Guest Post: The Heavenly Infirmary

I have recently become well acquainted with someone else who has a passion for all aspects of health and is on her own mission to discover better health for herself.  She described to me her most wonderful analogy of finding peace and healing from physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering and I have asked her to write a guest post for this blog since she can explain it so much more eloquently than I can.  The following are her words about a "Heavenly Infirmary":


To the reader of this particular post: what I write here may seem a bit ethereal and "out there". I know. I have had the same reaction to it many times. But, after having truly experienced it for myself, I can no longer dispute it, nor would I wish to- I share this very private part of my existence, hoping to offer a venue of healing for the ravaged traveler out there.

In several different blogs, and elsewhere, I have alluded to difficult therapy. That is a compliment for some of what I have had to work through. My last therapist, while hating any organized religion, did love and serve God. In working with patients who have suffered miserably at the hands of others, my therapist has been given insights into how much Heaven really is a part of our daily lives, our happiness, and our healing, and what It will do to ensure that healing.

Probably the greatest gift this particular therapist has given me is a concrete knowledge of and experience of a Heavenly Infirmary. She had been, literally, trying for years to get me to go to this Infirmary in my mind and heart, to receive healing from some of the atrocities of my life. For whatever reason, I always resisted her. Maybe I did not fully believe in any power I might find there.

It was not until the last year or so that I finally gave in and went to the Infirmary. I did so because what was happening was so far beyond my scope of being able to help and I could not bear, for one second, the profound suffering that I saw. It dealt with a little child who had been so brutally beaten and broken that I knew he needed all the help that the Highest Being in the Universe could provide.

At the Infirmary, his little legs and body received the physical help and recovery he needed. While the physical hurts could not be completely washed away, they were tempered with understanding and spiritual balm.

As I witnessed the healing happening to him, I broke down and wept uncontrollably. I finally understood the power of this Infirmary. My therapist, a "tough old bird" was also very touched and moved as I recounted for her this experience.

I have not shared my feelings about the Infirmary with anyone besides her, other than with a trusted friend in the past day or so. I would like to share just a little about it here.

I believe that we, our souls, can and do exist on different planes, other than merely this mortal one. Given that, I also believe that spiritual and physical healing can also occur on these different planes. The Infirmary of which I speak, for me, exists on one of these planes. It is a very real place. I take myself there when I can find peace in no other place. I tell Heaven I need Their Help and that I am giving myself to Their comfort and care. I am greeted at the door by Their Love. I am taken in and given exactly that which I need.

In my experiences with the Infirmary, I have received rest from severe and debilitating physical pain that no medication has been able to touch. I have received loving chastisements, telling me what needs to change for me to be happy. I have received kind humor and familial intimacy from Them. They offer an unbridled and unconditioned support, love, and knowledge.

They give me a warm and fully functioning and safe place to be, away from heartache and hassles, until I am strong enough to again face them. When I leave the Infirmary, after receiving the help that I need and have asked for, I am never saddened with the good-bye.

In Their fully supplying love, They have given me the confidence of peace. I know when I need It again, I will be back. And, They will be there with outstretched hands and hearts.

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Man's Search for Meaning

I'm close to finishing this book and holy cow, what an experience!  What a masterpiece of deep thought, human suffering, and psychology all mixed into one.  I feel as though it has taken some of the lessons I have learned about physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual health from the "Feelings" book, and perfected it into the raw, real, fundamental lessons that actually fit into my life.  

   The message of this book reiterates to me the important role that suffering plays in bringing us closer to our Maker, because intense human suffering brings one to the depths of the soul to question the very purpose of its existence.  Of course, Viktor Frankl's experience with human suffering is on a much deeper and extreme level than most any of us will comprehend or experience seeing as he survived the horrors of Auschwitz during World War II; yet somehow, the insight he gained from the pain, suffering, cruelty, and despair he experienced and witnessed, is wisdom that (I believe) most any human can plug into the equation of their lives and relate to on some level.  

   Though I have written mostly about topics related to physical health, I cannot ignore that health (which means "wholeness") is more than just physical.  One cannot be truly whole without the well-being of the mind and spirit as well as the body.  This is partially why I found the book "Feelings Buried Alive Never Die": because I do believe that the health of our minds and spirits (or lack thereof) greatly effect our physical health (and vise-versa).  While sometimes I believe that even the most positive and spiritual of people can experience great physical suffering and death from no fault of their own, I am fascinated by Viktor Frankl's observations that those in the concentration camp who had something positive to live for and had their spiritual and mental health intact usually defied the odds and survived far longer than those who were more physically robust.

 "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how."

I may add to his profound words that sometimes enduring through the unthinkable how can bring us to our knees in humility to rediscover the why (if that made any sense!?).

I came up with that little thought and then read this paragraph:

"...it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.  We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life--daily and hourly.  Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct.  Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.  These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment." 

   You could probably have a semester-long discussion and debate about those words in a college lecture hall (probably has happened!?), and I can't come up with an eloquent, deep commentary on it, except for to say that I am grateful for my suffering (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, etc) and the opportunity it presents me to act as a better individual than I thought I could be or thought I was and to bring me closer to my God.  Often (well, usually) it isn't until I have endured through one trial and reflected on it that I can clearly see the purpose behind it; but there always is a purpose, and He is always there to carry me as I take the necessary steps to find it.