Our Story, Part Fourty-Five (Rejection)

"This He says:

'When He ascended on high,
He led captivity captive,
And gave gifts to men.'

(Now this, "He ascended" - what does it mean but that He also first descended into the lower parts of the earth?  He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)

And He Himself gave some to be apostles, 
some prophets, some evangelist, 
and some pastors and teachers, 
for the equipping of the saints 
for the work of ministry, 
for the edifying of the body of Christ, 
till we all come to the unity of the faith 
and the knowledge of the son of God, 
to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature 
of the fullness of Christ."

 (Ephesians 4:8-13)

One of the hardest things for me about having a testimony of physical healing is knowing how to share that testimony without coming across the wrong way.  My goal is to encourage, not to come across as critical of those who have not yet received a complete healing, or who may have prayed for someone who was not healed.  The truth is, I am THAT person as well. It took me nine years to see Kaylee's healing finally come about. As of today, I still have a son in need of complete physical healing from disease.  Clearly I do not have all the answers. But what I do have is a personal testimony.  I believe that all of our testimonies contain different pieces to the puzzle and that God has a meaningful purpose in each of our lives and through our stories.  


As I have shared throughout this blog, my personal experience was that I was continually discouraged from praying for Kaylee's healing and encouraged to accept her disease as something God could use for His glory.  I now believe this viewpoint is a dangerous obstacle that far too many Christians have come to believe.  Yes, God can be glorified through anything and in any bad situation.  However, this does not mean we should accept it.  As long as we are living in a sinful, fallen world, we will battle sin and disease, but we should never surrender to either. 

If a small child prays and prays to God for his parent's marriage to be reconciled, and it doesn't happen, is that God's fault?  Does that mean that it wasn't God's will for the marriage to be saved? Or could there be other factors at work that the child does not yet understand?  I believe that we are like small children when it comes to our limited understanding of how prayer works in the spiritual realm.  There can be numerous factors (principalities and strongholds) at work, and unanswered prayer is not always a "no" from God. Just because we do not receive an immediate answer or healing, this does not mean it is not God's perfect will for us to be healed.  It is important to understand that when we are praying for healing, we are entering into a "spiritual battle" (Ephesians 6:10-18).  The first obstacle we must get past, once we enter into this battle, is the misconception that disease is God's will or intended for His glory. When we enter into this battle, it is important to understand that we are NOT battling the will of God.  God is on our side!  Disease is not the perfect will of God for our lives. Disease is a consequence of living in a sinful, fallen world.

Not every marriage will be saved.  Not every disease will be healed this side of heaven.  Not every calling is fulfilled according to God's perfect plan (look at the life of Samson).  God's perfect will is not always accomplished in this fallen world (although He will work it all for good). But God has given us a powerful weapon against the evil we will continue to struggle with as long as we are here:  

"For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds." 

(II Corinthians 4:10)

Prayer is not a formality or religious ritual; it is a powerful weapon against evil.  It is a tool we have been given in order to bring God's will down to earth. The message of my testimony is that we must never surrender or give up regardless of what we "see".  The church must recognize that disease is an enemy that does not belong in the Body of Christ.  


"But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of the darkness and into his glorious light." (I Peter 2:9)

Following our miracle, I felt a calling on my life to encourage others in all of the these things.  Although I had struggled myself, in the beginning, with doubt and uncertainty concerning the subject of healing, I truly had no idea how controversial this calling would be. Nothing had been easy and it seemed that conflict and controversy now surrounded every area of my life (even in areas I have not mentioned in this blog).   


In May of 2009 (nine months after Kaylee's healing) my children introduced me to facebook.  Admittedly, I was instantly addicted. Not only was I able to reconnect with so many friends whom I had not seen in years, I also hoped that this might be a perfect platform for me to begin to share our testimony.  

Although I was right in the middle of all the backfire that had followed Kaylee's healing, I continued to feel compelled to share the good news of what God had done for Kaylee. Because of all I had been through personally throughout that nine year period, I wanted to offer this hope to others and to encourage people to fight til the end!  As I have said before, it was as if a fire had been lit inside of me.  Not long after I joined facebook, I wrote out a summary of our testimony and sent it to several of my Christian facebook friends. As any opportunity came my way, I tried to share this hope, and I quickly came to see that there were many others out there living with chronic disease.  

It was within the first year of my joining facebook that I reconnected with Michelaine.  We all knew her as Missy Jones back in high school.  Not long after becoming facebook friends, I realized that she had a chronically ill son. From her post and the things I was seeing on facebook, it appeared to be similar to what Kaylee had battled (concentrated in the digestive tract), only his condition seemed to be far more aggressive.  It soon became evident to me that Michelaine was in a real battle for her son's life. 

It had been a very long time since I had spoken with Michelaine (more than 20 years), so I wasn't really sure how to reach out to her.  I didn't know what her religious viewpoints were or if she was even a Christian. One day I finally sent her a private message and asked her what specifically was going on with her son. I also mentioned that I had a daughter who had struggled with a similar disease most of her life.  I explained how her post had caught my attention and told her that my heart truly went out to her and her son. 

Although I knew things were bad, her reply to my message was still shocking.  She explained that her son (Mason) had been struggling with illness since he was 6 months old.  But recently, beginning in the summer of 2008 (the same summer Kaylee had been healed), the disease had become so aggressive that the doctors had no choice but to remove his large intestine.  She told me that they had almost lost him twice that past summer (he died but was brought back), and that the disease was continuing to spread rapidly.

In this reply, she also asked me what was wrong with my daughter.  Because of the sheer desperation of her situation, I decided that this might be an open door for me to share what God had done for Kaylee.  I was hoping, not only to offer her hope, but also to possibly to pave a way for us to talk more openly about God and our faith. I explained how Kaylee had battled Crohn's disease for years and told her that I would love to tell her more about our experience. I also told her that Kaylee had been miraculously healed by God.

I received no response to this message.

I honestly felt that I had blown it.  I feared that I had come across too strong, too soon.  This was a mistake I often made early on.  I have since learned that when it comes to the subject of healing, there is so much controversy, and because people have taken things too far and even faked healings in the past, most people are skeptical.  I understood this. In fact, there had been a time in my life when I would have been scared off or leery of someone talking to me this way, especially someone I did not know well.   

What I wasn't aware of at the time was that there were other factors at work in this situation as well. Satan was already scheming, and it was in the same way he was continually working against me - through gossip.  Michelaine later told me that a friend of hers (someone I knew vaguely from high school) had told her that I was a crazy ("a nut job" to be exact).  According to gossip, I had gotten off so heavily into religion that my husband (who also went to high school with us) couldn't take it anymore and had left me.  So once again, it was the deadly power of the tongue at work attempting to stop God's work.  

The on-going rejection (from every direction) was becoming a real hindrance for me. At this point (just a quick recap of my previous blogs), I had reached out to one friend, driven to Birmingham to pray for her daughter, fasted and prayed for several months for her daughter's healing, only to later be completely rejected.  In the process, I had lost a very close friend because of things she was told through her church.  I had been accused by a pastor of manipulating for Kaylee's prayer service.  A copy of The Bait of Satan book had been given to my friend, Erica, marked up with further accusations against me by a small group leader in the church. And this was just the tip of the ice-berg...  

When the pastor had warned me through the sermon following Kaylee's healing that this backfire was coming, I could never have prepared myself for something like this.  What made everything so hard to take was that the majority of the backfire was coming through the church. Needless to say, it caused me to seriously question myself.  I continued to struggle with real doubts: 

What if this was not God at all?  Was there something wrong with me? What if I WAS being used by the devil and didn't even realize it?  If I was called to this, why would this church -this wonderful church that God had used in such a big way- be against me? 

It was truly overwhelming at times! But in these weak moments, I would think back to the struggle that had surrounded Kaylee's life and healing.  The words the pastor had spoken in that same sermon would come to my mind again: "Do not let it distract you!"  

Clearly there was a spiritual battle taking place, and I made up my mind that I wasn't going to allow the enemy to win.  As long as my motives were pure, that was all that mattered.  I couldn't let my pride keep me from doing something God was calling me to do. It would be much worse to sit back and watch a child die, knowing God had called me and I hadn't responded, than to be continually rejected by man.  

Several months went by, and I continued to follow Michelaine and Mason's story from a distance.  After more than eight months, at a time when things were very serious and Mason was back in the hospital, I attempted to reach out again. This time I decided to back off from our miracle and focus more on the diet approach (the way God had first started with me).  Because Mason's disease was concentrated in his digestive tract, just as Kaylee's had been, I felt certain what had worked for her could help him as well.  In this message, I told her about Primal Defense (Homeostatic Soil Organisms/probiotics) and how much they had helped Kaylee. I told her that Kaylee and I would be glad to drive to Birmingham to talk with her about it.  I also told her that we would love to pray with her and Mason as well. 

Again, I received no response.


It was becoming clear that my life was going to be one of continual rejection (even more so than ever).  BUT if God had called me to reach out to Michelaine with our testimony, I had to believe that He would make a way. God was bigger than everything that was coming against me. I determined in my mind that I would not give up. 

"If You're calling me to this, I am going to trust You to make a way," I prayed.  If I have messed something up, please show me how to make it right. If I am wrong and this is not Your leading, please take this burning desire to reach out to them away from me!"   

It was really all I knew to do.  As much as I hated the on-going rejection, and as hard as things were, above all else, I did not want to let God down.  He had not let me down!