The Ultimate Healing: Believing with Your Heart

By: Elizabeth Barnes
Co-Founder/Executive Director

Throughout my life, I have discovered many times that my thoughts or feelings about situations that I may have perceived one way have often been changed by my perspective of what is happening by a scripture, someone’s advice, or by prayer.

Often, this change of perspective can open my thoughts and eyes to a clearer viewpoint. One such experience was in the case of our daughter, who is our heart, being diagnosed with an aggressive cancer in 2009! She was diagnosed with this uninvited and unexpected disease at the young age of 32 years old.

What we did not know at this time was how her journey would impact the future of our family’s life. So, with all of our hearts, we faced this journey together with faith and courage while we still asked of God “what are we to do now?” He showed us that same year that He was extending to us the privilege of sharing what we discovered… how we might bring hope to someone else’s life during during their own cancer journey.

Hope Abounds Cancer Network began in 2009 and continues to offer supportive assistance and services for others that have received a cancer diagnosis—men, women, children and families as it regards their day to day lives.

A decade ago, when Kelly was diagnosed with cancer, the very name of this disease could bring you to your knees and cause your mind to swirl with fear and anxiety. As this happened to us, we immediately began to pray and stay the course of our faith of believing for a miracle in our daughter’s life. Of course, our prayer, like many others, was for “healing.”

The word healing is associated many times with complete wellness of mind of physical ailments. You may ask….why pray? Pray to whom and ask for what? I would like to share some answers that I felt in my heart recently that I desire to share with you.

Yesterday I was reading my daily devotional from Max Lucado entitled Ultimate Healing. I was overwhelmingly immersed with the desire to share it with those who may have questions about their own healing as they have just been diagnosed or enduring active cancer treatment. I feel that this author’s philosophy about God’s Word and how he perceives healing is inspiring. Even if I tried, I could not have said it better or more clearly than these words that I would like to share with you….

If you are sick, cry out to Jesus!
He will heal you ——instantly, gradually or ultimately.

He may heal you instantly. One word was enough for him to banish demons, heal epilepsy and raise the dead. He may do this for you or He may heal you gradually. In the case of a blind man from Bethsaida, Jesus healed him in stages (Mark 8:22-26).

And don’t forget the story of Lazarus. By the time Jesus reached the cemetery, Lazarus had been in the tomb four days. But Jesus called him out. Did Jesus heal Lazarus? Yes, dramatically but not immediately. (John 11:1-44).

Our highest hope, however, is in our ultimate healing. In Heaven God will restore our bodies to their intended splendor. “We know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him” (1 John 3:2).

God will turn your tomb into a womb out of which you will be born with a perfect body into a perfect world. In the meantime, keep praying. “Father, you are good. I need your help. Heal me!

Today, I am proud to say that our daughter continues to amaze us with her great faith and overwhelming hope for a new day with her own family. She is an amazing wife and mother to the family she was given. She still faces circumstances that stem from her treatment eleven years ago, but she does so knowing she experiences her healing day to day. We are to live in the moments of each day and to be grateful for the blessings that we relish in our hearts as we lay our heads down to rest at night.

My hope is that our family experience and this devotional passage will touch your heart as it did mine and your prospective of healing will become a new awareness of Hope for you!

Excerpt from Max Lucado; “God is With You Every Day: A 365-Day Devotional” ‎ Thomas Nelson Publisher (December 21, 2015).