Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:52 — 10.8MB)

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | Email | RSS

A very personalized take on this week’s “Faith Under Fire“. Rather than national and cultural issues we often cover here, today we offer insights and inspiration on how Christians can maintain their faith — while fighting life-threatening diseases, chronic conditions, and/or long-term stays in hospital or rehab center.

Our guest has a personal story full of such challenges. Christian writer Andrea Herzer tells us about her 20 years of serious diseases, chronic pain, dozens of treatments, and more. Even through these hardships — including eight years unable to walk — she saw how the Lord offered her such confidence and blessings. To use her experiences and discoveries as encouragement for others, she has written a Biblical devotional book with the appropriate title: “Incurable Faith“. Her message to people who are suffering is simply this — even when you have a season when your vitality feels like it is fading, your faith can still be flourishing.

In her devotional writings, she recognizes that some patients (and some of their caregivers) are not up for much reading or in-depth spiritual reflection. Based on her first-hand journey through this series of so-called “incurable” diseases, she offers a three-part menu of readings — short and simple spiritual thoughts, more extended devotions, and longer detailed writings to guide someone through their current challenge (be that medical or something else).

In this interview with Greg Gillispie, Herzer speaks her wisdom to three audiences:

• the people personally going through a long battle
• the caregivers, who also can feel exhausted as that process continues for themselves and the loved one
• friends, neighbors, co-workers, and fellow church members — who may rush in with prayer and casseroles and support immediately after a crisis or diagnosis, but may not know what to say or do as the situation stretches across months (or even years).

Through all this, Herzer has found that long medical circumstances are an opportunity to draw closer to God, and to even more fully realize the presence and the power of the Lord.

 

For further information:

• About Andrea Herzer
• Her writings and prayers and videos
• Incurable Faith: 120 Devotions for Lasting Hope amid Lingering Health Issues
• A free caregivers guide