Workshop focus is healing

The Rev. Mary Leach, a deacon at Christ Church Episcopal in Kalispell, believes there isn't anyone who wouldn't benefit from the "Inner Healing" workshop at the church at the end of the month.

"Everybody has brokenness, and healing is something that goes on and on as we discover more of our brokenness," she said.

The workshop Jan. 27 and 28 will be taught by Sandra Skinner-Young, a Christian counselor with a 20-year background in nursing.

"The focus will have a lot to do with things that have happened in our life as children or young adults that have hurt us, which affect the way we see life and respond to life even though we're not aware of what those things are," Leach said. "The teacher will be talking about how you identify those, what you do about them to make your life more full."

Leach said Skinner-Young also will speak about depression, especially fighting the seasonal blues that hit many people during the dark months of winter in the Flathead Valley.

For 12 years, Skinner-Young of Spokane was a senior teacher and counselor at Elijah House in Post Falls, Idaho. As a private counselor, she has been asked frequently to travel to Europe to share her knowledge with mental-health professionals there.

Leach has traveled to Germany twice with Skinner-Young. She recently helped form a local chapter of the Order of St. Luke, which includes representatives from several local churches. St. Luke is an international order of Christians who believe that the healing of the body, mind and spirit through teaching and prayer is a vital part of Jesus' ministry.

Leach said she has preached on the subject frequently at Christ Church, where healing is receiving an increasing emphasis.

On the first Wednesday of every month the church offers a healing service. On the third Sunday, those who take communion are offered the chance to meet with a prayer team for healing prayer. And for more than a year, Saturday study sessions have been offered on Christ's healing miracles.

"It's long overdue and incredibly helpful," the Rev. Bill Baumgarten, the Christ Church priest, said. "It's about making us the person God intends us to be. That's the key in my book - healing, wholeness and holiness go together."

Leach said that Christian healing should not be looked at as a substitute for the work of those in the medical and mental-health professions.

"We feel that they work together as a team," she said. "More and more people in medicine or psychiatry are recognizing that they don't have all the answers any more than we have all the answers. We mesh with what they do."

Leach said she emphasizes that mental or spiritual healing and physical cure are not interchangeable.

"We try to emphasize that a person can be crippled physically and still become whole and find life better," she said. "Where a person who is physically strong and healthy can be spiritually crippled and hurting and broken and in great need of healing."