Hope, Healing & Freedom Podcast: Episode 130
TRANSCRIPT
We were part of a church that would do this congregational response on a regular basis. The leader would say “God is good” and the people would respond “all the time”. Then the leader said, “All the time” and we would respond “God is good”. Then everyone would say together “God is good all the time, and All the time God is good”. What do you do when you don’t see the goodness of God manifest in your life as you know He could? Is God still good then? Cindi and I have been on a journey of learning that God is good all the time even when we cannot verify it with our circumstances. In today’s podcast we are going to take a very vulnerable look at the journey that we are personally on with God hoping that our journey will help and encourage you in your real life walk with Jesus.
I am Lee Whitman with Restoring the Foundations, and I welcome you into this very real and vulnerable Hope Healing and Freedom Podcast. The Scripture for today’s podcast is Isaiah 43:2 “When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you.” Over this last year my wife Cindi and I have had to face some difficult situations concerning our health. Between the two of us we have had to have four surgeries. At the end of 2023 and moving into January of 2024 Cindi began to have debilitating sciatica nerve pain in her back and leg. It was so serious that neither chiropractic nor orthopedic treatments were able to help relieve these periods of severe pain. We ended up having to visit the emergency room on four different occasions because the pain was so severe. It was recommended by one of the doctors that we get an MRI on her back. This revealed that the disc between her L-4 and L-5 vertebrae was crushed causing the nerve to be pinched. The only remedy was to have major back surgery to replace the disc with a “cage” to insure the spacing between the vertebrae and to fuse the L-4 and L-5 vertebrae together with metal bars and screws. The surgery was successful, and the sciatica nerve pain is gone. Her recovery time was a very painful 16 weeks of rest with little or no physical activity.
As Cindi began to rehab her back following her surgery she began experiencing severe pain in her left ankle. As it turned out, Cindi’s ankle was broken during the same water-skiing accident that caused the damage to her back. After seeking out the opinion of two different doctors and having an MRI on her ankle, it was obvious that the only solution to the damage in her ankle was to have another major surgery. So, on September 13 she had major surgery on her ankle to remove three bone spurs, to fuse the terra forma joint together with a 4-inch screw, to repair a broken bone, and to actually remove an extra bone that had been in her foot possibly her whole life. As we were going into surgery on that morning Cindi felt led to pray with our surgeon that everything that needed to be revealed would be revealed. Well, during surgery he found a growth on the back of her tibia that in his words “I had never seen anything like this before.” This surgery has resulted in another 16 weeks of recovery with her not being able to put any weight on her ankle until just last week. This meant that I literally got to push my wife around in a wheelchair for 14 weeks.
Surgery number 3. Cindi had to have a surgical procedure done to rule out cancer. We are very thankful that the biopsy was negative. We don’t have an answer yet to some of the symptoms but it’s good to know that it’s not cancer.
Surgery number 4. Over the last few years my hearing has continued to deteriorate. As most of you know I have had to wear hearing aids for the last 15 years. It is pretty hard to hide hearing aids when you do not have hair. My hearing has gotten so bad in my left ear that on December 19 I had surgery to implant a cochlear hearing device in my ear. On January 8th I will actually get the cochlear hearing aid and begin the process of learning how to hear using the digital device that has been implanted under my scalp and into my ear.
So Lee, this is not a very uplifting podcast hearing about your surgeries. If God is good all the time, then how do we reconcile these events with the fact that God is good. How do we reconcile the reality of Cindi and me needing to have surgery with our belief that God can and does heal.
This is a place where I am going to be very vulnerable with you. I have received prayer for healing of my hearing at least 25-30 times. I have received prayer from several big-name people in the body of Christ. I have made it a point to go to places where people believe in healing and where healings happen on a regular basis to get into that stream and receive prayer. I was not healed. We asked for prayer for Cindi’s back and her ankle before committing to each of her surgeries. Even the week of surgery we were still asking God for healing. We did that because we believe that God does heal today. The question we have had to wrestle with is we know God can heal, then why has He not healed us outside of intervention from doctors? We are so blessed to be involved with a ministry like Restoring the Foundations that can help us find God’s answers to these very difficult questions.
The first thing we had to deal with to gain peace with God about these surgeries is the generational curse that we inherited from our ancestors that God does not heal today. We both grew up in churches that held that belief. So, step one for us was to break the generational curse of unbelief from our lives. This generational curse becomes a predisposition that hinders our ability to hear and receive God’s truth.
The next thing we had to deal with were the ungodly beliefs that came into this struggle. One of the most common struggles for people who have walked through difficult things and do not see God breakthrough for them is the lie that God has let them down, so they are unable to trust Him in the future. From our experience in doing RTF ministry many people who have walked through difficult struggles have to deal with this lie. I believe that there is a lie that is even deeper than the lie that God has let them down before. I believe the root lie is believing that God owes me something. If God owes me something, then it would be easy to say that He let me down when I don’t get what I think He owes me. But the truth is that everything we receive from God is a gift of God’s grace. It is all undeserved favor. God owes us nothing. In fact, if we are owed anything because of our sin, we are owed damnation in hell. But because of God’s grace we don’t receive what we deserve but we receive what we don’t deserve. So, for us to say that God has let us down we are buying into the lie that we deserve something from Him that He did not provide. This lie would have me believe that I deserve to have my hearing miraculously restored, or Cindi deserved to have her back and ankle miraculously healed.
When we don’t see the fulfillment of our prayers in the manner we hoped, t is also easy to believe lies about our value to God. I must be doing something wrong or else God would have healed me. We were with a couple we know recently who have walked through hell for the last two years due to a brain tumor. The wife had a tumor the size of a pool ball in her brain. The doctors were able to remove 60% of the tumor but it left her having to re-learn how to talk and think. We saw them two years after the surgery and the wife is much better, but she still is limited in her cognitive ability. In talking to her husband about how he is doing, he made an amazing statement. He said that they were both experiencing the grace of God like never before in their lives. Unbelievable! They have learned the lesson that everything we have is because of God’s grace and instead of allowing their circumstances to dictate their belief, they have chosen to believe what the bible says about God and as a consequence are experiencing the amazing grace of God through these horrible circumstances. Where RTF can help is by stripping off the lies, we believe that are keeping us from hearing and receiving God’s truth, lies like the belief that “God owes me something”. Once the lie is removed then we can ask for and receive God’s truth, much like our friends have done, realizing that everything is a gift of God’s grace, and His grace is sufficient to get us through.
RTF is also really good at bringing healing to the wounded places in our heart or soul. When we get disappointed with God because of the way we thought He should have done something that causes a wound in either our soul or spirit. God knew that in this life we would get wounded, and that we even would get disappointed with Him. He is not upset or angry with us because of our hurts. All He asks is that we bring those hurts and wounds to Him. Luke 4:18 says that “Jesus came to heal the broken hearted”. This has been one of the most important healings I have experienced about my hearing loss. To be vulnerable again, I was very angry at God for not healing me and for allowing me to have this problem. I also got very angry with Him for allowing my wife to go through basically a year of pain and suffering that has stolen our ability to enjoy much of 2024. Ephesians 4:26 says “Be angry but sin not.” Growing up in the church I was taught that anger was wrong. Nobody taught me what to do with anger that I felt, especially anger at God. I had this false belief that if you got angry with God and let it out then God would get angry back at you, and you certainly were never going to win a battle like that. So, all I ever learned to do with my anger is to stuff it which does not heal it but causes it to fester and grow. In the RTF ministry we have learned how to pour out our complaints to Jesus, to give Him our hurts and wounds, and yes even give Him the anger we have at Him and Father God. He is amazing at taking all of that hurt and anger and wounds from our heart and bringing His healing. I would not be able to sit here and write this podcast without practicing what Chester and Betsy Kylstra have taught us about allowing Jesus to come and heal our broken hearts. Thank you, Chester and Betsy, for faithfully passing this incredible ministry on to the next generation.
God is good all the time. All the time God is good. Even though we are still in the process of recovering from our various surgeries we are seeing the goodness of God. Cindi is now able to walk without a cast or boot on her surgically repaired ankle. It is going to take months of therapy and rehab before she can begin running marathons again. Oh, wait a minute, she has never run a marathon. But it will take some time and a good amount of work until she is going to get back her normal ability to get around without pain in her ankle. I am still recovering from the surgery to implant the cochlear device in my head. A friend of mine said I am now literally a bionic man. Then on January 8th I will begin the process of learning how to hear with the digital device instead of with my natural hearing. I am currently totally deaf in my right ear, so I am looking forward to getting hearing back even if it is digital hearing.
Again, Lee this is not too encouraging. Well, here is the God is good all the time part. We have felt God’s presence all the way through this process. We prayed about each of these surgeries and have felt the peace of God to continue with each one. Cindi had an uneasy feeling about one of the surgeons we talked to about her ankle, so we got a second opinion. The second doctor has turned out to be wonderful and corrected more things in her ankle then the first doctor was planning on repairing. I have had total peace about having this cochlear implant surgery. We were sent to a wonderful young surgeon that made this an easy process. Have you ever had a doctor give you his cell phone number and return your phone calls in 10-15 minutes?
The biggest way we have felt God’s presence is through you. We have received incredibly timely texts or phone calls or cards in the mail. You can’t believe how much a $15 Starbucks gift card brightens your day when you are struggling to keep going. The body of Christ, our church family at New Tribe Church here in Mt Juliet, and more specifically the family of RTF has shown us that God really is good all of the time. Thank you for your love and support.
Prayer
Father God you are good all the time. Even when we walk through deep waters, You are with us. (Isaiah 42: 2). You never leave us nor forsake us. Even when we don’t totally understand why certain things happen in this life, we know we can trust you through it all. We declare that Your grace is sufficient.
Join us for next week’s Hope Healing and Freedom podcast as Cindi shares her journey through this healing process.
