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I AM HealingStrong
140: I Would Rather Fall Into God's Hands,Triple-negative breast cancer | Jutta Thorsness
00:48:53
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A
The spirit of fear would come over me, and the Lord was like, you're going to have to stop this. And I said, I know, but what do I do? He said, why are you listening to the Father of all lies who is standing by every morning to fill in your blanks when I know what this is and I'm a good father? And for eight months, he taught me intensely how to ward off the spirit of fear. That our words matter. If you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth is my goodness. We are saved for eternity by that scripture or by the principle or the application of that scripture. The Lord taught me that is a spiritual principle in everything you do. If you say, oh, I'm too dumb to do this, and you confess that with your mouth, then that's where you're at. That's what you're getting, and it's not honoring. To him, he said, replace all the lies that are coming into your mind with what I say in my word about you.
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B
You're listening to the I Am Healing Strong podcast, a part of the Healing Strong organization, the number one network of holistic cancer support groups in the world. Each week we bring you stories of hope, real stories that will encourage you as you navigate your way on your own journey to health. Now here's your host, stage four cancer thriver Jim Mann.
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C
I'm speaking with Utah Thorsmith.
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A
Huh. That's Norwegian.
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C
Okay. I had an uncle. I was Norwegian. He passed away recently. He's an older guy, of course, but he was like 10 foot 8. I always called him my Viking uncle.
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A
That's funny.
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C
Never tell what he was saying either. Had a very strong accent, but he was a great guy. So, anyway, enough about my uncle. I'm here to talk to you. You are in Idaho.
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A
Yeah.
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C
And you recently took over a group as the group leader?
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A
That's correct, yes.
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C
How long were you there before you became the leader?
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A
I don't exactly recall, but I want to say something like six months, seven months, maybe. Something like that.
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C
Perfect. Let's get a little background on you. First of all, did you grow up in Idaho?
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A
No, I'm German originally, and I grew up in Germany an hour and a half west of Frankfurt and lived there until I was 30. My husband was US Air Force, and I met him there, and we moved to Mountain Home Air Force Base. In what year was that? Our first son was just a year old. That was in 2002.
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C
You came to the States. You obviously your citizenship was in Germany at that time, but you became a citizen of the United States because of your husband?
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A
Yes, my husband. Actually, I haven't had citizenship until about four years ago.
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C
Wow.
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A
That's where this whole story starts. My mom's. She widowed in Germany and I had to apply for American citizenship to be able to sponsor her to come live with us. That's where this whole story starts, really. The rest of the time I lived here with what's called a green card or a permanent resident card. And they're very easy to renew every 10 years. So I'm an American citizen and enjoy it very much here, so.
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C
So you were living in the States and your husband was in the military. Did he remain in the military or did he get a different career?
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A
We moved here for good. He's born and raised in Coeur d', Alene, which is just about eight miles from and 2012. He did retire. We moved here to Post Falls, Idaho and he is now a veteran service officer for the state of Idaho.
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C
Okay.
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A
So he still has very much work related things with the military which he enjoys.
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C
Do you have kids or siblings or both?
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A
We have three adult sons. Tyler is 25, married, Nathan is 22 and married, and Lucas is 20 and he is single. None of them live at home. And the siblings? I do have a younger brother and two older brothers and they all live in Germany still.
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C
Okay. Were you always healthy throughout your life?
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A
What I would tell the doctor when I had to, I went to the yearly checkups and such. I had some mystery things going on. Just really kind of things that doctors didn't have an explanation for. And I would tell them this is going on. But I would always say other than that I have really robust health and I believe that. And I'm like, whatever this weird thing is, some autoimmune. As a teenager I had, oh, I don't know the, the English name for it right now, but it's a skin condition. We say Schopenflechter in German. It's a psoriasis is I think, what you call it.
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C
Oh, yeah. Okay.
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A
And different things. But that also cleared up with the adult years. But I had some unexplainable things that couldn't really be diagnosed and I was misdiagnosed. Actually. We were at McCourt Air Force Base and I was diagnosed with Ms. By several doctors and then we found out I don't have Ms. It's been a little bit of a roller coaster that way. But I always had. Actually I was convinced I had pretty good health.
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C
So yeah, being misdiagnosed like that kind of messes with your mind, doesn't it?
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A
It did. It was very devastating at the time. And the enemy, the devil wants to hijack your mind to go to future you never want to enter. So that also happened, of course, with this diagnosis. There is really a lot that we can do, especially when we're walking with the Lord to fend that off and prevent that from happening.
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C
Yes, that's for sure. Let's just jump right to the diagnosis. When did that happen?
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A
That was in 2022, in March. That was in Germany. Let me back up just a little bit. 2020, my mom widowed and I flew home to help her with all the paperwork and she was not in very good health. She was in bad enough shape that I considered taking her with me on a three month visa to visit here, but that didn't work out. So I did leave without her and organized just a little bit of help which was very difficult because of COVID house visits and such. It was. We all know what it was like. And the following year I was with my mom on Skype, pretty much on night shift. And that's also when I believe my health started shifting. At the time we were homeschooling our three sons still. So about 12:30 at night I would get the SOS call from my mom and I needed to basically keep her nostrils above water till she was calm enough to master the rest of the day, which was about 4:30 in the morning. Then I would go to bed and get up at 8 again and start homeschooling. And during that time we had immediately started applying for American citizenship and also kickstarted the application for mom to be able to live with us. So then in 2021 she was getting very ill. She was in the hospital. I tried to find out if her green card was about to be ready. I called here in Spokane, Immigration services. They said it should be done before Christmas. That was 2021. So I booked a flight. I landed there on 8 December and I had the flight booked back for 5 February because I needed to sell her house and all the paperwork, everything that goes with someone exiting their home country for good. And Christmas came and went and New Year's came and went and no green card. And then my husband started doing a little research. I will say also that the Ukrainian war had broken out and all paperwork for immigration applications were stopped for that reason. And it was announced that there was now a one year waiting period, which was a great shock in itself, right? So yeah, I just hung in there and my husband Was very. Scott, he's very supportive. January, February, February came and went. And my mom is at that time very, very ill. She was mentally and emotionally abused for four decades and was very fearful and had memory problems that are magnified with fear. And so I was dealing with that. And one day it was really warm and I detected a lump, but on my rib cage, of all things. And it shot like a bee sting into my collarbone when I touched it. I'm like, okay, that, that is not right. And the short story of a longer story is that because I didn't have German health insurance anymore for the reasons of, you know, being married, military and all that, I went and had an ultrasound about an hour away that we were hoping the military insurance would pick up later. And they said, okay, I had other bumps on my right side as well. And she said, oh, yep, this looks okay. That is a cyst. This and that and the other. But yeah, that thing on your ribcage, that is questionable. You should have a biopsy. So then I went home and really started praying about this and drew near to God. And I went to a different MRI place, different town about an hour and a half away. I had to use places that were likely being covered in the overseas program from the military. And she said the exact same thing. And then I just know at the time that I don't want to have a biopsy. My closest friend at the time was battling a type of breast cancer that's like a spider web. And she had testified and said one of the main things she regretted was ever having a biopsy. And I did a little research and that cancer is actually encapsulated. And it was pretty clear to me after praying that I wanted this surgically removed. And then they could poke around it in the petri dish all day long if they wanted to. The next problem was that no surgeon would touch it if it had anything to do with breast disease. And the only reason why I found a general surgeon that actually removed it very well, and the only reason he did that surgery was because it was located on my rib cage. Otherwise in the German system, they're really not allowed to do that surgery. And it goes to oncology immediately. What happened next is, of course they sent everything in. A week or a week and a half or so went by and I had a follow up appointment. It was a Friday. I drove over there, half hour drive, and I'm like, oh, I'm just going to be so glad when this is all over with. And of course I was still healing up and everything was a pretty tender spot. And I go in there, and he's like, yeah, we don't have the lab result spa kit. I said, I came here. It's Friday. I would love to have a good weekend. Can you check if it's maybe ready now? And he said, it should be ready. It's been forever. Do you mind waiting? So I waited, and he went and did a phone call, and they faxed their stuff over. I remember he busted into that door and landed on that chair with the wheels and rolled all the way to his desk and said. I mean, they were about to close. They had, like, two hours left, and it was their weekend, too. And he goes, yep, that was nothing good. That was cancerous.
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C
Wow.
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A
And I remember sitting there, the moment he said that, I got hot and cold at the same time. It was like evil had just thrown a cloak from behind over me to swallow me up. That's the best way I can describe that. And I remember that part. It's probably my soul. And part of my brain immediately fled to God. I knew I was only safe with him. And he was talking. And it was kind of a weird situation, too, because it Wasn't Bedside Manners 101, the way he even told me the diagnosis. But it felt like he was, one, rushed, the waiting room was full with patients, and two, he was very uncomfortable, and he pretended he wasn't. And I could tell. And then he said, oh, I have a friend here in the hospital. We got everything. The margins were fine, but it would be not a bad idea to see what your lymph nodes are doing. I have a friend here in the hospital. Do you want me to make an appointment? I said, yes, and we went from there. And. Yeah.
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C
Wow. It just changes everything in your life. It's like it comes to a screeching halt when you get that diagnosis, because obviously fear jumps in right away, doesn't it? It's like, is this. It Is. This is how my life ends? The doctors don't really help you be calm about it. They're like, oh, we'll take care of it. It's more like. They usually give you some time. Like six months. They like the six months thing. Sometimes the five years they gave me a month and a half or a month or two, rather. I thought, oh, hey, that's pretty short.
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A
Yeah.
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C
But they're not. They're not good with making people feel comfortable about it. Not most of them, anyway.
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A
That was my experience, too. I. I went to his doctor friend, had an appointment, and he basically told Me that with that diagnosis, I have to do full dose of chemo, strongest dose of chemo, strongest dose of radiation. And. And he goes, we need to have an mri. He knew I was paying out of pocket at that time, and so he said, you can go to the front desk. They can do some phone calls and request the least expensive mri, but we're gonna need that, and you're going to have chemo. And he didn't even really ask. He said, that's the only chance. And so I went to the front desk, and they did exactly as he said. And I was set up with an mri. And then I had a friend with me, actually, she drove me over there, and she was with me the whole time. And I said to her, rosvita. That's her name. I said, he never did an ultrasound of anything. All he knew was that they got the whole margins and stuff. And the diagnosis was triple negative, grade 3C, which means that it had gone in the lymph nodes, which is fine. And that's what he went off of. But then I said to the front desk, how come he never did an ultrasound of my armpit? He says, I need to be set up already with chemo and radiation. And so they spoke with him real quick. We sat in the waiting room. He had another patient in between. And then he called me back in and did an ultrasound, and he saw that one lymph node was what they call matted. It had broken out into the surrounding tissue and then other lymph nodes that were unusually big. And, yeah, I did have the MRI then, and they saw that it had not spread into the rest of the body, but that I had a serious problem in my left armpit. Then I needed to be scheduled for surgery, as though surgery was the first thing he had mentioned. Surgery, chemo, radiation. And since it was Covid, I had been praying. I was not comfortable. I had more fear of chemo and radiation than of falling into the hands of God. The doctor was not in the office because he himself became ill. So I wasn't scheduled for surgery with him. And I tried calling them again and say, can you set up an appointment? And I prayed. I said, lord, you've opened the doors that need to be opened. You close the doors that need to be closed. And they called me back and said, we're sorry to inform you, Doctor will not take any new patients when he gets back to the practice. He will only serve established patients. And we hung up. And without the Lord, I would have probably been devastated. And I felt relief I was not comfortable with this doctor who just, I didn't realize. Also the. I'm going to just say it. The fear mongering that is taking place in many of these practices, certainly not all of them. I have talked to people that had. Okay. Experiences in my entire journey. I had three oncologists, all three of them fear mongered, patronized, and I had my husband or another advocate with me at every time. And they, they confirmed to me that I wasn't overreacting or anything. It's pretty discouraging. Can be if you're not, if you don't know what you want and you're solid in the Lord as far as having a foundation.
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C
Yeah. It's not like it's important or anything. It's just your life. So, I mean, it's pretty important what decisions you make. And I fortunately had doctors that were very encouraging and they didn't see the big picture. No one ever offered me chemo. In fact, my one oncologist says that that doesn't work.
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A
Oh, wow.
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C
I'm like, what? Are you sure you're, you're saying that out loud? Yeah, this is great. I'm gonna stick with you. But most of them do. I mean, I would say I don't want to trash them, of course. I mean, that's what they're taught to do.
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A
Yeah.
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C
Like if there's cancer, there's chemo. We put them together and, and it normally doesn't work. There's been times where people have, you know, it has beaten back to cancer enough, but usually it just makes them sicker and prolongs them for another six months or whatever, and then they die from the treatment rather than the cancer itself. But, you know, these are things that we're learning in just recent decades because we always trust the lab coats because they are smart people, but not necessarily logical.
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A
So they are smart people and many of them believe that what they're doing is the only way to help you. And I would like to think, think that there are not people, doctors that are aware that what they're doing isn't effective and are still pushing it. I'm, I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt.
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C
Yeah, of course. Obviously you are cancer free right now, right?
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A
Yes.
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C
Yeah, That's a good thing.
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Praise God. Yes.
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C
Yeah, it's much better. But what brought you to that point then after, after all that, when we
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A
finally came back nine and a half months later, we came back 16-9-2022. My friend that was suffering from breast cancer she already made an appointment with her oncologist, so I wouldn't have long waiting times. So within a week, I got in and the same thing, just the fear mongering and the patronizing. He ended up ordering chemo without my consent. And he just didn't listen, really. I would have a scribe with me, my friend Brooke. She would go with me to the appointment, and I said, these are such stressful appointments. I need you to just take notes. It didn't occur to me to record, but I wanted a person with me anyway, so maybe that's why. And, yeah, it was just not a good experience. And I asked her after the appointment, did he really say this? And did he really say this? And did he really mean this by saying this? And we were on the same sheet of paper, and I decided he's not. He really is not listening to me because I said to him, okay, after prayer, my husband, I have decided that if prolonging my life, quote unquote, means that I lay next to the toilet as skeleton, vomiting and with diarrhea, then I would prefer not to have those two years. And he didn't want to hear that. So then I went on to my third oncologist, which was in is here in the state of Washington. And unfortunately, that wasn't a lot better. Back to that second oncologist, too. We would do tumor markers, and you would think you would get the results back if they're good, that you get a phone call. A. It was three weeks when I had that last appointment, and I got so stressed out. In these appointments, they're just. Your life is at stake. You make decisions, you listen to what they have to say. You want to be educated, you want to respect them, because they are supposed to be the ones that have most of the answers. But we left that appointment, and we were still in the hallway, and I said, brooke, we did not talk about tumor markers. And I said, let's turn around. I want to know about this. He should have brought this up by now. And he was still in the hallway. And I said, I know you're onto a new patient, but we didn't talk about my tumor markers. They were taken three weeks ago. I'm sitting on hot coals. Can you tell me? And without flinching, he said, oh, yeah, they were all fine. I mean, he knew that, but he didn't bring it up to me. And I said, well, Now I have 12 more questions for you. And so he never followed up. He never called and said, okay, let's set up a phone Call or you will hear from me or come back in. What questions do you have? I respected that he had a different a new patient after me already, no phone call. And that was my sign. I'm like, I cannot work with that practice, with that office. And so onto Spokane, Washington in the Valley. Here we're right next to it. Basically it's just 20 minute drive. And MRI again said that I have a problem, a tumor in my armpit. And I was again told chemo, radiation, surgery first, of course. And I at that point I was already pretty saddle tight with the Lord as far as what I knew I was supposed to do and what I knew I wanted. My husband and I wanted. He just kept shaking his head. He was pretty disgruntled with me. And I ended up actually taking the appointment to be evaluated for radiation just to show him that I'm willing to hear what they have to say. But that didn't matter, just the very fact that I decided against that. He literally went out the room and rolled his eyes. I did agree to surgery after a long prayer. It is a really long story how I felt that the Lord was leading me to do that all the way to the name of the surgeon. And I had that third surgery, was declared cancer free. But now I know that I have to change my lifestyle and there's a reason why I had that. And actually I think the reasons why I had cancer were two of them. As Paul says in the New Testament, I pray that as your soul prospers, your health shall prosper also. And there is a study or collection of data by a ministry called Be in Health by Dr. Wright is his name. He has passed since. And I did an online retreat to just really explore everything that the word of God has to say about healing and healing on this side of the veil. Because I was always taught to believe that there's only healing when you die, when you lay down your body here and when you go to be with the Lord, you're completely restored, of course, you're completely healed then. But then the Lord had shown me in his Word and said, stop putting a timestamp on the healing scriptures that I'm showing you that have no timestamp. And I remember in Psalms 91, I think it's the very end where he says, I will show him my salvation and give him a long life also. So salvation and a long life were side by side. It just didn't mean that salvation is when you go to be with the Lord, that that's the only time that you can be healed by the God whose name also is Jehovah, Rapha. So I had that third surgery. And so with that being health ministry, they had a statistic like accumulated data that all the ladies that were healed from breast cancer through a miracle, it had to do if it was on the left side, it had to do with someone in their bloodline in the family, another female that could be the mom, it could be even a daughter, an aunt. Anyone related that that person was severely at odds with unforgiveness, resentment, anger, those kinds of things. And if it was on the right side, it was had also to do with a female, but usually it was someone outside the bloodline. And that was over 90% accurate. He has a documentation of that. And I thought, okay, that is really interesting because I started to ask the Lord, what is my hang up? Where in my bloodline am I having problems? And that was my aunt who was very upset that I didn't vaccinate my mom during COVID I believe she would have actually died in the condition that she was if she had received vaccinations on top of it. And so I had to forgive her for being very aggressive and very mean and very accusatory over the phone. And then also with mom not being well at the time I was sick, we were in Germany in her house. Her house needed to be sold. And she had very compulsive behavior, super scared. And I was sick now with cancer and everything. There was one day, I recall that because she came up the wooden stairs and I A quick side story is she had two cats and she didn't remember if she fed them. And every time she opened the fridge where the cat food was, the cats would sit there and beg. And the cats were as wide as they were long. And I said, mom, I'm going to have to take over feeding the cats. You're not doing them a favor. They're way too heavy. So she would come up the stairs and say, can the cats still have something to eat? They're starving. And that would happen like 10 times. She would come up the wooden stairs, open the door of my room and one day I snapped. I allowed the spirit of anger to enter. And I wasn't the same after I felt resentment. It's very hard to describe with words. And I knew those things were my spiritual causes, but also physically, I always thought I had a pretty decent diet. In fact, three years prior to that, I lost 75 pounds doing a program and kept it off. I still was that weight after losing all that weight when I went to my mom's. But yes, I, I realized I need to reevaluate. What am I really doing? Am I getting enough nutrients and do I really eat enough vegetables? And just took a closer look at what that looked like.
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C
Yeah, who eats enough vegetables? Nobody. Did you just pick a certain protocol or you just ate more vegetables? Did you do any juicing, that kind of thing or.
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A
Good, good, good question. So now I'm backing up to Germany. We're now in a rental like Airbnb because the house is sold and we're waiting for the green card and mom is super sick and I am navigating with the Lord through what that's going to look like. We had found this tiny church, like 50 people that really loved the Lord. And we had started attending right after, right before Christmas actually right after I got there and the main churches were all closed. One lady from church we became friends with and actually several. And it was a good little community of believers. And she said, I have this dentist I go to is also a holistic doctor and I wonder if he would be of help for you. And I wasn't sure at first and I said, okay, thanks for offering this. I remember being in my room that was a tiny kid's room. There was a bunk bed in there and I love sleeping on the top bunk. So it was me and the Lord in the top bunk. And I was just crying out to him and I said, lord, what is it that I need to do? Are you just going to heal me or what do I physically need to do to honor your temple? My body? What do I need to change and what are you teaching me? I fell asleep crying. And the next morning I woke up and the first email I received on my phone was from a clinic, natural health clinic in Arizona. I have no idea how they ever got my email. I had not looked at anything. I had not, I have no idea. And it wasn't in my junk folder, it was in my email and there was a video and the doctor was talking about high dose vitamin C. And I felt that was something that spoke to me. The Lord was like, I want you to take a look at this. So this friend had mentioned that this dentist, slash natural doctor is also doing high dose vitamin C administers it. And she goes, I have an appointment next week. If you just come with, at least you can maybe have your first dose of high dose vitamin C. And I said, wow, that sounds great. So yeah, that was almost a two hour drive to her appointment. And of course we prayed Together. And he did ozone therapy before the high dose of vitamin C. And he goes, my, I am treating my sister, she has triple negative breast cancer and she's doing just fine. If you do ozone, like we call it, the blood washing and high dose vitamin C, you should be fine. But have you considered your teeth? And I had bought a book about root canals, and I happen to have three of them. And one was already removed. That was an implant. And I always had this little. This full sensation on my left side. And he did some testing that I am not necessarily super comfortable with, or if that was really something the Lord would approve of. But he did some testing and said, your root canals on your left side are super infected. The one on your right side is infected and your implant needs to come out, too. And I thought, he's also a dentist. But he knew that I wasn't coming back to him because I was just visiting, so to speak. And he was doing sanitation, quote, unquote, in quadrants. So this would be four surgeries to clean all this out. But I took this seriously because I knew that I had this fullness on the side of my head. And so when we arrived back to the States, I knew I had to look into that. And so the answer to this is that I went to a specialty dentist in Portland who removed all four, all three teeth and the implant.
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C
Wow.
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A
And he sent in the ones on my left side, which is two on the top and both on my right side, one on the top, one on the bottom, separately. Because when he pulled them out, he said, I do this all day long, Monday through Thursday, every week, all year long. I have never seen rods like that. And he showed them to me. I have pictures of them, and they were black. And he said, we're sending this in separately. And when the report came back, the value of 9 was indicator. Be very, very concerned for your health. He tested about. They tested about 20, maybe 22 pathogens. Two of them were a 7.5, and all the rest of them were 12 to 16. And he said to me, had you done chemo before taking care of this, your family would have had a funeral pretty shortly after you started chemo. They were so aggressive. Pathogens. Parasites, actually. And I already knew you cannot really sanitize a tooth because a tooth is an organ. It has a nerve and blood flow. Once you do a root canal, the blood flow and the nerve is removed and that canal is cleansed or disinfected, quote, unquote. It's impossible because it's a porous Structure. Normally the blood transports non beneficial bacteria away from the tooth. And when that blood flow stops, that bacteria does not die. It actually mutates and it becomes anaerobic, which means it starts to thrive without oxygen, which, you guessed it, cancer is anaerobic. And that was draining into my lymph system probably for the last 15 years.
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C
Wow. So does that bring us up to today you're doing?
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A
So I did high dose vitamin C mainly. I did a ton of research from then on. I have probably three years of research and started doing different protocols. Learned even in Germany. I learned about fenbendazole, ordered it from Bulgaria because you couldn't get it in Germany. Started that, you know, baking soda alkalizing the body. But then other things too. Really. I heard about Chris work for the first time also there about the 20 questions to ask your oncologist. And that really emboldened me because I only asked like three or four questions. And they just were so upset with me. I'm like, if I can't even ask a question, that shows me you're not wanting to work with me. But high dose vitamin C is very expensive. And so we actually started that in Germany, Amazon of all places. I could purchase the ascorbic acid, the butterfly needles, the lines, the saline. And another lady from church, she said I only worked in geriatrics while we were still stuck there. She said, I can't remember last time I've put an IV in, but if you're patient with me, I'll administer. I knew I needed it twice a week. And it became a wonderful friendship. Mom and I were invited for lunch twice a week. And then after lunch, the men would go to their work and we would have a small healthy dessert. And then mom would go to one couch, I would go to another. She would put the line in me that would run for about an hour. And then Connie was her name, she would grab the other couch and we would nap until everything was through. And then when we came to the States, our youngest son, Lucas, he wanted to do an EMT disaster class. And he said, mom, why don't I just learn how to do your IV? And then you don't have to pay $200 every time you need it. And he did. We had a friend, a nurse practitioner who came to the house, a very fit guy, veins like a roadmap. And he taught Lucas how to do this. And he even let him practice on him. And then from then on he did that probably for a year. And I did other protocols as well.
- [37:27]
C
Yeah, nice Nice. My youngest daughter is about to graduate as a nurse and she had to practice, you know, doing IVs on the nurses where she was interning at. And they say she's pretty good. So.
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A
Nice.
- [37:40]
C
I got myself a needle poker when I'm ready.
- [37:44]
A
Yeah. And then being cancer free and trusting that, that I am cancer free. Because the question is, even a healthy person, how do they know they're cancer free? We all know we are dealing with cancer cells, but how does anyone know you don't have any growth starting anywhere? I also deal with lipedema, which gave me a couple of scares. I remember also that I had problems on my right side. And every morning I would feel on the right side the lumps. And that was something I still wanted to share. And one morning, about two weeks after doing that, every morning, the spirit of fear would come over me. And the Lord was like, you're going to have to stop this. And I said, I know, but what do I do? He said, why are you listening to the Father of all lies who is standing by every morning to fill in your blanks when I know what this is, and I'm a good Father? And for eight months, I. He taught me intensely how to ward off the spirit of fear. That our words matter. If you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth is my goodness. We are saved for eternity by that scripture or by the principle or the application of that scripture. The Lord taught me that is a spiritual principle in everything you do. If you say, oh, I'm too dumb to do this, and you confess that with your mouth, then that's where you're at. That's what you're getting, and it's not honoring. To him he said, replace all the lies that are coming into your mind with what I say in my word about you. So I, instead of reaching on the right side, I would get up, not touch it. I would go in the shower and I'll start declaring over myself. Psalms 1:117 18 or 1:18 17. I shall not die, but live and declare the works of the Lord. And I would pray that. I said, lord, I pray that I will not die, but live and declare your works. That's something that's really dear to my heart. I teach how to get rid of the spirit of fear. And I have opportunity at this local, healing, strong group, of course. And it's been really a rich blessing because iron sharpens iron. When you give, you also receive, even though that's not the goal. But it's very rich to meet together to encourage one another and to trust the Lord and to really run to him first, even to seek to do what to do in the physical.
- [40:12]
C
True. Yeah. Once you receive that diagnosis and you work through it and you trust God, which obviously you've been doing, life is. Is so much more exciting, actually. I mean, life is so much better after cancer than before cancer. It's like going from black and white world into color. You just appreciate all the things that you didn't think about before. As long as you trust in God and follow him and not say, well, God, I'm going to go with the lab coat here. Because, you know, they have a degree, say, well, yeah, God kind of created everything, so I think his degree is a lot better.
- [40:46]
A
Absolutely, absolutely. And I will say it's been a very hard thing, obviously, to trust God every step of the way.
- [40:54]
C
Oh, yeah.
- [40:55]
A
But I remember coming to a point with the Lord that I said to him, I will not do anything unless I hear from you. I would much rather fall in your hands than do something I'm not supposed to do. And I would like to share, my main prayer is this, that, Lord, help me to walk with you in such a way that out of ignorance or carelessness, I would cut my days short, prevent ignorance and carelessness. And I will say that I strive to live carefree, but not careless, neither with myself or with others. And that's been really steadfast and good prayer, because knowing that he answers as a good prayer to pray, that means I don't die a day sooner than what is on his books, Right?
- [41:49]
C
You are an inspiration, Utah.
- [41:51]
A
Praise God. None of us has a story apart from him, truly.
- [41:55]
C
That's true. The exciting part is, you know, we're all different. Even, you know, obviously this podcast is mostly about cancer survivors, but there are other. Other people that have gone through other things. It's all the same story. I mean, oh, sure, the more you trust God, the more he shows himself,
- [42:13]
A
and that is the truth.
- [42:14]
C
We have a tendency to tell him what we think he should be doing. I mean, it's just our natural.
- [42:18]
A
I have definitely been there.
- [42:20]
C
Yeah. But if you're like, okay, sorry, God, I got out ahead there, I was going to trust you. So, yeah, it's an adventure.
- [42:28]
A
He gave me a picture about that. He's like, I gave you the baton, and you took it and you ran with it when you said, but you passed me. I'm over here. And he also gave me about six months ago, a picture. It wasn't a vision or anything, but our. I Was wide awake. I was just pondering, you know, your imagination. If I know your house, Jim, and you say I'm in my kitchen, then I imagine what your kitchen looks like and what it is that picture you and your kitchen. So that's what he did. And in seventh grade I ran sprint, hundred meter sprint. And I really loved it. Didn't really love the starting block, but I loved running like the wind. And I saw myself in the starting block for 100 meter sprint. And it was this came in response to thinking that sometimes we give up too early and we don't wait on the Lord and we call, we consent with the enemy instead of pressing into healing. Does that make sense? So I am the whistle sounds and I'm running like the wind. And in this visual on the left side I see coming up the 75 meter mark. And at the 75 meter mark I throw up my hands and I start jogging. And I say if God wants me to still be in first place, I'll be in first place because God can do anything. And I said that's ridiculous, I would never do that. And he said exactly. Think about this some more. It reminded me of I had ministered to people with cancer that just broad stroke how they trust God and they said, oh, if God wants me to live, I'm going to live. But they're either consenting to the enemy by being discouraged and saying yep, the doctor said I only have three months to live. And they accept that instead of pressing into God. Just the picture of throwing up your hands and consenting to defeat, but then declaring that God can make it work. It's kind of ridiculous because we have a part to play and God honors faith and the enemy honors doubt. I've yet to see anyone starting to jog in a sprint and claiming that they can still have first place and win. The enemy wants to fill in our blanks. He's like, oh, there's something going on. Are you sure you're so cancer free and all this. And we run to God and we stay with him. We have to. That's where life is. We have to speak life as a man thinks in his heart. So he is. And then also death and life are in the power of the tongue. It's actually often misquoted. People say life and death are in the power of the tongue. But I believe there's a reason why death is written first. Because that's our default. Yeah, that's our default. Life comes only after we turn from our own ways.
- [45:30]
C
Sounds like you read your Bible.
- [45:32]
A
I love the Bible. Literally. My life depends on it. I believe in Proverbs 4, where it says, it's life to your bones and your flesh, which is the word of God and our family. Verse is Proverbs 4:23, which is, above all else, guard your heart, for it's the wellspring of life. And it is life that I'm after, not just eternal life, which is the best thing, of course, but also life here, so I can be useful for the Lord.
- [46:04]
C
You've given us a lot of things to ponder, to think about, and your story is great because it's turned out you're a thriver. Just talking to you, it doesn't matter how it turned out physically, you would still give all the glory to God.
- [46:17]
A
Amen.
- [46:18]
C
Sounds like you're ready to go either way. And that's.
- [46:20]
A
Praise God. Yes.
- [46:21]
C
That's where I find myself. I'm like, you know, I don't. I don't want to leave my family yet, but at the same time, I know on the other side, it's so much better than we can ever imagine. And I won't be disappointed. Like, not yet.
- [46:33]
A
Very true, Very true.
- [46:35]
C
Well, how can people get a hold of you?
- [46:37]
A
So we have a of course on the healingstrong.org website, if you go find my group and you put in your location or zip code, you will find our group. And then also we have a local website, which is inw-healingstrong.com and our email is almost identical. It's info nw-healingstrong.com INW is Inland Northwest.
- [47:08]
C
Well, it's good to meet you.
- [47:10]
A
Yes, likewise. Thank you so much for having me. I hope everything I explained made sense. It's a really long God story and to filter out and get the gist of it, I'm really thankful for you interviewing me.
- [47:24]
C
And the story never ends, so.
- [47:27]
A
That's right. It keeps going.
- [47:29]
C
All right, well, thank you so much. And you enjoy that beautiful part of the country up there.
- [47:33]
A
Thank you so much as well.
- [47:35]
B
You've been listening to the I Am Here Healing Strong podcast, part of the Healing Strong organization. We hope this episode encouraged you and gave you confidence to take charge of your healing journey, trusting God to guide your path. Healing Strong is a nonprofit dedicated to connecting, supporting, and educating individuals facing cancer and other diseases through strategies that rebuild the body, renew the soul, and refresh the spirit. It's free to join a local or online group. Just visit healingstrong.org to find one near you or start your own while you're there. Create a free my HealingStrong account to access all of our free resources to help you live healthier and heal strong. Though our groups and resources are free, we invite you to support our mission through a month Hope Givers donation of your choosing. Your generosity helps us reach more people with hope and encouragement. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a five star rating and review to help us spread the word. We'll see you next week with another story on the I Am Healing Strong podcast.