04/06/2017
A testimony from HOLLOWS OF THE HEART Seminar
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Hi! My name is Kathy. For several years now, I have had the distinct privilege of being a part of the Sierra Ministries' Seminar
Team. This is a ministry that I believe in and have seen many lives
changed and healed because of the gentle ministering of this team.
Just recently, my church fellowship was excited to have Dan and Kathleen Prout and some of the team members come to teach the seminar entitled “Hollows of the Heart”, expounding on the principles of inner healing.
After the seminar, one of the quotes that I heard was, “Usually the teaching in an all day seminar is great in the beginning, but this one was packed from the beginning to the end with powerful, informative and usable information.” Well, God had a special appointment with me at end of Dan's teaching!
I had been prompted to share the following story, and Dan, not knowing what I was going to say, allowed me to share. As a first grader learning the alphabet, our teacher would give us a coloring paper with a picture representing that particular letter. In this case it was “E” for elephant. I did not have a gray color crayon and it seemed silly to me to color it some fantastical color. So I proudly problem solved and creatively colored my elephant with my lead pencil. Granted, it was a bit messy, but at least it wasn't purple! I proudly turned it in. As was my teacher's custom, the next day she would comment about someones' picture and to my astonishment and utter amazement, she held up my coloring! Her exact words were, “Now, this is an example of ...what NOT to do!” I died of Mortification! I had tried so hard to please and here was my teacher telling the whole class that what I had done was not good enough! My self confidence went crashing through the floor, never to be retrieved! And my budding artistic talent took a direct hit! For the next 60 years, not being good enough became a default foundation of my life. It showed up in all areas of school, clear into college. It colored my marriage, where my best efforts just weren't good enough! Even into ministry when I chose to not put myself in places where I felt I might fail a client to whom I was ministering.
Well, I was standing in front of 25 people sharing my story with the intent of helping them understand that we are all broken in some areas and to never give up, we are a work in process. But when Dan took my hand and asked if I wanted to take care of that wound right now, I knew God had set me up for some Fantastic healing! I had recognized the truths of the woundedness, but for some reason had never gone to the next step of forgiving my first grade teacher. sounds simple doesn't it? After a short 10 minutes, and going through the steps that he had spent the whole day teaching about, Dan and the whole seminar group walked me through the forgiving of my teacher. Then going back to the original source of wounding, Dan asked me to search my memories for the pain of being minimized, of being ridiculed, of having my delicate confidence shattered with a few unthinking words. No pain! No embarrassment! Only a sense of confidence, and a growing desire to begin exploring my art again. That night, alone with God, I went through two other wounding memories that had brought a total stop to any development of my latent artistic talent and forgave the two other individuals that had made me feel that my art just wasn't good enough. And today, not only do I know that I am good enough for anything that God asks of Me, but I am really excited to begin to open my mind to His artistic creativity.
I am so grateful for a team of people who are willing to be used by God to bring healing and wholeness into the lives of so many people. A team of people who are willing to travel, to give of their time and energy, to teach and love those who are wanting to learn and are wanting to be healed.
A funny anecdote to this story is that in announcing this seminar to our church body, I even said that often times in learning about how to minister healing, we are often healed ourselves. Little did I know that this time it would be me who would receive the healing of a long time childhood wound!
~ Kathy
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