Recently as I was scrolling social media, I came across an image that stopped me in my tracks. The message on the image went straight to my heart, I felt God’s fingerprint all over it. It read:
“You are only ever wounded in relation to your greatest gifts.”
You see, I’ve walked some very dark roads with my health. Mentally, emotionally and physically. Several years ago I was very ill, and no one could understand why. I was pretty sure I was terminally ill and my doctors simply hadn’t figured out what was causing it. I cried floods of tears regularly. I struggled to stay awake. I went for some very scary tests. I was told that I would never be cured. I started painfully considering which dreams just needed to be let go of, like starting a family.
Yoga was a solace for me on some very dark days. My classes were often the only place where I found not just physical rest, but deep, emotional rest. This season was tearing so many things I loved from me, but it couldn’t take my yoga. And it definitely couldn’t take my God.
Now, on the other side – in remission from a chronic illness and a qualified yoga therapist – the message in this image has struck a chord in me that has filled my eyes with tears and hope for YOU. Yes, you. You aren’t reading this by accident.
Friend, I’m not sure what battles are raging around you and inside you, but I do know that God’s Word is true. I do know that He’s faithful. He’s ever-present. He guides us to the right specialists, to the gifted hands of healers of all kinds.
My remission and healing was not a sudden, overnight event, but that doesn’t make it any less supernatural or miraculous. My testimony is full of the right meetings, the right introductions, the right treatments. And I 100% believe that yoga therapists have a special anointing on their lives to be part of this tapestry of God’s healing.
In one of my last appointments with a specialist on my healthcare team, as I was entering remission, she said to me, “I believe this specific treatment has been as quick as it has for you because yoga has helped you tune into your body better than most of the patients I see.” All those hours on my yoga mat in tears, applying yoga therapeutically, had been used for God’s purpose and glory! It had become the bedrock of my healing. And it’s still the place I go to for continued healing where new wounds arise.
Your gift, your purpose, could be right where your wound is. Is your wound in relationships with others? Is your wound in a physical illness? Is your wound in a devastating loss? God wants it. And He doesn’t want it simply for the purposes of healing, He wants it to be where some of your greatest gifts are found. Where you can provide support, service and therapy to those walking similar dark valleys. To be His vessel of healing, lighting the way for the broken-hearted and confused.
You see, the root of my illness was trauma. Repeated traumatic events that led to a slow destructive process in my body. I could only know that through the deep excavation that a painful, chronic illness brings. And I could only heal it through a very deep dive into my mind-body connection, where things were stuck and what exactly God needed shifting. Yoga applied therapeutically and in God’s presence, gave me that.
And now? To my knowledge, I am one of the first Yoga Therapists in Africa to specialize in trauma. God has led me to run a large pro bono program that has seen hundreds released from trauma and its effects on our physical being. I am in my final year of my masters degree where I will be studying my protocol in our local public healthcare system – providing cost-effective, accessible yoga therapy for trauma to those the healthcare system just simply cannot get to. The lost, confused and broken-hearted. What a gift to be in service as Jesus asked me to be.
God is using my greatest wound in a way I never would have seen or quite frankly believed several years ago. He has not just healed me, He led me to the yoga therapy training at Holy Yoga and anointed my life with a gift that makes my soul soar. Right where my deepest wound was.
I know you might not be able to see the whole picture now, friend. I certainly didn’t! But I’m here to tell you that God is in the business of hope and redemption. Not destruction. I encourage you, if you’re reading this and feeling excitement start to bubble, consider whether this wound is not simply going to be healed but if it is going to be used as a great gift for God’s kingdom.
Prayerfully consider this training. And if yes, I hope you’ll join the Holy Yoga Therapy training program. God used it powerfully to change my life.
Cands x
