Healing: Embracing God in the Lowest Valleys

Scriptures: Psalms 23:4, Isaiah 43:1-2

If you have ever been in a season of healing you went through some type of pain. Before healing begins one must experience pain and most times pain doesn’t allow you time to prepare for a season of healing. No, most times you get thrown into it. The good days become few and far between because pain insists on being attended to. It stops you in your tracks and demands the attention you have tried so hard to ignore. I sometimes see pain as a toddler. When toddlers get upset they can throw a tantrum that stops your day in its tracks. Nothing can go on until the tantrum stops. So you have to coax the toddler, asking why they are throwing a tantrum, and then figure out a way to make it better. Pain is exactly like that. It stops everything in its tracks and demands the attention you haven’t given it. Pain, like a tantrum, can shut a person down (emotionally, mentally, physically, or spiritually) refusing to cooperate until they feel seen and heard. Sometimes pain doesn’t allow you to get your ducks in a row before it comes. No, most times it leaves you scrambling because pain never hits at a convenient time. 

Healing happens after the pain comes. Most people remind you of the beauty in healing, they don’t talk about the hard part of healing. The hard part needs to be talked about so others can know that there is beauty after the hard and that the hard won’t crush you even when you feel like you can’t take in another gasp of breath. 

By definition, healing is “to make free from injury and disease. To make sound or whole. To make well again, to restore health.” However, healing is so much more than that. The definition of healing for me, doesn’t fit into a few short sentences. No, it takes up a whole page because while that definition may be true, it is not the whole truth of the word. 

Healing is an up-and-down journey, healing is trudging through the lowest valleys oftentimes by yourself. Sometimes healing is taking one step forward only to be pushed three steps back. Healing sometimes feels like drowning, gasping for air as the waves are crashing over your head pushing you down. Healing is ugly and incredibly hard. Healing can wound the soul, sometimes destroying a person before the healing becomes healed. 

Healing is the climb up. Healing is seeing the often very dim light at the end of the tunnel and choosing to move forward when the pain and hurt are begging you to stop. Healing is sitting in the pain, healing is processing, healing requires patience, and healing requires faith. Healing is feeling all the broken pieces of yourself. But healing is also giving those broken pieces to Jesus allowing him to rework them, molding them into a greater you. 

As Christians, we don’t get a free pass out of the hard parts of healing, but we have an opportunity to grow and use our healing journey to help others. When we see our valley used as a tool of encouragement for others, as a tool to speak truth over others who are hurting, it can give us a little bit more faith. 

For me, my healing season was all of the hard things written above. A season of the lowest lows I have ever experienced. A constant physical pain that would bring me to my knees. But in the most unbearable moments, the moments that were my lowest lows, that is when I felt Him the most. Like Jesus was sitting right beside me holding my hand, like a breath of fresh air. I know He walked with me in my season of healing just like I know He is walking with you. 

I encourage you, the next time you feel like you have reached your lowest, lean in, lean into his whispers, lean into his hand, lean into Him. He is ready with open arms. That beautiful healing just might be around the corner.

Scriptures: John 10:10, Psalms 31:7-10, Psalms 31:14-15

Have you ever wondered how long you would be in a healing season? Unfortunately, healing has no time frame. For some, healing can take a matter of days while for others healing can take years. Whichever category you fall in, your healing matters. Our Jesus walks with each of His children as we wander through the darkest of valleys. He holds our hand the entire time, even when you don’t feel Him, He is there, even when you don’t hear Him, He is there. When the enemy tries to tell you to give in and give up, Our Jesus stands firm by our side reminding us of our purpose. Reminding us of our faith and our hope. 

During the beginning of healing, it can be easier to keep the faith. To hold our head up high, believing our Jesus will heal you. But when the days begin to pass and the healing doesn’t come, that is when you need to dig in your heels, pull out your bible, call on your prayer warriors, surround yourself with the word, cry out to God every minute you can and be ready to stand firm. Because friend, the enemy is attacking, he is pulling out everything he can to get you to turn away from God. Hear me when I say this: The. Enemy. Does. Not. Win. He has no place in our God-written story. But that doesn’t mean he won’t try. Those of us who have experienced the type of pain that brings the long grueling healing know that he doesn’t ever give up. He comes every single day to steal, kill, and destroy, he will stop at nothing. 

But Jesus. He alone is the answer. He alone can calm the storms, He alone stands beside you, He stands behind you, and He stands in front of you. He becomes the armor of God that you are too weak to place on you. And then He whispers to you. I pray that you will listen to him. Because the season of healing, while it may be dark and uncomfortable, is the place where the best growth happens. In the darkest of darkest moments when you feel like you can’t go on any longer, I encourage you to hold on. 

Friend, I have been there, I have been in dark places where I felt like I couldn’t find my way. The light at the end of my tunnel was so dim, and some days it felt like I was wandering even further away from it. My season of healing was a season of change, growth, hardship, and beauty. I can look back and see that Jesus was with me every step of the way, just like I know He is with you in your hard season. 

I encourage you, next time you feel the enemy trying to tell you to give up, look to scripture. Allow the words of truth to pour over you, speak them into your story. Yell them out loud so the enemy can hear them.

Scriptures: Romans 8:26-28, Matthew 4:1-11, Psalms 34:17-19

Have you ever felt like you were in the spiritual battle of your life? Ever felt the suffocation of evil as the enemy tries to take over? When you feel like you are at the point where you want to give up, I encourage you to reach out to God. Especially if you feel like you don’t have the words to say to him. Tell him exactly that, because the Holy Spirit will intercede for you. Romans 8:26-27 tells us this: 

“In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” 

He did this for me and I know if you show up, He will do it for you. He is always there. He is our constant. The one we can lean on through anything and He welcomes it all. He welcomes our hurt, our pain, our anger. He wants us to turn to Him so He can give us the relief we so desperately need. I’m not saying that He will rescue you from the pain immediately, but He will stand in the storm with you. He will be your guiding light in the dark. 

One year into my healing journey I felt low. I felt that dim light at the end of the tunnel was gone. I knew the enemy was trying to take over, in a physical sense, I could feel the heavy weight of the enemy, pulling out all the big guns, and throwing everything in my face. It reminded me of Matthew 4 when Jesus was taken into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. The enemy was using scripture against me. Telling me that IF God truly loved me He would have already healed me. He was using words that were constantly in my mind against me, words that he placed there. Almost like if he whispered them enough to me then I would believe them. And there were times when I felt like they were going to pull me under, but each time I was at that point, each time I was so close to giving up, my Jesus would show up. He would give me that extra boost of faith I needed to stand firm. Those dark moments were the moments that gave my season life. The hardest moments turned into the most precious moments because my Jesus showed up. 

I encourage you if you feel like you are surrounded by darkness, feeling like you want to give up, tell Jesus that. Because the moment you open up and say “I have no words, but I am reaching out to you.” The Holy Spirit will step up for you. He will be the words you are unable to speak.

Scriptures: Matthew 18:19-20, 1 Peter 1:6-9

I can bet that during your healing season, you have felt alone. Isolated. The enemy secludes us, he sneakily whispers doubt into us, and he tells us we are better alone. That we are a burden and don’t need to turn to our people for help. He tries to keep us secluded because he knows that when prayer warriors start to intercede, he loses his power. Do not let the enemy seclude you. Keep reaching out to the ones who will pray over you. Better yet, get with them in person, and allow them to lay hands on you. Our God will be there. 

“Again, truly I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything they ask for, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.” Matthew18:19-20NIV 

The last three years I have spent in this specific valley, sometimes the trenches were so deep I was terrified I would never be able to climb out. The trenches reached down into my core and ripped away every single thing that gave me joy. In the trenches, I could slowly feel my light burning out. I couldn’t take it. So I would retreat. In those trenches when I should have been reaching out to my prayer warriors, when I should have been communicating my pain, I shut down and shut out everything and everyone. I would go days without talking to anyone except my family. I didn’t want to have to share my burden with anyone else. For several reasons, my burden is rare. My burden touches less than 5% of the population. So it’s hard to truly describe the pain I would be in and even more it was hard for people to truly understand it. The longer my pain happened the more needy I felt. I was so vulnerable and unwilling to allow anyone to see me in that state. Instead of letting my people in I pushed them away. This was a mistake. Because community is so, so important, we need communication with Christians. We need that close-knit group of friends that can hold us up. The people who are willing to walk in the trenches with us, the ones who are willing to hold our hands up when we can’t. The ones who pray over us when our words feel lost. We need those people. 

I encourage you to reach out to your prayer warriors the next time you are at your lowest. They may not understand what you are going through but they will be there to pray for you. Most times prayer is all they can offer you and we must be greedy when it comes to prayer. It can be hard to be able to pray for yourself when you are in the trenches of a healing season, we must rely on those people to use their words for us. If you have the right prayer warriors in your life they won’t see it as a burden but a blessing to be able to pray over you. Let them in, let them be your voice when you can’t pray.

Scriptures: James 1:2-6, James 1:12, 1 Peter 5:8-11

Growth happens in the low valleys. Whether you are running to the finish line or walking, or if you are like me, and feel like you are crawling on your hands and knees, keep going. Keep your internal compass set on Jesus. You may feel like you are too weak to move, but God hasn’t left you. You may hear silence but know that God is in the silence. He continues to stand by our sides holding our hand, whispering to us to hold on just a little bit longer. 

The book of James is a great example of how we should walk through trials. James starts the book out by saying, 

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters whenever you face trials of many kinds,” James 1:2 

He doesn’t say if you face trials, he says whenever. I find immediate relief in this statement because he is saying you will face trials. He doesn’t give the false hope that you might face trials. He goes on to tell how we should face these trials. 

James 1:3-6 “because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding faults, and it will be given to you, But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind.” 

We have to believe our God knows what he is doing when we are in the midst of trials. They may be hard and defeating but we must keep believing in our God. Knowing that He is with us and has us in the palm of His hand. We are never alone in our valleys. He guards us when the fire is all around us, ready to consume. He parts the seas for us to walk through the valley without drowning. 

Isn’t it beautiful how well he loves his children? How he takes us to our absolute darkest place and breathes life into us. How he holds us in our pain, allowing us to break so we can find him in the broken pieces. In the healing season, wherever you are, the hard or the beautiful, rest in knowing that our God has you. Be reminded that he is not a God who is the inflictor of pain. Though he may allow his children to go through trials, my God, your God, our God, He is the rescuer. He is never the inflictor, always the rescuer. Our God? He is good. While His children may endure painful seasons He never leaves us in our pain. The tears we shed and the prayers we pray are not lost. They are heard and they are held! Keep moving forward. When you go through trying seasons and when it feels like you have been left alone in your pain, I am here to remind you, never will he leave us, never will he forsake us. Our God? He is good. 

The next time you feel the hurt of your season I encourage you to open your Bible and read through the book of James. Let the words speak life into you. Let it encourage you that you are being refined by the fire, maturing into a person who leans solely on God.

Scriptures: Job 6:1-30, Job 7:1-21

I know one day we will be freed from this earthly pain. Whether on this earth or in heaven, we will be restored. So I hang on to the rope that tethers me to my faith, even when it feels incredibly thin. He is here. If you are in a dark valley and are unsure of what to do with your feelings and emotions, I encourage you to sit at the feet of Jesus. 

Your feelings, they are valid. Your emotions, they are valid. But only when you can lay them at the feet of Jesus. We can’t and shouldn’t hold on to the emotions that give the enemy lead way into our lives. We must give them up knowing that Jesus has them in his hands. Explain your emotions to Him if you can, if not, allow the Holy Spirit to do it for you, but stay at His feet until you are ready to leave them there. When you are done, get up but leave the feelings there. Let Him take on the anger and frustrations you may be feeling. Let Him use them for His good. He can and He will, if you allow Him to. 

Anyone who is going through hard seasons should read the book of Job. To shortly summarize Job starts out with a story about a man who had it all until Satan attacked. He went through so many trials and yet still hung on to his faith. As I was reading Job, all I could think was “Wow, this man has some epic faith.” And then I got to chapters 6 and 7 when his anger and anguish came out. In the midst of one of the hardest flare-ups, I had to date, each and every word struck deep in my heart. I felt the anguish in his cries like they were my own, I could feel the burden of his anger he was holding. It was in these moments that I felt an extreme amount of peace for my emotions. It was in that moment that I could feel the Lord tell me that I was allowed to feel my feelings and to grieve them. I was simply allowed to be human. I took the time to feel my feelings, then laid them at the feet of Jesus and left them there. 

If you haven’t done this yet I encourage you to. Allow yourself to feel your emotions and your feelings and then give them up to God, He will take the burden they bring from you.

Scriptures: Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, Psalms 27:13-14, 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, Romans 5:3-5

But to be healed? To be on the other side, what a reward. Can’t you just feel the light of it? I couldn’t wait to finally be able to say, I am healed. It took 3 years. It was the longest and most grueling season I have ever walked (sometimes crawled) through. At the end of my hardship, I could see the beauty in everything I went through. I could feel Jesus shining down on me. His whispers became loud and clear. He was proud of me and I just know, He is so proud of you too. In the beautiful part of healing, I was able to see His goodness and faithfulness. I could see how He was with me every step of the way. When I had setbacks in the beauty it was easier for me to keep heart because I knew my Jesus walks with me always. 

I have been in the hard part of healing. I understand the pain, the struggle, the hurt, the darkness. I get it. And for a long time, I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. There were times I felt like the darkness was going to swallow me. But I kept moving. I kept clinging to the things that I knew to be true. Jesus is for me. He is with me. He never once left my side. He carried me when I couldn’t walk anymore. He never abandoned me to figure it out on my own. No, He never left me. He does this for all of His children. We just have to step into that faith. 

I fully believe my story of healing is to be shared. Because I understand feeling so low that it would be easy to just give in to the enemy. I know how daunting it is to wake up day after day in extreme physical pain. I understand what it’s like having to walk each day filled with a pain that is indescribable. But friend, I was never left alone in my valley. 

I can tell you the exact moment I knew I had finally felt like I was crawling out. The exact moment that beautiful healing was upon me. The moment I knew I could be used as a tool, the moment I knew I was going to be okay. It spread like wildfire when I realized I was on the journey out. I believe one of the ways the Lord shows his compassion to us when we are in a hard season of pain is by giving us the beautiful part of healing after we have been on our hands and knees in the trenches. He gives us the beautiful part of healing to remind us of all the incredibly hard valleys we walked through but also to give us hope. To show us how close we are to being healed. To encourage us to keep moving. And most of all to use our story to help those who can’t see past the darkness. 

If you are in your beautiful part of healing I encourage you to share your story with someone. You never know who needs to hear how you kept your faith.