How to Create a Healing Environment

I have a passion, maybe even a call to facilitate healing. I believe this is why I chose nursing for my career. Besides my nursing experience, my interactions with my health challenged husband and my daughter who fights a chronic illness have really deepened my understanding of what it means to create a “healing environment.” When a loved one or a brother or sister in Christ faces either a chronic, acute or terminal disease, how do we respond? First of all, we convey with our thoughts, words, and actions that we believe in and value the person who is afflicted. The world, the flesh, and the devil are quick to convey the message that the suffering one has less value than when they were healthy. We who are close to those battling illness and especially those of us who represent Christ or an area of medical expertise, must guard our minds, hearts and words from anything that would devalue the person. They are fighting those thoughts and feelings themselves, and don’t need to be reminded of what they used to be able to do, how they felt, or how life used to be.

Healing is hard work. The sick person needs extra rest, an improved diet, exercise, and protocols specific to the disease they are fighting. They need time to research different approaches to their health challenges and have the freedom to choose the path to healing they are to take, even if we disagree. It is their life and they must experience the consequences of their decisions. It is the patients right to choose. Roles often have to be changed and adjusted with the mate or family taking more responsibilities because of the ramifications and limitations of the health challenge. We are to bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. This must be done lovingly and graciously without resentment, if this is to affect the healing one desires to see in a loved one.

We must not elevate ourselves to “sainthood” while doing these things. Being a former rehab nurse has taught me that the tables can turn in a split second through an accident or sudden illness, and those we have lovingly cared for may indeed be caring for us! I remember a story a former pastor told of three men in a blizzard with one unable to walk without assistance. One went on alone to save himself and the other helped the injured brother, and they hobbled on together. The man who thought only of himself was found frozen to death, and the two who stuck together kept each other alive by their combined body heat. I believe this is a powerful illustration of what I am trying to convey.

I came across a verse in Leviticus 25:35-38. “And if your brother has become poor and his hand wavers than you shall uphold him, a stranger or a temporary resident with you, so that he may live along with you. Charge him no interest or increase, but fear your God, so your brother may live along with you. You shall not give him your money at interest nor lend him food at a profit. I am the Lord your God, Who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt to give you the land of Canaan and to be your God.” To create a healing environment, the loved one must not be on the streets or live under a bridge. Has God not blessed us to be a blessing? Is it all about us: our comfort, our "toys," not being interrupted in our pursuit of pleasure and entertainment? Did our Master not teach us to lose our life to find it, to take up our cross daily, to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and to visit the sick?

I think of people like George Mueller who because of Christian compassion took in thousands of England’s orphans, who at the time were thrown in with the criminals and the insane. He changed their lives and destinies forever by opening an orphanage and creating a safe and healing environment.

I think of the family I work for, who for 17 years have cared for their special needs child 24/7 with and without nursing care. He was only supposed to survive 10 days, but love and this type of devoted care has baffled the doctors and negated their dire prognosis.

I think of a doctor and his wife in our church who have his parents live in their own home next to theirs, maintaining their independence and yet having loved ones a few feet away. I think of our pastor and his wife having a returning missionary live with them until she became financially established. I think of dear friends in Minnesota who have their widowed Mom live with them for more than a decade and are now caring for her in the end stages of Alzheimer's. None of these people had to do what they did, to the extent they did it, but they were motivated by love.

My son-in-law who is taking nursing courses told me of a study where mice were injected with cancer cells, and one group was lovingly cared for, and one group was shocked periodically. The group given TLC faired twice as well in survival rates as those shocked randomly. A loving and healing environment is indeed therapeutic and even life saving.

I believe what we will be remembered for is not how much we acquire, but for how much we gave, how much we shared, how much we believed in people and made a difference in their lives. This will be our legacy and our greatest gift.

I believe if we are willing to be “Jesus” to the hurting, we are going to see healings occur and destinies realized, but only if we are willing to pay the price!