Jesus is The Healer
When I was young, I had an incomplete understanding of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance. I believed that repentance was for big sins and the Atonement of Jesus Christ was for people who were stealing, robbing banks, committing murder, and other things that I was not doing.
When leaders suggested daily repentance, I couldn’t wrap my head around that concept. Were people actually doing that much lying, stealing, and killing? What about people like me?
I believed that Jesus had suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane and then hung on the cross where He died. And I absolutely believed He rose on the third day. That all made sense to me and in my heart I knew it was true.
But I still struggled to understand how I could use the Atonement of Jesus Christ if I wasn’t committing big sins.
And then I learned about His healing. I learned that in the Garden where he was soaked with blood because of all the pain, He hadn’t just paid the price for sin, but He had taken upon Himself all the sorrows, pains, afflictions, hurts, and heartaches. He suffered that pain for me. And because He suffered that pain He could heal me.
As The Healer
We read in the scriptures of the woman who was healed after having an issue of blood for 12 years. 12 years! That must have been so heavy and hard. She must have felt so frustrated looking for healing and trying so many things to relieve her bleeding. Because she was bleeding, she was considered unclean. Imagine being thought of as unclean for so many years. So besides the physical ailment she suffered from, she also endured the mental anguish and the heartache of being viewed as unclean and likely cast out. All because she had a physical sickness.
When she saw Jesus, she had so much faith that touching the hem of His garment healed her. It was her faith that made her whole. Jesus healed her body and soul. She was restored and completed and became whole.
Jesus healed many people from physical deformities and ailments. He gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, words to the mute. He healed a paralytic man. He even raised Lazarus and the daughter of Jairus from the dead. He was known as a healer and many flocked to Him to be healed of their ailments.
Healing Hearts
Isaiah 53:4, “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: . . .” More than physical ailments, Jesus can heal our hearts. He can make our hearts whole. He can come into our most broken parts and heal us.
Now that I understand a tiny bit more about the Atonement of Jesus Christ, I know that it is working every day in my life and has been working all throughout my life.
As a young girl, less than a week before Christmas, we came home from shopping and learned that my beautiful young daddy had lost his life in a car accident. Not too many years later, I lost my mother. A few years later, my great-grandfather and grandfather died. Before I graduated from high school, a woman who’d been like a second mom to me passed away from cancer. I was well acquainted with grief. I recognize that in those sad, dark, lonely times He was there. My Savior was carrying me and healing my sorrows and grief.
I have continued to be well acquainted with grief in various ways and Jesus has been there again to comfort me and heal my heart. I can now see how intricately woven into my life the Atonement of Jesus Christ has been and how often He has healed me physically, spiritually, emotionally, and mentally as well as allowed me to be forgiven for my mistakes, trespasses, and sins. Forgiveness is also healing. It heals us both as being forgiven and as we forgive others.
Because of the Atonement, Jesus understands:
- Heartbreak
- Loneliness
- Anxiety
- Betrayal
- Illness
- Grief
- Discouragement
- Weakness
- Exhaustion
- Regret
- Fear about the future
He did not suffer only for what we have done wrong. He suffered for everything that hurts. All the pain. All the disappointments. All the unfairness. All the heartbreaks.
He has the power to heal ALL that hurts us.
His Timeline
Sometimes, healing comes quickly. I have had experiences when a child was sick and immediately felt better after a blessing. Or I have immediately felt a weight lift from my shoulders.
Sometimes, healing takes time. I have been praying and pleading for healing in a situation for years. It has not yet come. I don’t know if it will. It definitely was not immediate.
Sometimes, healing may not even come in this life. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland taught, “”Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don’t come until heaven; but for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come.” This can be applied to healing. The healing will come.
We need to trust His timeline and be patient while we wait for healing.
When it comes to physical healing, sometimes we believe that only if we or a loved one recovers from an illness that we or he or she has been healed. But the Lord sees time so much differently than we do. He understands mortality so much differently than we do, which means that healing may come on the other side of the veil.
For us, our responsibility is to continue to keep our faith in Jesus Christ as we wait for healing.
Becoming Whole
“Wholeness does not necessarily mean physical and emotional restoration in this life. Wholeness is born of faith in and conversion to Jesus Christ,” was taught by Sister Camille Johnson in October 2025 General Conference. She further taught, “The Master Healer will heal all our afflictions—physical and emotional—in His time. But in the waiting to be healed, can one be whole?
What might it mean to be spiritually whole?
We are whole in Jesus Christ when we exercise our agency to follow Him in faith, submit our hearts to Him so He can change them, keep His commandments, and enter a covenant relationship with Him, meekly enduring and learning from the challenges of this earthly estate until we return to His presence and are healed in every way. I can be whole while I wait for healing if I am wholehearted in my relationship with Him.”
While we wait to be healed, knowing that we will be, we can be made spiritually whole. Jesus is the healer and He will heal us in His time.
Conclusion
Jesus has the power to heal us, but it requires us to exert our faith in Him and trust Him. He can heal us physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally because He suffered for us and paid that price. He loves us and wants to heal us.
Jesus paid the price for our sins. As we come unto Him, we can be forgiven of our sins and be clean. We can be healed from the heavy weight of sin as we repent.
But we can also come to Him with heavy, broken hearts and He will heal us. He will comfort us and give us the strength to move on and move forward even when we can’t see it.
As we trust our lives in His hands, He will bless us to be healed and made whole.
Activity: Come to the Healer
Family or Personal Object Lesson
You will need:
- A bandage or small piece of cloth
- A piece of paper
- A pen
Steps:
- On the paper, write something that hurts right now.
(It could be sadness, worry, regret, fear, sickness, or discouragement.) - Fold the paper and place the bandage over it.
- Read together:“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
—Matthew 11:28 - Talk about:
- How can we bring this hurt to Jesus?
- What does it mean to let Him heal us?
- Say a prayer and ask the Savior to help with that hurt.
Keep the paper in your scriptures or journal as a reminder that Jesus is the Healer.
Journal Prompts: Jesus the Healer
- When have I felt the Savior comfort me in a hard time?
- What pain or worry do I need to bring to Jesus right now?
- How does knowing the Atonement is for all healing change the way I see Christ?
- What does “thy faith hath made thee whole” mean to me personally?
