Few things test your faith and the depth of your relationship with Jesus like a terminal diagnosis. In this episode I had the incredible privilege hear the testimony of Alice Houtenville, her journey and the deep ways Jesus was meeting her and her family. Come on a journey with us as we listen to a story of God’s healing in Chronic sickness.
In loving memory of Alice Houtenville. Alice has since passed in November of 2019.
Journey of Healing
Gina:
Thank you so much for being here. I’m so excited that you’re here, that you take the time. I would love for you to share your story. We can go as far back as you want to go.
Alice:
I grew up in church. I know I got saved when I was five years old. I know that’s hard to think that you can remember back that far, but that’s as far back as I can remember, being in church and being really mindful of the fact that if you ask Jesus in your heart, He stands at the door and knocks and if you open the door, He comes in.
I can remember asking my mom over and over again, “What do you have to do now?” I really remember having that experience of knowing that Jesus was with me from a very young age. Then I got baptized when I was nine. I can remember going down in the water even to this day and coming up and that sensation of being baptized had a very profound effect on me.
About that time, the pastor of our church was leaving, and my parents had been really close to the pastor and his wife. They stopped going to church. My sisters were 8 and 10 years older, so I was on my own spiritually. When I was in high school, I moved away from home in 11th grade for gymnastics. I was on my own. God really saw after me then.
He put people around me to where I learned to get into the Word, but I was so hungry for God. I would read and read and read. Scripture was so alive to me. I got grounded in my college years where most people go off to college to do the opposite.
Then I got introduced, in my second year of school, to the power of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit. That’s when I really took off, not that it makes you any more spiritual, not that it’s something that gives you an edge, but my whole approach to it was, “God, if it’s in Your Word, if it’s something that I can use to glorify You. I want all of You.”
Gina:
Jesus died for more than us being able to go to heaven when we die. He died so we can have intimate relationship with the Father, tore the veil so we can have access to Him. He sent the Holy Spirit. There’s so much to relationship with Him.
Alice:
It’s learning that there are three separate entities in One. Getting to know Jesus. Getting to know God. Getting to know the role that the Holy Spirit plays. That’s a real thing. It’s not just, He’s the last One in the Trinity, so He gets left out. A lot of people have a really bad experience with that, whether it scares them or they’ve seen people abuse it or whatever.
But to me, those experiences that I had were crucial for my walk now, being sick, because there were so many miracles that happened. Those were supernatural things for me that I couldn’t explain. Knowing that gave me a real inroad to knowing the supernatural, to realize that the supernatural isn’t scary, but it’s a necessity If you’re going to know the mind of God and know the things of God.
It is supernatural that we get saved. That’s definitely a supernatural act. I followed the Lord and then I was an assistant coach at Princeton University and met my husband, because he lived in Princeton. I got married and did ministry from the get go, and I was totally sold out.
We’re still in touch with some of our youth group kids that we knew way back when. I’ve since touched base with them through Facebook when I got sick. That’s been a blessing to see the support of people that we were in ministry with over the years that have come back to support us. Being sick has definitely been the hardest thing to walk through with the Lord.
Gina:
Can you share that journey, when you received your diagnosis and walking through all of that?
Alice:
It was March of 2018. We just sold our house and were going to downsize. I have two daughters, Amy and Kelly, that are married and then a son Michael he’s 24, and a grandson. I was keeping him full time when I got diagnosed. I was so devastated.
I’d been a stay-at-home mom most of my years, besides coaching, and had really planned my life to be there, raise the next generation, and my grandkids. I had planned my whole life to be there. Then to be faced with the fact that something’s threatening that, all my plans had to change.
I will say that my relationship with my family and my husband has changed dramatically, even though it was awesome before. It makes it even harder for my husband and I. We spend a lot more time together, but the caregiver that he is, knowing the Scripture that says “Husbands love your wives.” A lot of people are like, “We don’t like that Scripture” but he has certainly been that man to me. That’s Jesus in him, but that’s him allowing the Lord to be a witness to me and to my family.
Gina:
For people who are listening, what was your diagnosis? What happened walking through all of that?
Alice:
I thought it was probably some digestive issue. I had pain in my upper stomach and I went to the emergency room and they’re like, “We see a spot on your pancreas, but it could be nothing.” I had peace, I wasn’t worried. I don’t even know why I’ve never worried throughout this whole thing about having cancer.
A lot of people are like, “I got that devastating news. We were devastated and we cried.” It wasn’t really like that. It was surreal. I woke up for my biopsy, “You have cancer.” It’s like, what do we do now? Spiritually I felt that God will get me through this. Never doubted, went into fighting fear mode. I’m going to stand on God’s word. But that doesn’t mean that it was easy. It’s a decision you have to make.
Gina:
What stage of pancreatic cancer was it?
Alice:
Stage four. With pancreatic cancer, the doctors look at you like, “I’m sorry you have pancreatic cancer. And by the way, there’s a tiny spot in your lung. That was almost too tiny to even biopsy.” Otherwise I could have been cured because they can cure pancreatic cancer. But once it’s gone somewhere, they won’t operate.
And that’s the only way that you can have a cure. You’re basically been given a death sentence. But not just a death sentence, everybody expects you to die within months. And most people do. If you have stage four pancreatic cancer, that’s your diagnosis. They don’t necessarily say it, but it’s pretty much “Get your things in order.”
Gina:
You are a walking miracle now.
Alice:
I’m a walking miracle. It is a miracle. Miracles never cease. I have to rely on God’s promise that we’re safe for eternity. We’re walking out a relationship with Him just like we’ll be walking out a relationship forever. So whatever happens here with my illness or not, it’s about knowing Him forever. His word matters. He made a covenant with us and His word. He gave us a covenant.
We have a right, as believers, to stand on His covenant, stand on His word. Those are the things that you have to stand on, whether you’re sick or not sick. There’s a lot of torment and pain in people without being physically sick. That applies for anything that we go through. We’re set free and if we don’t dig into His word, we have too many things that come against us or remind us every day that we’re still living in this body and this earth in a fallen state.
But in our spirit we’re not, and our spirit man is way stronger than this body. I can say, I have been through suffering, I’m not the one to really complain a lot, but I’ve suffered a lot. I almost died in December, because I went through immunotherapy, which was a trial through City of Hope and it was really bad. My pancreas was blocked. I was yellow.
I went into the emergency room, and the emergency doctor said, “How long did they give you?” Which is not what you want to hear. Somehow God’s given me faith through the whole thing to be like, “Are you kidding? That’s a joke.” Instead of going, “When am I going to die?” and saying instead “That’s not what God says.”
That’s been my walkthrough, and then I’ve been on and off chemo, and the chemo would work and then it doesn’t. From the very beginning, my doctor has said, “You’re going to be on chemo for the rest of your life, which means you’re not going to live long because you can’t stay on chemo for the rest of your life, if you want to live long.”
You have to stay in this place of searching for Him and longing for Him every day. Total dependence. But I have a harder time believing that I’m not going to be healed than I am, because His word says it. But yet, in the midst of that, not be disappointed in God through the battle. That’s the journey I’ve been on lately through this whole thing.
Someone actually grabbed my face and said, “Alice, can you see Jesus grabbing your face, looking into your eyes and saying, “I love you”?” That made me cry a lot, because I can’t. I’ve always been really close to the Lord, like always been able to. But at that point it was really hard for me to believe that God loved me.
Even though I know He does, it’s in my head and I think it’s in my heart. I believe that He does, that’s a given, but I didn’t feel it, it’s like, “God, where are you? I’d be a lot better off if I knew that You are close to me.” I went on that journey from not being able to feel Him, to I know I may not be able to see His face now, but I’ve never seen His back.
It’s really good to realize that He’s never turned His back on you, even though you can’t see His face now, He’s never turned His back. Then I went from that to begging to see visions. Because God has given me visions in my life. I’ve seen visions. That’s one reason why I feel like God has so much more for me to do because there’s so many visions that He’s given me that I don’t feel have come to pass yet.
People think that you’re crazy when you say that, but He says that in His word. He’ll give us dreams and visions, and He has for me. There’s been times where I started seeing His bloodied face, instead of seeing His face looking into me with compassion. I began to see Him bloodied after He was beaten and Him trying to get me to realize, “This is My love for you. I’m showing you My love here. This is how much I love you. You know that, but you’re able to see that I love you this much.”
Then it evolved into His resurrected face of seeing Jesus whole again, “It’s finished. It’s done. There’s no more I can do.” For me, that was my healing. “Your suffering is done.” That’s enough. What more can He do? We can’t go by feelings, because He’s done more than we can do. That’s awesome to have been taken through that path.
That’s how we are before we’ve been saved. We go from not knowing or feeling Him, to realizing that what He did for us is all He can, and He can’t show us that He loves us any more. Not only that, He didn’t stay there, but He resurrected, He’s alive. Resurrection’s everything. He came back to life so that we can eternally feel Him. We have that here on earth.
We don’t have to wait till we get to heaven to tap into that eternal existence of Christ in our life. I won’t say that I get up every morning and go, “I see You every day. You’re so close.” There’s a knowing now that I know He’s there. We were at this conference last weekend, and a girl came up to me and said, “I have a word from the Lord for you.” Which would normally scare me, but now I’m like, “Okay, what is it?”
Her word was along the lines of, “God sees You as a Pearl and He’ll dive deep to find you.” Knowing that He goes to that extent continually. Someone else has said, “I want you to know Alice, how much God loves you. God loves you.” I think that could be harder sometimes than thinking I’m healed.
That may sound crazy. Because like I said, I get sick, I wake up, I don’t feel good. It’s all I can do to get out of bed and go and do. Sometimes It’s a miracle for me to be, to go, to get up, and do and think, and still function. I’ve been getting better.
Gina:
But at this stage, every day is a miracle.
Alice:
Every day is a miracle.
Gina:
We talked a little bit before we started recording, even the last couple of months. You were diagnosed with stage four, you’ve been through a journey. You did chemo, and then you did a trial, and at first your numbers plummeted. When you were diagnosed with cancer what were your numbers?
Alice:
They were about 3200, which is in pancreatic cancer terms. Every cancer is measured in different ways. But then the first chemo was doing awesome. There’s only two approved pancreatic cancer drugs that they know work. The first one was knocking it out of the park. My numbers got down to like 300.
You’re like, “Okay, good. This is the end of it.” But then it stops working. That’s the pattern, it stops working and it comes back with vengeance. Then the numbers started going up again. That’s when I tried the immunotherapy, which actually aggravated my tumor and caused it to grow and spread to my liver. It was really bad. Then it blocked my pancreas, which could have killed me. That was really bad.
Then I went on the other chemo that was supposed to have some effect and sometimes it doesn’t have effect on people, but thankfully this one worked too. It knocked it out of the park. The numbers were dropping 3000 points at one time. It was getting rid of it and then that stopped working recently. My count shot back up to over 6,000.
That’s when my oncologist said, “This isn’t working, I don’t even advise anymore trials or anything else because we don’t want to hurt you anymore.” Naturally I was like, “Does that mean, this is it, this is over?” My daughter was in the room with me and she goes, ” No mom, that’s what she said.” She wanted me to go into palliative care and managing the pain and keep me comfortable. That’s a really hard thing to hear. I was like, “I can’t accept that. God will heal me supernaturally.”
Gina:
Then you stopped?
Alice:
I didn’t stop. This was on a Tuesday that she told me, but I went ahead and had the half of the chemo, which half of the chemo I am on now I take through an IV, the other half of it is through pills. Because it wasn’t working and I figured it’s not going to work now. I didn’t take all of my pills, because I had not taken all of them before because they were too harsh.
I was like, “I don’t want to be sick this whole time because I’m supposed to go into trial soon.” So I didn’t really take all of my pills that I was supposed to. The next Tuesday, when I went in on Monday and had a cat scan, showed that it was out of my liver, out of my lung, which wasn’t supposed to be, especially with my counts going up. That was a real miracle.
Then I found the next day that my counts dropped another 2000 points. That was not normal, so contradictory from what she said a week before. She was very happy, very pleased. Then I went up to see a doctor in LA, because I was trying to get on a trial up there and he said, “You’re doing really well, you’re too young to have this cancer and you’re really fighting.”
He goes, “There’s not that much cancer in your body.” He looked at my scans. That’s a bit contradictory too. That was trusting that God is healing me. He’s keeping me and sustaining me. All of my body, all of my counts, my other organs and everything, He’s protecting them.
Gina:
I talked to you at a mutual friend’s wedding, John officiated and another mutual friend of ours, Jessica who’s a friend of your daughter’s. Jessica was helping me with some things for a cancer healing event that I was leading worship for and she told you about it. And we’re at the wedding and you and I are talking and you’re like, “By the way, isn’t there someone that you know that either has cancer or something.” That set you and I on a journey.
I have an aunt in San Diego, she’s been healed from cancer twice, different types of cancer. She has a healing ministry. She’s seen tumors dissolve. It’s Jesus who heals through her. She has the supernatural gift, but it’s by the power of God through her. You came down, I was leading worship and had her pray for you.
And then you came to the cancer healing event. As believers, we are in a culture where we’re scared of saying, or trusting, or even trying to believe that God will do miracles. We’ll ask the elders to come and pray for us. And those prayers can end up being, “Well… Lord, if it’s Your will, but if it’s not, will you please bring peace.”
It’s like we’re trying to cover all our bases, trying to protect God’s reputation, if He doesn’t show up the way we think He should. Then we go, “Okay, I’ve been prayed for.” And we stop there. Sometimes that can happen. But there’s something about not stopping.
From the beginning of the journey, you were just, “I want to get prayed for.” You came and you had Maria pray for you. You came down to the cancer healing event. You wanted to get prayer for it. You are not stopping. You are pursuing Jesus.
As people we want a magic formula or we want steps, “This is how it happens.” Or, “You need to have this much faith.” We keep trying to determine whether or not our prayers have been answered, or then determine why it did or didn’t. But there’s something about not relenting and knowing that God is moving and believing that and trusting that and continually pursuing Him.
Being the woman who fought through the crowd, touching the hem of His garment, being the person who, whose friends lowered him through the roof. I need to get to Jesus. And I’m going to keep going to Jesus.
And the fact that you are in this place of believing and trusting, you’re standing on His word, standing on His character, even the emotions and the feelings and the pain, the journey and the difficulty of the roller coaster of the journey, you are not going to stop pursuing Him and going before Him and having anybody and everybody pray for you because that there’s power in prayer and that God does hear, and that He does move and our prayers don’t go unanswered.
They just don’t. They may not be answered here now and the way we would want it immediately, but, like you said, you never see His back even if you don’t see His face now.
Alice:
That’s your belief in prayer too. You have to believe that every time we pray, something happens, that He does answer our prayers. Even though I’m not feeling Him I know He answers my prayers. Otherwise why pray? Why pray at all?
Through this journey, one thing that I’ve learned a lot is the compassion of others and compassion of the body of Christ. The people who have reached out to me that have learned to have compassion towards me that would’ve never learned compassion. Had they not known me through this, bringing me meals or rubbing my feet. I have two different groups of people pray for me.
If I say, “Hey, I want to try this new patch and see if it works.” The money is in my account that afternoon. But that teaches them to give to the body of Christ too. They’re going on a journey, it’s not just about me. The whole thing a lot of people have taught, “If somebody’s not getting healed, it could be unforgiveness or it could be unbelief…”
I understand that there’s some things that can block healing, but for me, what I’ve learned through all that is compassion. If you’re going to pray with someone or for someone, what has to be above all is the love and compassion to see that person healed, not for you to be able to see healing. For me, Christianity 101 is not that I’m perfect, but I did learn at an early age, repentance.
Obviously when I got sick, for me, it was the first thing I’d run to is anything that would be blocking healing. Of course, I’ve been on a great journey of forgiveness, of learning to forgive anybody, but also not letting any unforgiveness from continual things that happened. But that was part of my Christian walk already, to understand that walking through that, being able to get past that and believing with my whole heart, that God can heal me and get past those things.
Those questions, at some point, could be asked or should be asked, but after you’ve been on my journey, as long as I have. It’s not even asking, I don’t mind asking. I’ve had people say, “There’s a spirit of unforgiveness here and we need to deal with that.” And not even think about praying for me to be healed, but focusing on that. That can be very damaging to someone who’s already gone through that.
So I think it’s a balance. If you’re going to have that gift to just be very careful to be sensitive to where that person is now. The whole sense of forgiveness should not be anything that’s a bad thing or be hurtful. Because it’s freedom. But when you’ve really cried out to Jesus, as much as you can, “Holy Spirit, Jesus, if You have not revealed anything to me now then what chance do I have of You even speaking to me?” That’s a whole another measure of faith.
Gina:
Even ministers that operate and pray, can even fall into a formula. We can even fall into that. “I’m going to go through my list, unforgiveness and this. Let’s check out, let’s clear off these lists.” Rather than stopping, inviting the Holy Spirit’s presence, inviting the love of Jesus. Taking a beat and listening to what the Holy Spirit’s saying and how do we love this person and minister to this person?
Healing is not just about physical healing. Jesus died for our spiritual healing, healing of our soul, spirit, our mind, our bodies. There’s also a bad doctrine that says, “God gave you cancer. He’s inflicted this upon me so that I can grow.” No, I don’t believe that either. That is not Biblical. We live in a fallen world. We live in a broken world where sickness and disease and all these things are here, but God is a Redeemer and He can meet us in the middle of those things.
He will bring beauty from ashes. He will open the prison doors for those who are captive. He will bring oil of joy for mourning and good news to the poor. He will bring wholeness and healing for our good and for His glory. You said this before we started recording, this journey that you’re on, it’s never about us.
Alice:
My family’s watching now, and I’ve tried so hard to set a good example of how amazing God is. I don’t want them to think, “Mom’s going through this because it’s her fault…” Because if they go through something, I don’t want them to think that about themselves. So they’re listening to what people say too.
There was one thing I relied on a lot here. It says Jesus spent most of important moments in the garden of Gethsemane. Olives went through three pressings to get the oil. Jesus has three times in Matthew 6:39-42 to let His cup pass like an olive press.
Jesus was being crushed by the weight of the world so the light of the world could be released. Remember it is the crushing that brings out the true inner value and worth of the olive, which is the oil. Jesus doesn’t crush us for His glory, but that’s what we want anyway is for Christ to be glorified in our life.
Gina:
It’s to bring Him glory and it’s to demonstrate His love to the world. To demonstrate His love to your family, to your friends, to your neighbors, to the people around you. God is a Redeemer and that’s what He does, but redemption is messy. It’s not linear. It’s painful. It can be excruciating, but it’s powerful.
I’m sure in this season, you and John have those moments of utter desperation. But then you have on the heels of that, this moment of miraculous peace and presence and freedom and the same will go for your kids. But then you have to also surrender your kids’ journey. Because the only thing you can do is be responsible and own your personal relationship with Jesus and how you stand in that place where you’re feeling like you can’t see His face and how you can not do anything, but ask Him for visions.
And then finally see His bloodied face and then finally see His glorified face. It’s all you can do to do that. And then you have to, at the same time, surrender your kids and their journey because their journey’s going to be different and trust that God’s going to meet them and pursue them with the same love and relentlessness that He pursued you, but it’s going to look different. How are you doing with that?
Alice:
The sadder issue is that so many people when they get older, life is not guaranteed. People lose their jobs, or lose their homes. We are never secure in this world. For my kids, especially, is trusting that God is allowing this, for them to learn that He’s enough, no matter what, and to dig into Him, to not take Him for granted.
It’s terrible to see your kids and your husband suffer. When my son gets upset because he’s there with me every day because he has to pick me up when I’m crying. Nobody wants that. You want to be a protector of your children. As a mom, you want to protect them from pain. You don’t want your kids hurting. You don’t want to be the cause of it.
I had to really struggle with that too, of feeling like I’m the cause of their pain. But they’re going to go through pain in their life too. I want them to have that view that Jesus is more than enough than all of that. It’s not an empty, lonely world.
You’re never alone. You’re not left to your own demise. It’s really hard with my family. It’s really hard with my kids. Thank God, they all know the Lord. They all know the Lord and they’re very deep in their convictions. But it’s very scary to deal with that.
Gina:
There’s something really significant, as well, for them to see you honestly walk this out. To not pretend when you’re not feeling it, to honestly share the journey. Being able to say, “I got nothing today.” Or to say, “Jesus showed up last night and I saw His face. I don’t know how I’m going to get through tomorrow, but He’s here.”
One of the things that I really wrestled with when we had kids, is that I wasn’t raised as a Christian in a Christian home. I found Jesus at 12 years old. I just knew, “You’re mine.” I had that intimate relationship. I didn’t grow up in church, so to speak. I married a man who loved Jesus. Then we had kids and suddenly I’m like, “Oh shoot. How?”
There’s all the verses “Raise up your child in the way that they should go.” I kept looking at it going, I can do all of those things, but I can’t give them that intimacy with Jesus. That has to be completely theirs. I really was a little bit concerned about that. My oldest daughter especially has commented that, we were the same people behind closed doors as we were at church, and that our love for Jesus wasn’t like, “We need to do these things.”
It was that relationship and being real with them, being honest with them and messing up and not being perfect and being able to go and say, “I’m sorry you guys, forgive me.” or “I’m having a bad day and I’m struggling today.” There’s something really powerful when you’re walking through something like what you’re walking through, that your kids see the reality of that journey, and the rawness and the depth of dependence of that relationship. That relationship is complex.
Alice:
That’s where getting back to the supernatural comes in, to where you can’t force it. It’s not a formula. I believe God’s Word is true and that’s why you read God’s Word, because the Word is live and active. That’s why you feed your kids God’s Word. That’s why the Word works, but it doesn’t mean that it’s a formula. It has to be a supernatural encounter.
It’s deeper than just going to church, or doing things at church, or having a small group. Your small group can’t really protect you, they can’t be God to you. That has to be something that you seek. That’s definitely important. Fellowship and small groups are invaluable.
But reading Psalms 91, realizing that Christ made a covenant, but it’s Christ who you have a covenant with. To cling to His words that He is my healer and He’ll answer my prayers. As a mom, even though you didn’t really know how to do that, God answers your prayers to reveal Himself to your kids like He revealed Himself to you.
Gina:
We’re made for relationship. Bottom line. We are made for relationship with Him and then we’re made for relationship with each other. God does use people to partner with them to bear one another’s burdens, to see heaven come. We are vessels. We are His hands and feet.
But if we rely solely on people and we aren’t encountering Him, if we aren’t going through the veil that was torn, into the presence of God, the Father, if we aren’t letting Jesus dwell in us, if we aren’t willing to abide in Him, live out John 17, having dependence on the Holy Spirit, then we’re missing the most important part.
Alice:
It’s Christ first. But I will say if we had not served and been doing what God wanted us to do all along then when I got sick, we wouldn’t have those relationships. Don’t wait till you get sick to get in a small group. Don’t wait till you get sick to serve the Lord. Because it’s all those people that we served in ministry with. Those youth that we ministered to.
We had a youth group 30 years ago. We can’t go back and get those years back. But the relationships we’ve built over the years, it’s what’s praying me through now, what’s keeping me going. Don’t wait until you have something bad to see how people love you. Build those relationships along the way.
Gina:
Be willing to be vulnerable. Tell me about what it’s like to receive.
Alice:
It’s hard. It’s not easy because we’ve always been the ones to reach out and help people. Even when you get sick, you’re the ones that want to comfort everybody else. It’s really hard. I had people who would come over and want to rub my feet and I’m like, “What? No, I’m fine.” Even though I love my feet rubbed.
But to sit there and watch women sit at the end of my feet and rub my feet is hard to receive. The first time, the second time, the third time. I have a neighbor who has really been there for me, her and her husband have been there for John and I both. To build a close enough relationship with her, to where I can call her and say, “Come over and see if I’m yellow. Do I need to go to the emergency room? I need you now.”
She’ll run over to your house and literally hold you while you’re crying. It takes a while to know somebody before you feel comfortable enough for somebody to come and sit with you and hold your hand or rub your back until the pain is gone, until the medicine kicks in. But at first it’s awkward. But then it gets to where you realize it’s their blessing.
I used to coach special needs cheerleading. I had a girl that was really scared of heights, stepping up on different platforms. She would say, “I can’t, it’s hard.” I’d be like, “Hard is good.” Then she started walking on different levels of heights.
I know it’s hard, but sometimes hard is good. We don’t see it, but it’s okay. People have a lot of money, have nice homes, have perfect families, do a lot of really fun things together, really expensive things, all is good. But it may not be good. It may not be well with their soul. How do you judge “good”, except God is good all the time.
Gina:
Thank you for being willing to share.
Alice:
It’s all for His glory. That’s not a cliche. Because He is worthy of all of praise and all the glory and all the honor. People need to know that they can trust Him. I’d like to say, if I can go through what I’ve gone through and still can say that, it’s good. He’s true to His word.
Gina:
There was so much in this conversation and I want to take a moment before you move on to work or making dinner or doing homework or whatever’s next on your agenda today. If you or someone is walking through an illness, in that place of waiting and hoping, I pray, in Jesus name, for peace, supernatural peace that passes understanding to guard your hearts and your minds in Him.
I pray for God to meet you and meet those that you love, tangibly, tenderly. I pray for eyes to see and ears to hear His voice. I pray for hope and I pray for healing and revelation of all that He has for you and how deeply you are loved. I also want to encourage you that if there are people in your life that are walking through things that are difficult, it’s time to be aware, have empathy, be sensitive and compassionate.
Be slow to speak, be quick to listen. Be willing to love well. I hope that this serves as a reminder that if you are in ministry, if you’re a pastor, if you’re a leader, if you are on a prayer team, sensitivity and compassion and empathy and waiting on the Holy Spirit before you speak, letting Him inform your prayers. Don’t step in fear. Don’t step in accusation. Always in love.
We don’t know what everybody’s going through and we don’t know what their journey’s been. I hope that you can receive some of the things that Alice talked about, that she was really honest about. I’m so grateful for that. We can all learn to be a better community. We can all learn to bear one another’s burdens better.
Lastly, I want to encourage you to learn how to receive. Do you have community? Have you allowed relationships so that you can receive, so that God through people can care for you? It’s a powerful thing that we have access to God, the Father, Jesus, the son, to the Holy Spirit directly.
We were made for a relationship with Him, but we were also made for relationship with one another. And that’s as much about receiving as it is about giving. Sometimes the hardest things we can do is receive. I pray for you, in Jesus name, that you can even humble yourself. It’s a hard thing to say. “I need something.”
I’m not talking about a manipulative ask. I’m not talking about a codependent ask. I’m talking about allowing people to love, support, and surround you, allowing people to pray for you, allowing people to come alongside you, to be vulnerable, to let them in and see you in that place, trusting Jesus in them and allowing that relationship to bring the love of the Father to your heart and to your mind in a different way.
Check out the Dwell Meditations
