Hi everyone,

If you missed Bigger Than Me in your inbox last Friday, I’m sorry it wasn’t there.

Between very little sleep, taking care of and praying for my whole family that caught a bad stomach flu, and catching it myself, pretty much all productivity disappeared for the week.

Ironically, that included writing this healing newsletter.

I don’t take missing an issue lightly, especially when I know some of you have made Bigger Than Me part of your Friday routine.

Thank you for your patience, your grace and your continued readership each week. I look forward to getting back into BTM’s usual weekly newsletter drops for you!

Oh and in case you were wondering, God is good as always and we’re all doing much better now!

God bless,

Addison

“I’ve just been so tired.”

My great Aunt sat across from my grandma and me in my great aunt’s living room, recounting everything that had been going on with her health.

The kidney problems were the biggest concern. There was talk of renal failure.

But that wasn’t all.

Her blood pressure had been running high. Her eyesight was deteriorating. That morning, she’d been so exhausted she could barely function.

Then there were her legs.

Last week she’d been at the store when her legs started hurting. When she looked down, it was like she couldn’t even feel them anymore.

We prayed over everything my aunt recounted.

Her energy. Her kidneys. Her blood pressure. Her eyes and legs.

When we finished, nothing seemed dramatically different.

But I felt like we weren’t done yet. 

We asked God whether there was anything He wanted us to know about my aunt’s health.

We sat quietly for a moment.

Then Grandma spoke up:

“I thought I heard to check the meds, but that might just be my thoughts.”

The three of us moved to the kitchen table, pulled out my aunt’s medications, and started looking through them.

Her diabetes meds listed kidney problems as a possible side effect.

Both of her blood pressure medications listed exhaustion.

And another listed a severe side effect that sounded an awful lot like what my aunt had described happening to her legs. 

Then Grandma checked my aunt’s blood pressure.

It was lower.

She checked it again.

Still lower.

After a few readings, my great aunt was consistently coming in 30–40 points below what she’d been seeing lately.

By the time we left for lunch, color was already returning to her face and her energy was back to normal.

Of course we want the symptoms gone.

If your kidneys are struggling, you want them healed.

If your blood pressure is too high, you want it down.

If you’re exhausted, you want your energy back.

That’s what we’re praying for, and we should.

However, it’s easy to think that’s the entire picture. 

Healing happened. Done.

Relief becomes the finish line.

Jesus healed the man at Bethesda before He ever told him what needed to change.

Later, when Jesus found him again, He said:

“See, you are well! Go and sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.”
— John 5:14

The order matters.

Jesus healed him first.

Then He told the man to change his behavior so that something worse wouldn’t happen to him.

My aunt’s situation followed that same pattern.

We prayed first.

Then we listened.

Then God brought her medications to our attention, and we discovered several of their side effects matched the problems she’d been experiencing. 

My aunt had already gotten relief after we prayed.

But if God hadn’t brought up her meds, we never would have known to look at them. She could have continued taking something that was contributing to the very problems we had just prayed about.

God doesn’t just want us to stop with healing.

Relief is good.

But Jesus wants your total freedom.

Until next time,
Addison