THE HEALING POWER OF THE LOCAL SPIRITUAL ASSEMBLY AND THE INSTITUTIONS OF THE FAITH
"Name Withheld"
Bringing a problem to a Local Spiritual Assembly, and receiving the prayers and support of that Institution of our Beloved Faith, can be a very healing process for the individual involved. This is a concept I have worked with on all levels of our Baha'i Administration, with astonishingly successful results......I have also come to believe that prayer outreach and support for the friends can be a very important service for an Assembly to perform. The following quotations from our writings seem to back up the idea that we have a wonderful power in our teachings and institutions.
Abdu'l-Baha has stated: "'Abdu'l-Baha is constantly engaged in ideal communication with any Spiritual Assembly which is instituted through divine bounty, and the members of which are in the utmost devotion turning to the divine kingdom and are firm in the Covenant. To them He is heartily attached and with them He is united by everlasting ties." ( The Universal House of Justice, The Local Spiritual Assembly, An Institution of the Baha'i Administrative Order, p. 6)

"These Spiritual Assemblies are aided by the Spirit of God...From them the spirit of life streameth in every direction. They, indeed, are the potent sources of the progress of man, at all times and under all conditions." (ibid, p. 6)

...In the mid 1990's, I had my first encounter with an Assembly which extended an invitation to the friends in its orbit who needed prayer support to meet with that Assembly for prayers. When the invitation to receive support from that Assembly was extended to me, I gladly accepted, as I was dealing with healing from the discovery of a problem of incest in my biological family. It was such a painful process, that it was difficult to find a place where I could cry safely.
When I met with that lovely Assembly, I was showered with prayers and love for at least 45 minutes, and was able to have a needed cry. I did not want to burden that Assembly, as they resided in a different jurisdiction from my own community, but would occasionally meet with them, or send a written prayer request which they acknowledged. Their prayers made me feel loved and cared about, a concept which I tried to introduce to my own Assembly of jurisdiction when I was going through the process of severing ties with my biological relatives. I felt that if I told my story to an Institution of God and received validation, that my wounded heart might receive some sort of healing.
My local Assembly gave careful consideration to my comments, however, could not validate my desire to "divorce" my biological family as there were no specific teachings on this subject. This led to my reframing the request to receiving support for obtaining a Waiver of Familial Obligations, and submitting the reframed request to a higher institution, the National Spiritual Assembly....
The process of compiling the requested material and submitting it to an Institution of God was astonishingly healing. As a result of telling my life story to an Institution of God (in a 3-1/2 inch 3 ring binder providing a history of my situtation, descriptions of past life events, copies of correspondence between me and several family members, a list of the spiritual principles involved and a list of books I read and seminars I attended to become educated on these issues), I received a profound spiritual healing which included being relieved of a problem of free-floating fear/anxiety in the workplace which I had been plagued with for over 20 years. I also became less afraid to speak my truth and became an advocate for other survivors of abuse. While awaiting for a response from the National Spiritual Assembly, I continued a correspondence on these matters that I had been engaging in with the Universal House of Justice, and asked for prayers from the House regarding my experiences which I felt could help other incest/abuse survivors with similar problems to mine, to heal from their wounds. The prayers of the House sustained me during this period of waiting. Additionally, I remained high functioning in the workplace and my marriage remained intact...The National Spiritual Assembly could not rule specifically on the issue of whether a Waiver of Familial Obligations could be granted, however, the magnitude of the suffering of my family members and myself were acknowledged and validated, and I received wonderful deepening materials on the subject that are hard to find in the current published Baha'i literature. My sense of feeling abandoned and sad over the loss of my biological family was greatly reduced as a result of receiving the written and prayerful support of the National Spiritual Assembly. This is because I felt loved and cared for by an Institution that responded to every care and concern I had....