Friend, I want to invite you into my personal journey of healing. More specifically, I want to tell you a story about how Jesus took a broken and terrified shell of a woman and through grace, gifted me with five essential breakthroughs that led me out of darkness.

If you haven’t seen my healing testimony, then it’s crucial you know I was living outside in Death Valley, homeless, sick and dead inside. It was here in a literal desert, an atheist, that God broke through and showed me the tiniest breadth of His love. So began my healing journey training my brain through a relationship with Christ Himself.

Through the storm

One of my biggest realizations was that my brain was not a reliable narrator of reality. I didn’t understand it as I opened my heart to Jesus, but what started as just physical illness turned to severe mental and emotional oppression. The more I chose Jesus as the Way out, the more bipolar I felt. Was I going crazy? Increased symptoms, derealization, through-the-roof anxiety and intrusive thoughts threatened me from all sides.

In His great mercy and timing, God brought the right people with the right pieces of truth that I needed to hear in those moments to keep me going through the hell I was in.

My heart overflowed with stinky garbage that affected my brain and body. Dealing with my hot mess meant opening up my heart to God. In return, He held my hand through five breakthrough decisions that transformed me. And I want to share those with you so that God can work breakthroughs in your life, too. This list isn’t all-inclusive—you will have more godly insights guiding you—but these five were foundational for me. And I think they’ll be essential to your journey, too.

But first, let’s tackle one more issue: barriers.

Emmanuel: God with us

The enemy had me pinned so hard against a wall, I didn’t even believe God existed. As I started to get to know God more, I realized that God did not put a barrier between myself and Him; I had done that. God had not abandoned me; I had turned my head from him. He was there the whole time, running toward me, arms open wide, ready to embrace me. And the same is true for you, friend.

When Jesus died on the cross, it says in Matthew that the veil in the temple separating the presence of God from the people tore in two (27:50-51). Folks, this was a four-inch thick curtain approximately 60 feet tall. Nobody but God Himself could have torn a curtain that thick from that height!

Hebrews 9:1-12 says Jesus entered behind that veil with His blood sacrifice, and that it was sufficient for us. We can now enter in the Holiest of holies! Our High Priest redeemed us once and for all. Now there are NO BARRIERS to Him. God has swung the door wide open for all of us to come and sit at His table, to commune with Him all the time. In fact, we are now the temple in which God’s presence resides. Christ Himself dwells in us by faith (Ephesians 3:17; Galatians 2:20).

As I spent time with God, the barrier decayed. And it will for you, too.

5 Key Breakthroughs

These key heart decisions will be explained in greater detail on my YouTube channel (there was just too much to write for a blog!). But for now, let’s walk through each one just a smidge.

Breakthrough #1:

I commit to do life with Jesus.

I made the choice to step away from old belief systems and step closer to Christ. As I intentionally committed to Jesus every day, two things happened:

Spiritually the climate of my heart shifted; my choices attracted a heavenly atmosphere.
Physically my subconscious mind received signals to start changing for the better.

It’s not enough to make the choice just once. I needed to recommit every day and stay the course with the things God whispered to me (He wants me, I’m worth sticking around for, I’m enough for Him to lay His life down). His truth pierced my soul, bringing me back to life over and over again until His words eventually stuck in my heart.

Breakthrough #2:

I seek God, not the healing.

I prioritized getting to know God over His blessings. Please understand that God is the Giver of all good things, and He wants to bless you. But when I strived for the blessings, my mind was self-focused—which resulted in symptoms.

Instead, I had to get my mind off my healing. And that meant seeking God first above all else. I realized He wants to spend time with me. He’s longing for me to come be with Him, and I had to trust that this was true.

How did I seek God?

Visualizations
Worshiping
Journaling
Feeling Him holding me
Meditating on Scripture
Prayer (talking to Him as I would my best friend)

My heart had been hardened through life’s circumstances. Only through His ongoing loving presence could my stony heart be softened so I could be healed inside and out.

Breakthrough #3:

I accept that God’s way takes time.

When I read the Bible, I saw that Jesus talks about His Kingdom coming to earth in a particular way:

A process of sowing, waiting to grow, then harvesting
Leaven hidden in dough that changes the whole bread dough in time
Paul says we’re guaranteed to reap a harvest when we press into the Lord and don’t lose heart

My healing was a marathon, not a sprint. Through intimacy with Him over time, I believed I would be transformed to reap His Promises without trying to make them happen. In time, He has never failed to bring healing, redemption, prosperity or freedom into any area of my life I’ve surrendered to Him.

Don’t rush through the process, friend. The shortcut isn’t worth it. You’ll be missing the whole point. Life with God is everything. Then the healing will come. He never leads us astray.

Breakthrough #4

I choose to prioritize spending time with God every day over everything else.

When my brain and body were on fire, my flesh did not want to prioritize spending time alone, distraction-free, focused on visualizing truth with God. But you know what? I did it anyway. I treated that one hour with Him as the most important hour in my day.

That may sound hardcore, and I totally understand the legit excuses tugging at you. Or maybe you’re like me when I was first healing, and your capacity is small right now because of your illness.

But no matter how I felt or even how busy I became as my health improved, I realized I could give the most important Person ever at least one hour of my life each day.

My pro tips:

A structured brain retraining program is essential (you can’t wing this).
It’s okay to break up your hour into 15- or 30-minute chunks.

Breakthrough #5:

I focus on how God is working in my life.

As I started using brain rewiring tools with Christ, I began to see positive shifts in my mood and symptoms. But it was easy to fall into the trap of evaluating my progress. Was this really working? Am I messing it up? Will I ever get better? When I did that, I was becoming self-focused again.

Instead of focusing on whether or not I was moving forward, I started to focus on how God was working. That meant collecting all the positive shifts I noticed. I journaled and made videos of my wins, no matter how small. Changing my attitude to be corrected north to Jesus was important since it governed how I saw the experiences I was going through.

I also decided to relabel the symptoms and uncomfortable emotions; instead of viewing them as bad, I believed any setbacks were opportunities to grow. Symptoms may be on the way, but they weren’t in the way. My brain and body just needed some time to catch up and coregulate.

Friend, thanks for hanging in there as I walked you through these five breakthroughs in my healing. I felt like they were so important to share that I shouldn’t shortcut this blog for time’s sake. Don’t forget to check out the corresponding video to each breakthrough for additional insight and explanations.

I pray God would use my experience to help you have your own breakthroughs in healing, too. Be well, my friend. You are not alone on your journey.

Brain rewiring with Christ takes a lot of intentionality through a systematic brain retraining program. A structured process is key. There are lots of options out there, but if you want a program that combines both science and faith, then consider checking out my Gateway to Healing program. Or if you’re already on your brain retraining journey, then Abundant Life group coaching can help keep you moving forward while taking your prayer and visualizations deeper with Jesus. And as always, I’m happy to walk you through your healing no matter what stage you’re in with 1:1 Coaching. Or simply reach out to info@breakatrin.com and we’ll get back to you shortly.

5 Key Breakthroughs | How I Healed from Chronic Illness (Hashimoto’s, ME/CFS, CIRS, MCS and more)