I had to get the focus off myself and out of my vision. Standing in faith sometimes takes deliberate measures. The thing I had to do was not see myself as I currently was, but what I would become. I had to change my response to Sundays. I had to watch at home on the live stream. I always feel better when I look better. I seriously needed to see my new self to come. I put my makeup on and dressed up like I was going to church. I wasn’t in my frumpy sweats or wearing my baseball cap to cover my bald head.
I had to put a guard on my heart. I determined that I would not fall into the dark emotions, not focus on what I was missing out on, but focus on my own personal time and presence with the Lord. I created within myself an emotional atmosphere of faith and the confident expectation of God’s supernatural presence.
I determined wherever I went to be a leader, minister, and woman of God. I am always very deliberate about bringing a joyful, excited, and uplifted spirit into our church services. Rather than dragging through the house tired, discouraged, and downcast, I purposely straightened myself up and acted as if I was already on the other side of my miracle healing.
Through it all, I made up my mind to lift my head and smile. John 16:20 says, “Your sorrow will be turned into joy.” Larry and I live this way and have taught it for years. Acts 13:52 says that the Lord’s disciples were filled with joy and the Holy Spirit. Larry and I had developed the habit of joy in the past, and I was bound and determined to do it even under these circumstances. The Lord is the lifter of my head, but I’ve learned not to sit around and wait for God to lift my head. I’m going to prime the pump and speed up the process by lifting my own head and heart in faith to Him and allow Him to pour in the real substance of healing and joy. Philippians 4:4 tells us, “Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice.”
I call this the choice to rejoice. Simply put, no matter what is going on, choose to focus on whatever is true, good, praiseworthy, and of a good report. When we deliberately do this, the peace of God, which transcends all negative circumstances, will fill our hearts, minds, and souls. This scripture is one of my favorites and a go-to for my life. No matter what is going on around me or within me, I have the power to rise above it by the choice to rejoice. It will make a dynamic change in your life.
I symbolically put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. In the natural realm, I was feeling tired, weary, and heavy-laden. I deliberately “put on” praise, worship, thankfulness, joy, and declarations of magnifying God. By faith, I was entering into a divine exchange of my weakness for His strength, my sickness for His healing, my sadness for His joy, and my limitations for His unlimited miracles by the moment.
No matter what happened, I magnified the Lord in my praise, my faith declarations, and my mind’s perspective. Psalm 69:30 says, “I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify Him with thanksgiving.” In the natural realm, when you look through a magnifying glass at something, what happens? What you look at becomes larger, focused, clearer, and dominant. Right? Our choices to praise and magnify God become the conduit that connects us to God Himself and His supernatural help. There’s a powerful business axiom that says, “What we focus on determines what we see. It also determines what we miss.” We have the opportunity to either magnify God and His promises or magnify our challenges. Let’s make a habit of focusing on and magnifying God, His promises, and His power!
My heart, especially through this time, was to receive revelation from the Lord during Larry’s messages—just as I normally do in church. Listen, when I come to church, I am coming to hear, learn, and receive a touch from God. My Bible is packed full of my handwritten notes, revelations, declarations, testimonies, and miracles that God has done for us. It is not just words on pages. It is the living Word of God that comes out of those pages and into the reality of our lives. My focus on Sundays in my kitchen at home was the same as it is in my seat on the front row at church. I was ready, expectant, and determined to hear from God and be transformed in His presence.
As I watched the lives stream, Isaiah 61:1–3 came out of the pages of my Bible and into the reality of my life. The scripture I had declared and prayed for others thousands of times manifested into my personal being that day and ever since. Jesus stood in the synagogue, read this scripture from the Torah scroll, and declared that the Spirit and anointing of God was upon Him and that the scripture was fulfilled in their hearing. Read this passage with me now, from the perspective of my teaching and experiences and about your own life and needs. Read it slowly and let it sink in deeply. Take ownership of this promise, insert your name in place of “they” and “those,” and let the Holy Spirit touch you and speak to you personally.
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, and provide for those who grieve in Zion—to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.
Isaiah 61:1–3 (NIV)
Just now, writing this and reading it out loud myself, I am rushing with the anointing of the Holy Spirit! Those goosebumps, or “Holy Ghost bumps,” are real. I pray you are feeling this too and experiencing the reality of the presence and power of the Lord!
Truly, God showered me with another layer of miracles by the moment that day and in the days and months to follow. To reduce my story to one giant miracle healing would be an understatement and an injustice to all the continual miracles that God did. Big or small, God covered them all!
There have been thousands of tangible, progressive healings, not just of my body but of my heart and soul. The reason for the title of this book, Miracles by the Moment, is because that phrase became our motto during these journeys. One giant miracle the day after our diagnosis would have been very dynamic and greatly welcomed. The saying “one and done” could have been the name of this book. And it could have been a thirty-page booklet rather than a long, extensive manuscript!
However, as it unfolded and turned out, miracles by the moment are how we got through, overcame, and survived cancer and leukemia. We will share as we go some of the miracles that stand out in addition to the obvious big ones of Lion and me being completely healed and cancer-free. May our stories of God’s miracles by the moment encourage and bring hope to you for the journey and healing of your own heart, soul, mind, and body.
My prayer for you is that God will shine as bright in your experiences as He has for me and my family in ours. Trust Him, press into His presence, magnify Him, take Him at His Word, and let God be God!
