3
• If you are sick, call for the church leaders. Have them pray for you and anoint you with olive oil in the name of the Lord. (Prayers offered in faith will save those who are sick, and the Lord will cure them). If you have sinned, you will be forgiven. So admit your sins to each other, and pray for each other so that you will be healed. Prayers offered by those who have God's approval are effective. -- James 5:14-16
• But he told me: "My kindness is all you need. My power is strongest when you are weak." So I will brag even more about my weakness in order that Christ's power will live in me. Therefore, I accept weakness, mistreatment, hardship, persecution, and difficulties suffered for Christ. It's clear that when I'm weak, I'm strong. -- 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
• That is why we are not discouraged. Though outwardly we are wearing out, inwardly we are renewed day by day. -- 2 Corinthians 4:16
• A joyful heart is good medicine, but depression drains one's strength. -- Proverbs 17:22

There was a woman in the crowd who had been ill for 12 years (Mark 5:25 NLT). Twelve years of clinics, treatments, herbs, prayer meetings and incantations. She had suffered a great deal from many doctors through those years (v. 26 NLT). Doctors who took not the disease, but advantage of her. She had spent everything she had, but had gotten no better. In fact, she was worst (v.26). No help, no money, and no family help. No one will touch her.

For 12 years she has suffered. She has nothing and her health is getting worse. This morning she could scarcely stand. She splashed water on her face and was horrified by the skeletal image in the pool. What you and I see in Auschwitz photos, she saw in her reflection -- gaunt cheeks, tired and taut skin, and two full-moon eyes. She is desperate. And her desperation births an idea. She had heard about Jesus (v. 27). Word among the lepers and the left-out said this: Jesus can heal. And Jesus is coming (by invitation of the synagogue ruler). As the crowd gathers, she thinks "If I can just touch his clothing, I will be healed" (v. 28).

Jesus' robe is in sight. Four tassels dangle from the blue threads. She extends her hand toward a tassel. Her sick hand. Her tired hand. The hand the husband no longer wants and the family no longer needs. She touches the robe of Jesus, and immediately she could feel she had been healed (v. 29). Life rushes in. Pale cheeks turn pink. Shallow breaths become full. The woman feels power enter. Then Jesus asked, "Who touched me?" The woman, knowing what had happened, knowing she was the one, stepped up in fear. Trembling she knelt before him and gave him the whole story (v. 33 MSG). No one would listen to her story before, but when this woman reaches out to Jesus, he listens. With the town bishop waiting, a young girl dying, and a crowd pressing, he still makes time for a woman from the fringe. He says, "Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. You have been healed" (v. 34 NLT). The hand that touched that woman, the same hand that touch a blind man, and raised Lazarus from death, will touch your body. He will change your life too.

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This story "Tormented People" comes from the "Next Door Savior" by Max Lucado:

Natalie was raised in a tormented world. The community suspected nothing. Her parents cast a friendly facade. Each Sunday they paraded Natalie down the church aisle. Her father was an elder and her mom played the organ. The congregation respected them. Natalie despised them. To this day she refuses to call them 'mom and dad', more like 'warlock and witch'.

When she was 6 months old they sexually sacrificed Natalie on hells' alter, tagged her as a sex object to be exploited by men in any place, anytime. Cultists bipolarized her world: dressing her in white for Sunday service, and hours later stripping her at the coven. If she didn't scream or vomit during the attack, she was rewarded with ice-cream. Only by crawling deep-down inside herself could she survive.

Natalie miraculously escaped the cult but not the memories. Well into her adult years, she wore six pairs of underpants as a wall of protection. Dresses created vulnerability; she avoided them. She hated being a woman; she hated seeing men; she hated being alive. Only God could know the legion of terrors that dogged her. But God did know.

Hidden within the swampland of her soul was an untouched island. Small but safe. Built, she believes, by her Heavenly Father during the hours the little girl sat on a church pew. Words of love, hymns of His mercy-- they left their mark. She learned to retreat to this island and pray. God heard her prayers. Counselors came. Hope began to offset horror. Her faith increased, outweighing her fears. The healing process was lengthy and tedious, but victorious, and culminating in a marriage to a godly man.

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A Message For Us from Jeremiah 8 ~

You see that Jeremiah was dismayed over the brokenness of God's people. Their wound was curable, but they were not accepting God's cure. In their trials and testing, they ran to everyone but God. Therefore their wounds were healed superficially. A repeated phrase in Jeremiah is "But you did not listen." Because they did not listen to God, they missed the "balm of Gilead".

In Gilead they produced a salve known for its healing and cosmetic properties. "The balm of Gilead" had become a proverbial phrase synonymous with healing. Thus the Lord spoke through Jeremiah saying, "Go up to Gilead and obtain balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt! In vain have you multiplied remedies; there is no healing for you." (Jere. 46:11). The people of Judah had acted just like this world. They tried to find healing for themselves, but there was no healing apart from God.

Look at ourselves today -- so many of us running to food, and/or the diet and cosmetics industry so we can look and be perfect; trying to find healing for our wounded souls. We need to run to God. The people in Jeremiah's day ran to Egypt but they should have sought counsel and cures from God, their Jehovah-rapha. But they didn't. It was easier to listen to man (who they could see) rather than to listen to God (who they couldn't see). God seemed too far removed from their world and their needs. The prophets falsely prophesied, and the priests ruled on their own authority. And God's people loved it (Jere. 5:31). And the end of it all was bad news -- the people were never healed.

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Many people have gone to professional counselors and have spent hours, and hundreds of dollars, yet they are still living like a dried-up bush in the desert. That's because their counselors never led them to the Word of God to find the solution. They received counsel from man, but it didn't resolve their conflict because man can only deal with the problem from man's perspective.

Seek a counselor - one who takes the opportunity to teach you about the character and ways of God, to help you see the necessity of total surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord -- see the next section. However, I don't know a therapist, no matter how skilled or caring, that can "fix" a hole in the soul. So where do we go with our yearning and our painful relationships? To God. We trust that He will orchestrate the healing in ourselves and others that we desire.

Scripture supports this in Jeremiah 17:5-8. "Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord. He will be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.

God metaphorically tells His people that they have forsaken the living water of the Word of God for the filthy waters of the Nile. Instead of going to Gilead where they could find refuge and God's means of healing, they went to Assyria and drank the waters of the Euphrates (Jere. 2:14-19).

What they did in Jeremiah's day, we are doing today. Many of us have drunk the waters of psychology, philosophy, and psychiatry, instead of drinking the Water of Life. We have run to men and women trained in the world's wisdom, but we have not run in prayer to our Lord, Jesus Christ. This is not to say we should not go to others for help. We should go to God. And when we turn to others, what real and lasting help can they give us if their counsel is contrary to God's Word?

Where do you turn in times of hurt, of need, of doubt? If you said "God", what do you do when you turn to Him? Do you wait on Him to see what He will put on your heart? Do you seek Him through the counsel of His word?

God ministers through His word. As you read His Word daily, you will find him speaking to you, and supplying what you need for your situation. If you said you turn to food, alcohol, pills, promiscuity -- they will not help you. Run to God, your Jehovah-rapha.

~ Content inspired from "Lord Heal My Hurts" by Kay Arthur

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Counseling ~ Treatment

Did you know that God has provided you with your own personal Counselor? Jesus said to His disciples, "And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever -- the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you ... But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." John 14:16-1726 (NIV)

Did you know the Holy Spirit actually dwells within you, and is able to give you comfort, strength, counsel, encouragement?

Question: I have some emotional problems and my family doctor says I need to see a psychiatrist. My friend says I just have to have enough faith and my problems will go away. What do you think? (Excerpt from "Answers to Life's Problems" by Billy Graham)

I would be the first to say that faith in God is very, very important. It is essential for our eternal salvation, and it is crucial for our everyday lives. But at the same time I do not agree with your friend, because God may choose to use an able psychiatrist to help you with some of the problems you are facing.

You see, when you have faith in God, you are actually trusting a problem into His hands. You are saying, "Lord, I don't know how to deal with this, but I have faith that You do. I trust that you lead me and give me wisdom, so I will know what is right. I trust You to show me the right answer to this situation." Faith, in other words, does not necessarily mean that we sit back and fold our hands, assuming God will work without ever using human tool."

Kim Davidson: I agree with Billy Graham. I have come into contact with many women who have put their faith in God and have been healed. Some were guided to excellent counselors, some were guided to excellent rehabilitation facilities, and a few have been miraculously healed.

Seek a counselor that is Christian, or offers a spirituality component. A counselor who takes the opportunity to take you to the Word of God, to teach you about the character and ways of God, to help you see the necessity of total surrender to Jesus Christ as Lord.

Faith-based Programs

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Why Doesn't God Answer My Prayers for Healing?

That is a great question, and unfortunately there is no concrete answer. I can tell you that God is aware of your eating disorder, and all your other problems. But He is NOT the cause of your problems. We make our own choices - both good and bad. God doesn't want the eating disorder to continue, but that doesn't mean that you should expect Him to miraculously make it disappear. God is the great teacher. He likes to teach us lessons on the way. He wants to mold us more into the likeness of His son, Jesus. It's a 'God-journey'. He will give you all the help, courage, strength, counsel needed to complete your journey. But only if you let Him.

It takes great effort to recover from an eating disorder - sometimes years. If you don't think of yourself as overly religious, at least acknowledge that you have a spiritual side. People with faith are able to utilize God's strength, in addition to their own, to recover. However you view God (some call Him "Higher Power"), just know He can help you through the Holy Spirit. He will lead you to caring and loving people who can help you explore your past and future recovery.

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