The Healing He’s Promised

Dannah Gresh: If you’re suffering, in need of a touch from the Lord, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth reminds you of this important truth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Look at Jesus going to the cross and laying down His life, willing to endure physical agony, pain, and ultimately death, but for a greater, higher purpose. He knew that through laying down His life, God would be glorified and God's redemptive purposes would be fulfilled in this world. So He said, "Yes, Father."

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Holiness: The Heart God Purifies, for August 8, 2025. I’m Dannah Gresh.

So many women hearing my voice right now have some physical need. Maybe you’ve been praying for healing for months or even years, yet right now you’re in a season of continuing to suffer with that pain.

This week, Nancy’s been telling us the story in that kind of a situation from Mark 5. A woman was bleeding for twelve years and reached out to touch the robe of Jesus. If you missed any of that teaching, you can hear it by visiting ReviveOurHearts.com.

Later in the program we’ll hear from three women who know all too well what physical suffering is like. They’re going to share out of their firsthand, painful experiences.

But first, Nancy is back with final thoughts from Mark 5.

Nancy: When it comes to matters of physical illness, and sometimes, even for godly people, there can be prolonged physical illness. I have a dear friend who went to be with the Lord not long ago as a forty-two-year-old mother of four. She lost her life to Lou Gehrig's disease—a godly woman. God did not choose to heal her of that affliction, though there were many, many people who prayed, believing that God could and asking God to heal her. I'm sure that my friend, Janeice, did through that process of those months search her heart and ask God to show her, especially before she knew this was terminal, "Lord, is there something You're trying to say to me."

Physical illness is something that God can use in our lives, but it's something the enemy can also use. That's where we need to strike that balance. I believe it's always wise when there's a circumstance pressing in on my life—physical, financial, relational—to start by saying, "Lord, You've got my attention. Is there anything You're wanting to say to me, is there something You're wanting to show me that I've been blind to?" It is unfortunately true that we often don't cry out to the Lord and really open our hearts to Him until we're in a period of affliction. God does use affliction as, I think it was C. S. Lewis who said, a megaphone. He speaks to us in our pain, in ways that we might not hear in times of wellness.

I believe it's right to start by saying, "Lord, is there an issue in my life of sin, of disobedience, of unbelief? Sin does create physical consequences in our lives. There are some physical issues—gastrointestinal disorders sometimes, some heart conditions, some stroke conditions—all of these things sometimes can be caused by unresolved bitterness, unresolved guilt, relationships that are not right because our bodies were not intended to bear up under the pressure of unconfessed sin.

It's appropriate to say, "Lord, is there something You're trying to show me about my life or about Your ways? Now You've got my attention. I'm listening; I'm willing to hear." That's where James 5 says that if there is a physical affliction, we should at points and at times call for the elders; and with the process of confessing of sin in that context, pray for healing. Where it is sin that has caused the physical affliction, we can believe God for healing and release from that as we confess the sin.

There are other times when sickness—though all sickness and disease and death ultimately go back to sin—there may be sickness in your life or in mine that is not directly connected to our sin. We're all sinners, but it may not be directly connected. We're too quick to try and connect the dots between the afflictions we experience and what may have been the spiritual causes. We're particularly prone to do that for other people. It's easier for us to connect the dots in someone else's life, maybe, than in our own.

I do believe there are times when our sickness, our physical affliction—and you could put in this category other types of material loss or affliction—when it is just the result of living in a fallen world. Jesus did not promise that we would be spared from that. In fact, He said we would have to endure it. But He did promise that He would give us grace to walk through it and to endure it and to see God glorified through it.

We heard the testimony a little bit ago of a woman who said that through extended periods of physical illness and affliction in her life, she had come to know God in a way that she might not have ever seen Him before. She said, "Now I look back on that time as a blessing." Most of us in the midst of that time wouldn't think of it as a blessing.

The temptation I think the enemy can bring about in our lives is to put on us guilt that is not from the Lord. We've searched our hearts. We've said, "Lord, I'm open for You to show me any issue I need to deal with." If our heart is clear and doesn't convict us, doesn't condemn us, then go in peace and believe God for His grace to live with that affliction. But the enemy can come in sometimes and keep hitting us and saying, "There must be something wrong"—especially if you have friends like Job's who are prone to say, "Look, the only reason people get sick is because they sin."

God's Word doesn't teach that. In fact, in John 9 a man who was blind from birth was brought to Jesus. It was assumed in that day that if you were sick or diseased, it must be because you had sinned. It was said to Jesus, "Who sinned, this man or his parents? Whose sin is this that caused this man's blindness?" Jesus said, "They're all sinners [as we all are], but that's not how this man got to be blind. His blindness is so that the glory of God and the power of God may be seen in his life, so that God can receive glory."

In that case God received glory by the blind man being healed, but I've seen other instances where God received great glory because someone (was) willing to endure prolonged suffering and physical illness and still to give thanks in the midst of it. I watched and listened during the period of time surrounding my friend who died of ALS. I saw that young mother, that young woman, deal with fear. I saw her run head on into it. Not that she was a naturally courageous person. She was actually kind of a timid, fearful person. But she said, "I'm not going to let this fear overpower my life," even when she knew that her disease was terminal.

She glorified God in her death as much she had, and maybe more in some ways, as she had in her life. Her life brought glory to God, but the way she died--praying, praising. I can still remember being in her home with her and her husband, praying and singing together Like a river glorious is God's perfect peace very close to the time that she went to the hospital for the final time.

I can still hear her saying that evening as she could hardly breathe, she had lost most of her lung capacity and was in a recliner and was incapacitated in terms of the use of her hands or her legs . . . I can still hear her saying, "God has been so good to us. God has been so good to us." There was a power and a fruit and a fragrance and a beauty that came out of sickness, out of even death, that brought glory to God.

I don't mean to make death beautiful in and of itself. Death was not God's plan; it was not His idea originally. It's the consequence of choices that we made. Death is ugly. Death is evil and wicked. It's the tool of the destroyer. But in Christ, death and sickness no longer have their sting. They can't control us. They can't rule our lives. They cannot ruin our lives if we're in Christ because He has been victorious over Satan.

In the midst of physical affliction, we can say, "Lord, I ask for healing, pray for it." He tells us that we ought to ask for the requests of our heart; but we say as Jesus did, "What I really want more than my will is for Your will to be done." Talk about loss of life! Look at Jesus going to the cross and laying down His life, willing to endure physical agony, pain, and ultimately death, but for a greater, higher purpose. He knew that through laying down His life, God would be glorified and God's redemptive purposes would be fulfilled in this world. So He said, "Yes, Father. I accept this."

And death couldn't keep Him down! Beyond the cross, beyond the death, beyond the pain, beyond the loss, there is resurrection. There is new life. Remember, this is not the final chapter. This sickness will not be forever. It may be for a lifetime, but it will not be forever. There will be freedom from every ache, every pain, every tear, every sorrow. It will be all wiped away in that great eternal day. That's what we need to keep our eyes on.

Dannah: Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth has been reminding you of the hope of eternity.

Here on Revive Our Hearts we’ve heard from three very special women who set their hearts on eternity in the middle of physical suffering.

Rachael Barkey battled breast cancer for four-and-a-half years, then she was diagnosed with another terminal cancer. She delivered the message we’re about to hear a couple months before going home to be with the Lord.

Colleen Chao has been on a seven-year cancer journey. She keeps asking the Lord to give her more time to serve Him and to love her family.

And Joni Eareckson Tada was injured in a diving accident as a teenager. She’s lived with quadriplegia since 1967.

All three of these women have been on Revive Our Hearts before. You can hear their full stories in our archives at ReviveOurHearts.com. But as we wrap up this study of Mark 5, we wanted to hear from each of them. They all have suffered greatly in this life, and they all point us to the hope of eternity. Let’s listen now to Colleen Chao, Rachael Barkey and Joni Eareckson Tada.

Joni Eareckson Tada: My sister and I decided that we’d spend a sisterly day together at the beach. The water was shallow. I took a dive off a raft, and I crushed my fourth cervical vertebrae and severed my spinal cord.

Rachel Barkey: I was diagnosed with breast cancer nearly five years ago. Quinn, our son, was just two years old, and Kate, our daughter, was only seven months.

Colleen Chao: So with the second diagnosis I came home, my parents had been watching Jeremy, had Jeremy over. So I told him what the doctors had said, that it’s stage four, and I gave him the timeline.

Rachel: Barring a miracle, it is likely that I will not be here in six to eighteen weeks.

Joni: Doctors said, “You’re never going to use your hands again or your feet. You’ll never be able to walk or run.”

Colleen: He said, "Mom, why would God let you have cancer a second time? I don't want you to die. Are you going to die?" He had already been processing.

Joni: I just plummeted into depression. I said, “Just close the door, turn out the lights, pull the drapes, and leave me alone.”

Rachel: The other day Kate asked me to pick her up. “Mommy, will you pick me up, please?”

Colleen: He walked out of the room, and I heard him weeping.

Rachel: I couldn't pick her up. I had to tell her so because if I do, the bones in my back, which are riddled with cancer, are so weak that they will collapse onto my spinal cord.

Joni: I just could not understand why a loving God would allow something like this to happen to one of His children.

Rachel: I understandably got frustrated and angry. I rail against the fact that I can’t do what I want to do.

Colleen: Part of the heaviest grieving has come over my husband and son and what lies ahead for them, because I know my suffering will come to an end, but theirs will continue. 

Joni: I cannot tell you how many times at night I would picture myself there at the pool of Bethesda on a blanket, perhaps lying next to the man with paralysis on his straw mat. And I would wait alongside him, waiting for Jesus to walk in through those covered colonnades. And I would see Him, and I would in my mind’s eye cry out, “Oh Jesus, Jesus don’t pass me by! Here I am! Heal me!”

Colleen: To just think I’m going to stop at some point, and he’s going to continue without that mom’s influence, it’s wrecked me like almost nothing else. I’ve never felt pain quite like this.

Joni: But as many times as I pictured myself there at the pool of Bethesda, and as often as I asked Jesus to heal me, I never got up. I never walked.

Rachel: My frustration and anger are normal. They are even right—some would say. But at their root, they are unbelief. They are my sinful heart saying, “I don’t believe that this is the right thing for me, God. 

Joni: And for at least two weeks I laid in that darkened bedroom and just steeped in remorse and regret and self-pity, and said, “I can’t believe this is happening. God, where are You?”

Rachel: That is what my heart naturally says, and what yours does, too, when faced with circumstances we don’t like.

Joni: I think that is when I began to experience the import of intercessions from others.

Colleen: My heart hurts, and I have to trust God in a new way with the dearest people in my life. 

Rachel: God is good. He is in control, and He is fair. 

Joni: I began to feel a pressure on my heart that, “Joni, you don’t want to live like this. You don’t want to live in self-pity. Get yourself out of the corner and look to the Word of God. Find hope, because it’s there for you if you would but believe and take that first step of faith.”

Colleen: He’s not going to squander what He’s called me to give up.  It’s like Abraham with Isaac.

Joni: I prayed, “If I can’t die, then show me how to live.”

Colleen: This will be a picture for Jeremy that he needs of Jesus’s life manifest out of death, that out of what seems to be a waste or cut short or premature.

Rachel: In the midst of my sadness, there is a deep and abiding peace and hope. People were defining me by my cancer. I was a cancer survivor, but cancer does not define me. What defines me is my relationship with Jesus.

Joni: That’s when it hit me. It’s not that Jesus did not care about all those sick and disabled people at the bottom of the hill. It’s just their physical problems were not His main focus. The gospel is.

Colleen: God’s created me to suffer and to enter into the fellowship of His sufferings. That’s why I’m here. It’s not to have a comfortable life.

Rachel: If my suffering is the means that God would use to bring even one person to Himself, it is an honor for me to suffer.

Colleen: To be in Christ’s presence is joy, and Christ’s presence is often, for me, mostly keenly felt in suffering. 

Rachel: Does that seem strange? I suppose it does, but really, it is the only way that all of this makes any sense at all. 

Joni: When we leave sin behind and our hearts start beating in rhythm with Jesus, well . . . you just can’t help but sense the favor and the joy and the approval from God Almighty, Himself.

Rachel: A God who sees my suffering but is unable, or worse, unwilling to spare me? My God is able to save me, and He will; but save me from what? From a life without Him.

Colleen: There is a unique joy and purpose and mission when I am walking closely with Him in suffering. I think through suffering, the joy has increased instead of decreasing or fading. 

Joni: When we obey God, when we become holy as He is holy, it’s like He opens up the floodgates of heaven and joy comes cascading down, spilling up and splashing out of our hearts and rushing out to others in streams of encouragement, and then rising back up to God in an effervescent fountain of praise.

Rachel: Many have asked why. Why is this happening to you, to Neil, to Quinn and Kate, to your family and friends?

Colleen: It forces me into Christ. It doesn’t give me an option. It’s, “Where else can I go, Lord? You have the words of life.”

Rachel: I don't ask why because I know the answer, and here it is. We live in a sinful world. Bad things happen, but it was not supposed to be this way, and it will not always be this way. God has a plan.

Colleen: Those words of life are alive when life is hard, and I don’t feel them as keenly when life is good and easy.

Rachel: He has made a way for sinful people, you and me, to be with Him in a perfect world. The way is Jesus.

Colleen: The gospel is the hope of entering into Jesus’ presence without shame, without fear.

Rachel: Acknowledge that you have sinned and that you have a serious problem before you in light of a God who is perfect and just. Recognize that there is nothing you can do to save yourself. Trust that Jesus, who died to pay the penalty for your sin, has risen from the dead and given you His righteousness.

Colleen: I have been forgiven, and I’m accepted and loved. He took our sin and did away with it and doesn’t see us through it. 

Joni: Suffering is like a little splash-over of hell waking us up out of our spiritual slumber, getting us thinking about what Christ rescued us from ultimately.

Colleen: Eternity’s been wired into me, just the thoughts and longings, I think over the last ten or fifteen years.

Joni: What do you think a splash-over of heaven is? Is it those easy, breezy, bright days when there is no pain, where everything is going well, where everything is comfortable and cozy? No. A splash-over of heaven is finding Jesus in your splash-over of hell.

Rachel: He will bring me to a perfect world where He is.

Colleen: Honestly, if it weren’t for my husband and son, I would love to go today. I wouldn’t even do chemo. I’d go. I can’t wait.

Rachel: Heaven is where life is full of wonder, adventure, and joy, everything good, for all eternity. 

Joni: Don’t be thinking that a new body is what I am looking forward to most in heaven: jumping up, dancing, kicking, and doing aerobics. Oh, that’ll be wonderful; it would be a great fringe benefit of being invited to Christ’s coronation party.

Rachel: My God is able to save me, and He will. This suffering is temporary, and the life I will live in eternity will make all this seem light and momentary.

Joni: I want a new heart; I want a glorified heart that no longer twists the truth or resists God, or looks for an escape, or gets defeated by pain, or becomes anxious or worrisome about the future—no longer trying to justify itself.

Colleen: I hope they know and remember how much I loved Jesus, and how good Jesus has been to me. I hope they remember my joy, that I laughed. I’ve thought a lot about that. The reality of wasting away in front of my son is . . . that’s hard. I’ve asked God, “Would You let me be living out of the heart You’ve given me to the very end?” That I’d be able to laugh and be a little sassy and crack a joke and be joyful to the very end. I hope they remember my cackling laughter.

Dannah: That’s Colleen Chao. She’s the author of In the Hands of a Fiercely Tender God, a book that will give you valuable insight into suffering. And this fall she’ll release a book about looking forward to heaven. We also heard from Rachael Barkey, who went home to be with the Lord after four and a half years of living with cancer. And we heard from Joni Eareckson Tada, founder and CEO of Joni and Friends. She’s lived with quadriplegia since 1967. You can hear more from all these women by visiting ReviveOurHearts.com. Just look for links in the transcript.

The three women we just heard have done an extraordinary job of using their difficult stories to encourage others and build God’s kingdom. Do you know that you could do the same thing in your own pain?

We want to help you stay close to the Lord in the middle of your struggles so you can then pass on comfort to others. To help you do that, we’d like to send you A Small Book for the Hurting Heart by Pastor Paul Tautges. This resource contains fifty brief readings to help those who are grieving find encouragement and healing. When you make a donation of any amount, we’ll send you a copy to say thank you. Just visit ReviveOurHearts.com to give, or call us at 1-800-569-5959, and be sure to ask for your book when you do! 

And then join us next week as I talk with Pastor Paul Tautges. He offers tender counsel for the fearful and grieving based on his personal experience.

Have a wonderful weekend, and please be back Monday for Revive Our Hearts.

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