I had a wonderful session with a woman today that has suffered from allergies for years. During our discussion, she mentioned that she was particularly allergic to cats (we were in the house of friend that has cats). I asked when it had started, and she reported that, oddly enough, it had started after her last cat had disappeared (years earlier).
As we dug into what she was feeling, she came to understand that her cats had always been companions for her. She had lived a very solitary childhood. She had 3 cats that had disappeared over the years, and there was a great feeling of loss as a result.
As she felt the pain of the loss, I asked her to listen to her heart and to let it tell her what the allergies were telling her physically. Her body’s allergic reaction was a way for her to distance herself from animals so that she would not risk the pain and loneliness of separation again. Her body literally had an allergic reaction to keep her from getting close to an animal for fear of pain.
We invited Jesus into that place of hurt and loneliness. He spoke truth and comforted her, and suddenly her eyes stopped reacting. She reported that she felt a feeling move throughout her body and knew that she had ben healed. In reality, I think that she didn’t need her body to keep her away from animals because Jesus renewed her mind and her beliefs about the loss, pain, and loneliness were changed.
She looked at me wide eyed and then (laughingly) said, “I don’t know how I’m going to tell my husband about this.” Jesus gave me an idea - I picked up a tuft of furr from the carpet, handed it to her, and told her to go home and show it to him so that he could see that her reaction was gone.
I believe that so many of our physical “problems” are really just our bodies trying to alert us to issues that actually reside in our belief system and heart. Instead of assuming that ailments like allergies, body aches and pains, gastro disorders and the such are just facts of life, age, or the result of a fallen world, we should at least take the time to explore them a little to see what’s really operating in our lives. This woman was faithful to looking when Jesus made the call and she was healed in about 30min as a result of it.
-Shawn