Friends, I want to share with you a testimony from a dear friend. The first time she shared this story with me, I was so overwhelmed by how gentle and generous our God is. I invite you to listen to her experience of suffering and pride and healing and wholeness and to offer the Father your own brokenness, asking him to enter in and heal you, too. (cw: sexual abuse)
On March 12, 2017 God spontaneously healed my back from over a decade of chronic pain in one miraculous instant. But that’s nothing compared to the way He healed my broken and untrusting heart. See, when I was 11, I was sexually abused by my dad. The one who was supposed to be my rock, my protector, my refuge, had violated me in the most painful and humiliating way. It wrecked me. I bled and crawled and willed myself through the next several years.
Then when I was 19 I was diagnosed with a chronic back condition. The doctors said they would try to manage the pain, but this would be for life. I went through every treatment option available, even surgery, without lasting relief. I dropped out of college and struggled to work. I finally found a treatment system that kept the pain manageable but I always felt limited. Being physically “broken” became part of my identity.
When I was 27 years old, I met Jesus for the first time and fell madly in love. Then, after 3 years of pursuing God, I got a promise for healing. I was sitting in bed reading my Bible like any other day when I came to this verse:
The council then threatened them further, but they finally let them go because they didn’t know how to punish them without starting a riot. For everyone was praising God for this miraculous sign – the healing of a man who had been lame for more than 40 years. (Acts 4:21-22)
The tears streamed down my face. In my spirit, I heard clear as can be, “This is for you! You have been praying for your back in doubt and unbelief. Start praying in faith and expectation, because your day is coming!”
I was overwhelmed and overjoyed. Over the next month or so I tried to be patient and obedient. The Lord had told me to pray for healing in faith, so I tried. Honestly, I was a little disappointed every time the pain hit. Even so, I clung to my promise. I convinced myself that if I just had more faith, I could somehow make the miracle happen. That I could “earn” it. Every day without healing was a day I felt like I had failed to pray or believe the way God wanted me to.
I was invited on a retreat with my church a couple of months later. Sitting alone, looking out over the mountain, I felt like I could hear from the Lord so clearly. Jesus whispered a question to my heart: did I really believe He would deliver on His Word to me? And although I knew there was doubt in my heart, I shoved it down and proclaimed “YES, LORD! I BELIEVE YOU!” He asked if I believed that He was really able to heal me right where I was sitting. Again, my cynical brain wanted to say, “Who am I to deserve such a miracle?” but I shoved it down and declared “YES! YES, I BELIEVE YOU CAN DO IT, JESUS!” And in a moment that in hindsight I can only call ridiculous, I shouted out to God and the mountainside that I would be healed where I sat, that I would get up from that chair with no pain and it was done, in the Name of Jesus! I stood up, gritting my teeth, “I believe you; I believe you; I believe you!”
And you know what? The pain was gone. I could hardly believe it; my healing had come! But I was terrified. What if the pain comes back? What if I am deluding myself right now? I buried my doubts yet again and waltzed back into the cabin.
For 3 blissful days I was pain-free, but I lived in such fear of losing my precious miracle. And then my nightmare came to pass: the pain returned. I lied to myself for a few days, telling myself this was all in my head, that my healing had been real. I refused to voice any of my doubts, even to God. I was so ashamed. With the familiar pain haunting my days, I finally got low enough to let go. I spilled my guts to Jesus, allowing myself to be naked before Him for the first time. After weeks of crying out in truth, I opened myself up enough to hear Him respond.
He told me he had given me a few days of healing because He wanted to show me that He was able to do what He promised. He told me to go back through my Bible and see that God Himself is the one who authors and perfects our faith. He told me that He was faithful even when I was faithless, and that His promise was unfailing. And I realized that God could handle my mess, that He could handle my unbelief. So I started praying for healing again, and for the faith to receive it.
Soon after, the topic of surrender came up in my Bible study. I was shocked to realize that I had surrendered my spirit and my heart to God, but not my body. When God rocked my world with this revelation, I realized it was because of the abuse so many years before.
After my abuse, I had vowed to myself that from that day forward I would be the master of my own body. I would decide what happened and what didn’t happen to it. Every vow I made was a violent reaction to having been so brutally stripped of my will by my own father. Although I had forgiven him early on in my walk with Christ, I was still carrying the wound in my body. Faced with this truth, I repented. I made a conscious decision to surrender my body to the Lord.
And then on March 12, sitting in a church service God told me one more thing. He told me that my healing was pure grace. It was a lavish gift from my Heavenly Father and it had nothing to do with how worthy I felt I was to receive it. My Savior took me by the hand and said, “Honey, this is all I‘m asking of you: if you have enough faith to walk down to the prayer line and tell them what I promised you, today is your day.”
So I did. Then a woman placed her hand on my back and we began to pray together. Slowly, that glorious weight of the Holy Spirit filled the space around us. It was as if every fiber of my body was being held by the Holy Spirit. I was being given a physical experience of the beautiful truth in Colossians 1:17 that in Jesus all things hold together. Heat radiated from her hand through my back, and we were crying and worshiping and hugging each other. I was almost dancing, my hands lifted in praise, as I laughed with pure joy. This time I knew God had fulfilled His word to me. This time I wasn’t scared because I knew I hadn’t done anything to earn the healing and I couldn’t do anything to lose it. Because it wasn’t about me.
And it wasn’t about my back. Two weeks later God gave me the real healing. I was in prayer, marveling at my blessing and praising God. I wondered to Him why He had chosen to take away my pain, knowing so many pray for healing and never get it in this life. He answered, speaking right to my heart.
Your earthly father did something painful and ugly to your body without your permission, but I waited until you gave Me permission to do something good and beautiful.
He waited until I could feel safe, completely helpless and vulnerable before Him, before he healed me. He didn’t force anything. He loved me and honored me. And that’s how He healed me, and showed me what it means that He is my true Father.
My true Father in Heaven is nothing like my earthly father. He is faithful, He is good, He is Love. He is indeed my rock, my protector, and my refuge. And He can do beautiful things with broken people, if only they are willing.
My back doesn’t hurt. It never has since, not beyond the normal aches of pregnancy and aging. And my heart isn’t bitter. Loving my father can still be hard and forgiveness is something I have to renew again and again as we work at rebuilding our relationship. (Honestly, the fact that I even want a relationship with him is purely miraculous.) But loving my Father–and being loved by Him–isn’t scary anymore. And that healing has changed everything.
