Spiritual Healing
"TRIGGER WARNING: CHURCH/SPIRITUAL ABUSE, SICK BABY IN UTERO & MY MIRACLE
I remember well the day - May 27, 2018 - just over four years ago - carrying great fear for the future, deep hurt from the past, and a precious child who had been inside my womb for almost 40 weeks. We were walking into church about ten days before Sawyer’s birth, and I remember that my heart was filled with worry. You see, Sawyer had been experiencing convulsions and spasms in my womb since around 30 weeks of pregnancy. I felt them every day, had been to a specialist who couldn't explain them, and one such spasm had even been captured on ultrasound. I worried that my precious boy would have huge obstacles in life on the outside, and I dreaded his birth for this very reason. Not only was I walking into church with a worried heart, but I was walking into church with a wounded spirit. I was at church out of obedience and submission to Christ, but certainly not out of delight or joy to be there. In fact, I felt dread. You see, a couple years prior to this, my husband and I had been serving on the staff of a church that caused great hurt to us. We had been working as youth pastors under a pastoral leadership that was full of spiritual abuse and neglect of accountability. In our immaturity, we stayed at that church far longer than we should have, and by the time we left, our hearts were full of hurt, anger, and distrust towards God’s church. Our marriage was almost destroyed by the unscriptural counsel of a pastor. Our hearts were wounded by years of manipulation and a patriarchal and politically twisted gospel. As we left that church I remember telling God that I loved him, but that I couldn’t stand his people. It was one of the most honest moments that I’d ever had with the Lord in my young faith, and the beginning of a deconstruction of my faith (as I’d known it up until that point). As we left Missouri and moved to Florida, Randall and I were convicted to take our family back to church, but it was such an internal fight to get our family there. Instead of having joy and being excited to go to church each week, I would feel nervous, nauseated, and would almost convince myself to NOT go. ( Am I the only person to get to that point where church felt like a heavy job instead of a joy?) God in His wisdom and kindness placed us in a sweet little church plant in East Orlando. City Awakening. We attended there because that’s where my Florida family went and our hearts were too overwhelmed to start the church hunt in earnest. Our little family was welcomed with gracious and warm arms into this fellowship, but I would have rather been almost anywhere else than church. I struggled for months. I still pursued God on my own, but my church-hurt had turned to heart-rebellion and I didn’t want any part of church. I put down the church verbally any chance I got. I used every opportunity to point out the flaws in the body of Christ. I wasn’t a faithful member. I didn’t serve in the church or form any deep connections. I was a “consumer” or bystander because I had nothing left to give this church after having poured out everything in the season before.I was jaded and disillusioned. BUT, God knew. And God loved us. God had prepared a body of servants and “heart-menders” to pour life and hope into my family. This church served us in every way that they could find. They loved us as deeply as we would allow. They asked for nothing in return except… that we would allow them to love us again. During this time, God started to reconstruct my faith in Him and also in His people. I still carried great distrust and hurt. I remember one week, Louis (the preaching pastor) was sharing his own testimony of church hurt. He shared how he had been wounded deeply by Christians and spent much time railing against the body of Christ and pointing out its failures, first as an atheist and also as a new believer. This caught my attention. To hear the pastor honestly admit that he, too, had also been hurt deeply and become jaded. He shared that God had asked him to stop speaking ill of the church and instead work to beautify the church. At that moment, when I heard those words, God also asked me to stop tearing down his church. He convicted me of my heart-hardness, and took the weight of it from me. He asked me to work to beautify the church, and I in turn, asked God to allow me to see the beauty of His people. Don’t miss that: I asked God to allow me to see the beauty of His people. Soon after, I became pregnant with our third child. Little did I know that God would use the growing child within me as the means to heal my heart and show me the beauty of His people. We continued attending City Awakening and God continued growing the little one inside my womb. Month after month, the church served us faithfully. Month after month, they loved us although we gave nothing in return. We became closer and started to build trust within the church, and watched with amazement as the church functioned with accountability and integrity in the staff and membership alike.
(Having 3 pastors is a great way to promote accountability and humility in the staff.) God used these precious people to reconstruct our faith on God’s word and sound Biblical doctrine. The people of City Awakening were known to me by their love for us, each other, and for the Lord - and I would need their love in the season that followed. As I neared my 30th week of pregnancy with Sawyer, I started to feel a shaking inside my womb every day. I especially felt it when I laid down each night - my abdomen would tremble and pulse. My midwives suggested that it was a tired placenta, but my heart knew it was the baby. Something was wrong. Finally, it was confirmed during an ultrasound when the radiologist told me that she’d never seen anything like that in her 14 years of work. (Not what any mom wants to hear!) Dread and fear filled my heart as I faced so many unknowns. Would my baby even be able to breathe once he was delivered? Would he ever make it out of NICU? What would our lives look like with a sick baby and two active toddlers? Although I didn’t share my concerns with many people (because I was too weak to even speak our troubles aloud without sobbing) there were a couple of prayer warriors in the church who agreed to pray for our unborn child. And they did faithfully. And yet no change came to my baby. And my doubts grew each day. Finally, on May 27th I went to church - just a few days before my due date. I waddled into the building, and some of the men and women asked if they could put their hands on me and pray for the baby after the service. I obliged them because I knew that it was biblical, but my heart said “yeah right, what good will it do?” As those precious gentle servants surrounded me, I remember feeling loved and supported. I was certain that the prayers would be of no use, but thankful for their care and kindness. Yet, God in His wisdom and great kindness had other ideas! I remember several people praying over me. Louis asked specifically that God would bring together any connections within the baby that hadn’t formed yet. I felt the weight of all those hands on my shoulders and remembered thinking it was heavy. There were no sparks, or electricity, or weird feelings or loud voices. Just God’s people being beautiful to me and my baby - and asking for His help. On the way home I thought to myself “Yep, I was right. Nothing happened”. I was wrong. That night when I laid down, for the first time in ten weeks, there were no spasms. No convulsions. No violent shaking.Only peace in my womb. And in the days that followed, it was like I was holding my breath each day, just waiting for the spasms to start again. And they never did. On June 7, 2018, I delivered a healthy, strong-breathing, black-haired, wild little baby boy. Sawyer Jackson, meaning “the creator God has done great things”. I watched him each day, waiting for a missed breath or the twitch of a spasm. And there never was. Not once. This week, my precious boy turns four years old, and he has been strong and healthy for all his days. It was many months after Sawyer’s birth, when I finally realized (or allowed myself to believe) that God had healed him! And I heard the Lord remind me that He had indeed SHOWN ME THE BEAUTY OF HIS PEOPLE! The ultimate act of healing happened in my heart when God used His church to heal my son! How beautiful is that?! We finally were ready to go deeper with our church, and I can honestly say that I absolutely LOVE the people at City Awakening and think the WORLD of them! When it came time for my family to move to the St. Pete area in early 2021, I remember crying about leaving City Awakening and my precious church family- and then I felt happy that I was actually crying because it showed how much work God had done in my life! I was heartbroken to leave my church, and I was so comforted by the fact that I had loved and been loved so deeply! Little did I know over four years ago, that the story of my deep spiritual hurt and the story of my carrying a sick child would intertwine into one of the most glorious and miraculous stories that I’ve ever known. If you have experienced church hurt or spiritual abuse, my heart goes out to you. I see you. I know the pain. But now please know that there is still hope and beauty in the body of Christ, and His kingdom is moving onward! The Lord is near to the brokenhearted. His church is ALIVE and on fire!God wishes to actively heal the hurt and beautify His church! Ask Him to show you the beauty of His people AND HE WILL!