Witness Wednesday #115 More PopWe Stories (Healing)

Today’s witnesses are from Matthew West’s website called popwe.org. If you don’t know who Matthew West is, he is a singer, songwriter, and storyteller. This website is for the non-profit that he has with his father, a pastor. Matthew and his father encourage people to share their stories. They have various categories of stories. Today, I chose 2 testimonies from the Healing Category. I love healing testimonies because I don’t think we all believe God is still healing people today. We read about how God healed people through Jesus and the apostles, and we love it. Yet, if we are honest with ourselves, we don’t believe God is still healing people through others in this day and age. I want you to know He is. I have seen it so many times at our Encounter healing services or even just when I am praying over people. God is good. He doesn’t want to see His people suffering.  I pray when you hear this testimony, you can see not only how God has helped these two women in their lives but how He could help you in yours and in your loved ones’ lives, too. I pray you see the miracles in their lives and know miracles are possible in your situation, too!! There is always hope when you have the Lord.

Cathy: I was raised in a house with a mother who was and is mentally ill. She was very abusive to me, physically and emotionally. At a young age, before I started school, my great uncle moved in with us and he molested me for as long as he stayed. I think it was only a few months. I received Christ into my life when I was 6. Because of the abuse and what my mother constantly told me about how worthless I was, how I caused her illness, the problems in my parents’ marriage, and her unhappiness with life in general I became convinced there was something terribly wrong with me deep inside that kept anyone, including God, from really loving me. I carried this conviction throughout my life and I let it ruin and end my marriage, also affecting my children. I never abused my children in any way, but I was often absent emotionally because I lived in deep depression from my preteen years.

I’m 72 years old now and I’ve been divorced for 27 years. I thought my life was over and I was waiting to die. I was estranged from my sister, my mother is in a nursing home with dementia, I’m divorced, my daughter lives 400 miles away with my 2 grandsons and doesn’t need me for anything, and I lost my son to cancer under extremely difficult circumstances. I have PTSD from the childhood abuse and before my son died, that all came back and hit me so hard I was having panic attacks again from dealing with my daughter-in-law. That was when my son became ill and was placed in hospice care.

A friend invited me to move to a small town where she lives and I moved as soon as my son passed. God brought me completely to the end of myself there. I had no more defenses, all the walls I had built emotionally to protect myself through the years failed and I was teetering on a mental breakdown. I hunted for 5 years in the small town where I lived for a church and couldn’t find what I felt like I needed. One day, as I was walking through my living room I was so frustrated that I threw my hands up in the air, looked to heaven and prayed, “God, there has to be a place in Wellington I can go to church to be a part of Your family, to serve You and to learn about You. Please show me where it is!! Later in the week I was talking to my cousin, who is a minister, about not being able to find a church and she told me about a couple she knew well who had just started pastoring a church where I lived and that I needed to go. I told her I had been twice and didn’t like it. She told me to go one more time, so I went the following Sunday.

I walked in the door to the same very small crowd of about 10 or 12 people. I told God I didn’t like this. We sang old hymns, sitting down slowly and I reminded God I didn’t like this either. Then a woman got up to preach. Her sermon that morning was on holiness. Not 5 words into her message I began to have the most incredible experience of my life to that point. It felt like someone was above me pouring a pitcher of warmth, comfort, joy, peace and healing that started at the top of my head and slowly went down my whole body until it reached the tips of my toes! I don’t know how much time passed. I just know that was the most comforting feeling I had ever experienced. When the feeling reached my toes, I heard His voice over my right shoulder! I knew no one else had heard Him but I knew it was God speaking out loud to me. He said 5 words. “Here, Cathy. This is it.” I had cried out “show me where to go “ just a few days before and He answered my question directly, with 5 words!!! The creator of the entire universe, the One who placed the galaxies in the sky, hanging them in nothing, called me by name!!! “Here, Cathy. This is it.” My life changed in that moment.

I’ve spent the next 12 or 15 months on an incredible journey of healing and restoration and it’s not completely over yet. I have experienced God in my house where He miraculously healed me from depression through a song I was singing! I felt Him touch my heart! And He has talked to me- and I’ve spoken to Him in return. It has been the most magnificent experience I’ve ever heard of! I’m writing a book about it. All glory goes to Him! I’ve worked through many memories of abuse where God took me back in my mind to experience that pain of rejection and confusion one more time but this time He scraped out the infection of hurt and rejection and closed it up, healing it for all time. He asked that I apologize to my mother, which I did and He has restored that relationship in a different way. I can’t begin to tell you all that has happened in the time since then but I’m a new person at 72 years old!!! I am healed and restored! I am made whole! He loves me, more than I can possibly understand! Now, I want to share my story only to highlight what God has done for me and what He wants so badly to do for others who are hurting and crippled like I was from abuse. I hope I have been able to convey to you how incredible my story is! I know God wants me to share it.

My name is Sierra and I’m 27 years old.  I’m from Kentucky. In 2023, When I was 26 years old, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. To say this diagnosis took me by surprise would be the understatement of the century. I have no history of cancer in my family.  I found out through genetic testing that out of 77 breast cancer genes, I do not carry a single one. So, breast cancer?! What?! Not possible! Or so I thought. In the very early stages of this, I was struggling so much. I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t eating, I was pacing the floors at night, crying all hours of the day and night. My anxiety was at an all-time high. I was also very angry at God; I couldn’t understand why He would allow something like this to happen. I had so many doctors coming at me from every direction that you can think of. All needing to do different things regarding my cancer. And I felt like every single one of them was signing my death certificate for me. I believed my time on this earth was coming to a close.   I firmly believed this was a death sentence, and you could not convince me otherwise.

Through all this anxiety, anger, and fear, all I could think about was my son. My sweet 5-year-old boy. I’ve been a single mother since I was 3 1/2 months pregnant. As much as that sounds like an “awe” thing, I promise it’s not. I was in a pretty abusive relationship at the hands of my son’s father.  If I’m being totally honest, he almost killed me. So, in the grand scheme of things, it was a blessing that he left and never looked back. But in my current circumstances, it was so hard for me to still see that blessing.  I felt like God was taking me away from my son and I didn’t understand why. Leaving him was my biggest fear, even before I received this diagnosis. I felt like that fear was coming true.

Fast forward to May, it was time for my first surgery. I had to get something called a porta cath., otherwise known as a port. They make you get these ports for treatment reasons. You are unable to get chemotherapy through your veins because the strength of the medicine destroys them. They surgically place this port. It goes through one of the main areas of your heart and through a vein in your neck. The day came for that surgery, and I sat back there in that pre-op room, alone and so scared, even shedding a few tears. I knew once this surgery was completed, it was “go” time. Chemo would start. I just didn’t know what my future was going to look like.

Again, it all terrified me. But in that moment of uncertainty, a peace overcame me. A peace that truly made and still makes no sense, A peace that surpassed all of my understanding. A peace I prayed SO hard for. I can’t tell you how many times I prayed for that peace, yet I never received it. That was something else I didn’t understand. But I will say although I didn’t get that peace when I wanted it, I got it when I needed it the most. And thankfully it has stayed with me ever since then. I have never felt safer than I did in that moment. I just KNEW He was there in that room with me. It still gives me chills to think about. Isn’t our God wonderful?! Part of me believes, that there is a part of all of us that thinks our prayers are to be answered with the prettiest things…all the rainbows & sunshine. But sometimes, it’s just not that way. Sometimes they’re answered through heartbreak, through darkness, through a storm or a bad chapter. The thing I’ve learned though, is how okay that is. There is nothing wrong with that. I think that’s a testament of God’s faithfulness. How He meets you exactly where you are and gives you what you need.

It took me walking this cancer road, it took this horrible, gut-wrenching chapter of my life for every tear filled prayer, that I’ve ever prayed to be answered. Everything from friendship, peace, a God centered loving church, and everything in between. God’s faithfulness has been evident in such abundance. Now here I am, 1 year and 1 month in.  I am still standing, and I am stronger than I ever have been, mentally, physically, and spiritually. And now in I am in REMISSION! I’ve had two surgeries. My most recent one being a double mastectomy. I’ve had 5 chemotherapy treatments and 30 rounds of radiation. I’ve had 2 anaphylactic reactions to that chemotherapy.  One of those reactions almost killed me.  I’ve had sickness you wouldn’t believe. I was so sensitive to the chemo drugs. I lost all my hair, had some chemo rashes and even inflammation in the lining of my lungs. I had a blood infection, a handful of ER visits and scans, and a couple hospital stays. You name it and it’s unfortunately happened to me. It’s been the hardest year of my life. But I’ve let Him be my strength. I have leaned into Him. I’ve praised Him every single step of the way and the miracles came rolling in, in the process. He has still been so good to me!

I also realize now that what I thought was a death sentence was really a life sentence, in the best possible way. I have a new life in Christ. I was baptized 2 months ago, and I had the honor of my physician, who is a dear friend to me as well as the one who found my cancer, baptizing me! I’ve been open about my battle with cancer because I hope that through my struggles, I’ve helped people realize that God doesn’t cause our pain. But He uses that pain. There is no bad day, heartache, storm, or bad chapter that He can’t use for good. I also pray that I’ve shown that it’s possible to have peace in the middle of pain. But that’s only possible with God! But I wanted to share just a little bit of my story with you. God is good!

Thank you so much, Cathy & Sierra, for sharing your testimonies. All the glory goes to God when we tell others what He has done for us. It is not easy to be vulnerable and share your story with others. We are so grateful you were brave and shared it with us to we can celebrate the power of God with you. We are so grateful He healed you and set you free. Thank you again for sharing your story!

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