delivered.

I want to preface this update with the fact that I don`t know that I would normally share what I am about to write with the world but the miracle the Lord did deserves a testimony and if anyone else is going through anything close to what I did, then through my vulnerability my hope is that you know this is available for you too. This is an invitation to your own healing and your own freedom and I would love to walk with you. If you want to skim through I made the short-version of the story in bold text.

Enjoy some very un-related photos to help you move through the text.

We arrived in Niseko, Japan about a year and a half ago after a traumatic time for our family following the birth of our third baby. The Lord has been faithful. We came here knowing in order to stay in Japan we would need the Lord to help us recover, to heal, to find stability…and so He did.

It’s been a time of being hidden and letting that be enough.

There is a desire as a missionary to “perform” to be worthy of some sort of investment but we have found that —in the place of being hidden— is the greatest investment.

I (Steph) came to Niseko- mentally and emotionally  like the woman with bleeding in Luke 8, I knew if I could just touch the hem of His garment, He could heal me. I was desperate to find Him.

My time in the hospital was only the beginning of the wilderness compared to the mental trials that came after. Around evening time when we would be ready to eat, I would get very anxious. (This was the time of day that I went to the hospital.) I was so paranoid about my body and I was upset with myself that I was struggling. I tried to tell myself, “what you went through wasn’t that bad to warrant this”— frustrated at my own lack of resilience. But I had come home to a new life, a new baby— whom Jon had taken care of, new rhythms he had established in our house to get us by. 

Coming into my house, I felt like I was observing someone else’s life while my mind was still very much elsewhere. Jon connected to Cedar like I had to the other kids after they were born. It took Cedar over a year to really bond and ask for me. I still get emotional feeling like I missed that entire newborn season, and remembering Jon having to pull Cedar away from me suddenly so they could do a second CAT scan as he was told to go home. 

(Rewinding a bit here to give some background to some of the experience in the hospital:)

After being home with Cedar for almost a week, I went to the hospital because I felt like a “charlie-horse” feeling behind my knee. As more time passed within a day or two my leg began turning purple.

I  remember hearing the news that “it didn`t look good, I had DVT and a pulmonary embolism” and being in shock— “these kind of things don’t happen to me. I follow Jesus— Jesus protects me.” (Which He did) but I thought I was invincible or something. I didn’t know I believed these things til I was in the moment. 

I remember my leg feeling so heavy I didn’t know if I would ever walk normal again. They said my very slow walking put my heart rate at the same pace as someone’s normal heart rate if they were running.When I was questioning in my mind if I would ever be able to walk normal again the Lord whispered to me that I would walk out of the hospital normal.

I wish at the time that I had more faith but it was so difficult to walk I was definitely not believing for this a hundred percent.

The doctor said I was not making the progress I needed to make, four or five people surrounded me while they injected something into me that they had to ask every 3 seconds if I was ok because it could have very dangerous side-effects. 

On the day Jon came to pick me up (and at no other time before this) I walked to the car pretty close to normal—still a little slow and tired but I was surprised by the massive improvement. 

There were other moments in the hospital where I felt very alone. For the most part, no one can speak English and I was surrounded by elderly people in the cardiovascular ward but the Lord was there. His presence would come upon me sometimes. But even still afterwards when I left the hospital I shut off anything associated with the experience. I didn’t even want to learn Japanese anymore because I associated it with this experience.(This aspect is still in need of some healing!) It was two months later I found out I was healed of all the blood clots— a miracle because they had said I would likely need to be on blood thinner medication for 9 months to over a year.

I still had physical and mental recovery to go through long after this. 

Along with the things I mentioned in the beginning, I would  also get quickly overstimulated and overwhelmed by being in small spaces with too much noise or people. I would feel panicked and need to leave the room.

I told the Lord one night, Lord, I have fought for my life in faith but this place that I am in mentally is not quality living. I was fighting for peace. With each wave of fear, anxiety or depression, I would try to surrender it to Him and try to speak truth over myself, try to run into worship, try to declare all the things over myself but after a year of doing so— I was really exhausted. Jon was exhausted. He was full on dad when I couldn’t be present.

I asked the Lord one night, God, if you are gonna heal me (emotionally) and get me out of this, would you show me a shooting star. Within moments a small flash of hope went past me. I thought, what an amazing God He is, He hears me. He is the one who controls the stars and I am just this little being, He knows me.

It was only a few days later I woke up and my morning Bible reading was in Esther. The dates that the Israelites received victory from Haman aligned with the dates I had gotten out of the hospital. I was reminded of how He saved me.

I went to worship that morning and I sat in His presence. I just sat there, thinking it was just any other day, enjoying the music, I began to feel something that felt like oil being spilled over my head. Within moments He mentally and emotionally brought me back to the beginnings of the season that was so difficult—a time where I felt like I had surrendered literally everything —from myself, my desires, my husband, my kids. He whispered to me, “There is one last thing I need you to give to me.” I didn’t know what He was referring to but I knew the feeling of surrender well now and as I gave Him my yes, my heart was breaking.

Within moments of my yes, He delivered me—like Mary Magdeline, I felt the spiritual warfare over me and the demonic spirits and their assignments over my life leave me. It wasn’t pretty. Deliverance isn’t always pretty. Just like delivering a baby, it is messy, vulnerable—and life changing but it brings new life and I knew how the women at the well felt, when she wanted to tell everyone about Jesus after she encountered Him.

When Jesus sent out His disciples in Matthew 10, He told them, “7As you go, preach this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven is near.’ 8Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers,c drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.“

Everyone wants to heal the sick and preach but people get uncomfortable talking about casting out demons. I can say as someone who has experienced it first hand, it is a gift. It is not meant to bring shame. I have experienced physical healing and deliverance —deliverance is just as, and sometimes even more life changing.

Nealry two year’s worth of anxiety and depression and fear was gone. I could think about the birth and everything that had happened as if it was years ago and it didn’t affect me the same anymore. The amount of counseling sessions someone would have to walk through to get the healing I received in just moments in His presence astounds me. I didn’t just get my life back, I got it back much more abundantly than I had it before. It wasn’t just this year’s worth of trauma that was gone, it was oppression I had felt since I was a kid.

Things I noticed since I became a wife and a parent — I had never been able to be fully present with my kids— as much as I wanted to, my mind always had this fog over it but now it was gone. I could also see more clearly where I had been selfish in my marriage, but I had this supernatural compassion for myself. I understood why I had been not present, why I had been selfish — why I would try to change patterns on my own only to see myself go back a few months later. What I thought was normal was not. I was able to be around people and noise again without needing to retreat. Evangelism started to flow easily because I had encountered this Jesus in a whole new way—He saved me. This man I have known for so long, suddenly in a moment changed everything for me.

In a dream, He taught me during this time that when you have received something from Him, you have to give it away, if you want something new—“freely you have been given, freely you are to give.”

For me it’s deliverance— but what did He last give you?