Healing Line

Healing Line

Generational Healing: The First Step

by Norma Dearing
Spring 2000

How I wish I'd known the importance of generational healing before six years ago! As I reflect back on my years as a prayer minister, I realize that so many people with whom I worked had severe generational issues that prevented them from living a life pleasing to God and to themselves.

As I prayed many hours with others for physical healing, inner healing, forgiveness and deliverance, I was missing the entire area of generational healing. What we have learned by experience and know today is that generational issues can block healing in these other areas. For this reason, the healing of the generations should be the FIRST STEP in prayer for healing.

When CHM first instituted the Day of Healing Prayer and Intensive Prayer Ministry programs, we concluded each program with a Eucharist for the Healing of Generations. After several programs with this format and a great deal of prayer, the staff decided to try beginning each of these programs with the Eucharist instead, to see if we experienced better results. The outcome was incredibly amazing! We began seeing greater degrees of physical healing and deliverance taking place almost immediately.

When you realize the extent of the ways in which we are affected by our ancestors, you begin to understand how these things can block the Holy Spirit from working and prevent us from walking in wholeness — physically, spiritually, mentally and emotionally.

It is easy to grasp the concept of having a generational predisposition to cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease or diabetes. This is something we realize when filling out medical forms or reading the papers and watching television shows about genetics. But there are other generational influences that can be even more debilitating, like a family pattern of unusual or violent deaths, occult activity, habitual patterns of sin such as alcoholism, and destructive or abnormal patterns of relationships.

A generational pattern of unusual deaths, for example, might be a family's male line dying at an early age. Father Marshall Lowell, an Episcopal priest who conducts CHM's Generational Eucharists, is a huge advocate for generational healing. His family had a repeated pattern of one male per generation dying at alternating ages: one at 42, the next at 65, the next at 42 again, and so on. When recognizing this and realizing that his father died at 65 and Marshall himself was 41, he prayed for healing of this generational pattern, or curse. He is now 54 and pleased to share this story with others.

We have so many testimonies from people who have experienced generational healing. One young man, who was adopted and knew absolutely nothing about his family history, had a violent reaction whenever he heard the name Jesus. After participating in prayer for generational healing, he experienced an immediate change in his reactions and behavior.

A couple visiting CHM from Pennsylvania had left a teenage daughter at home who had a rare illness. At the same time the parents placed their written family tree on the altar during our Eucharist for the Healing of Generations, their daughter was physically healed.

One of our prayer ministers prayed for generational healing for his family during a Generational Eucharist. The next day his sister called from California and told him she felt totally different at exactly the time the Eucharist had taken place — not knowing he had done this!

Following are a few practical aspects to remember when praying for generational healing either for yourself or others:

  1. Renounce anything contrary to the Lord, such as unforgiveness or occult involvement.
  2. Renew baptismal vows.
  3. Ask Jesus to forgive you or your family for occult activity, habitual patterns of sin or destructive or abnormal patterns of relationships.
  4. Personally forgive your ancestors for any of these activities or sins.
  5. Ask forgiveness of yourself for any way you have judged your family or followed some of these patterns in your own life, perhaps even influencing others.
  6. Ask Jesus into the situations, showing Himself as Redeemer and Lord.
  7. Realize that if some of the above–mentioned areas are severe and have existed for years, you may need to receive continued prayer for healing over a period of time, perhaps in the context of a Eucharist or celebration of the Lord's Supper.
  8. After praying for generational healing, move on to other areas of healing, such as inner, emotional and physical. You most likely will experience significant changes in these areas, as well.

Norma Dearing is the Director of Prayer Ministry at CHM. Spring 2000 Issue