Healing Story Quotes & Sayings

This is the mission of God: to restore the creation and the life of humanity from the ravages of sin.[45] The church's function in this story is to participate in God's mission; we are to be caught up in God's own work of restoration and healing. This defines the identity and role of the church. — Michael W. Goheen

Let God begin to rewrite your story. Invite him to show you your past through his eyes. Ask him to surface good memories you have forgotten. He would love to do it. There is healing to be had there. There is a replacing of regret with mercy. Though our past has shaped us, we are not our past. Though our failures and sin have had an effect on who we are, we are not defined by our failures or our sin. Though thought patterns and addictions have overwhelmed us, we are not overcome by them and we will never be overcome by them. Jesus has won our victory. Jesus is our victory. — Stasi Eldredge

The wounding becomes sacred when we are willing to release our old stories and to become the vehicles through which the new story may emerge into time. — Jean Houston

If you didn't cried this time While narrating your story' it proves you are healed now — Nehali Lalwani

As David Zucker watched the casket of his late wife being lowered into the ground, he thought the worst must surely be over and it was time to start the slow healing process to begin life anew. — Phil Wohl

I began to explore more body-centered approaches to emotional healing in the hopes of excavating deeper layers of unresolved material. The exploration began with a massage therapist who adeptly worked through layers of holding in my musculature for two hours per week. Although I was by no means muscle-bound, I was heavily armored, like an impenetrable fortress. As she peeled the armor, older and older memories emerged, muscles with a story that needed to be told. — Jeff Brown

They are me, these women. They are the ones who taught me to see; I taught me to see. They, we, are the ones healing the Ginen story, fighting to destroy that cancerous trade in shiploads of African bodies that ever demands to be fed more sugar, more rum, more Nubian gold. — Nalo Hopkinson

The life of Jesus recapitulates key elements in the earlier story of Israel. For a moment, as Jesus stands on the mountain giving the famous sermon, he is Moses. For a moment, answering his critics about his actions on the sabbath, he is David. For a moment, as he calls and names the twelve disciples, he is perhaps Jacob, bringing the twelve patriarchs into the world. For a moment, healing the sick and raising the dead, he is Elijah or Elisha. And so on. In the transfiguration he actually meets Moses and Elijah. — N. T. Wright

Axsem would say nothing more to any of them. No sooner had Fallon released him than he fled deep into the trees, staff in hand, with Hailos following after. Through the morning air, they heard the wail of his mourning. The scarred heart of the general was torn wide open by having to recall even one abbreviated story from his past. He needed time to coddle his mangled heart and push away the torturous memories. — S.R. Ford

But the failure of Christianity is a modern myth, and we shouldn't be ashamed of telling the proper story of church history, which of course has plenty of muddle and wickedness, but also far more than we normally imagine of love and creativity and beauty and justice and healing and education and hope. To — N. T. Wright

Before every session, I take a moment to remember my humanity. There is no experience that this man has that I cannot share with him, no fear that I cannot understand, no suffering that I cannot care about, because I too am human. No matter how deep his wound, he does not need to be ashamed in front of me. I too am vulnerable. And because of this, I am enough. Whatever his story, he no longer needs to be alone with it. This is what will allow his healing to begin. (Carl Rogers) — Rachel Naomi Remen

We sometimes have to experience pain for us to have a story to tell. The power to heal from the pain equips us with the strength to rise up again and move beyond it all. We not only become stronger but wise enough to recognize and handle pain in the future. We however, have to learn to let the brick walls fall down so that we can experience true love once more. We must learn from pain and let it lead us to the most beautiful parts of our journey in life. Only then can our stories become fully complete. — Kemi Sogunle

Your life is a sacred journey. It is about change, growth, discovery, movement, transformation, continuously expanding your vision of what is possible, stretching your soul, learning to see clearly and deeply, listening to your intuition, taking courageous challenges at every step along the way. You are on the path ... exactly where you are meant to be right now ... And from here, you can only go forward, shaping your life story into a magnificent tale of triumph, of healing, of courage, of beauty, of wisdom, of power, of dignity, and of love. — Caroline Adams Miller

Even if the abuse happened years ago, writing about it and telling someone about it can make all the difference to how you feel inside. I can assure you that telling will help you feel better. It is never to late to tell your story and begin to heal your wounds. Find the right person to trust and tell. — Patti Feuereisen

To me, healing means you have to recognize there is a wound and you try to understand what the sources of the wound are, which means you try to tell a story about how it came to be. So you have to engage in some historical interpretation. — Cornel West

One of you needs food,' said the Old Woman, 'and three of you need healing.'
So the Princess sat down to good soup, and fresh bread, and fruit tart with clotted cream and a mug of sharp cider, and the Old Woman put the creatures on the table, and healed them in her way. Her way was to make them tell the story of their hurts, and as they told, she applied ointments and drops with tiny feathery brushes and little bone pins ... — A.S. Byatt

Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there's a big disappointment, we don't know if that's the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don't know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don't know. — Pema Chodron

Healing stories are magickal tales born from personal tribulation and victory, which are then shared. — S. Kelley Harrell

Healing comes when our story is raw, bone-deep and full of hunger for what only Jesus can offer. — Dan B. Allender

O sleep! O sleep!
Do not forget me. Sometimes come and sweep,
Now I have nothing left, thy healing hand
Over the lids that crave thy visits bland,
Thou kind, thou comforting one.
For I have seen his face, as I desired,
And all my story is done.
O, I am tired. — Jean Ingelow

It's very healing,' he said, 'to tell yourself your own story as though you were reciting a myth. — Frank Delaney

The new approach to health care will feature the healing power of story. In the clear understanding that finding meaning in any life passage may be at the heart of healing, our healers -declared or undeclared - will help people use the power of dreaming to move beyond personal history into a bigger story that contains the juice and sense of purpose to get them through. — Robert Moss

Researches reported that they developed a self-healing plastic that repairs itself if cracked. The plastic will change the way airplanes are built and medicine is practiced. In a related story, Joan Rivers will never die. — Tina Fey

From Freedom is:
"True forgiveness is one of the most healing relasing, and freeing gifts we give to ourselves."

"You can't fake it (forgivenss). It has to come from an open heart. It has to be real. Otherwise it is pointless. In order to fruly forgive, you must be willing to open your heart and face and release the pain there."
"It requires humility. It requites us to give up our rightenous indignation, get off our soapbox, let go of blame, and le go of th pride of being right. It means we have to be willing to drop our victim story, soften our stance, and if necessary, let our heart be broken wide open." Brandon Bays Chapter 8 on forgiveness. — Brandon Bays

I want to share my story, and I want to know yours. I believe with all my heart that sharing our stories, the real, ugly, broken ones, is one of the most powerful things in the world, because to share our story we must first accept it. We must own it. We must stop running from it or shoving it into the corner when company comes over. To share our story is to admit that we've been changed. — Anna White

If there is anything certain in life, it is this. Time doesn't always heal. Not really. I know they say it does, but that is not true. What time does is to trick you into believing that you have healed, that the hurt of a great loss has lessened. But a single word, a note of a song, a fragrance, a knife point of dawn light across an empty room, any one of these things will take you back to that one moment you have never truly forgotten. These small things are the agents of memory. They are the sharp needle points piercing the living fabric of your life.

Life, my children, isn't linear where the heart is concerned. It is filled with invisible threads that reach out from your past and into your future. These threads connect every second we have lived and breathed. As your own lives move forward and as the decades pass, the more of these threads are cast. Your task is to weave them into a tapestry, one that tells the story of the time we shared. — Stephen Lee

It's easier to construct a more palatable life story-where I can draw straight lines from each hurt of the past to the healing I later experienced-than to face the raw truth. — Lysa TerKeurst

Each time you meet an old emotional pattern with presence, your awakening to truth can deepen. There's less identification with the self in the story and more ability to rest in the awareness that is witnessing what's happening. You become more able to abide in compassion, to remember and trust your true home. Rather than cycling repetitively through old conditioning, you are actually spiraling toward freedom. — Tara Brach

That's one reason I was so passionate about establishing the Magdalene community. Mary Magdalene was the name of the first person to preach about resurrection, and she experienced deep healing from old wounds. In the accounts of the resurrection stories offered in the Gospels, it seems like in each story Jesus lingers to meet Magdalene. In the account of the resurrection in the Gospel of John, two disciples run into the tomb and see the shroud that Jesus had been wrapped in. They leave scared, and Magdalene is left alone. As she stands outside the tomb, she bends over to look into the tomb. Jesus speaks to her. The bond and power of grace seem to bring her into the heart of God. I wanted to name the community in her honor and for it to be a sanctuary. I knew that in order to heal people, women needed a place to speak their truth in love without fear of being judged, in part because I needed that place. — Becca Stevens

I am convinced that when we bring our griefs and sorrows within the story of God's own grief and sorrow, and allow them to be held there, God is able to bring healing to us ans new possibilities to our lives. That is, of course, what Good Friday and Easter are all about — N. T. Wright

Love is the beauty of being. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The world is full of victims; don't add to the growing culture of "I've a story to tell", well not unless it's a story to help others overcome situations or as a warning. — Stephen Richards

For the soul-wounded woman. Your healed voice is my favorite sound. Your hurts, they walk right into our hearts; but your story of healing
that can change lives. Never be afraid to find and use your voice. — Jo Ann Fore

This is the same power that I feel propelling me forward into the next phase of my life. God saved my soul and spared my life for a reason: He left me to tell my story to others and show as many people as possible the healing power of His love and forgiveness. — Immaculee Ilibagiza

Occasionally people would come to me. I was sitting with a woman one day and she was telling me her story and I was in a state of listening, a state of bliss as I was listening to the drama of her story, and suddenly she stopped talking and said, "Oh, you are doing healing." — Eckhart Tolle

There will always be the facts of life to contend with, and there are times when the facts can become overwhelming. Yet, there is a poem at the heart of things and a mythic story in the heart of each of us. At certain times it is the poetry of life and the mythic imagination of the soul that become necessary in order to heal the wounds inflicted by an excess of reason or an overuse of force. When we unfold the story wound within our souls and untie the knots within us, we add presence to the world and contribute to the spirit of life in a specific and authentic way. — Michael Meade

Writing a memoir is a holistic method of learning and healing by placing responsibility for personal transformation on the spiritual authority of the self. Writing a person's life story is useful to gain a comprehensive understanding regarding a person's maturation, distinctive stages of personal development, and the influences provided by their family and society. The writing processes also serves as a catharsis for painful personal events that a person seeks to integrate into their transmuting being. Writing our personal story, we discover new dimensions of our being. — Kilroy J. Oldster

The sands of time blew into a storm of images ... Images in sequence to tell the truth! Glorious legends of revolutionaries, bound only by a desire to be true to themselves ... And to hope! Parables of colliding worlds, of forbidden love ... of enemies healing the wounds of circumstance! Projected myth of persecution through greed and selfishness ... And the will to survive! The Will to survive! And to survive in the face of those who claim credit for your very existence! We survive not as pawns, but as agents of hope ... Sometimes misunderstood, but always true to our story. The story of man. — Scott Morse

The story of redemtion and healing is that Jesus came to exchange my not-good-enough with his better-than-I-could-ever-imagine. He came to trade my life for His, my weak for His strong, my ashes for His beauty. He longs for each of us to recieve the gift of Himself. — Emily P. Freeman

One aspect of soulful healing that is most challenging and therefore most fruitful is the need to release a part of your story that may be lying underneath and behind the illness. Healing requires a willingness to rewrite the story you tell yourself about what has happened in your life and
why it's happened. There is often an emotional attachment to the pattern
that doesn't allow for easy change. — Robin Rose Bennett

When we believe a wounding story, our whole world is diminished. — Sharon Salzberg

The truth is, in order to heal we need to tell our stories and have them witnessed ... The story itself becomes a vessel that holds us up, that sustains, that allows us to order our jumbled experiences into meaning.
As I told my stories of fear, awakening, struggle, and transformation and had them received, heard, and validated by other women, I found healing.
I also needed to hear other women's stories in order to see and embrace my own. Sometimes another woman's story becomes a mirror that shows me a self I haven't seen before. When I listen to her tell it, her experience quickens and clarifies my own. Her questions rouse mine. Her conflicts illumine my conflicts. Her resolutions call forth my hope. Her strengths summon my strengths. All of this can happen even when our stories and our lives are very different. — Sue Monk Kidd

The stories in this book link an ancient story with the children's stories. Rather than medical case reports based on certainty of what scientists currently understand, they are simply an attempt to be faithful to what I have heard. In this sense, they continue Jesus' commissioned work of revealing that there is a realm that we cannot yet fully understand. The greatest gift in my life has been in linking the ancient story and the children's stories to my own ... As I sit by the beds of these children, I have seen God's love made manifest in this descending way. I have seen Jesus Christ come again and again and again to bring peace and to link the children's stories with His own. — Diane M. Komp - Pediatric Oncologist

Is it really true that the only good thing a Blackman can offer in a relationship with a white woman is thunderous sex?
Of course, sex plays a vital healing role in every loving relationship. That is a fact of life. But, as we discover in the story of Glasgow Kiss, sex is not always the only thing that occupies a Blackman's mind. On the contrary, when a man is as passionate, dedicated, committed and determined as Mamadu is to fight and hold onto his true love, irrespective of the numerous challenges he faces, he is able show that it is far more important to pay attention to his heartbeat than the growing erection in his trousers! — Frank McChebe

To follow Story is to understand the path of healing. Each of our stories is a universe. Each one of us is living a story. To discover its shape and essence is essential to soul making. — Deena Metzger

What an inspiring book. Thank heaven Lee Thornton decided to share her remarkable life story with us. Lee's book is a blessing as well as a terrific read. — Caroline Myss

Since the early 1920s a unique spiritual path has existed in Japan. This distinctly Japanese version of yoga is called Shin-shin-toitsu-do, and it combines seated meditation, moving meditation, breathing exercises, and other disciplines to help practitioners realize unification of mind and body. Besides yoga, it is a synthesis of methods, influenced by Japanese meditation, healing arts, and martial arts; along with Western psychology, medicine, and science. Shin-shin-toitsu-do is widely practiced throughout Japan, although it is almost unknown in other countries. Through its principles of mind and body coordination people have an opportunity to realize their full potential in everyday life.A remarkable man created this path, and he led an equally remarkable life. He was known in Japan as Nakamura Tempu Sensei, and this is his story. — H.E. Davey

I believe Christianity is at its core a gospel of life. I believe great breakthrough and healing are available. I believe we can prevent the thief from ransacking our lives if we will do as our Shepherd says. And when we can't seem to find the healing or the breakthrough, when the thief does manage to pillage, I believe ours is a gospel of resurrection. Whatever loss may come, that is not the end of the story. Jesus came that we might have life. — John Eldredge

I love sharing my story. It's endlessly healing. — Ben Vereen

We can embrace our whole life story in the knowledge that we have been graced and made beautiful by the providence of our past history. All the wrong turns in the past, the detours, mistakes, moral lapses, everything that is irrevocably ugly or painful, melts and dissolves in the warm glow of accepted tenderness. As theologian Kevin O'Shea writes, "One rejoices in being unfrightened to be open to the healing presence, no matter what one might be or what one might have done." - A Glimpse of Jesus — Brennan Manning

My story testifies to the truth that we must never give up on people, no matter how many times they fail or how long recovery takes. We must never underestimate the healing power of prayer and love in the hands of the Lord. We must never give up hope. — Walt Heyer

That is the power of a good story. It can encourage you, it can make you laugh, it can bring you joy. It will make you think, it will tap innto your hidden emotions, and it can make you cry. The power of a story can also bring about healing, give you peace, and change your life! (p.15) — Jeff Dixon

Have you ever been through a painful season in life and wished for something new, something fresh, or even something healing to come along? Take this journey with Robin Price, a widow and single mother with a big heart and passion for those closest to her as she wades through trying to live, let go, and love again. Wishing on Willows is a story of hope that will find you stepping up to the willow tree and daring to make wishes — Jane Kirkpatrick

The more you've struggled, the more inspiring your story will be when you come out the other side. Do not give up. Today's struggle brings tomorrow's wisdom. — Vironika Tugaleva

The radical hermeneutic of suspicion that characterizes all of post-modernity is essentially nihilistic, denying the very possibility of creative or healing love. In the cross and resurrection of Jesus we find the answer: the God who made the world is revealed in terms of a self-giving love that no hermeneutic of suspicion can ever touch, in a Self that found itself by giving itself away, in a Story that was never manipulative but always healing and recreating, and in a Reality that can truly be known, indeed to know which is to discover a new dimension of knowledge, the dimension of loving and being loved. — N. T. Wright

We all begin with a story of ourselves that we believe to be true. But perhaps true personal change, even healing, can only happen when we change that narrative, when we begin to tell ourselves and others a different story. Surely — Thrity Umrigar

While trauma keeps us dumbfounded, the path out of it is paved with words, carefully assembled, piece by piece, until the whole story can be revealed. — Bessel A. Van Der Kolk

I think of the New Testament story of the woman with an issue of blood--specifically of her hand reaching out into the clutter and chaos of a crowd, not sure that she would reach Christ, but nevertheless reaching for him in hope. Her story is sacred to me because she truly believed that by reaching outside of the bounds that her culture had set for her--perhaps even the bounds she had set for herself--she could be made whole. — Ashley Mae Hoiland

Storytelling, you know, has a real function. The process of the storytelling is itself a healing process, partly because you have someone there who is taking the time to tell you a story that has great meaning to them. They're taking the time to do this because your life could use some help, but they don't want to come over and just give advice. They want to give it to you in a form that becomes inseparable from your whole self. That's what stories do. Stories differ from advice in that, once you get them, they become a fabric of your whole soul. That is why they heal you."

~Alice Walker, in an interview about her work in Common Boundary, 1990 — Alice Walker

After the Berlin Wall came down I visited that city and I will never forget it. The abandoned checkpoints. The sense of excitement about the future. The knowledge that a great continent was coming together. Healing those wounds of our history is the central story of the European Union. — David Cameron

So, although my story is sometimes ugly, it's also beautiful. — Niki Krauss

This is your story and you get to decide how it's written. — Rebekah Elizabeth Gamble

I'm an unfinished man, Doctor, like a suit of clothes hanging on a display rack waiting for the final touches that may never come; I need to tell this story to make a peace with those parts of me that were left unfinished. A healing. Indulge me, if you will; I need you as a witness. A stitch in time ... . — Andrew J. Robinson

One of the ways that your project, your personal healing, or your social invention can change the world is through story. But even if no one ever learns of it, even if it is invisible to every human on Earth, it will have no less of an effect. — Charles Eisenstein

Understanding the Way of Story as a sacred pattern and a living event. Story can reveal a spiritual path and or the way to healing. Stories become the foundation of health, peacebuilding and vision. Learning to listen, to recognize, to understand and attend the teachings and revelations of the Stories we have been given to live guides us toward the 5th world. Our individual stories, when carefully attended, can reveal each person's particular path of healing and transformation. Even illness is a story that can lead us to our own and to community healing. Learning to recognize the Story that we or another is living can be a worthy life work. — Deena Metzger

I choose to write because it's perfect for me. It's an escape, a place I can go to hide. It's a friend, when I feel out casted from everyone else. It's a journal, when the only story I can tell is my own. It's a book, when I need to be somewhere else. It's control, when I feel so out of control. It's healing, when everything seems pretty messed up.
And it's fun, when life is just flat-out boring. — Alysha Speer

Sharing your story is a courageous step towards healing your own heart. — Lynda Cheldelin Fell

The romance genre is the only genre where readers are guaranteed novels that place the heroine at the heart of the story. These are books that celebrate women's heroic virtues and values: courage, honor, determination and a belief in the healing power of love. — Jayne Ann Krentz

The more you've struggled to heal and love yourself, the more inspiring your story will be to others when you come out the other side full of triumph, awareness, and honour. Don't give up. Your struggle today is the source of your wisdom tomorrow. — Vironika Tugaleva

Feel compassion for your own heart that was broken open by grief or confusion.

Then tune in to the other level of that experience. Some part of you was heroic inside that moment of your life.

Some part of you was looking out for you, wanting you to make it through, encouraging you to love and heal and be larger than the message you were getting. Access the hero inside your own story.... — Laurie Perez

In writing practice, there's no direction. You enter your own mind and follow it where it takes you. We have a great need to connect with our own mind and our own true self. And all of us have a story to tell. — Natalie Goldberg

All the authors who've ultimately published Louder Than Words memoirs have been very happy to be chosen and excited about the possibility of having their memoir published. Even though these books deal with serious, often painful, issues, in all cases the authors felt as though writing their story would be an empowering and healing experience. — Deborah Reber

Uneducated therapists often have an inability to cope with the behaviors of persecutory alters. They commonly focus on helping one side of the personality system and battling with the other side. When "Satan" or some similar part talks in a deep scary voice to you or to the client, it is easy to think this is a nasty perpetrator or a supernatural being, and to and to oppose it or fight with it or try to banish it. However, if you do this, you will engender the hostility of this part, who has probably been very badly hurt and told a lot of lies. You will foster internal splitting in this way, and get nowhere fast.
Once you recognize that these alters have a protective intent, you can see that working with them involves enlisting them in the service of healing, just as they were originally enlisted in the cause of safety. You will see examples of these kinds of errors, which often result in clients leaving their therapists, in survivor LisaBri's story: When therapists make mistakes. — Alison Miller

I can't cure anyone. I can't guarantee they will heal. I can only tell them my story, remind them that they are not alone in their journey and offer a glimmer of hope for healing. — Sharon E. Rainey

Our task is to announce in deed and word that the exile is over, to enact the symbols that speak of healing and forgiveness, to act body in God's world in the power of the Spirit. Luther's definition of sin was homo incurvatus in se, "humans turned in on themselves." Does the industry in which you find yourself foster or challenge that? You may not be able to change the way your discipline currently works, but that isn't necessarily your vocation. Your task is to find the symbolic ways of doing things differently, planting flags in hostile soil, setting up signposts that say there is a different way to be human. And when people are puzzled at what you are doing, find ways - fresh ways - of telling the story of the return of the human race from its exile, and use those stories as your explanation. — N. T. Wright

I don't know why, but people seem to be fascinated to learn how some members of society fall through the cracks. I think it's partly that feeling that... it could happen to anyone. But I think it also makes people feel better about their own lives. It makes them think, 'Well, I may think my life is bad, but it could be worse, I could be that poor sod. — James Bowen

My book 'Trust Your Heart', which is the story of my life, will be followed by 'Singing Lessons', a memoir of love, loss, hope, and healing, which talks about the death of my son and the hope that has been the aftermath of the healing from that tragedy. — Judy Collins

You are the main character in the story of your life, but other people are the main characters of their own lives. And sometimes you can find healing just by playing a supporting role in someone else's experience. — Timothy Kurek

The more power they have over your emotions, the less likely you'll trust your own reality and the truth about the abuse you're enduring. Knowing the manipulative tactics and how they work to erode your sense of self can arm you with the knowledge of what you're facing and at the very least, develop a plan to retain control over your own life and away from toxic people. . . . Taking back our control and power . . . means seeking validating professional help for the abuse we've suffered, detaching from these people in our lives, learning more about the techniques of abusers, finding support networks, sharing our story to raise awareness, and finding appropriate healing modalities that can enable us to transcend and thrive after their abuse. — Shahida Arabi