"You have made known to me the path of life,
you fill me with joy in your presence;
with eternal pleasures at your right hand."
Psalms 16:11
Although Kaylee's symptoms continued to slowly fade away and she was improving daily from the extremely weakened condition she had been in on morning of January 19th, I knew we still had a long way to go for her healing to be completed. I would often think about Rachel's dream and wonder if perhaps our healing would be completed on August 18th (my birthday). In the meantime, God still had more to teach me concerning this disease and how to continue to fight it. It was during my time of fasting on Fridays that I would always receive more understanding from Him.
We now knew that our goal was to create an environment of praise inside of Kaylee's body conducive for this healing. We would do this by praying God's word daily and by offering every part of her body back to God as instruments of righteousness. There was still another layer of understanding God needed to give me, concerning all of this, and He took me next to Galatians, chapter 5.
God began to teach me about the danger of negative emotions such as: fear, anxiety, anger, bitterness, (unforgiveness), guilt, depression, etc and how these emotions can reek havoc on our immune systems over time. Naturally, it is impossible to never experience these human emotions, yet when they remain within our bodies for long periods of time they can weaken our systems and become dangerous to our overall health. Once again, we cannot allow any darkness, unrighteousness, or sin to reign within our mortal bodies! God began to show me that it is critical that we deal with these negative feelings and emotions.
As I have mentioned before, the stress in Kaylee's life had clearly been connected to the onset of her symptoms time in time again. I had never really known how to help her overcome this, so I simply tried to remove the stress from her life altogether. Obviously this was not the best way to go about it, and I would not be able to keep her life stress free forever. God was now ready to teach me some things about a different kind of healing fruit to help Kaylee regain her physical strength: the fruit of the spirit! "For the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. Against such things there is no law." Galatians 5:22&23
Once again, God was pointing me back to the light in order to overcome the darkness that was reigning inside of Kaylee's body. God began to show me that the goal of every Christian should be for the fruits of the spirit to be activated in our daily lives and reigning within our mortal bodies! This is the source of our strength!
I remember that one of my favorite songs as a child was: The Joy of the Lord is my Strength. It had never occurred to me before that this strength was actually a literal, physical strength that could build up our physical bodies and strengthen our immune response.
While many of the negative emotions we all struggle with such as; guilt, certain fears, and anger, etc. can be a result of our own poor choices or lack of trust, some of these emotions can be beyond our ability to control on our own. In the instances when we are responsible, we need to repent, forgive, get our lives right before God, etc. We can avoid many of these subtle, hidden sins by righteous living.
On the other hand, some negative emotions can be linked to deep childhood wounds or extremely difficult circumstances in our lives (things I often saw in the children I worked with at L.C.Y.D.C.). In these instances, we may require a supernatural healing from God. God also began to teach me how to pray over what He showed me were "chains of injustice."
Over the next several months, I began to pray a verse that God led me to from Isaiah 58, not only for my own children, but for the children I worked with, and anyone who I saw struggling in this area as well. I began to ask God to: "Loose the chains of injustice, untie the cords of the yoke, set the oppressed (call by name) free and break every yoke," in Jesus name! This became a regular prayer for me.
One final area God began to teach me about was extreme depression that can be directly linked to a breakdown in the functioning of our systems, very much like Kaylee's diseases. Severe depression, for example, can be due to a malfunction in our endocrine system (responsible for the secretion of hormones) and/or our nervous system (responsible for controlling and sending messages throughout our bodies). In this case, we would need to fight it on a spiritual level, in the same way we were fighting Kaylee's diseases (through prayer and fasting). Once again, we cannot accept unrighteousness, falsehood, depravity, reigning in or controlling any system within our bodies! We can offer every system: our endocrine, nervous and limbic (the part of the nervous system believed to be responsible for our emotions) back to God as instruments of righteousness! Again, the goal is always the same: the Holy Spirit (fruits of the spirit) reigning in EVERY area and system within our bodies! Reigning by definition is: the exercise of sovereign power, authority, sovereignty, the dominating power of influence.
Always remember, we must have our belt of truth firmly in place, knowing that when darkness or unrighteousness is left to reign within any system of our body, we are leaving the enemy an open area to continue to target and use against us. Our defense from the attacks of the enemy is taught in Ephesians, chapter 6. We are to put on "the full armor of God," stand our ground, and pray on every occasion with all kinds of prayers and request. We must also be alert and keep in mind that we are in a spiritual battle and expect "backfire" to come! (I had already experienced much of this.) The enemy does not want to release these areas of control back to God!
As God continued to show me these truths, I felt great strength to continue to fight the battle for Kaylee's health! Amazingly, God had also set up for me, in advance, a way to confirm all of these truths he was showing me!
My daughter (Brooke) had heard about a church in the Birmingham area that people were really excited about. She also heard that this church had a satellite church in Auburn and she began to encourage me to visit. I didn't visit this church right away, but over the next several weeks, this same church continued to come up in conversations with other people. One day, my friend Erica came to my house with a c.d. that she wanted me to listen to. It just so happened to be from this very church! It seemed that, once again, God might be trying to get my attention, and when I listened to this c.d., I understood why. It had been a long time since I had heard truth like this preached!
On the first Sunday that I visited this church, I was shocked to see that they were in the middle of a series entitled: The Pursuit of Joy! In this sermon, the pastor was talking about ways to maintain our joy. He began by mentioning some recent medical research pertaining to what some doctors refer to as the joy center, located in the right orbital frontal cortex of the brain. He went on to say that this part of the brain has executive control over our emotional system, through the release of neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine. Unlike other sections of the brain, this section never loses it's capacity to grow and this growth and development is important to our overall well-being as it controls many things, including our immunity!
I was amazed when I left the church that first day, and God was not finished yet! As I continued to visit this church, week after week, God continued to speak to me and confirm the things he was teaching me on Fridays through these sermons preached the following Sunday. It was absolutely amazing, and I knew without a doubt that God had brought me to this church for a reason, specifically connected to Kaylee's healing.
Can you imagine what I felt inside when this pastor said one Sunday: "We were fasting in January, but we will be feasting in August!"? I honestly felt as though my heart almost stopped for a moment, and then I was overcome with JOY! This miracle is actually going to happen! I thought ....But what was he talking about exactly, I wondered, And how in the world could he have known?
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