This is the second of two episodes with my dear friend, Susie Larson.
Today, Susie talks about her own personal health challenges. She openly shares the mental battle she has waged with the enemy and points to the raw moments in that battle that almost broke her spirit. Susie also shares the miracle of prayers from complete strangers and friends including Mercy Prayers from her friend, Melissa Coleman.
This is an emotionally and spiritually powerful episode that will point out why unwavering faith in God and His promises is what we need more of today!
Connect with Susie Larson:
https://www.susielarson.com/
Suggested Resource Links:
Your donations power our podcast's mission to support cancer patients with hope, insights, and resources. Every contribution fuels our ability to uplift and empower. Join us in making a lasting impact. Donate now! 🌟
This is the second of two episodes with my dear friend, Susie Larson.
Today, Susie talks about her own personal health challenges. She openly shares the mental battle she has waged with the enemy and points to the raw moments in that battle that almost broke her spirit. Susie also shares the miracle of prayers from complete strangers and friends including Mercy Prayers from her friend, Melissa Coleman.
This is an emotionally and spiritually powerful episode that will point out why unwavering faith in God and His promises is what we need more of today!
Connect with Susie Larson:
https://www.susielarson.com/
Suggested Resource Links:
Your donations power our podcast's mission to support cancer patients with hope, insights, and resources. Every contribution fuels our ability to uplift and empower. Join us in making a lasting impact. Donate now! 🌟
Hi, I'm Ivelisse Page and thanks for listening to the Believe Big podcast, the show where we take a deep dive into your healing with health experts, integrative practitioners, biblical faith leaders, and cancer thrivers from around the globe. Welcome to the Believe Big podcast. My name is Ivelisse Page, and Today is part two. Susie Larson is joining us again to continue the conversation on the role that our emotional health has on our physical health. For those of you tuning in for the first time, today is part two in the conversation. Feel free to download last week's episode to hear Susie share about how to replace defeating thoughts with redemptive ones, how to overcome stress and embrace God's peace and how to deal with the"cant's" embedded in our souls. Susie is a national speaker, bestselling author and the host of the Daily Talk show, Susie Larson Live heard on Faith Radio Network with over 3.5 million downloads. Susie has written 20 books and many articles. She's been a guest on Focus on the Family, Family Life Today, as well as many other media outlets. Susie's passion is to see people everywhere awakened to the value of their soul, the depth of God's love and the height of their calling in Christ. And she is also a very dear friend, and I am just so thankful to have you back. Thank you, Susie, for joining us today.
Susie Larson:I think the world of you Ivelisse, so it's always an honor to spend any kind of time with you. So thanks for having me.
Ivelisse Page:Last time we spoke about what your favorite health tip is, and that's typically how we start our show. But I'd like to do things a little differently today since we heard your tip, which is you love spending your mornings in prayer with the Lord. And so this week I would love to just know what's God been showing you lately?
Susie Larson:I don't remember if I even mentioned this, I think I did with our last episode, but in this healing journey for me that I've been on in this last year, that God really did intersect my story in a pretty significant way, doing a really painful part of my health journey. And a praying friend said, Susie, she quoted Psalm 23,"surely goodness and mercy follow you all the days of your life". So if your default, instinctive thought about God is anything different than that, that only goodness and mercy are allowed to follow you, it means something in you needs healing and something is out of alignment and you're thinking, I have come back to that again and again. And I find myself Ivelisse in different phases of this health journey where maybe the symptoms are waning a little bit and I'm so aware of God's goodness. I know every gift is from him. Every breath comes from him. Every good gift comes from above, scripture says, and I think we brush past them so fast and not give them proper credit. And I think it's one thing to count your blessings, which I think is important to be a grateful person. It's a whole nother thing to tether those blessings to a good God. So when you start to realize everything good in my life came purposely through the hand of God who loves me meticulously and miraculously, it not only makes you realize you're blessed, but it also reminds you that you're loved. And so I just think that's so incredibly important. But I will tell you then there's other times when I have a flare, surge of symptoms or I don't sleep for many nights in a row, I get so full of despair. Those are pockets in my story and in my soul. Where I can default to despair and forget about His goodness. So there's a constant challenge even here, is He good? Even if my experience in the moment doesn't line up with the truth of His goodness, is it still true that He's good? Yeah, he's still good. It's still true. It's still true. And I've not arrived there yet. They brainwash people by depriving them of sleep. If part of your health journey is sleeplessness, I am so with you. Oh my goodness. It's just, that's such a battle. But He's still good. He's always good and He's always up to something good. These aren't accusations against God. They're just realities in our story, in our health, oftentimes associated with trauma or core lies that are baked in that we're not even realizing. But God allows those journeys so he can layer by layer, heal us. So it's something I'm returning to time and time again, this is the plum line truth. And if that's not my experience and that's not my perspective, then I'm the one who needs to get in line with the truth, because that is what's true.
Ivelisse Page:Yes, absolutely. And I know those who are listening who are in the middle of their cancer battle can completely understand what you're saying because there are those days where you have good days, and then there are days where you just feel so weak and tired and you wonder, how long God until this is over and I can be healed. And I remember those moments too, Lord, can I trust you no matter how this turns out. And so just like your faith is just so inspiring to know that yes, we have those moments where we're so grateful and thankful, but then we also have those struggles. And I always appreciate that about you, that you're so transparent. Your faith is raw and real, and it's not this"Christian-ese" that you just try and say the right thing. And so you really,
Susie Larson:It's messy.
Ivelisse Page:live it out. Yes. it is.
Susie Larson:I can't tie it up in a nice bow, I wish I could.
Ivelisse Page:None of us should, because that's life. You're one of the most faithful, godly women I know who truly seeks God. Searches His word, prays faithfully. And I'm so excited for you to be with us today because I feel like a tremendous shift happened in your life not too long ago in regards to a prayer that you've been praying, I think, for almost 30 years. And can you share the miracle that you're literally walking out right now?
Susie Larson:Yeah. And pray for me friends as you're watching and listening, that I can get through it because it's, just the thought of retelling it. I feel rawness just springing up within me. But for context, as some of you know, maybe many don't. But, when I was pregnant with our third son on bedrest for six months with a high risk pregnancy, the doctors let me get up for a day to just test the waters to see if I'd start contracting again, and I unknowingly was bit by a deer tick and contracted Lyme disease. And within two weeks of that outing, my face started to go numb and a lot of neurological issues started to happen. And it took a year to find out that I had Lyme. So I had embedded in my system and my nervous system long enough that it's still an issue today. And then I, I probably battled significantly for about seven years. And then for about 20 years, I just made my way through. I became a fitness instructor. They told me to go to a support group and I'm like, no, I'm gonna go get my certification to teach fitness classes. Cause I just knew I battled with fear and if I hear everybody else's horror stories, especially Lyme is so unpredictable and so different, it would just inspire more fear. I had to put a fight in front of me and that's just work for me. My brain wasn't working. I couldn't remember what I'd read, so I'd have to go back and read it five more times. But I know that's the Page-way too, so I know you get what I'm saying here, where it's like I needed a challenge in front of me. So for 20 years I managed a chronic health issue. Several times a year I couldn't get outta bed for a few days, and I could always feel it coming when my face would start going numb and things like that. But I just found a way to manage. And then seven years ago, I had a really horrendous relapse. Which turned out to be apparently people with chronic Lyme also have, a susceptibility to not be able to process mold. And I had a repeated mold exposure that I didn't know and it attacked my brain. So I think we touched on some of that last episode. So seven years, a good handful of those years, I will be honest, was a nightmare for me, just because I'm a talk radio host, live radio where you really have to be sharp and, my tongue and my head and my face were going numb. My cognitive was being interrupted where I couldn't spell or get the right words for my sentence. And, it was terrifying. And then the symptoms were just horrendous. So I had a number of nights of, lot of nights of just trauma where all of a sudden Kev would be sleeping and the surges would flow and my heart would start to beat out of my chest and numbing would shoot up my neck and into my jaw, like I felt like I was having a stroke. And I would walk the floor down here all night long and quote scripture. And by the time I got to last year around, winter, January, February, I was so rung out from the battle that one of the nights that I was marching the floor, I said, you have to kill me or heal me cuz I don't have the mental bandwidth to keep going. I just don't have the mental bandwidth to keep navigating. I felt like I was walking around with a gun to my head, like the enemy was like, maybe this time. There was a couple of things that happened around that time. One is I had Alan Jackson on the show, and he's not the country singer, although he's great, but not him. The author pastor, he joins me every once in a while. I think he's got such a prophetic, optimistic voice in our day, and I'd ask that question that you asked me. I asked at the open of my show every day, what's the Lord been oppressing upon your heart? And he said, Susie, I've been sitting with that story where Paul goes before King Agrippa. And he said, here he suffers this injustice and this world's greatest evangelist, he sees it as yet another opportunity to present the gospel. And so he's preaching Jesus to King Agrippa. And in so many words, Agrippa said, you almost persuaded me to become a Christian. and Alan said, it made me wonder how many things have I been almost persuaded about, that God has actually made very clear. Ivelisse, if you could hear that interview, you would hear my voice crack and choke up. I almost couldn't make it through because I was so confronted and so convicted at that moment because God had made me some promises. But all those surges, they were up for grabs, including his goodness. All of it was up. Not that I doubted my salvation, not that I doubted he was a savior, but I had huge doubts about healing. My son has medically, miraculously healed, so I knew He does. I just didn't know that he would for me. And there is a mystery with healing. Let's just say that Godly people get sick and die.
Ivelisse Page:Yes.
Susie Larson:You cannot tie it up in a bow. And I have a real problem with that when people do that, because I've heard stories. I know people who lost a daughter and some party came up to them and said, if you would've had more faith, she'd be still alive. I wanna tackle people like that. I think that's a cruel theology. God determines the numbers of our days.
Ivelisse Page:Yes.
Susie Larson:Let me just say that. But you'll never convince me of the cessation mindset. You'll never convince me because I've seen too many miracles and it's in the Word. There is such a profound case that Jesus is the healer and He's the same yesterday, today, forever. I would dare to say, and this is risky to say, but I believe we would see more healing and more miracles if we trusted God was good. We want the zap, we want the instant zap, right? But if we allowed him to take us on the healing journey, which is why I love Believe Big so much, is because it's not a straight line from point A to B. It's a journey. And we get healed, most of us in layers. Once in a while, somebody will get this suddenly, but most times that suddenly is an accumulation of hidden moments of learning to trust God when there's no signs pointing outward. But all that to say, after that show I got on my face and said, forgive me God, you've made promises, and I've wavered. I've wavered in unbelief between the promises of God. And he brought me to John the Baptist. Forgive me, I don't remember. There's been some time between us taping the first episode and this one, so forgive me if I shared this, I hope I didn't. But that point where John the Baptist, was, scripture says, no greater man born to woman. John the Baptist, baptized Jesus. But when he was away from the action, when he was in his season of suffering and obscurity, he started to doubt. That should make you feel very comforted. And he sent his friends to ask Jesus, are you the Christ? Or should we be looking for someone else? And Jesus says, go tell John the lame leap, the blind received their sight. In other words, the miracles are still happening. Just because you're away from the action, just because you're in a season where you're not seeing it, doesn't mean it's not happening. But then he said, blessed are those who are not offended by me. And I was offended. I was, I'm offended by God. I couldn't believe at this age, after all that I had contended for and Ivelisse, I've named it, claimed it fasted, prayed it. People keep telling me I missed a step. And I'm like, I have turned over every rock I know. And I still got blasted by this relapse. And, so I was hurt. I was like, I don't know what to do. So when the Lord confronted me, I thought, this is my work, is to not have an offended heart towards the Lord, and Lord forgive me. And so I just start to deal with the hurt. And so I was still exhausted, I was still worn out. I was still pretty actually discouraged. But I knew that my work was to keep my heart tender before the Lord. And I wanna say it was a few months later, so it was a Lenten season. I'm just hanging on. And the Lord had mobilized three separate groups of women unbeknownst to me, who were fasting and praying, during the Lenten season. God pointed me to them. They didn't know each other, but He said, I want you to march with Susie pray with her, until she's healed. One of the group of women, they were all connected to different people I trusted implicitly, so that really helped. But one group of women, this one dear gal, she, she's this beautiful little Asian woman. She's the tiniest little thing. So meek, you see her prayer, you don't ever wanna be on her wrong side, on the enemy's side, cuz she fears God. She ignites prayer movements all over the world. Once she starts praying, you gotta get out of the way. It's so amazing. But she mobilized these women to pray for me and, they pray with me on Zoom every Wednesday morning, and they have been ever since. It's almost been a year, but some of the initial prayer that happened was profound. And I wanna back up to one other piece of the story. In that place where I said, you have to kill me or heal me. It was was an Easter morning. This was the year before last. And I had walked the floor all night and the next morning was Easter morning. And I have to tell you, every Easter it was like I was praying for an Easter Miracle. And every Easter I'd get just lambasted by the symptoms. I don't know if there's a seasonal thing with Lyme in springtime. But it was like I would get my hopes up and I would get knocked down, and this was the worst. It was the worst night I'd had. And the next morning we were expecting family for Easter, and I'm sitting at my counter with my face in my arms sobbing, just wanting to die, just like I can't do it anymore. I had made no food and my sister and her husband and their two very godly young men showed up, our oldest son and his wife showed up, no food. I'm just guttural sobbing at the counter. They just paused and they got around me and they prayed. And Noah, my nephew, when he put his hand on me, he says, Lord, I thank you. I thank you. I'm getting such a sense that Susie's gonna cross over from a ministry of trial to a ministry of triumph. I thank you that there's a day coming that she's going to cross over from a ministry of trial to triumphant. He prayed other things, but it literally quickened in my body. And what was so amazing was like, like a month earlier, the Lord, when I was saying, you gotta gimme something. Show me strategy. Help me navigate this. He gave me a visual, and I don't know if he ever speaks to you in word pictures, but I'm very visual. So he does. And I got this picture and I like this one cuz I was a Navy Seal. I don't know why that was really great for me. But anyway, I was navigating through the woods like a Navy Seal. And I came out to this opening and there was this rushing river and I didn't slow down, I just lept and it was like an unseen hand propelled me over the river. And as soon as I landed, I leaped and bounded with new strength and the Lord had whispered there's a crossing overcoming for you. So when Noah prayed that it quickened in me and it was a confirmation. So then you're jumping to the Lenten season. So you've got this one group of women wanting to pray for me. Then around that same time, I'm at an event I'd finished speaking and a prayer intercessor of mine came up with a friend of hers who's six feet tall. And she has this presence like an angel. I literally would've thought she was an angel if she wasn't with this friend, cuz she carried the presence of God and she leaned over. I'd never met her, and she said, Susie, the Lord knows how you've suffered. He has seen how you've contended. He has seen how you've served him and loved others in the midst of your own suffering. You need to know that you're not standing here unhealed because you lack faith. You are standing here and He's pleased with your faith, but there's a time of crossing, overcoming for you. And she literally gave words to the vision God gave me and gave words to what Noah had said. And again, I felt like an electric shock had gone through me. And through these clusters of prayer that had happened in the Lenten season, there was just a miraculous inner healing that happened for me, Ivelisse, I mean miraculous, like I can't even explain it. And to be honest with you, I thought that was going to be the catalyst to the next phase of my physical healing. And, what happened after that in the months that followed, because of some of the jaw numbing and the jaw pain and the loud ear ringing and the head pressure, one of my doctors said, I'm convinced that you have Lyme in the jawbone. And so I had to fly to Texas for a three day oral surgery where they cut into the gum and break through the bone in seven areas. And they found really massive amounts of infection. They recounted five teeth and pulled two a molars, and in that surgery, as important as that was, it kicked in the TMJ, which I'd had, but to a whole new level and the ear ringing to a level nine. And so the jaw pain and the ear ringing and the insomnia just went to a whole new level. And then probably a couple months after that because I don't have any chewing teeth left on my right side, and it put things really out of whack, and my sinus was damaged in the surgery. I needed another surgery where they repaired the sinus, lifted the sinus into the big bone graft in that upper area of my mouth and that too big, swollen face, bruising, and also tipped things into the, a stratosphere of a lot of pain. No sleep, a lot of neurological. And when I was, this was probably a month ago, struggling. I was keeping ice on my face and trying to get the swelling down, and once again, I just felt tricked by God. I, I couldn't believe this happened, and at the same time, I'm an empath and I'm an intercessor by nature. I'm an introvert, and I spend a lot of time praying for the nations, praying for the persecuted. That's where I'm really at home is in my intercessor place. So I do feel things deeply when I see things on the news. And the night before I'd gone to bed, I'd seen a couple of people just vulnerable, unsuspecting people at really in the wrong path at the hands of wickedness, or in a such a place of lawlessness right now, and scripture does tell us, in the latter days, love will decrease. When love decreases, lawlessness increases. And when lawlessness increases, the vulnerable suffer the most. And I just saw two news clips of people who didn't know what hit them but were on the receiving end of just wicked, lawlessness. And it affected me so deeply and I barely had slept that night. And I woke up and I was weeping. I was weeping cuz I'd only gotten two hours of sleep. I was weeping for the vulnerable, in the path of lawlessness. And I was crying out to God going, I don't know what to do with what I'm feeling. I'm so broken hearted. And the Lord brought me to Jeremiah 15. I felt like it was so kind of him to go, I know how you're feeling. I'm gonna give you words to how you're feeling, and if you go to Jeremiah 15, Jeremiah's crying out over the wickedness in the land, and he's also crying out for his own personal suffering. And he says, why does your help seem as inconsistent as a seasonal brook? Like, why can't I count? Why is there no discrepancy between what they're getting away with and the suffering in my life. Why aren't you coming through for me? And the Lord brings him to a place of encounter where you've probably heard the passage before, but He says you must influence them. Don't let them influence you. If you can extract the precious from the worthless, you will be my spokesman. I've read that a thousand times, but the Lord led me, excuse me to look it up in the amplify, and I want you to hear it's the amplified classic and this is super important and I'll give room to talk Ivelisse cuz I'm talking too long.
Ivelisse Page:No.
Susie Larson:Thank you. Okay. This says why is my pain perpetual, my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? Will you indeed be to me like a deceitful brook like waters that fail and are uncertain. Therefore, thus says the Lord to Jeremiah, if you return and give up this mistaken tone of distrust and despair, then I will give you again, a settled place of quiet and safety, and you'll be my minister if you separate precious from the vile. In other words, cleansing your own heart from unworthy, unwarranted suspicions concerning my faithfulness. You will be my mouthpiece. Do not yield to them. Let them return to you, not you, to the people. You influence them not the other way around. I will make you to this people a fortified bronze wall. They will fight against you, but they will not prevail over you. For I'm with you to save and deliver you says the Lord. I will deliver you outta the hands of the wicked. I will redeem you out of the palms of the terrible and the ruthless. And I was once against schooled. Life on earth is short. Eternity is forever and it's long, and this is the time, we trust him. And I said this I think on our last episode, that we're daily given opportunities to either trust God or accuse him. And he knows what's in the places where I'm susceptible to accusing God. He is good, His promises are true, and He says, what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory that will be revealed to us when Christ returns. All of creation groans for the day when Christ reveals who his children really are, and we're gonna glory with him. And you have a chance to overcome by your faith. We overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony. So somehow Ivelisse we have to find our testimony on the bad days. We gotta find our testimony on the days when it doesn't feel true that He's good. Because He Is good. He's a good father. We covered healing on my show yesterday. It was fantastic. And, this guest who's miraculously healed after 16 years of an autoimmune issue, and I said, what do you say to people who say God makes them sick to teach them a lesson? She goes, in the earthly realm, if a father makes a child sick to teach them a lesson, he loses their children. He loses his children. He said, if, if God is making you sick to teach you a lesson, he wouldn't be a good father. He would be something else. And that's just absolutely true. We live in a fallen nature. I'm still super committed to the inner healing. I think that's a huge important part of the process because I know for me. I'm talking with somebody, she's a doctor in functional medicine and she helps do some brain rewiring and helps your body release trauma. And I realize as we've been working through this sleep issue, there is trauma baked in because so many horrific things happen in the night hours. So even in my conscious mind, I'm praying scripture as I go to bed, baked in here is it's not safe to go to sleep. So I'm working that out and I will go till my dying breath going, there's so much more healing than just relief from our symptoms. And all that healing comes from first going, I have a good father. I don't wanna pull away from Him. I need to draw near to Him because He's for me and He's for my flourishing. So that's where I'm at now. And I will just tell you, and I didn't know if I was gonna share this publicly, but as we're leaving the station yesterday after I talked with this guest, we were out in the foyer of the radio station and she just got fire in her eyes and she pointed and she said, Jesus. And she pointed to me and she says, give her seven healed and saved people for every day this woman has suffered. And I felt like an electrical charge ran through my body and she prayed for me. Something happened. I don't know what. But as long as I live until I see Jesus, I'm confessing Psalm 103: 1-5. Bless the Lord, bless him and forget not his benefits. He forgives all my sins. He heals all my diseases. He ransoms my life from the pit. He crowns me with love and compassion. He satisfies my desires of good things, and he renews my youth like the Eagles. So in my own body, I still deal with some neurological symptoms every day. But from my doctor's perspective, when they looked at my MRI in some of my reports, they would say, you're a walking miracle. The fact that you can get on your bike and ride 20 miles on a good day, or the fact that you can do your radio show every day, you're a walking miracle. I don't always feel that way, but sometimes I need to hear that. And Ivelisse, you're a walking miracle, so thank you for your commitment to help people heal in the whole soul, in every part of who they are, because that's what true freedom is about.
Ivelisse Page:Yeah, Susie, I am just trying to hold back the tears hearing your story. And I know so many who are listening can totally relate to what you're saying because they're in the midst of suffering and they're believing God. And as you're talking and sharing your struggles, I think of that Father and Matthew who says, Lord, I believe you can heal me. Help me with my unbelief. And so it's really difficult on those days, but you really gave some really great practical things to hold onto, His promises. When everything on the outside doesn't look like it's working, God is still at work and we just have to be patient and pray and resilient through that time to say, and I love how you're saying that He's taught you so much through that time. And I'd like to step back just a moment because you shared in Fully Alive that you felt that you had forgiven them. And we know how our emotions are so tied to our physical side of healing. And you shared how you had forgiven the trauma from your past. How was what those women who I believe are almost like the three friends that you know, were lowering down the paralytic to the feet of Jesus. How they're doing that for you. They're praying for you. They're there for you and they're not gonna stop until you are fully healed.
Susie Larson:I can't believe I forgot to tell you that part of the story. Thank you for reminding me. That's a really important part of the story. So what one of the things that had happened was my body got stuck in fight flight. So whenever I would go to the doc for a checkup, I have a low blood pressure and a high pulse. So they'd always go, huh, but that was my body stuck in a fight flight response. I couldn't seem to get out of it, deep breathing, deep stretching, no matter what. And one of these groups, one of the women in this group of three is a lawyer. And so one of our first prayer meetings, she gave me this notepad and it said, attorney-client privilege. And she started to talk about in real court, that you bring the charge against the perpetrator. You don't yell at the perpetrator, you go to the judge and say, this is what they're guilty of. And so she talked about the heavenly courts and she said, it's one thing to forgive, it's another thing to extend mercy. So she taught me about what she calls mercy trials and Ivelisse, you should probably have her on your show. If she's a good friend.
Ivelisse Page:I love that.
Susie Larson:Really amazing perspective, from a lawyer's perspective, but going into the heavenly courts because there's a strong judicial nature to God, a strong justice nature. He's a father and he's a judge. I had two different traumas as a child. I was jumped and beaten, and then I had the sexual trauma. So she started with the boys who beat me. She said, do you know their names? And I said, I don't. She goes, okay, just write four boys. And she said, did they punch you? And I said, yes. She said, write it down. She said, did they pull your hair? And I said, they did. Write it down. So she said, write down every crime. We're not writing down, they made me feel bad. We're writing down their crimes against you, because that's what holds up in court. And there's a prayer at the end of the tablet and we prayed it through and I named these boys before Heaven's court, you are guilty and deserving of punishment. These are your crimes against me. But because of the mercy that I've received from Jesus. I release mercy to you and the enemy is now moved out. He can no longer triangulate. I am set free. You are set free. You are forgiven, acquitted, and free in the name of Jesus. I put the blood of Jesus on this crime against me. And because of the mercy I've received, I release it to you. And I prayed through this mercy prayer that she walked me through and I literally, in my spirit, saw black soot leave. I could feel it and I went, whoosh. And my pulse dropped 20 points, like that got me out of fight flight. It really was a miracle part of the healing process. And when I had her on my show and we walked people through the Mercy trials, you would be amazed at some of the things that have happened. And I would never have thought, I wasn't walking around bitter. I wasn't rehashing or rehearsing, but some of the trauma we've been through imprints upon our soul and it holds us into trauma. And his mercy seat is what covers us. His mercy is what sets us free. And so that was a key part in my healing process. And really it was so amazing. My hubby and I were on a road trip for one of our events and, he'd been on the receiving end of some yucky stuff. And, so we brought these people before the court of Heaven and we named them, we named the crime and then we covered them in Mercy and we released them and blessed them. And it was like an overnight change in these people. Literally like something happened in the atmosphere. And I just don't think we even understand the power of our love, our forgiveness, our mercy, our grace, or even our tendency to hold onto things, thinking somehow they're gonna pay if my body holds onto this. But it's for freedom that Christ has set us.
Ivelisse Page:Yeah, and I'm gonna put the link to that show in the notes for everyone who wants to hear the entire process of, I believe is Melissa Coleman, what she shared with you. And it was just amazing. And, she was saying there's, releasing mercy over the perpetrators in your life. Releasing mercy over yourself. When you've have been prolonged unforgiveness. And also releasing mercy over yourself from violating your own conscience. And so she shares these prayers and they're so powerful. We had Dr. Michael Barry on the show, and he had shared the importance of living a lifestyle of forgiveness because to the extent that you're successful in doing that, you're going to find that you have a greater peace with God. He says you'll have a greater peace with yourself and then a greater peace with others. And he also mentioned that there are many books on forgiveness, but there really needs to be one written on motivating people to wanna forgive.
Susie Larson:Yeah.
Ivelisse Page:You've shared that you thought all of those things from the past had been forgiven. So how did that practically play once you shared those prayers? How did that impact your life moving forward? Do you feel like you read those mercy prayers more often in things in your daily life? Because sometimes I think we feel like we need to follow those mercy prayer, ask for forgiveness for the big things. But so many times things hold us back daily. So how does that practice affect you now?
Susie Larson:Such a great question. It changed me forever, Ivelisse. Because first of all, I had a reverence for God before then, but it really put a new reverence in my heart for God because he is judge. He's father. He's king and he's judge. If you think of him in that judicial nature, and righteousness and justice are the foundations of his throne, which means when it comes to your story, he's indifferent about nothing. And so for me, I started to get very quick. If there was even a hitch in me towards anybody, I would bring them before the Lord. Or even for me, there's times where I could be so hard on myself or thinking a thought or having an attitude or making a preemptive judgment cuz someone's acting a certain way and getting myself before the Lord. But what it's also done has given me so much confidence in his judicial nature. My hubby was saying, when you go into court, you're not yelling at your adversary. You're telling on him to the judge. And there is a point where God says enough already. When we come before him, like the persistent widow, we're not coming before an unrighteous judge. We're coming before a good father who misses nothing. And as we persist and say, this enemy is ripping off my inheritance, Jesus won this stuff for me and this is not how it's supposed to be. So grant me justice, stretch out your hand against my foe and I pray you call forth retribution and pay back restoration for everything he's stolen from me, whether I handed it over or he robbed it when I wasn't paying attention, I want everything Jesus died for. So it's put a new reverence before God, but a new feistiness in my faith to go, I have legal grounds to ask for some of the things that I'm asking for.
Ivelisse Page:I love that. And where are you today on this healing journey?
Susie Larson:I feel more hopeful than ever. What I'm learning is living in the now, and the not yet that I have to keep remembering all the gains that I've made. I have a functional med doc on my show, once a month, and lots of our listeners love him. One of his patients had asked to hear the very first one that we did six years ago. So my producer went and found it and we did a little editing to send it to her. Just updated, the liners and stuff. But anyway, she said, Susie, she said, I listened to your voice and even the way you breathed, you sound so much weaker then than you did now. I just need to hear that stuff because when you live with yourself, you feel like it's your army crawling for inches. But when I step back and go, my goodness, After everything I've been through, I'm still standing. And you know what amazes me is that I've had neurological symptoms every day, probably for 30 years, but it's not impaired me. It's like my doctor, one of'em, looked at my MRI and said it's impossible that this is your MRI and you're doing what you do. And what the Lord had told me years ago is these symptoms will harass you, but I'll make sure they don't harm you. And so there's times when they flare and they terrify, but he's preserved my life. And what oozes out of my pores if I can be so bold and honest, is I wanna lay hands on the sick and see them recover. I wanna pray for people who have no faith for healing. I could cry when I think of people who suffered alone and been, especially the Christian world, I love being a part of the body of Christ. I love the church. I have a hard time with people who treat those who battle sickness like they missed a step. A plus B always equals C. God always heals. So if you're not healed, your faith is inferior. Jesus says you just need a mustard seed. There's so many factors as to why someone gets healed and someone doesn't. And then there's the mystery of God in all of that. But more than anything in the world, I want so much, give me the suffering. I wanna relieve their suffering. I wanna see them healed. I wanna see their souls restored. I want them to be encouraged, and then I want them to be mobilized out into the kingdom that they could comfort people with the comfort they've received. I feel like in this next phase of my ministry, that is supposed to be a huge part of what I'm doing.
Ivelisse Page:My Women's Bible study group just completed your latest book, Strong in Battle, and for anyone listening and you've already read Fully Alive, this is such a practical tool on how you wake up each day, how you stay strong in battle. It's one of my favorites. And one of the things that you mention in chapter 10 is your trials have trained you. Your mountains have strengthened you and your dependence upon God has deepened you. If you could see what God has accomplished in and through you as a result of your faith, you would release a holy roar and refuse to back down from another battle ever again. The enemy doesn't have endurance, but you do. The enemy doesn't have God on his side, but you do. The enemy isn't guaranteed to win, but you are. This faith journey isn't for sissies. It's time to trust God more, to believe him for more, and to walk in the more that Jesus has for you. And like in any good book, you know the penultimate is the chapter before the end of the story. And I feel you are there. You're about to see your full healing come to pass. You have been so faithful. And you also share that when we go a long time before our prayers are answered, we must learn to have unwavering confidence in Almighty God. You share a lot of things in that book, but how does one practically do that? Can you just share one way that you've done that through this whole process?
Susie Larson:One of the things that God told the Israelites was to be good at remembering, and what they did was they got bad at remembering. They had air amnesia. They forgot God was good. Remember at the beginning of our conversation, Ivelisse I was saying, it's one thing to count your blessings. It's another thing to tether them to a God who's given good gifts to you. So you go from either amassing, gee, I'm blessed to, wow I'm loved. And I would say the way that we persevere, the way we prevail is to look back and remember all the ways God has come through and tell people about it. Because something activates in your story and in your soul when you start to testify. Let me tell you what God has done, because he's done more than you can imagine. As I mentioned last episode, we can't fathom how he's provided. We can't fathom what he has prevented either. There's so many things that haven't happened to us. So to stay in awe over the miracle of our salvation, we get battered in this life, but nobody can snatch us out of God's hand. We get it wrong and we throw hissy fits when we're tired of being sick and tired. But that won't kick us out of our spot at the table of grace. God will never yank us from our place at the table because we forget who we are for a moment. Yes we suffer now, but if we could say that it's producing something in us we cannot fathom. The only way to me that we stay grounded is look back and remember what God has done and then look ahead to say, I'm fixing my eyes on what I cannot see. Cuz even these symptoms, they're temporary. There's an end date to my suffering, but there's an eternity with my name on it. And you think of our persecuted brothers and sisters, there's a lot for them to overcome. In a first world country where we have so much going for us, how do we overcome? Well, usually it's the sufferer. We're the ones who have things to overcome and there's a great reward for those who persevere and overcome, I want in on that and I want my faith to please God. So I'd say, look behind at his goodness. Look for his movement in your present. And then fix your eyes on eternity, because eternity is forever. And how you steward your call here and your story here really does impact how you live there.
Ivelisse Page:One of the things that you said, and this is in closing, I know our time has already come to an end, but you know in John 8:3-6, says, so if the sun sets you free, you will be free indeed. And there are many people who listen to our podcasts that maybe this is the first time they're hearing about faith in Christ and how to depend on Him and how to get through your battles with Him and how we are overcomers. But can you explain to those who are listening today who may not know who Christ is, how they can be invited into his family?
Susie Larson:Oh, I love that question so much. I've been thinking about the gospel in this season and thinking about why did Jesus have to die? And I've thought about it from a different angle. When you think about God and all this glory, he's a glorious God and a mighty king. and there's no sin in His presence. And every time we sin, we diminish His glory, but also, His message of love gets lost in translation to a world in need. So when we sin, we miss who He is, we diminish His glory, and then others miss who He is, because we're image bearers, we're made in the image of God. So we'll never get to Heaven by just trying to be good enough. Because one sin mars that image. One sin allows His glory to be dimmed to a world in need. And so we rack up a debt. Every day we sin. So we've got a debt that we cannot pay. And Jesus knew that. So he came, lived a life that we could not live, and he wiped out that debt. And so love came down to rescue us. We can't jump high enough. So love came down. And to me that is such a miracle that he would step off his throne, crawl into the womb of a virgin teenage girl born into poverty, to show us that he came for the lowliest and the least. He lived a sinless life. He died our death, and he rose again from the grave. Now he doesn't force anybody into the kingdom. He'll never do that. He gives us an absolute free will, but he's made a way. I wrote in my Advent book, because God is so good, and the more I get to know Him, I would think if everybody could just know Him for Him, everybody would love Him. But it's not true. Some people are gonna dig their heels in and go, I'm gonna go my own way. I'll try this on my own thank you very much. And you need to know there's a day of reckoning. Jesus saw the need. Jesus knew there was no way. So He made a way where there would be no way. And for those of us who would turn to Him to say, I see it. I'm a sinner. I need a savior. Jesus, I acknowledge. It's ABC. I Acknowledge I'm a sinner. I Believe that you lived and died and rose again, for me. And I Confess with my mouth and I believe with my heart that You are Lord. You rose from the grave and that You are my King and my Lord. Now, this isn't a prayer that you just check the box off and you go live your own way. And there's lots of people who have a false sense of security who maybe said the words. They didn't believe in their heart. They confessed at their mouth, but there was no belief in their heart cuz there's no fruit in their lives, right? But when you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth, I'm gonna make an about face. I'm part of a kingdom, that has a king and He's my Lord. And He not only grafted me into the family line, He forgave every sin I've ever committed and ever will commit. My eternity is secure. His spirit has taken up residence in my soul. I've got a purpose written over my life and the promises are mine for the taking. How could anybody reject that? But some will. But when you trust Christ, you're grafted into that family line. And yes, He still said it's gonna be hard, but be of good cheer because I've overcome, which means you're gonna overcome. But I wanna say there's a day coming. There's a day coming when we all will give an account for our lives. And those who've rejected Christ will be gone before the great white throne of judgment where all the debt that they have racked up with their sin will be called in. And I will tell you, if you've rejected Christ and wanna go your own way, life on Earth is as good as it gets because scripture says he's kind to the cruel. He's the sun shines on both the wicked and the righteous. So the things that you've enjoyed in this life, a belly laugh, a lemonade stand, a picnic at the park. Those are all gifts from a gracious, loving father. But the day of good gifts is coming to an end for those who rejected Christ. And then you will have to pay the debt that you can't pay and will be banished to Hell. He didn't send you there. You sent yourself there because you rejected Jesus. But for those of us who trust Jesus, the day of account isn't about our sin, because it's been paid for. Period. Our identity, our eternity is secure, but there's a day of account for what did we do with our time, treasure, and talents. So once you're grafted into the kingdom, your stewardship matters. And what does that have to do with? It has to do with rewards in the eternal realm. There's a lot in scripture about it. Not that we live for rewards, but when you're tending to the things that God cares about, when you're helping heal the sick, when you're helping the poor, cuz Jesus is saying, do this for me as my representative, and if you do it, I'll reward you. Why does He say that? Because He is like, when you're doing that, you're shouting to the world, this is what God is like. This is what God is like. He cares about the poor, the prisoner, the sick, the hurting. So he's saying, please be mobilized on my behalf as my representatives. And to the extent that you do that, will you receive a reward on that great day? And there are some believers who live like practical atheists, and scripture says it's like they barely escape through the flames. And there's gonna be a brief moment, I believe Ivelisse when they see Him, when every knee bows, when they're gonna go, wow. I lived like it was all about me. They're saved. They made a confession of faith that they believed, but there's very little to show for it. So that's one of the things that gets me outta bed every day, is for us to stay in awe of our salvation and to live out our call accordingly. So I pray, if you've never said yes to Jesus, trust Him today, but mean it with your heart and know this life is hard at times, but God is good. And His promises are yes and amen.
Ivelisse Page:Amen. That was so well said. Thank you, Susie, for joining us today and we will continue to pray and see God continue to move in your life and in your healing. And thank you for all the ways that you minister to so many every day.
Susie Larson:Thank you for all that you do as well, Ivelisse. We sure love and appreciate you.
Ivelisse Page:If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support our podcast, please subscribe and share it with others. Be sure to visit believebig.org to access the show notes and discover our bonus content. Thanks again and keep Believing Big!