ROOTED RENEGADE

I want to bend your ear for a little bit and talk about my testimony with the healing power of Jesus that I have experienced after a long intense four year battle with adrenal dysregulation / dysfunction. The battle started when I was two years old and was being emotionally and physically abused by my biological parents. I was also suffering the stress of their relational dynamics which included drug and alcohol addiction and physical violence. I was was not diagnosed properly as a child, however my grandmother and aunt (who later became my adopted mom), were told by a doctor at the hospital that if I was not removed from the home I would die due to the affects of stress on my body. It would be another two years before I was removed from the home.

Fast forward thirty five years and my body experiences a similar amount of stress due to unresolved trauma from my own lived experiences with trafficking, domestic violence, addiction, and more. I had been out a couple of years and was working in direct services while on my own healing journey and body snapped. The amount of stress I was under caused it to replicate the same thing that happened to me as a child. I couldn’t eat anything without getting sick and I went from a size nine to a size two in less than three months. People thought I was on drugs again, but I was not. I got to the point where I didn’t want to eat much because I would do nothing but get sick to my stomach and have to run to the bathroom if I did so I barely ate. Just enough to keep me going. I didn’t realize at the time that I was suffering the same thing I did as a child, because the memories hadn’t fully come back yet and my adopted mom and I hadn’t talked about what I was going through until I was two years into the process of trying to rebuild my health with a holistic doctor because I refused to take synthetic medications and wanted to do it naturally. I took test after test which my insurance did not cover. I was diagnosed as having over forty food allergies and had to stop eating foods I had eaten my entire life. I had a seven page list that was a stop light. Green was all the foods I could eat and it was a very short list. Yellow was all the foods that I could eat very moderately, but I found that I couldn’t eat them hardly at all. Red as the NO GO ZONE! If I ate them, it would take my body weeks to recover and I would be starting all over again. All the symptoms would return and I would get lethargic, running to the bathroom, and just miserable. I had no quality of life other than work, home, and I was in school at the time so that was incredibly hard.

I had people sweetly tell me to pray about it and believe me I was. I had people harshly tell me that God heals and illness didn’t belong in my body and it shamed me for being sick like I was. I had people praying for me and kindly, lovingly, walk me through the entire journey, so much so that I felt loved knowing that God was walking with me. I prayed. I knew God was healing me. I knew it was not going to be the quick one and done miracle like some people get. Mine was going to be the long road to recovery because my body had suffered so much damage throughout my life that it needed restoring and rebuilding and this was not just a journey for me. It was to encourage someone else.

When I finally was diagnosed, it was with HPA Axis Adrenal Dysfunction. My HPA (Hypothalamus, Pituitary, and Adrenal) Axis, which helps regulate your flight, fight, freeze, and fawn response system in your body was broken. It did not have a chance to properly form when I was an infant. Your HPA Axis starts forming when you are an infant and forms by what you experience. For instance, if you cry and your mother picks you up out of the crib, then your HPA Axis responds to your mother picking you up and you settle down because you are being calmed in the moment and nurtured. If your mother does not pick you up, then your HPA Axis responds and you either calm yourself down, or it gets stuck and your body does not know how to respond. Mine got stuck and didn’t form properly. As such, mine needed to be rebuilt and it was going to take some time to do it, because your HPA Axis is one of the primary systems in your body and functions off of the three main glands in your body.

I started on twenty vitamins and supplements with each one being one to three times a day. This lasted for almost three years. They could not be bought at Wal-Mart or CVS, I had to buy them online and they had to be Kosher because the ingredients in the cheaper brands would cause me to have allergic reactions to them. Each vitamin or supplement would cost me anywhere between $10 to $69 a piece. One adrenal support was $69 and it would last two months. Another vitamin was $42 and it would last close to three months. I am saying this because while I lived on a tight budget, the Lord met me where I was and made sure that I had what I needed during this season. I never had to want or worry while I was going through this. He supplied all my needs and every vitamin and supplement so I didn’t run out and covered the expenses each month, every three months, because HE was healing my body, mind, and soul from all the damage that I had suffered.

God is good. God is so good. I learned over the last four years that well meaning people will not always understand your journey and that is okay too. I had to really release people from being harsh and offending me because they would hurt my feelings and make me feel like I was not doing enough to press into Jesus. Yet they were not seeing me alone with Him. I want you to know that if you are in this place right now, keep pressing with Him. He sees you sweet friend and He knows how hard your journey is better than anyone else. This journey was so hard for me. There were days where I could barely get out bed with my eyes open but GOD. He gave me strength to press through every single day and every moment, even those days I would almost fall asleep driving. He met me right there and strengthened me. You see, He knows every single part of your body. When I got to this place where I started trusting more in the God who created me and less in what the doctor was saying, that is when the breakthrough started, it just took a while.

I had gone back to the doctor multiple times and eventually was put on hydrocortisone because my adrenals were not producing hardly anything. Your adrenals should produce anywhere between 14.0-25.0 cortisol in the morning, 5.0-10.0 at noon, 2.0-5.0 in the evening, and 1.0-4.0 at night. My cortisol levels were staying around 4.8 for the morning, 1.4 at noon, 2.1 in the evening, and 0.69 at night. My body was not functioning properly and I could feel it all day long. I tried coffee, energy drinks, 5hr energy’s, I tried sleeping more, I tried exercising, I tried every supplement and vitamin I was put on to make me feel better. Prayer, deliverance, healing, church, more prayer, and some of it got rid of a lot of roots that were buried deep within me but I was missing something very important. First, I was not trusting the right person. Yes, doctors are important. Yes, prayer, healing, deliverance, all important and God definitely uses people to do it. Yes, the vitamins and supplements, all important as my body needed them for a season. The cortisone may have been needed for a season. What wasn’t needed was my lack of trust and faith in the God who created me and my reliance on all those things to make me well. I relied on everything but God to make me whole and my trust and faith turned away from Him and became dependent on when I had to take the meds and vitamins not when I needed to push through and trust. It was like clockwork on taking all those pills and the calendar reminders on my phone every day. I paid more attention to those than anything else and I would get close to the time and instinctively know it was time to take them. I mean after four years, you just know.

Well, when you get tired you get tired. I mean tired of taking a handful of supplements and vitamins and the hydrocortisone was in three month increments. I took it one cycle and then felt like I needed to go back after a year and do it again. I was experiencing the same fatigue so on August 18, 2022 I went back to the doctor and the Lord had already sent me the scripture on being healed. I was given a choice. Believe the doctor or believe in healing. I chose to get back on the medicine. What I found was that it wasn’t working this time. I felt very little difference between how I felt before and after taking it. Three days shy of a month I had a breakthrough. I had been praying and asking the Lord why and he revealed to me how I partnered with spirits of infirmity and lies that started beyond my own control when I was a child, yet I continued to walk through open doors as an adult. I didn’t trust Him to heal me, because of the brokenness in my life through what I had experienced. You see God doesn’t operate in lack, He operates in abundance. I stated before that I never lacked in being able to purchase the vitamins and supplements on a budget and that is because God provided. He was putting me back together from the inside out. What I needed to do now, was to release and let go, because I was already healed, and stop partnering with the lack. To stop partnering with the spiritual opposition and demonic oppression that was attacking me now and close those doors. While they may have opened because of my biological parents, I kept them open and now I had a choice to make. Do I believe the doctors reports? Do I believe that I am worthy of healing and restoration in my body this side of heaven? Do I believe that God loves me enough to heal me like He says? Or do I believe like the world believes?

Miracles can happen and they happen every day. Mine came on the morning of September 15, 2022. I know I won’t forget it because I woke up with a renewed fight and purpose that morning. I heard a prophet giving testimony the day before about how she had not gone to a doctor in twelve years because she used the Word of God as her healer and I remembered that a friend of mine’s boyfriend received a scripture from the Holy Spirit. Mark 5:34 “‘Daughter,” he said to her, “your trust has healed you. Go in peace and be healed of your disease.’” which came on August 3, 2022 at 9:49am. I got up fighting and telling the enemy that I belonged to God and I told God I was done taking the supplements and vitamins for my adrenals and I started throwing them down the toilet. The only thing I held onto, funny enough, was three days of the hydrocortisone. I told the Lord I was giving him three days to show me that I was completely healed! Now laugh, cause that was so out of order of me to tell a Holy God that I was putting Him on a timeline! I did it though. I kept three days and poured out everything else. When I got through passionately praying and crying I got ready for work and before I left my house I got a notification to join a powerful prayer line that morning at 8:45am.

I knew God was calling me and speaking to me and I felt out of order for putting Him on a timeline of three days. I got to work, joined the call while I worked and OH HOW THE LORD MET ME ON THAT CALL!!! God passionately pursued me and checked me while I was on it. I threw away the medication I had with me and as soon as I got home I threw the rest away too. I deeply lamented to the Lord for being so out of order with Him. Who am I to tell the Potter how to make the clay? (Isaiah 45:9). Don’t we all need to lament over telling the most Holy God how to mold us! What an honor it was to lament before Him!

I have to say that I have not been the same since. I have not taken any vitamin, supplement, or medication since that day and I feel better now than I have in four years. I developed this deep sense of trust for God that when His word says I am healed, I am healed. If I walk by faith and not by sight, then I am in better hands than if I keep telling God what to do with my life and how to do it. He supplies my needs, knows my needs, and how to distribute accordingly. My body, mind, and soul had to heal and the Lord has been so gracious and kind to meet me where I was and heal me from the things I experienced as a chid and an adult. I would have never known what needed to be healed had I not gone through this process.

We don’t know what we don’t know unless the Lord shows us. He definitely had to show me. For it, I am deeply grateful. I used to complain about the hard times and now I have a deep sense of gratitude for them. The past doesn’t define who you are, but it does help shape you into the person you are becoming. I heard someone say that you cannot be grateful for the trauma, and I don’t believe that is true. I believe you can be. When you turn pain into purpose it becomes your platform. That platform then becomes what God uses for His Glory and His Kingdom which will restore His children. My story is not for me, it is for others and for God’s Glory.

I pray that you find hope through this with whatever you are going through right now. Know that the Potter meets you where you are and even in the times you don’t think you can stand or walk, He is right there carrying you. I know I only made it through those hard days because Jesus carried me. Trials and tribulations we will have many of, but one thing is for certain, Jesus paid it all on the cross for them, and we can count them all joy! James 1:2-3

God bless you and keep you and may His face shine upon you!

Faythe

As a reminder:

In Luke 8:40-54 there were two significant healings that tell of people’s faiths that no one could take away from them or change their minds about.

1. The woman with the issue of blood.  She suffered 12 years and when her faith had arisen to the level of believing her Messaih alone could heal her, she just touched His garment and was made well. I can only imagine from that moment on she only needed that experience to change the rest of her journey forever.  The Word became flesh and dwelt among them became her lived experience.

2.  The man whose daughter was dying.  A servant came to him and tried to stop him from “bothering the teacher” but he ignored the servant and did anyway because his faith was at an activated level at who Jesus was and what He could do for his daughter.  Again, the Word became flesh and dwelt among them became true for Him as well.

My prayer is that your faith continues to be activated by the miracles Jesus performed in the Word of God and that they arise in your Spirit and supernaturally give you strength to touch Jesus again and again and again.  May your faith make you well by the power of Jesus Christ and by the Holy Spirit in you.