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From the publisher:
Discover the riches of abundant life that pain and illness can never take away in this encouraging devotional full of hard-won insights and powerful biblical inspiration.
In Incurable Faith, Andrea Herzer writes from the midst of her own long-term illness to give you hope wherever you are on your journey with medical issues. Whether you are facing a new diagnosis, mysterious pain, or any other illness, you can go from being a victim to being victorious through God’s sustaining love.
Far from suggesting you must “have faith and get over it,” Andrea validates your suffering while offering sustaining hope for your soul. Through devotions, Scriptures, spiritual exercises, and suggested worship music, Incurable Faith helps you:
• unlock the key to joy through praise, presence, and purpose
• understand the difference between acceptance and resignation
• nurture grace-filled relationships throughout the stresses of illness
• navigate the isolation of being bedridden or homebound
• develop practical strategies for coping with pain, fatigue, and anxiety
The 120 devotionals are grouped in varying lengths, so you can engage with shorter passages on days when concentration is difficult. Each devotion offers a Scripture verse, prayer, suggested worship song, and takeaway to keep your mind anchored in truth.
A testament to how the joy of the Lord gives strength even when our bodies are weak, Incurable Faith invites you to know God’s sustaining power and comfort in a deeper way—because no illness can diminish His abundant provision for you.
Includes a topical Scripture index and multiple resources for caregivers.
Neurosurgeon and award-winning author Dr. W. Lee Warren, MD delivers daily prescriptions from neuroscience, faith, and common sense on how to lead a healthier, better, happier life. You can’t change your life until you change your mind, and Dr. Warren will teach you the art of self brain surgery to get it done. His new book, Hope Is the First Dose, is available everywhere books are sold.
Good morning, my friend. Dr. Lee Warren here with you. It is a Tuesday,
and I'm excited to be with you for something different today.
We're not doing Tuesdays with Tata. We're not doing a flashback episode.
We're doing a conversation with an incredible author.
I get a lot of emails about, you know, we talk about mind change and cell brain
surgery and all these things, Some people write in and say, hey,
what do you do when the problem that you have is not going to go away?
When it's a chronic illness, when it's a situation, it's something that's happened
that's never going to stop being true.
What do you do when the pain won't go away?
How do you use self-brain surgery to change your mind about that one?
It's not going to get better. You don't have a reasonable basis to have hope
that the situation will go away. What do you do then?
Well, our guest today is Andrea Herzer.
She's intimately acquainted with the difficulties and hardships and traumas
and tragedies and massive things that go along with chronic illness,
debilitating health issues.
She was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and she's had multiple other
illnesses, including severe pain syndrome called chronic regional pain syndrome.
And for the past 20 years, she's been dealing with these illnesses that are
like the Energizer bunny that just won't stop coming. I mean,
she's had over 100 surgeries.
She's had tremendous amount of physical pain and difficulty and recurring and relapsing symptoms.
And she has written an incredibly beautiful and powerful book called Incurable
Faith, 120 Devotions of Lasting Hope for Lingering Health Issues.
I was honored almost two years ago now, back in sometime in late 2022,
I got an email from Brett Benson, who's one of the publicists over at Waterbrook Penguin Redmouse.
And Brett said, hey, I have an author that I think would resonate with your
show, and her name is Andrea Herzer, and I think you would be a great guest.
Interview for you for your podcast, but more importantly, I think you would
be a great endorser for her book.
And so he sent me a copy of the book. It's actually on the Multnomah side of
Waterbrook Multnomah, which are two publishers in the Penguin Random House imprint.
They share an office space in Colorado Springs.
And Brett said, hey, Andrea's book will resonate with you. I would love if you
would consider endorsing it.
So I had the honor of reading an early version of Incurable Faith way back in 2022.
And my endorsement appears in the book. So I'm very familiar with Andrea's work
now, but we've been talking about having her on the show ever since then.
Every time something came up, we had a death in the family. She had a relapse
and she was sick or in the hospital or something happened, had to have surgery.
And we just kept having this interview being delayed and delayed and delayed.
And it began to feel like it wasn't supposed to happen.
Whenever that occurs, I usually see that as an attack on the enemy,
trying to keep something from showing up that's going to be helpful to you.
So we kept pressing We finally got to this day where we got to sit down,
Andrea and I, via Zoom or via Riverside, actually, an electronic connection
over the magic of the Internet,
and had an incredible conversation about how you find hope when the problem isn't going to go away.
Her book talks about how to unlock the key to joy through praise,
presence, and purpose, to understand the difference between acceptance and resignation,
to nurture grace-filled relationships throughout the stresses of illness,
navigate the isolation of being bedridden or homebound, and develop practical
strategies for coping with pain, fatigue, and anxiety.
Listen, this episode is going to help you if you are struggling with a chronic
situation, whether it's a mental one or a physical one or one of grief or one of pain.
Andrea's work can help you. She runs a thriving Facebook group,
as she'll talk about. She has a great website. She has a strong Instagram community.
And she's a person you can connect with if you're looking for how to figure
out how to make your faith incurable when your pain is too.
Andrea Herzog is going to help us today. Change our mind and change our life.
And we're going to get after it in just a second. But before we talk to Andrea,
I have a question for you.
Hey, are you ready to change your life? If the answer is yes, there's only one rule.
You have to change your mind first. And my friend, there's a place where the
neuroscience of how your mind works smashes together with faith and everything
starts to make sense. Are you ready to change your life?
Well, this is the place, Self-Brain Surgery School.
I'm Dr. Lee Warren, and this is where we go deep into how we're wired,
Take control of our thinking and find real hope.
This is where we learn to become healthier, feel better, and be happier.
This is where we leave the past behind and transform our minds.
This is where we start today. Are you ready? This is your podcast.
This is your place. This is your time, my friend. Let's get after it.
Music.
We're back and I'm so excited. This is a long awaited conversation.
It's been about a year that my guest today and I have been talking back and
forth about this talk and we're finally getting it done all the way from Austin, Texas.
I've got Andrea Herzer with us today. Welcome, Andrea.
Thank you for having me here, Lee. I appreciate it. Absolutely.
We've got a lot of things in common, like run down a little list of some of
the things that we have shared experience in. Yes.
Well, first of all, my father is a physician, retired physician of 60 years,
and he trained at the same Air Force base as you.
And I used to go to Auburn. So we almost crossed paths.
It wasn't quite when we were there. But I know you have ties in Texas,
and I live in Central Texas.
And we're both Christian authors that focus on bringing people hope amid their challenges.
That's right. And we both love Tommy Walker. That's right.
We do. We talked about that a little bit earlier, didn't we? We did.
Hey, Andrea, before we get into this conversation, and just for the listener,
I've given them a little bit of your background, but we're going to talk today
about pain, chronic illness,
and seasons of suffering that don't go away, and how you manage to hold on to
hope and faith and help people do that.
And so we're going to to cover a lot of ground today that there's going to be
some hard stuff for people to hear, and we're going to land on hope.
And so I think before we get into such a meaty conversation,
why don't you start us off with prayer?
Okay, it would be my honor. Heavenly Father, we just come before you now.
We know that people who are listening have burdens, challenges,
things that seem insurmountable.
Maybe there's somebody who just received a devastating diagnosis or a poor prognosis.
And Father, for those people, we ask that you would use our conversation to
give us a word that sustains the weary.
Help us to speak only what is helpful for lifting others up and speaking words
that help them according to their needs so it may benefit those who listen.
Lord, we dedicate this time to you and we pray that your hope,
your comfort, your strength and your peace would be boldly coming out of us
today and that we would draw people into the comfort of Christ.
And it's through Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
Amen. Thank you so much. Hey, so one more thing we have in common is we share
a publisher. So our publisher, Waterbrook, reached out to me,
and I guess it was late 2022, probably when your book was getting prepared for publication.
Andrea's book, Incurable Faith, 120 Devotions of Lasting Hope for Lingering Health Issues.
The tremendous little devotional book that covers a lot of ground about how
you hold on to hope when you're hurting.
Each devotional has a scripture to start and a story and a devotional thought,
a prayer, and some worship music, which I love. So every kind of devotional
has a song that you recommend to kind of play and meditate over that. I love it.
But the publisher reached out to me in, I think it was the later part of 22,
and said, hey, would you consider endorsing this book?
And we get a lot of those kind of requests. I'm sure you do, too.
And don't have time for all of them, but I read it, and I was like,
yeah, I'm proud to have my name associated with this because this is holy work,
Andrea, of helping people hold on to meaning and purpose in the midst of their pain.
So maybe give us a high-level view of your life and your story and what you've
gone through, and then we'll kind of probably end up morphing into how you ended
up writing about that and all those things.
Absolutely. So, backing up, my story really starts at 19 when I accepted Christ as my Savior.
And then I thought, now I know the way to live my life.
If I just follow God's Word and, you know, live a life honoring to God,
I will be blessed and nothing will ever touch my doorstep.
You know, I will live a life without suffering because now I have the answer, and the answer is Jesus.
Well, I resolutely ignored all of the passages in Scripture that talked about suffering.
And so when my health challenges began, I had been working in ministry for many years.
I was a first grade teacher and then became a children's ministry director,
leader of moms of preschoolers and Bible studies, writing for newsletters and devotions at my church.
And so I was taken aback when my health issues first started.
And we can go into the specifics down the line a little bit later,
but basically they just put me into bed with chronic debilitating pain,
burning like I'd never experienced.
I couldn't even lift my arms. I couldn't walk.
I couldn't get out of bed. And so that began, you know, a series of tests and
surgeries for other issues that seemingly unrelated,
but come to find out it's of course, it's all related because our body is fearfully
and wonderfully made and it's complicated and it's interconnected. connected.
So, it really began for me with, as the mother of three young children and,
you know, a wife who had been very active with my children, with my home,
with my husband and in ministry.
I went from being this joyful person to feeling devastated and asking the Lord,
couldn't I serve you better if I were healed?
Why aren't you healing me? Everything was going going from bad to worse.
And I began a season of deep lament, and I was sifting through my beliefs about suffering.
But I couldn't have told you that at the time. And I didn't even think I knew
the word for lament, because that wasn't in our Christian culture as much as
it is today, at least in mine.
And so, homebound and isolated, realizing that the abundant life.
Was still for me. It had to still be for me, because the abundant life is for
all followers of Jesus Christ.
It doesn't just rely on, you know, if you're healthy, you can have an abundant life.
Or if you're, you know, you fit this category or this box. No,
a believer in Jesus Christ has the Holy Spirit dwelling within.
And so, I began a search to find a way to live well, even if I never felt well.
And as I searched through Scripture and found,
it was almost like like glaring spotlights on scriptures that helped me regain
my joy and my hope, I started sharing them with people I would meet at surgery
centers and pain support groups.
And later during, as you'll find out, but as I went through chemotherapy and
would meet people next to me in the chairs.
And so these precious people were suffering just like I had been for so many years.
And they wanted compassionate care from someone who deeply understood their
struggles, but yet had found peace and joy in the hard places.
So fast forwarding, wrapping it up, looking at me today,
most people have no way of knowing that the past two decades have held years
of disability from a painful neurological disease called complex regional pain syndrome,
multiple diagnoses, surgery after surgery, complications,
over 100 medical procedures.
Chemo complications from two seasons with advanced stage cancer.
And today, I still live with cancer. I still live with disability and chronic pain.
And as you know, I just went through a surgery two weeks ago,
and it was an unexpected surgery.
But I can live through these things victoriously and with joy because I have faith in Jesus Christ.
And it is an honor and a privilege to reach others in their hard places as well.
Amen. That was a quick overview of a lot of years of struggling for you.
But there must have been some moment when you hit a line in the sand,
a time when you said something's got to change. Like you were in that teetering
between despair and what's my life going to look like?
So maybe go into that dark time and help us understand what began to turn your mind around.
Because you just described really the self-brain surgery, this idea of deciding
to believe God's promises for your life, even though it didn't look like you
thought it was going to look like.
Well, I think first I needed to, like I said, ask the questions,
go to the Lord, continue to go to Him.
And I had already established a rhythm of spiritual practices before my challenges
hit me in such a devastating way.
So for me, that meant going to Bible study. And if I couldn't actually attend
Bible study, sometimes I had friends come to my house or at that time we didn't
do things online, you know, because this was a while ago.
But they would, I literally held a Bible study from my bedroom, from my bed.
And friends would come and say, I have a couch in my bedroom just for this purpose.
And so, just those rhythms of daily reading God's Word, praying,
pleading with the Lord, being honest with other people about what I was going through.
And I'm going to pause to say here that sometimes when you're going through
challenges like this, someone else's poor theology of suffering can feel devastating.
Amen. Yes, and that happened to me.
And I didn't yet have a firm grasp on really what the Bible had to say about
health and disease and miracles and,
you know, what to expect from the Lord and what the Lord can do in our suffering
and joining with Him in suffering and receiving a greater weight of glory.
Lori, I didn't yet have that foundational knowledge.
And so it was really easy for their comments. Well, maybe you sinned.
Maybe you just don't have enough faith.
Maybe your peace and your contentment amid your pain and your disease means
that you're accepting less than God's best for you.
So, and everybody listening right now who's been through these things,
who's been through a death in the family, having a rebellious child,
going through, you know, cancer or chemo or disability or what have you, maybe divorce.
We've all heard these comments. And so I really needed to take them before the
Lord, see what Scripture had to say,
and And begin a process of discerning what was true and what wasn't.
And then also, like Job did in the end of the book of Job, praying for these
people who had wounded me because I didn't want to carry a weight of unforgiveness
and bitterness when I was already carrying so much.
Wow. So much to unpack there. So you exactly described sort of the three elements
of what I call the treatment plan for dealing with trauma and tragedy.
And my book, Hope is the First, does exactly what you just described.
You had a strong prehab process of knowing the word, knowing the promises of
God, knowing how God behaves in our suffering and what suffering is about.
You had a strong attachment to the word, to the truth.
So you knew where you were going to call on when you needed resources,
when you were hurting. Beautiful.
And you had a good process of turning your mind towards things that are true
and away from the scary, often untrue things that our minds can throw at us when we're hurting.
And you had a strong sense of community and the people around you who can help
you rehab yourself to get better and to stay stronger.
So you did all of that exactly the way I would describe it as a strong word-based
treatment plan for your life.
So congratulations on that. That's a great lesson for all of us to hear.
But secondly, something you said really resonated with me, Andrea,
as a bereaved father, like one of the really hard things about losing a child
is dealing with the things that people say.
And what you said about having proper theology around suffering,
I want to make sure the listener, listen, friend, hear this carefully.
If you're going to speak for God, make sure you know what God says on the matter.
If you're going to use words that purport to be God's words,
you better have your theology squared away because you can really hurt somebody
when you say the wrong things and attribute them to God.
And you could probably give me a list of the most harmful and unhelpful things.
I have a list on my website.
And then things to say instead, because we want to reteach people and help them
to say things that are helpful for building others up according to their need.
But for someone who's wondering, I say, study the book of Job.
See what Job's, you know, what his comfortable comforters, he calls them.
And he says that they're worthless physicians.
And what does a worthless physician do? He gives you a poor prescription and
it doesn't bring healing and it doesn't bring comfort.
So those are some things that I've learned. And we're human.
And I'll probably say things that wound people and hurt people in my attempt
to heal them. And so I pray that they'll give me the same grace that that I
am seeking to give others.
That's right. But you mentioned something earlier and you talked about the three part plan.
And I don't want people to think that now I have it all figured out.
And, you know, that was then this is now.
And, you know, it was just in the beginning of my 20 years of health issues.
You know, this is a process because the refining of our faith is a process.
And just when I think,
I have it together. I know how to do this. Yes, I can get through chemo.
Yes, I can. Oh, my cancer is growing again.
Okay, Lord, my body is yours.
I'm bought at a price. I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. You're going to use it for good.
You know, just when I think that now that's going on, something can come out of the blue.
And it's particularly what I've noticed. And I do talk about this in my book
about having a supernatural companion instead of following the natural companions
that come towards us during pain and suffering.
And when I say natural companions, I mean the thoughts, the thoughts that come,
the thoughts in the middle of the night that tell you things like,
I can't live this way anymore, because that's not true. True.
That's a lie from the enemy.
The Lord, if He is going to allow something in our lives, He's going to equip us to get through it.
And it may not feel like it at the time, and we don't know, and maybe we're
just taking one breath after another.
But as we seek Him, as we find His presence in our pain,
and as we just moment by moment rely on His grace, we're going to look back
at that time and we're going to see where the Lord was and how he met us and
how he's using it. And so.
Having said that, just this past two weeks has been very, very difficult.
And I have been discouraged because it's hard to, I had to cancel a trip with
friends and I haven't, I don't travel very much as you can imagine.
And I was really looking forward to it. I was actually going to go out to Colorado
Springs and meet our publisher.
And so disappointments come.
And I do get discouraged from time to time, but I don't stay that way for long.
So I agree with the psalmist. The psalmist said it best.
My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
And so there are three things that help me guard against discouragement. May I share them? Okay.
So the first one is to cultivate the harvest.
The second one is to protect the harvest. And the third one is to rejoice in the God of the harvest.
And so cultivating the harvest for me, I talked about it earlier,
touched on it earlier, but it means cultivating spiritual rhythms that help
me form an eternal perspective.
Reading my Bible, pursuing edifying fellowship, serving the Lord by reaching
out to others, meditating on scripture.
And during the seasons when the pain is overwhelming, sometimes just worshiping
in the pain and surrendering to Him.
And those are all things that help me cultivate a harvest.
Now, when we have a harvest, what does the Bible say about the enemy coming
in to steal? Darrell Bock.
Right. And so the ways that I've found in my life, and I think for people who
live with long term debilitating health issues, and it's one thing after another,
and you don't know when you're going to be in the hospital and when you're not.
And you think maybe, like for me, I thought my chemo season had ended and I
was, you know, just coming out of that.
That was just this maybe like a year ago.
And then I got hit with months and months of COVID pneumonia and hospitalization
and blood infection and you name it.
And I've had two surgeries in the past three months.
So protecting the
harvest for me means protecting my heart
against things that steal my strength and the enemy wants to still steal and
kill and destroy so i talk about this in my book but there are poor habits that
we can develop when we have chronic health issues and people tell us just do what comforts you.
Just do whatever you feel like doing right now, because, you know, it's all about you.
And that's a dangerous thing to tell people when their health issues and talking
about medications and talking about, you know, their surgeries or their complications
or all of that. It's all about us anyway.
And so now we have an excuse to make it even more about us And we become purposeless and empty.
And so I think protecting the harvest by watching what things we go to when
we stray away from the comfort of Christ,
and we can talk about that more later, but the last thing is rejoicing in the God of the harvest.
And so inviting worship and thanksgiving and joy into my day,
because the joy of the Lord is our strength. That's right.
So that's right. That's a beautiful sort of metaphor of what God's doing.
You know, he tells us in Isaiah that he will refine us in the furnace of suffering,
like this idea that you can either be defined by the thing you're going through
or you can be refined by it. But you have to do one or the other.
Like you're going to you're going to burn up in the furnace or you're going
to be cleaned of the things that can't survive the furnace and come out on the other side stronger.
Stronger or some better way that God has in store for you to live your life
than you had before you went through this suffering, because suffering produces
character and hope and all those things that the Bible says.
And I just had an email from a woman recently. This is an important little aside
here, but if you're listening and you're dealing with chronic pain or dealing
with some kind of chronic issue in your life, please hear what Andrea and I
are talking about right now.
But Lisa and I received an email from a woman whose husband committed suicide.
And he did that because he had had several back surgeries that left him in chronic
pain and he was just unable to process the fact that he was never going to stop hurting.
So he had chronic regional pain syndrome and he had just a chronic pain issue
in his leg because of a botched spine surgery and ultimately took his own life.
And what she said was that nobody ever told her,
nobody ever told him, none of his doctors ever told him about the neuroplasticity
of the spinal cord and how you can get signals that tell you that you're in
pain when there's really nothing actively happening and you have to learn how
to rewire your mind and understand what's happening. Right.
Nobody ever said that. It's central sensitization.
That's right. And I have that. And...
May I mention here catastrophizing? Why don't you, have you mentioned that before?
Let's dive into that a little bit. Yeah, please.
So catastrophizing, when you have pain, you're predicting that,
like she mentioned to you, I can't do this. I can't let, this is going to get worse and worse.
I'm not going to be equipped. I'm not going to be able. And for people with
medical trauma, and especially someone, you know, the title of my book is Incurable Faith.
That's a little play on words, because the diseases, including my cancer,
have been termed incurable.
But it's through incurable faith in the one who created me, the one who has
assured my redemption and my healing.
And if He's done that, and He's given Himself for us through His death and resurrection,
He's certainly going to equip us on this earth.
But having said that, there is no, absolutely no judgment or condemnation towards
people who have made that choice or, you know, let a hopeless heart determine their actions.
And I have struggled with that. I absolutely have struggled with that. I talk about that.
Yeah, I talk about that in the book, but the thing about catastrophizing and
another way of putting that is kind of having a worst case scenario.
And we start to get dragged away and enticed by these thoughts and they're hopeless.
And maybe we don't even recognize them at the time because they just seem so
natural. Well, of course, I'm going to be depressed.
And of course, I'm going to feel like I can't get through this.
But we don't live by sight. We live by faith.
And so, you know, Job, I think about this.
Job, in the book of Job, couldn't perceive what God was doing.
And he began to catastrophize. He actually said, my eyes will never see happiness again.
And as we know, did that come to pass? No. No, his eyes saw happiness again. The Lord restored him.
And so we can get control of these thoughts, but feeding our thoughts on worst
case scenarios will never strengthen our spirits to endure suffering.
And yeah, I found that when my thoughts are filled with trepidation and fear
about my future, they're not leaving room to consider God's sufficiency for my future.
That's exactly right. Let's talk about the neuroscience for a second.
If you're listening, you are listening.
I don't have to say that. Since you're listening, you need to understand this
gift that God gave us of what we call selective attention. You have the ability
to decide to think about one thing and not another thing.
And on the neuroscience side, we bring what we call attention density to something.
And we know that the more you pay attention to something from a particular point of view, like pain.
I'm in pain. Am I in pain? Yes, I'm in pain. When is it going to stop being
in pain? I'm always going to be in pain. I'm never going to stop being in pain.
And you start processing that and running down that rabbit hole of the reality
of hurting. hurting, then what happens is you begin to create synapses around
the idea that you're always going to hurt.
And that's the definition of your life. And then you can't think about anything else.
And so you develop that attention density where you can't stop thinking about it.
And the good news is for us is that God has given this ability to us to say,
you know what, I'm going to choose to think about something else right now.
And if you switch to something for which you're grateful, for example,
like you said, something about worship,
something about lifting your eyes to the promise, to the physician,
to of the healer, then what will happen is you'll start making a better neurochemical
environment in your brain that will produce those natural endorphins and the
things that help you have less pain.
So you'll find not only am I not thinking about it, now I'm not feeling it as much either.
And so you've described the process of that sort of self-brain surgery idea
of turning your mind towards something that's more true than the thing that
you're feeling at the moment.
Well, it's wonderful to know the reason why, because as I began to practice
the things that the Lord was teaching me, and one of them was worshiping in
my pain, and I mean devastating,
go-to-the-ER-level pain, and that no medication could touch.
No medication could touch. And so, I had done some alternative treatments,
some hyperbaric oxygen for complex regional pain syndrome, which I have in both
hands, my right knee, both feet.
And I was trying to regain the ability to walk again without having to use a walker or a scooter.
It was before my cancer diagnosis. So it was probably about 2013.
And when I stopped doing those treatments, because I had to do them in another
city, and I go into that more in the book, but it was about four days later,
and the disease returned with a vengeance.
So I went from like a two on the pain scale to, you know, absolutely a 10.
And for me, a 10 is screaming and just really, so the Lord, this is such a beautiful gift.
And this is just how the Lord works and how he meets us in these spaces.
The very last day that I had left my car and not using my, my walker, I had left my car.
I found on the ground next to my car, a little cross and it said,
and all things give thanks.
And I thought, and I asked, you know, does this belong to anybody?
And nobody claimed it. And I thought,
okay, well, the Lord is telling me something and I am giving thanks.
Because look, I'm sleeping through the night. I can walk. I'm doing so much
better. I'm giving thanks.
And then four days later, it just returned with a vengeance.
And the Lord reminded me, and all things give thanks.
And so I did. So I just said, Lord, you are good. You are powerful.
You are mighty. You are my healer, my savior, my friend. I thank you.
I thank you for my family. I thank you for the ways you've cared for me.
And I just started out loud claiming and just praising him and thanking him and worshiping him.
And honestly, the pain was still there. Right?
But it was kind of as though there was like this sacred space that sort of dulled it.
And I just felt the presence of Christ.
And it was such a powerful moment of time of just realizing,
really, the power of praise, the power of worship, thanksgiving.
And of course, the Lord wired us for that, didn't He? That's right.
That's exactly right. What a beautiful story.
What's the best way, Andrea, for somebody to find out about you,
follow you, connect with you, learn from you?
They can head to my website, which is AndreaHerzer.com.
And I'd love for them to join me on Instagram at Incurable Faith or on Facebook.
I have a wonderful, really supportive, active Facebook group.
And it's called, you can find it through my website, but it's called Embracing
Abundant Life Together because that's what we're doing every day.
Amen. What do you think, just as we get close to the end here of our conversation,
somebody who's in the middle of this hard moment,
the early stages of finding out they're dealing with something that's going
to last or some devastating problem, What would you say on that early entry
point that somebody's in would be some good steps they can take to navigate this time?
Well, as we talked about earlier, I would say definitely continue to press into the Lord.
Read the Psalms. Pray the Psalms.
Be honest with people. Tell them how they can support you.
But for those who find themselves becoming more isolated because of their health
challenges, and it's a real struggle. I hear from people almost daily,
and I experience it in my own life.
So it's just the way we do church these days. It's very difficult for people
with chronic health issues to keep showing up.
And we don't have really a church model where people are coming to them to reach them where they are.
So for people who are isolated, I just want to say to the person who feels alone
today, I understand this pain and Jesus experienced it too.
He said, you'll leave me all alone, but I'm not alone for my father's with me.
So the Lord has promised to be with you too. And he's never going to leave you or forsake you.
You are his beloved. And I want to remind people that being lonely or isolated
doesn't reflect on your value or your position as a much loved child of God. Amen.
Amen. That's beautiful. Listen, friend, we have three copies of Incurable Faith,
Andrea's beautiful devotional book.
It will help you. It will minister to you. We have three copies to give away.
Send me an email, lee at drleewarren.com with your name, your mailing address, and your zip code.
If you want to be included in the drawing for those, we'll go 48 hours after
this episode. We're going to give away three copies of this beautiful book from Andrea.
Listen, Andrea, your work means a lot. It's helping people. It's giving people hope.
I I really greatly appreciate your time today, and we're praying for you and
your continued healing.
Thank you, Lee. It's been a pleasure talking with you all today.
Wasn't that a great talk?
I told you you were going to get a lot out of Andrea. Please send me an email,
lee at drleewarren.com, with your name, your mailing address,
your zip code, if you want to be considered for one of the three copies that
Brett and the great people over
at Multnomah, Waterbrook, Penguin Random House have offered to give us.
Andrea's work will help you. Check out her website. Check out her Facebook group.
If you're dealing with something chronic, something long lasting,
something that just doesn't seem to want to go away, how do you find your faith
that can hold up and be incurable to overcome that incurable chronic problem?
Andrea Herzer, great guest. Hope it was enjoyable for you, my friend.
God bless you. We're praying for you. Don't forget, you can't change your life
until you change your mind. And the very good news is you can start today.
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Hey, thanks for listening. The Dr. Lee Warren Podcast is brought to you by my
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