When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, You knew my path… Psalm 142:3
Maskil* of David, when he was in the cave. A Prayer.
August 10 marked nineteen years (2007) since I physically felt the Hand of God turn my brain. In those nearly two decades I have only shared the experience with first my spouse at the time it occurred; then, at one of the lunch tables, a handful of women attending my last ministry retreat in October 2018. Seven people at most. I have long held off making public this testimony, though I’ve been writing from the effects of it all these years.
It was in the mid-1990s that the Lord established in me the belief that healing in one’s spirit and soul could manifest in the body. Likewise, dis-ease and malformation in one’s soul leaves deposits in our human spirit, often evidenced in our physical health. Proverbs 15:13’s wisdom confirms, “…by sorrow of heart the spirit is broken.” Humanity and discoveries in neuroscience validate the truth originally given by the Word of God.
It was Brother Ed (of the “Teach Us to Pray” series inspiration) who titled and wrote of the human spirit – dumping ground of the emotions – and the healing work of the Holy Spirit in the human spirit. His 2005 booklet covered a lot of ground with which I was well familiar. I began to learn and absorb in greater measure what God had set about to accomplish when He first healed me of epilepsy at nine years old. Though a miracle marker in my young life, there was more to the healing of my brain and renewing of my mind yet to come.
The Redemptive Gifts and the Seven Portions of the Human Spirit
The early 2000s was also the period of my husband’s and my early introduction to the study of the redemptive gifts and the seven portions of the human spirit. Romans 12:1-2 was emblazoned in my thought processes, especially “being transformed by the renewing of your mind.” The Lord knew full well His purpose for me before I had a clue.1 Except that His clues were there all along in the pages of my life. I was being prepared.
It’s one thing to know your name is inscribed on His hands and in His Book of Life when you have received Jesus as your Savior. It is in the unveiling of one’s mind that you come to know He has inscribed Himself throughout the book of your life. Every part – spirit, soul, and body with those working, healing Hands.
Return to the High Desert
My then counselor-husband had been to this particular ministry before for continuing training. This time, I had enough vacation accrued with my employer to take time off and accompany him. I was less than a year out from my first breast cancer diagnosis and treatment. And, I had turned fifty earlier in the year, my Jubilee year.
We can become so familiar with “Christian-speak” that its vocabulary rolls off our tongue like water off a duck’s back. But sometime as a younger girl, I loved the word Jubilee. To me, it just sounds happy! And well it should, for as I grew older, I learned in studying the Word that the fiftieth (Jubilee) year is a year of emancipation and restoration, provided by ancient Hebrew law to be kept every 50 years. No matter how Ancient of Days our Lord God is, there is none who is more relevant and forward-thinking than Him. His Son is a Hebrew, after all. Jubilee is no less relevant for those of us who, in faith, believe on Him than it is for God’s nation of Israel.
There are three specifics in that ancient Hebrew law of Jubilee for which I qualified. The emancipation of the enslaved, restoration of alienated lands to their former owners, and omission of cultivation of the land for that year. Now nearing 70 years old, my head continues to spin at His grace-timing and numerical perfection. Each of the three ancient provisions had spiritual application to what Holy Spirit had been effecting in me, mostly in ways I could not yet outwardly witness. That was about to change.
Back to the training trip, I was not thinking about any of the above. Not being 50 and my ‘year of Jubilee’. Our life was consumed in a myriad of ways – working, working with others, working on us – and more learning and growing. Therein is the sharp two-edged sword of the Lord: His calling is fulfilling, but there is a price to pay.
Many a time we have, with David, cried out, “I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD. (Psalm 27:13-14)
In a not so healthy (read ‘good’) mood, little did I know He’d been waiting for me right there, that day. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” has become my growing reality from that time forth. While I was not yet coaching, writing the Wellspring blog, or “looking for His fingerprints,” His whole Hand was coming down.
The Day the Hand of God Turned My Brain
We were about three days in of what I remember being a five-day training. For all the times I groaned about “breakout groups” where we were supposed to get real with strangers, well, here it was again. It’s why, some years later, I came to love facilitating Listen to My Life groups of only three and me. Much more intimate.
Each day’s material learned had the mandatory “the jig is up” practice sessions. Thankfully, there were only five or six of us assigned to a group. Until this day, when the entire group of attendants – about 30 – sat in the large facilitator room in a big circle. There is a difference between attending to learn something to take home to practice on others and the Lord ‘ignoring’ the other 29 to bring home the teaching in a deeply personal way.
Our host, a former pastor now working with lives in need of Christ’s healing and deliverance, was sharing. As much as my mood was parked in a gloomy place, I intently listened to all he shared. To this day, though, I have no idea what he had talked about. His teaching turned to his praying over the group at large. Nor do I remember what he prayed. What I do remember, which remains as real as the day it occurred nineteen years ago, is physically feeling a large hand come down on the top of my brain and turn it 90 degrees from right to left, facing forward. By now in the book of my life, I had learned to not discount or put in a box God’s healing.
Aware that no one else knew what had just happened, I knew. When God proves He knows you, you know it.
From That Day Forward
The writing quietly begun 21 years ago in 2005, two years before this event, provided an outlet to record Holy Spirit’s healing process in my life. Though personal, I knew He was teaching me His ways and Word for others as well. The ensuing nineteen years of writing, sixteen publicly since I began Wellspring of Life, are a direct result of the day the Hand of God turned my brain.
From that day forward, there was almost immediately noticeable changes and differences I could point to. First, color intensified beyond what I had already experienced as the Lord was healing me from the inside out. And light was just that: rays of light, beauty of light, clarity of light, and increased light all heightened the color.
Above all, though, is a most precious gift with which Holy Spirit graced me. I had for many years been a reader/studier of my Bible and had attended many a Bible study and led a few. But, I kid you not, He turned on a faucet in my brain and began to flood me with the very wellspring of life that has been His Life to and in me. Holy Spirit opened up the Word to my understanding and has not stopped. The flow flows on. And on and on…
There are some of you with me long enough to know I’ve referred at times to feeling like the waters have been rising within as behind a dam, and there needs to be release. Oh, how He has taught, schooled, and mentored me in when to flow in it, when to wait and receive more deeply, then write, and when He’s in charge.
Today is definitely of the latter. For those who read my latest Letter to Readers dated October 2, 2026 (about our 50th wedding Jubilee, no less!), I signed off with not knowing if I would have to report for jury duty or not. This Monday morning I was up at 5:30 am in order to be at early jury orientation for my two-week summons. As it moved toward the last step of calling names assigned to three different trial groups (for now), 45 filled the first group, 40 the second group, and 55 the third group. One hundred forty names later, only six were left. I was one of them; released, scanned out, and home by 10:15 am. An early lunch and several hours of anticipated writing later, here is one of my testimonies of the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.
Going Forward Begs Another Installment, or Two
This Redemptive Living Story, while an interlude in the continuing Teacher portion, serves a purpose deeply impressed on me for going forward. Especially in light of The Teacher and The Healer, who is Christ. It will take one, if not two more installments to capture the thoroughness that is part of Him and one’s life story.
I used to have a lovely framed piece of art with the words Your Story Matters hanging in our office suite. There are many in society, in families, in institutions and workplaces, indeed, in the Body of Christ, who cannot or will not embrace the very essence of that invitation. And of those who do, there are as many who seemingly make it all about them. The Lord knows each heart, of that I am convinced. Or rather, He convinced me, and I know it began in earnest the day the Hand of God turned my brain.
On the surface, one could point to all the readily available reams of knowledge and new discoveries, especially where brain science and mental health are concerned. I’ve been a medical patient and recipient of what was available each time I was in need of it. My gratitude for each physician and medical team has been well voiced. But it is below the surface where the Lord our Healer and Deliverer is skilled, with delight, in the root of all ills. This testimony, and the rest of the story to come, is one of my most vulnerable “point them to Jesus” realities of Him I can give you. I can’t proclaim Him without telling you what He’s done.
The Lord and I are not an ostrich with its head in the sand; scoffers abound, doubters prevail, pity parties are well-attended, and big talkers do just that. He knows that, as do I. He already knows. And He’s not finished with His working, healing Hands. I know that too.
Christ’s Letters on Human Hearts – and Brains
So, fan your faith-flame. In (a good mood) season and out of (a good mood) season, you are a letter of Christ, written not with ink but the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of human hearts.2
He writes with His Spirit on brains, too, my dear friends. What do you have need of from our Endless Word?
All glory to Him forever – and to be continued (I have to call in for jury instructions yet during my term) ~
Gracefully Free
*Maskil of David (or Maschil) means ”insight” – “to understand” or “to be prudent” – contemplative, impart wisdom
1 II Corinthians 3:3-18 – Ministers of the New Covenant 2 II Corinthians 3:3
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