In considering the call to holiness given to us by God, which is a call to “change our hearts and minds” we must, as I previous shared, believe that only Jesus truly has the power to revolutionize our minds “in God’s way, in the goodness and holiness of the truth” (Ephesians 4:24). Only Jesus has the power to heal our memories and free us from the bondage of past experiences that are transformed into memories that constrict our thinking and feeling. When we stop to realize that all of our past experiences are still alive within us and continuing to do damage to our inner selves, we realize that we need our memories transformed if we are to grow spiritually and reach the destiny God has planned for us, His children.

I have found after years of doing therapy with people and in my own therapy, that past memories do impact our present lives and can be real stumbling stones in our attempt to gain the fullness of life and personal freedom. Once we bring past memories to the level of consciousness, we can then choose to not allow these memories to govern our present lives.

Ever since each of us first heard the Christian message, we have heard that we must give ourselves to Christ to find our salvation. Seeing Christ in the events of our lives is precisely a way of doing that. It is not a new message, for this message of inner renewal, the spiritual revolution of our minds, is part of the fabric of the New Testament, and is even prefigured in the Old Testament. Phrases like “inner healing” and “healing of memories” are new, but they are merely an attempt to help contemporary minds understand a scriptural and traditional teaching that says that Jesus has the power and the Love to renew every part of us, inside and out.

The genius of healing of memories, however, is that it is a way of praying that allows God to accomplish this task step by step, memory by memory; it is therefore a way of praying that allows us to know His Love concretely, not abstractly.