The EL Intensive:

Healing & Equipping for Life

(Formerly Embracing Life Leadership Training)

Wednesday through Saturday

June 29 - July 2, 2011

Anaheim, CA  

      We have renamed our annual Embracing Life Leadership Training. It is now, The EL Intensive: Healing and Equipping for Life. We believe the name-change better reflects our primary focus and intention over the four days. From past experience, we've noticed that most participants have come to our trainings more for the healing benefits and convenience of attending a condensed ELS program and secondarily for the purpose of training to lead a group. Our efforts will be on making sure that each participant receives -first and foremost- a thorough, immersion experience of the entire program as we typically run them from week to week. In the end, we trust, a select few will pass on that healing experience by leading a group of their own.  

Please prayerfully consider attending our "EL Intensive" coming very soon.And please share with anyone you think could benefit from our ministry. We are confident in the Lord that it will be life-changing. Thank You.  

                   Quote of the Month 

Illness As Metaphor

By Jonathan Hunter 

     Our ongoing review of the material in Embracing Life Series brings us to Sessions Three and Four: "Overview of an Illness" and "Treatments and Faith". These two are the most HIV/AIDS-centered sessions in the ELS guidebook. And for good reason. Historically, as noted in the Intro to ELS, the AIDS crisis of the 1980's was the catalyst for our ministry's formation. Many of you might recall that we were formerly called AIDS Resource Ministry, or ARM. Soon after we began, I discovered that I, too, was infected with HIV, providing ample firsthand experience to write about the disease over the years. When looking for a physical metaphor for the spiritual, debilitating effects of sin, HIV/AIDS proved to be a useful, apt example. Its multi-varied infections and illnesses are analogous to the broad range of damage done to the Body of Christ by sin.  

     From time to time we're asked why we address the troublesome, medical issues so soon in the Series -  right after the teaching on "Created in His Image".  We have to first establish common ground: How God sees us, as stated in Scripture. It follows that we then must face our earthly brokenness, the "un" godly, truth at hand: the condition that has led each person to the group.  The Apostle Paul writes in Roman's 1:20: "God's invisible qualities...have been clearly seen from what has been made..." In turn, it could be said that consequences of the fall, e.g. sickness and disease, are poignant symbols of another sort - the affects of an enemy bent on marring the Image of God in humanity!

     In ELS, we feel the necessity to acknowledge and include discussion and prayer for the practical, everyday and routine issues that a person with (or ministering to) a life-altering condition has to face. These two chapters are not some medical or medicinal primer.  Our purpose is to help each other come to grips with what is medically happening within each of us. We also address the various treatments we may be on or have to choose from and the challenges these critical choices are to our faith in a God who heals! At core these sessions are a calling out to the Lord for a more insightful understanding - His wisdom - about our condition. In turn, we pray that we might be more directive and effectual in our prayers for healing and transformation. As I wrote in the beginning of Session Three, "God is not bewildered, nor confounded by the nature of disease. In fact, He is thoroughly knowledgeable of everything that transpires in the physical realm. His wise Spirit is able to guide us through the medical thicket of confusion into understanding - no matter how confounding our condition."

     During Physiological Overview of an Illness, we ask participants to consider Jonathan's metaphor of the invasion of HIV into the body to the watchmen in a fortress.  They then ask the Lord to show them their own comparison for their condition. One attendee's life-altering condition was struggling with emotional issues. She shared how the Lord showed her that, just as the immune system needs strengthening, her "emotional immune system" needed the same attention and strengthening from the Lord as she healed. This was an encouraging picture for the woman and the other participants in the group.

     Over the years, I have shared about my condition of depression and have observed that most people with life-altering illnesses also struggle with some depression from the trauma and stress of their conditions. According to current understanding of the brain and depression, depression seems to create pathways in the brain over time. The Lord showed me that those pathways were like the Israelites wandering in the desert on their journey out of Egypt. In Exodus, the Jews" "grumbling" is very much like depression (this is not to say that depression is grumbling; this is a metaphor). Their assumption was that there would be no provision of food and water. They asked "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?" Ex. 17:3. "But you [Aaron and Moses] have brought us out into the desert to starve this entire assembly to death" Ex. 16:3. They assumed that the Lord's intention was negative and even harmful. This is how we can feel when we are depressed: fear, anxiety, everything is bad, negative thoughts and expecting the worst. Yet God provided for the Israelites' needs throughout. "The Lord said to Moses, 'I have heard the grumbling [depression] of the Israelites. Tell them at twilight you will eat meat and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God'" Ex. 16:11. He will give them what they need and it is important to Him that they know He is their God in the midst of trouble. We can know this in our depression. He hears and knows our pain and responds. He wants us to know that he is present and that He is our God.  

     We rely on Him in faith for His peace in our treatment decisions and our way out. We are coming out of the wilderness by different means of "God's provided manna and water" as needed: healing prayer, His words of life, medications, mental health help, community and more.   As we receive from the Lord, we are creating new pathways in the brain that will help lead us out of the desert. He redeems the desert experience!