RYH Chapter 6 “Storms”

There are so many reasons He is asking many of us to forgo the usual route to healing—simply trusting Him instead. Yet, when Yet, when your health is spiraling down, and you’re really not sure what is wrong with you, why things are appearing to be getting worse, and you need a way to fight the fear, His Word is there for us to use.

He sent His Word and healed them, and delivered them from ALL their destructions.

The verses in Psalm 107:20-30 were a comfort to me way back when He sent me ahead to trust Him to restore my hopeless marriage, but it's also where He sent me again to help with a new horrible malady, similar to vertigo.

Doing my best not to fight the feeling, but to embrace and move with it, I SSG “simply sought God” asking Him for wisdom to know how I could imagine what I was experiencing. That’s when He showed me a boat being tossed every-which-way, which helped comfort me until yesterday. It became more than I could bear and fear (our most evil enemy) began to take over and hop on the back of my ailment.

So silently crying out to Him, as it says in the full passage below, I began to find peace.

He sent His Word and healed them,

And delivered them from ALL their destructions.

Let them give thanks to the Lord for His lovingkindness,

And for His wonders to the sons of men!

Let them also offer sacrifices of thanksgiving,

And tell of His works with joyful singing.

Those who go down to the sea in ships,

Who do business on great waters;

They have seen the works of the Lord,

And His wonders in the deep.

For He spoke and raised up a stormy wind,

Which lifted up the waves of the sea.

They rose up to the heavens, they went down to the depths;

Their soul melted away in their misery.

They reeled and staggered like a drunken man,

And were at their wits’ end.

Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,

And He brought them out of their distresses.

He caused the storm to be still,

So that the waves of the sea were hushed.

Then they were glad because they were quiet,

So He guided them to their desired haven.

What He showed me was a way to imagine myself in His hospital, where He began to give me the medicine I needed. Due to being in the medical field, and having undergone enough hospital stays to imagine it easily, I began to envision an IV with clear bags of healing liquid.

The first IV was His love. It was pure and clean and I could feel it flowing all through me. Each breath I envisioned one clear bag after another being administered. Knowing love also deals with the heart, I began to think of it going directly to my heart.

Many years ago my brother was battling leukemia and I remember how he showed me the shunt that was connected to his heart. So I imagined one in my chest, but it didn’t break the skin nor was it anything painful—instead it entered easily through a supernatural entrance.

Over and over the bags of pure love were administered to my heart and soon the fear was gone!

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.” 

Next, He began to bring more and move bags of healing liquid, like asking Him for gentleness, peacefulness, quietness, forgiveness—many of which I realized were fruits of the spirit, much like the healthy smoothies my daughter makes for me!

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” 

In addition, it included “the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God.”

For many hours I watched in my mind’s eye visions of His healing liquid and thought of the many promises He’s “hidden in my heart” “for such a time as this.”

When I woke this morning I was a bit weak, yet immediately I took to heart His promise: “Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for His sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” 

Recently I’ve struggled thinking that instead of a revival going on the church (each of us individually and as a whole) influencing the world, instead, we are in a state of apostasy—the world influences the church, the people of God. For instance, many corporations and our world leaders are practice meditation— even within the medical world, they are using visualization to help the sick get well and reduce pain.

Yet like everything else, when you subtract God and the Lord from the equation— you will end up empty.

Something times nothing still equals NOTHING.

100, 000, 000, 000 x 0 = 0

This is just ONE reason He’s called you to take another path, in order to help just one other person who became disillusioned by our medical world. Not surprisingly because I have been a witness to how beautifully He weaves our everyday lives, I woke up the morning after I started this chapter to read this devotional that I believe will minister to you too.

December 19

This will result in your being witnesses to them. (Luke 21:13)

Life is a steep climb, and it is always encouraging to have those ahead of us “call back” and cheerfully summon us to higher ground. We all climb together, so we should help one another. The mountain climbing of life is serious, but glorious, business; it takes strength and steadiness to reach the summit. And as our view becomes better as we gain altitude, and as we discover things of importance, we should “call back” our encouragement to others. 

If you have gone a little way ahead of me, call back—

It will cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track;

And if, perhaps, Faith’s light is dim, because the oil is low,

Your call will guide my lagging course as wearily I go.

 

Call back, and tell me that He went with you into the storm;

Call back, and say He kept you when the forest’s roots were torn;

That, when the heavens thunder and the earthquake shook the hill,

He bore you up and held you where the lofty air was still.

 

O friend, call back, and tell me for I cannot see your face;

They say it glows with triumph, and your feet sprint in the race;

But there are mists between us and my spiritual eyes are dim,

And I cannot see the glory, though I long for word of Him.

 

But if you’ll say He heard you when your prayer was but a cry,

And if you’ll say He saw you through the night’s

sin-darkened sky—

If you have gone a little way ahead, O friend, call back—

It will cheer my heart and help my feet along the stony track.

Here is another that I believe will speak to your heart... 

“If you can”?...Everything is possible for him who believes." Mark 9:23.

I seldom have heard a better definition of faith than that given in one of our meetings, by a sweet, elderly black woman, as she answered a young man who asked, “How do I obtain the Lord’s help for my needs?”

In her characteristic way, pointing her finger toward him, she said with great insistence, “You just have to believe that He’s done it and it’s done.” The greatest problem with most of us is, after asking Him to do it, we do not believe it is done. Instead, we keep trying to help Him, get others to help Him, and anxiously wait to see how He is going to work.

Faith adds its “Amen” to God’s “Yes” and then takes its hands-off, leaving God to finish His work. The language of faith is, “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this” (Ps. 37:5). from Days of Heaven upon Earth 

I simply take Him at His Word,

I praise Him that my prayer is heard,

And claim my answer from the Lord;

I take, He undertakes.

Active faith gives thanks for a promise even though it is not yet performed, knowing that God’s contracts are as good as cash. Matthew Henry

Passive faith accepts the Word as true—

But never moves.

Active faith begins the work to do,

And thereby proves.

 

Passive faith says, “I believe it! every Word of God is true.

Well, I know He has not spoken what He cannot, will not, do.

He has instructed me, ‘Go forward!’ but a closed-up way I see,

When the waters are divided, soon in Canaan’s land I’ll be.

Lo! I hear His voice commanding, ‘Rise and walk: take up your bed’;

And, ‘Stretch to Me your withered hand!’ which for so long

has been dead.

When I am a little stronger, then, I know I’ll surely stand:

When there comes a thrill of healing, I will use with ease

my reclaimed hand.

Yes, I know that ‘God is able’ and full willing all to do:

I believe that every promise, sometime, will to me come true.”

Active faith says, “I believe it! and the promise now I take,

Knowing well, as I receive it, God, each promise,

real will make. 

So I step into the waters, finding there an open way;

Onward press, the land possessing; nothing can my progress stay.

Yes, I rise at His commanding, walking straight, and joyfully:

This, my hand so sadly shriveled, as I reach, restored will be.

What beyond His faithful promise, would I wish or do I need?

Looking not for ‘signs or wonders,’ I’ll no contradiction heed.

Well I know that ‘God is able,’ and full willing all to do:

I believe that every promise, at this moment can come true.”

Passive faith but praises in the light,

When sun does shine.

Active faith will praise in darkest night—

Which faith is thine?

“He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings you may seek refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark.” 

Interestingly I never knew what a bulwark was until about a week ago and never remember taking the time to find out. Yet He knew I would be using this promise to minister to you and to let you know it’s actually a shield that surrounds you!

“Many are the woes of the wicked, but the LORD's unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in Him.” 

One of the many, many ailments that I am also battling is a tooth that was said to need a root canal. However, that procedure was blocked due to the negligence of a dentist that added to my failing health. During a visit, he was unable to numb a tooth he wanted to fill, and after having my jaw open for more than 5 hours, it locked and he foolishly pried it open in order to finish. The result was dislocating my jaw, tearing the muscles, and destroying the cartilage —so I was not able to open my mouth for any more dental work. For an entire year, I wasn't able to open my mouth to chew anything either. So, I ate mostly soups made by boiling vegetables then blending them so they could be eaten through a straw. Though this may seem like a huge curse, I knew and imagined that somehow and in some way He would use it for my protection as He’d done so beautifully for me in many other ways.

One that I think of the most is that in 2005 I found out that I had this crazy erroneous “judgment” filed against me. Rather than fighting against it, and proving it was unjust, I simply chose to trust God who judges righteously. 

As I result, I found out I could not borrow money, get a credit card, or any loan, but soon after I had been convicted about having or being in debt, not owing anyone (not an individual or bank—no one) whatsoever, so immediately He used it to bless me!  “Owe nothing to anyone except to love one another . . .”

Yet it was years later when I found an even bigger blessing. I’d experienced several fraudulent activities coming against me, but it never got as far as anyone stealing or using my identity to get a car loan or home loan, which baffled the bank officials. Then they realized it was due to the unwarranted judgment that had been filed against me in 2005! 

Now that I am only months away from that being lifted (the judgment is for 10 years, 3 years longer than if a person filed bankruptcy),  I began actually hoping someone files another erroneous judgment against me because it became my bulwark!! What He did instead was to make my credit history non-existent—so again no one would want to steal my identity—because in a way, I have none. He's hidden me under His bulwark—a surrounding shield!

I believe that we don’t automatically experience the blessings from His promises, but only when we embrace them as it says He said, “But I say unto you, that you resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”

Padding is My Protection

Much like the protection of the judgment against me, I was startled, yet profoundly set free when this same principle was what my Beloved told me was why He kept me overweight—simply for my protection!

Someday God is going to reveal this fact to every Believer that the very things they now rebel and struggle against are the instruments, the tools, He has used to perfect each of our characters and to mold each of us into perfection, so we may later be used as polished stones in His heaven yet to come—but first, to reflect HIM in this world!

Due to the culmination of many illnesses, I’ve been so ill that for almost five years I have been entirely inactive. I no longer drove a car, but remained in my home, only walking to and from the bathroom and moving from one place to another to lay down. Even though I ate less and less, without any sort of movement your metabolism slows and weight is put on. 

At first, I didn’t care. I didn’t see anyone and I was much too ill to think about anything but how horrible I felt because I was battling the pain. Yet, when He began to heal me, when I put on regular clothes, not wrapped in a bathrobe, I looked in the mirror seeing someone I didn’t recognize. 

Of course, as His bride, I spoke to my Husband about it, and He assured me that what He’d done in the past (shrinking me so I looked like me) He could do easily. However, this continued much, much, much longer than I’d imagined it would take. Rather than my healing producing a thinner me, my added weight and my altered look, remained. 

Then one day while I was showering and I asked, as I regularly did whenever I saw myself in the mirror when He was going to shrink me down to my "normal size." Even bargaining for one size smaller. That’s when He said, “Don’t you see, this added weight on you is your protection. It’s the cushion, the fluff, that I put there to protect you.” Though I didn’t fully understand, it was like an “understanding” of why poured over me. Rather than a curse, a punishment, or something I should try and shake off or beg Him to remove, I’d missed entirely that He’d been loving me.

That’s when I envisioned a sort of white down coat covering me like a child’s sleepers. Keeping out any emotional coldness, protecting me from emotional bumps all due because this added padding and my illness, which kept me from interacting with people I knew, was cushioning me. I was protected from many people— like siblings, former friends, anyone I would normally stay in touch with. My inner circle was extremely tiny, primarily just those who I’m closest with, my children, and my ministry Board of Directors. 

Also, due to not feeling well, I no longer traveled— so my children traveled for me in my place—specifically Tara. Because I didn’t feel well (feeling ill and also not feeling well about how I looked when I began feeling a bit better), I also left so much of what I would normally do myself and asked others to do it for me. What I was doing, without knowing it, was giving my children and my ministers the opportunities and blessings that He continued to give to me, but what I was able to pass on to bless others.

If I was well, He told me, I would do all this myself without thinking. Being a driven person has been my nature, and even unwell I can do much more than most people. But what I usually would do needs to be passed along, now, not later when I’m gone to be with Him. Giving it away now allows me to not just see my children and ministers grow, but it also allows me to instill much-needed wisdom, so they are not left to pioneering but can enter into experiences where I left off. Like passing the baton, they can take what He’s taught me and allowed me to do, running with it—taking it to a much higher level than I could ever have achieved or imagined!

To complete my healing, He’s kept me cocooned, wrapped in fluff, my added weight, to keep me warm, loved, and protected from much more than I will probably ever realize. 

Once this epiphany registered in my brain, I am honestly able to smile when I see myself in clothes, in larger sizes. I also realized that the woman who “smiles at the future” does so because she knows the secret. The secret is that no matter what, whatever hits her life —it's is a gift— wrapped up waiting for her to open. It just takes realizing it is a gift, not a bomb sent to harm her.

Personal commitment: to trust God’s plan fully. “Based on what I have learned in God's Word and this chapter, I commit to trusting Him to enable me to remain wrapped in His loving cocoon, for as long as He desires to keep me warm, loved, and protected from harm that He doesn’t want me exposed to.”