Hey there, Kingdom Warrior!
Back in May, I got to interview Carrie Farrell about injury in athletes. Well she happened to know this incredible gal named Jessie, and that’s how I became acquainted with our guest today. I love this story because while most of you reading this or listening to our podcast probably have not been healed of your physical pain or limitation (and we talk a lot about God’s grace in that), I think it is important to hear stories of healing. They keep our hope up, and they show a different facet of God’s kindness in our lives. It’s these little glimpses of heaven breaking in to our world that help us glorify God and rejoice with those who rejoice.
But flash back to when Jessie was an ER nurse, 38 weeks pregnant, and started slurring her words to a coworker, and she didn’t know if she was going to be the one mourning or rejoicing. Thankfully, since she worked at a hospital, Jessie was able to get immediate care. She had an emergency C section and then underwent testing that showed a stage 4 cancerous brain tumor had grown inside her. Her particular carcinoma had a 3-5% three-year survival rate, a 2% five-year survival rate, and a 0.71 % ten-year survival rate.
There's not a lot of hope in a diagnosis like that, and yet Jessie says that hope was rampant. From doctors specializing in brain tumors being located locally to how her church family stepped up and helped them to strangers who donated breast milk for her infant (she had to give up her desire to breastfeed because of her chemotherapy), God showed Jessie that He had hope for her, whether she lived a few more months or many more years.
Now, she’s been cancer-free for over five years. But it hasn’t been easy. Jessie follows a strict KETO diet to keep her cancer from recurring, and the fear of that recurrence never really leaves her. In addition, she doesn’t really know how to relate to support groups of those with brain tumors, because she’s the miracle survivor for a carcinoma that is typically a death sentence. In our conversation today, we talk about survivor’s guilt and what it looks like for Jessie to receive her healing with a grateful heart.
I don’t think we’ve had an episode similar to this one yet on the podcast, and that’s saying a lot when there are over 100 episodes now! This one is worth the listen, friends. Whether your journey includes medicinal healing like Jessie’s or whether it includes God’s sustaining grace when there is not healing, I believe there is something for everyone to learn and take with them in this episode. Enjoy my conversation with Jessie Pick on the Heal Podcast!
And PS If you like Starbucks mugs or talking about growing herbs, this episode is for you.
Listen to learn more about:
· How to process survivor’s guilt and accept healing when you are healed.
· Finding the tension between making good health choices in wisdom and letting the fear of recurrence dictate your behavior.
· The hope of God and His kindness, even when your circumstances don’t seem to have any hope.
Listen now:
Click here to listen on iTunes.
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Click here to listen on Amazon Music.
Favorite Quotes from the episode:
· “God kind of opened this door and said, ‘Are you going to trust me with what I have for you here, whether it’s recovery or if it’s illness, if it’s long life or if it’s short life – are you ready to trust my plan, not the plan you have for yourself?’ And it was a lot of letting go and giving up and fear. Fear to not watch my girls grow up, and not knowing what they have ahead of them and how to prepare them. I mean, I was pregnant with my second daughter when I got diagnosed and I didn’t know if I was going to see her first birthday.”
· “It’s hard to accept the gift of true healing – being actually healed versus being healed temporarily for the next something that comes. Because statistically, the world is telling me that this is going to come back. And I don’t know – I don’t know it if it will, I don’t know if that’s what God has for me, and I want to be okay with that decision if that’s what happens, but yeah – it’s hard to keep going [in faith and in healing].”
Links from our conversation:
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For freedom,
Tera
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