Monthly Archives: September 2025

A Sick Little Girl and the God Who Heals

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I will never forget the five nights we spent in the ICU with our then five-year-old daughter, Macey. She was so very sick when we took her to the hospital. She had been losing weight and just wasn’t herself. Then she started throwing up. It lasted a few days, and she was so weak. We knew something was really wrong. All we knew was we needed the God who heals.

Scary Days

As soon as we got to the hospital and got her into a room, a nurse turned to me and said, “It’s ketoacidosis. I can smell it on her breath.” That meant nothing to us in the moment, but we would come to understand all of it later. Over the next few hours, they arranged transport by ambulance to the Childrens’ Hospital of Philadelphia where she would receive the care she needed as a type 1 Diabetic. She was admitted to the ICU. There were so many doctors and nurses coming and going. They spoke of brain damage and the severity of her situation. It was completely overwhelming. Those were some dark days filled with fear, anxiety, and what-ifs.

God got us through those days, and Macey is doing well today. She wears both an insulin pump and a glucose monitor. But I have a special place in my heart for Type 1 Warriors.

(Macey is the one next to me, on the right.)

The Death of a Little Girl

When I read the story of a little girl being sick and then dying, it tugs on my mama’s heartstrings. And that’s the story we read in Luke 8.

The girl’s father, a man named Jairus, comes to Jesus and begs him to save his little girl. The little girl was twelve, and she was dying. He knew it, his wife knew it, and probably the girl herself knew it.

Jesus agrees and begins to make his way to Jairus’s home. It takes him a little bit because the woman with the issue of blood stops him, and He heals her. A messenger comes and finds Jairus and tells him, “Your daughter is dead. Don’t bother the teacher anymore.”

Just Believe

Jesus overhears the man and turns to Jairus and says these words, “Don’t be afraid. Only believe, and she will be saved.” Then they continue on to Jairus’s home. When they get there, only Jairus and his wife and Peter, James, and John are allowed inside with Jesus. Jesus takes the girl by her hand and says, “Child, get up.” The very next order is something that captures my husband’s and my attention. Jesus says, “Get her something to eat.”

Now allow me to hypothesize here for a moment. This is pure conjecture. But Matt and I often wonder if the girl in this story had diabetes. Obviously, they wouldn’t have even known back then that’s what it was. She would have just gotten thinner and thinner and sicker and sicker until she eventually slipped into a coma and then died. So when Jesus comes to her and heals her and then tells them to give her something to eat, it strikes at something inside me. The cure to helping someone whose sugars are too low is to give them something to eat.

Jesus Heals

So did she have diabetes? Maybe. Maybe not. But it certainly has made me think about what it must have been like for Jesus to heal people when he was here on earth. He knew every single disease and ailment He was healing, and yet, so many of those sicknesses weren’t even labeled yet. Can you imagine Jesus healing someone with diabetes? He heals them and can’t even tell them what it is. What would He say? “It’s a disease that they’ll discover in about fifteen hundred years, and they won’t have a cure for it for another five hundred years.”

God is our healer. His name, Jehovah Raphah, means, “the Lord Who heals.” We see this in Exodus 15:26.

He said, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his sight, obeying his commands and keeping all his decrees, then I will not make you suffer any of the diseases I sent on the Egyptians; for I am the Lord who heals you.”

Exodus 15:26 NLT

Don’t Stop Asking

It brings me such comfort to know this name of God, the God who heals. I don’t know what you need healed today, but I know the God who does the healing. It may be a physical ailment, or it may be spiritual or mental. I don’t know what it is, but God does. And He’s a God who heals. It’s in the very nature of who He is.

Whatever you need healing from today, take it to the God who heals, believing He will heal. Don’t give up on asking and believing.

And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”

Luke 11:9-13 NLT

More Encouragement

For more encouragement, check out my post, When Trials Knock Your Feet Out from Under You. A book I’m working through right now is Untangle Your Emotions: Naming What You Feel and Knowing What to Do About It.

Trusting in Troubled Times  

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Sometimes I wonder if newspapers, whether something generic like the Daily Times or specific like the New York Times, should be called the “Troubled Times.”  

We live in troubled times. Don’t we? Jesus called it “wars and rumors of wars.” He said as much in Matthew.

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places.

(Matthew 24:6-7)  

Troubling Times

Should we be afraid of the times we live in? If you look at the statistics, it doesn’t look good.  According to Chris Hedges, a writer for the New York Times, “Of the past 3,400 years, humans have been entirely at peace for 268 of them, or just 8 percent of recorded history.” For all those years of fighting and warring, estimates say 150 million up to 1 billion people have died because of war.1  

What is our hope for the threat of violence and war? Jesus.  

Winning the War with Worry 

Jesus promised the disciples in John 14 that they didn’t have to be afraid. What could the disciples have been afraid of? They had the Creator of the universe, the One who spun the clouds, splashed the seas with white-capped waves, and flecked the stars across the galaxies like a painter’s flip of the wrist with a brush and a canvas, walking with them. The One who roars with thunder and is gentle as a breeze. The One who stood with the three protestors in the fiery furnace of Nebuchadnezzar. The Bright and Morning Star and Son of God sat with them around a table. What did they have to fear?

The fear that the Romans and religious elite would break down their doors and arrest them was a very real fear. They feared the visceral sight and sound of men wailing as they were being crucified on a hillside. They feared for their lives.  

Facing Your Fear

What do you say to someone when they face their deepest fears? What would you want to hear to dispel your fears? Jesus said three words, “Believe in me.” Believe in me? What would “belief” in Jesus do to keep the Romans from arresting them for scheming and plotting against the empire?  

Jesus said to them:

Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.

John 14:1

Jesus was saying to them, “Are you afraid? I have something to offer you that will overcome and counteract those fears.” Jesus offered them a promise of an eternal home in heaven. He spent three years telling them Who He was. He spent three years letting them in on His secrets, pulling back the curtain, and revealing more of the story to them. His big reveal was this: “I’m going to go and prepare a place for you.” (John 14:2-6)

Another word for “believe” is trust or faith. Jesus was saying, “You trust God? You can trust me. You have faith in God? Have faith in me.”  

Believing in God’s Goodness

Do you believe God is good? Do you believe God can be trusted? Jesus calls us to trust him. Choose to trust Jesus today to calm your fears and quell your frights. Jesus wants to bring calm to your mind to de-stress you.   

Don’t let your heart get to the point where you lose your sense of your trust in God.

**This is an excerpt from our devotional, FearLess: Worry-Free Living in a Fear-Filled World.

More Encouragement

For more encouragement, check out my post, 3 Steps to Releasing Worry and Fear.

1. Hedges, Chris, “What Every Person Should Know about War,” July 6, 2003, The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/books/chapters/what-every-person-should-know-about-war.html.  

Pause and Reflect

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It’s been a week–a week of devastating losses, fear, trauma, and so much more. If you’ve spent any time watching the news or scrolling on social media, your heart has been impacted by the events of this week. After spending time online, we’re tempted to crawl into a hole and never come back out.

Finding Answers

What’s the answer after a week like this one? Lately, it feels like evil is winning, and good is losing. Where do we turn our focus? How do we find our equilibrium?

Just like every other crisis or hard time, we turn our focus to God. In light of everything going on, the news reports, the social media comments, the evil taking place, I invite you to pause and reflect and take a few moments to remember who God is. Only then can you find the strength and courage you need to keep going.

Verses to Reflect On

We need to actively focus on God and His goodness. We do that by focusing on His Word. These verses bring thoughts of peace, love, and the goodness of God to mind.

Isaiah

“Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you.
    I have called you by name; you are mine.
 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.
 For I am the Lord, your God,
    the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.

Isaiah 43:1-3

Don’t be afraid, for I am with you.
    Don’t be discouraged, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you.
    I will hold you up with my victorious right hand.

Isaiah 41:10

“Be still, and know that I am God! I will be honored by every nation. I will be honored throughout the world.”

The Psalms

Psalm 46:10

But the Lord watches over those who fear him, those who rely on his unfailing love.

Psalm 33:18


Your unfailing love, O Lord, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds.

Psalm 36:5

Revelation

I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

Revelation 22:13

During this hard week, carve out some time to pause and reflect and remember God’s goodness. Remember, it’s during times like these that we have to be proactive in thinking about God, or we risk getting sucked into the abyss of negativity and evil swirling all around us.

More Encouragement

For more encouragement, check out my post Can You Really Find Hope in a Crisis? Or check out Reflections on the Psalms by C. S. Lewis.

Breaking Fear’s Stranglehold on My Life

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Did you know it’s impossible to have faith and be afraid at the same time? It’s impossible to have faith and yet fear. Try it. Think of something that makes you terrified or anxious; then think of how God watches over you and protects you. You won’t be able to hang on to the fear when believing, and you won’t be able to hang on to the faith when fear takes over.

Waking Out of a Dead Sleep

Have you ever been woken out of the middle of a dead sleep with fear coursing through you? Several years ago, I had to testify in a custody court case for a woman in our church. Soon after, we were woken in the middle of the night with a car fire. When the tires blew out, the exploding sound woke us up out of a dead sleep. When we looked out the window and saw the flames shooting high into the sky, right next to the room where our three little ones slept, fear shot into me so hard and fast. Someone pounded on our front door, telling us to grab our kids and get out.

There’s nothing like running out of your house in your pajamas with little kids hanging off of you. I remember feeling the biast of the heat hit my face as soon as I stepped out. Neighbors were shouting this and that as we got away from the blazing fire. Eventually, the fire trucks got there and put out the fire. We were safe; none of us had been harmed. But the fear that entered my heart that night didn’t go away for a long time.

No Longer Feeling Safe

The home that we loved suddenly no longer felt safe. I woke up every night around three in the morning with my heart pounding in my chest. I would leave my room and go check on our sleeping children before making my way back to my room.

The aftermath of that fire affected me for a long time with sleepless nights and fear that had a stranglehold on me. It took a long time for me to get victory, but with God’s help, eventually the fear started to fade and I could sleep through the night again.

The only thing that helped during those nights when fear would wrap its icy tentacles around my heart was God’s Word. I said the same few verses over and over and over again.

Breaking Fear’s Stronghold

I have found the only way to conquer fear is God’s Word. These two verses were and still are the verses that I flood my mind with when fear takes over.

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

2 Timothy 1:7 KJV

But when I am afraid,
    I will put my trust in you.

Psalm 56:3 NLT

When I say these verses either out loud or in my mind, my faith begins to beat back the fear. Fear can not keep its stranglehold on us when faith beats it back.

I encourage you to memorize these verses and add them to your arsenal. The next time fear tries to control you, say these verses out loud or in your mind. The fear gripping your heart will begin to ease, and faith will beat it back. Peace will flood your heart and soul. Faith wins over fear every single time.

The Storm

We see this in the story in the New Testament. The disciples get caught in a storm and think they are going to die. It must have been quite the storm to scare seasoned fishermen. They wake up Jesus, who was asleep in the boat with them, and ask Him to save them. Before Jesus calms the storm, He has these words to say to them.

Jesus responded, “Why are you afraid? You have so little faith!” Then he got up and rebuked the wind and waves, and suddenly there was a great calm.

Matthew 8:26 NLT

Jesus was showing us that it is impossible to have both fear and faith in control at the same time; only one will win. Let’s let faith be the winner. Let your faith grow strong, and your fear will take a backseat.

More Encouragement

For more encouragement, check out my post, 3 Steps to Releasing Worry and Fear. If you want to know more of my story, check out my book, The Hidden Pain: When You Fear God is No Longer Blessing Your Life.