When Jesus Heals Your Chronic Pain and Illness

and why Satan doesn't want you to believe in modern-day miracles

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“And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, those having seizures, and paralytics, and he healed them.” Matthew 4:23-24

Reader, I must preface with this. I don’t have all the answers. I’m no Christian guru (if such a thing even exists). I’m not a theologian (though, I wish. Maybe one day). I am merely a human with finite understanding sharing the modern-day miracle stories given by our infinite God.

Me and baby girl on film

My life is not perfect. I am not walking around in my glorified body that I will one day receive. If anything, my husband and I feel as though our bodies have been under spiritual attack since the day we got married in 2023, perhaps even in engagement. Just a swift glance at our stack of medical bills from our many emergency room visits in just the last 2 years, specialist appointments, surgeries, and procedures will tell you that no, we are not prosperity gospel preachers. But there is something else we cannot deny. Supernatural healing happens. Miracles occur. And we are called to glorify God and advance the Kingdom.

I don’t have the magical formula to get you healed, the sure fire way to get you your own miracle, but what I do have is Jesus, the Holy Spirit dwelling inside me, the hope of the Gospel, that in light of our afflictions there was a perfect man who lived a perfect life and died on a cross for all of our shortcomings and mistakes, a most brutal and heinous death, taking the punishment that we deserved because He loves us, so that we would inherit eternal life in the paradise of Heaven, never to be afflicted with pain or sorrow or suffering ever again.

And what I do know is that 2,000 years ago when Jesus walked the earth, He healed so many, performed so many miracles, that the apostle John says, “Were every one of them to be written, I suppose the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25). And Jesus, the one and only true and still living God, is still revealing His divine presence in the midst of our broken and fallen world, performing miracles, and healing people today.

And Reader, might I add, treat this post like a chapter book. Due to its length, I thought about sending it out in chunks, but I have more peace keeping it all in one post. So, let’s practice the art of slowing down. The art of sipping slowly on our tea, flipping the pages with delicacy through a book, making our way through an article like a walk in a park, allowing ourselves to ponder, pray, insert a mental bookmark, and come to it later again when free time presents itself.

And for those who need to hear this, I urge you to keep an open mind. Doubt, grumbling, condemnation, and being of little faith do not align with scripture. For a lack of a better word, it’s not good biblical theology. I wish it was. I can be quite good at grumbling, too.

But as preacher Dan Mohler points out, complaining and grumbling are even warned against by Paul following idolatry and sexual immorality in 1 Corinthians 10:10, saying that it leads to destruction by the Destroyer, the destroying angel, AKA Satan.¹ It shocked me, too. Complaining is pride, looking at ourselves instead of Jesus, instead of what He has done in someone else’s life, and even gives the demonic grounds to destroy us.

The enemy doesn’t want us to share these stories. And he doesn’t want people to believe them. He doesn’t want the church to be encouraged. Because when you experience a miracle, you take to the streets. You write books, tell family, tell strangers, get up on stage, shout from the rooftops, and even write really really long Substack articles for the world to read. You help make new believers and followers of Christ. You soil Satan’s plan and bring others into the redemption and eternal life that the enemy is forever forbidden from accessing².

With all that said, take a deep breath. Settle in, take a sip of that tea. Let’s share our miracle healing stories.

Healing by the Laying of Hands

“And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” Mark 16:17-18

When I was about 21 years old, I started to experience severe pain every time I ate a meal. I would be hunched over in pain, sometimes sweating even, and unable to speak thoroughly from the intensity of it. The pain would last hours, or even overnight into the following morning.

When I was 26 years old, I was engaged, and like many brides (and some grooms too) experience, it is a highly stressful season of planning a wedding, bridal events, and planning to move out of your apartment and in with your spouse. Not to mention our engagement was only four months long. My then fiancé and I quite literally did nothing but plan every single day for those four months giving ourselves just one date night per week where we had a strict rule about not talking about the future.

A few weeks before the wedding day (when we had just parked to pick up the moving truck to move big furniture out of my apartment) it was brought to my attention that I was internally bleeding. One emergency room visit, an ultrasound appointment, and a couple of gastroenterologist appointments later, it was confirmed. For these five years I had been suffering from stomach ulcers, which are often caused by severe stress.

One week before our wedding day, I was scheduled to have an endoscopic surgery (procedure where they stick a bunch of stuff down your throat into your gastrointestinal tract) to cauterize the ulcers in the stomach (cut, burn, or remove the ulcer tissue to hopefully make them stop bleeding).

Four days before the surgery however, my now husband and I were at our Tuesday night house church. At the end of the message and fellowship, we close out with prayer requests and prayer. Naturally, I raised my hand and told our little community about my current health status and the upcoming procedure. With some people around me laying hands on me, we prayed for the procedure and that the stomach ulcers would be healed.

I remember sitting at my follow up appointment a few days after the endoscopy (which was also several days before my wedding if you’re keeping with the timeline), my GI doctor showing me pictures that were taken of my stomach during the procedure, and…nothing.

“You didn’t have any open stomach ulcers. Only this healed scar tissue,” she said, pointing at the pink smudge on the picture, “We took a biopsy of the tissue just to make sure everything is okay.”

“What? How is that possible?” I said, confused, remembering the ultrasound tech pointing to my stomach ulcers on the black and gray screen just a week before.

“Did you do anything different?” the doctor asked.

“Well...,” I said pondering, “my church prayed for me last week.”

I remember this part so clearly, Reader. She looked at me with so much peace, her curly brown hair all around her face, and smiled. “That’ll do it.”

Our wedding day on film

One of my best friends recently spent the last two years as a missionary in Africa. She has the spiritual gift of healing. Her stories of laying hands and praying for multiple people’s rotten teeth that resulted in overnight healing and pain relief make me want to jump, squeal, cry, and rejoice.

Ashley Hetherington, a Gen Z social media influencer and YouTube personality, has a couple videos where she laid hands on her friends, and they were healed right there on camera. One during one of her monthly vlogs and another on an episode of Jesus Freaks, a docuseries.

Dan Mohler, a pastor and travelling preacher, has incredible amounts of videos up on Youtube. His services often end with prayers of healing. He even does three rounds of laying hands and praying for people, with some people not experiencing a change until the last round.

How strange, how miraculous. If you’ve experienced healing by someone laying hands and praying over you, please tell us in the comments. The world needs more of these stories. And if you’re experiencing doubt, Reader, bear with us. Remember? Doubt is not biblical theology, but childlike faith is.³ You are so loved. Jesus is on the move.

Let the Little Children Come to Me by Adam Van Noort, c. 1600

Healing by Giving Your Life to Christ

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds, you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24

If you’ve read my previous post, I was Delivered from Mental Illnesses by the Power of the Holy Spirit & I'm Afraid to Talk about It: Why getting sold out for Jesus made me question my career as a therapist, then you read about the radical overnight deliverance I experienced from lifelong struggles with mental illnesses. What I didn’t mention in that post (because I felt like it would just be major information overload) was that I wasn’t just miraculously healed mentally and emotionally after repentance, surrendering my life to Jesus, pursuing righteousness, and turning from the things of this world that do not honor or glorify God. I was also healed physically.

My baptism on film, 2022

When I was 16 years old, I fell off my skateboard and landed directly on my lower back. It was one of those injuries that makes you go into a bit of shock, when you know something is terribly wrong but you’re not exactly sure what. For six weeks that summer I was bed-ridden, floor-ridden, in gripping unending pain. I even remember one of my best friends at the time carrying me in and out of her car to get ice cream because I couldn’t move my body in such a way to do it myself.

Six weeks later when I was finally taken to some professionals to investigate what was wrong, I was told that I slipped a disk in my spine. A chiropractor popped it back in, but that pesky disk would refuse to stay put for the next ten years.

If you live or have lived with chronic pain for years or even a decade or more like I did, you know that it’s something you just learn to live with. But all that pain came to an end when I went through Revival and truly repented, started living for Jesus, gave up my idols, seeking first His Kingdom and His righteousness⁴, reading the Word of God every day like I’d starve without it, praying ceaselessly, and wanting nothing more than Him.

Indeed, one day I went to bed with an aching lower back that made me bend, twist, and rub every day for 10 years, and the next day I would never know chronic back pain again. Reader, I can attest that it has now been about three years since I went through Revival, from being a lukewarm believer in Jesus to a sold-out follower of Jesus, and the pain from that spine injury has never returned.

Healing by Faith in the One Who Heals

“Jesus turned and saw her. ‘Take heart, daughter,’ he said, ‘your faith has healed you.’” Matthew 9:22

“The centurion replied, ‘Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.’

When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, ‘Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith,’ … Then Jesus said to the centurion, ‘Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.’ And his servant was healed at that moment.” Matthew 8: 8-13

“Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” James 5:16

This next story is not one about my body, but actually my dad’s body when it was wrought with colon cancer. I called him recently to get some of these details and his permission to share this story.

Christ and the Centurion by Paolo Vernonese, late 16th - 17th century

To preface, I would like to say this about my dad. At the time of his cancer, my dad was one of those people who believed that Jesus is the son of God, but don’t necessarily follow Him. Those people that know about Jesus, but don’t know Him. Those people that go to church, for my dad that is Catholic Church, but their faith walk kind of ends there.

Praise the Lord, my dad has come so far since this experience, truly. Maybe that’s why my dad got this miracle at all. If I remember upon entering Heaven, I’ll ask the Lord myself.

It should also be said that my dad is not necessarily an optimistic person. He falls somewhere between realist and pessimist. Me however, I fall somewhere between realist and optimist. But when the word “cancer” entered our lives, we traded these automatic perspectives. He had incredible faith. While I prepared for the worst.

I remember the day my dad called me and told me the news. It was the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. My dad being in his 70’s was someone I didn’t feel quite safe exposing myself to in person. He also lived hours away. When he told me that routine bloodwork had come back wonky, that doctors found a tumor the size of a softball in his body, and that it had spread to most of his major organs, I remember my heart falling into my stomach. Eyes wide, tears welling up but refusing to fall, I tried to sound calm over the phone, but I remember thinking, He’s a goner.

My dad even, when he tells this story, talks about an appointment he had with one of the doctors who spoke gravely to him, looking at him with pity, and said definitively, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s like he was giving me a death sentence,” my dad recalls.

Ironically, at the time my dad was more cheerful and hopeful than perhaps I had ever seen him. Every time we spoke, he said nothing other than, “Now Katie I am going to be just fine. I don’t want you to worry at all. I have so many people praying for me. There’s power in prayer. I just know I am going to be okay.” And then he’d proceed to list every single person or group of people he knew that were praying for his miraculous healing.

Everyone from old coworkers, his ex-wife/my mom’s relatives and coworkers both old and current, me, my bible study group at the time. There was even a group of women on the other side of the country who were crocheting a prayer blanket for him to have at the hospital for comfort, basically praying for his healing every minute and hour while they stitched.

I remember whenever my bible study group prayed for him, I couldn’t even muster a word. I would only sit there silently and weep. I had such a lack of faith.

And Reader, I’ll never forget the day I went to the hospital, perhaps only a month or so later from that first phone call, and my dad waddled towards me a day fresh from surgery, his hands high up in the air saying, “Oh Katie, this is one of the happiest days of my life. The first being the day you were born.” The results were in. My dad was cancer free. I couldn’t believe it.

Christ Healing a Woman with an Issue of Blood by Paolo Vernonese, c. 1548

According to my dad, the miracle is not that the cancer mysteriously disappeared overnight (although I believe that can happen). It was that by chance (or rather, God’s grace) one of the best colorectal surgeons in the nation lives and practices in my hometown where my dad resided. My dad found this out after he started working with her. (And if you have had a poor experience in medical care, then you know that a bad doctor can make or break your quality of life, and in the worst cases, cost you your life.)

She told him that during the surgery, she cut out more of his organ tissue than surgeons typically would in order to get ahead of the aggressive cancer spread. And here is where I definitely chalk it up to God’s grace, because every good and perfect gift is from above.⁵ My dad is going on five years of being cancer free. Colon cancer never returned.

Five more years that we’ve been given to nurture our relationship as adults. Five more years for him to see me, his only child, get married, welcome his first grandchild, grow in his relationship with Jesus, and secure his citizenship in Heaven. A gift. Praise the Lamb.

I’ll refer back to Dan Mohler for this section of the post. He has as plethora of stories where his grand and enthusiastic faith healed him or someone else miraculously. He has one story about a severe meniscus tear in his knee that was supposed to need surgery and a 6-month recovery that completely healed in a moment. Another about an infection in his leg that doctors said could likely end in amputation. It didn’t. Another about his wife’s stroke and comatose state that doctors warned she would be disabled upon waking up. And of course, she wasn’t. There’s more, too. And each time, Dan Mohler will tell you himself. It was faith.

I’ve already had one person reach out to me about her experience of the Lord healing her cancer. If you have a similar story or a story of being healed by faith, let us know!

Healing During Worship, Baptism, Fasting, etc.

There are too many stories to share about miracles, Reader, truly. John was right.

I could tell you about the young waitress my husband and I had this past Valentine’s Day who shared her story of being healed from chronic migraines during worship at church. She says while she was singing, she felt a heat take over her head. And she’s never had a migraine since.

I could tell you about the middle-aged man who was partially paralyzed in his legs, and after coming out of the water from being baptized, he started to walk back and forth, weeping, healed.

Or Pastor Philip Anthony Mitchell’s story of when an ultrasound confirmed that his unborn daughter had cysts on her brain leaking fluid into her spinal cord, and doctors telling them that their daughter would never walk, talk, and would be mentally disabled. So, he and his wife fasted and prayed. And indeed, their now teenage daughter Abigail can be seen walking the stage with her dad saying “Hallelujah”. Completely and utterly healed. You’d never know she was given such a grim prognosis.

In the words of Pastor Philip himself, “You have no idea what God would do when you turn your plate down and you get serious about consecration, and prayer and fasting, and going after Him with all of your heart.”

Christ Healing the Blind by El Greco, c. 1570

Something the Lord has reminded me as I’ve prayerfully been preparing to write this post is He is an infinite God. His ways are mysterious. He could heal us in an infinite amount of ways. Jesus once put mud and saliva on a man’s eyes.⁶ He put his fingers in a man’s ears and touched his tongue.⁷ And remember as John said, his many miracles weren’t even all written down because there would not be enough books in the world to contain the stories.

What About When God Doesn’t Heal You

Dan Mohler has said some things that have beautifully convicted me in his messages. For one, that we do not call ourselves Christians so that God will take care of us and make our lives easier. Dan reminds us, we call ourselves Christians to shine the light of Jesus, to look more like Christ, because we believe the Gospel, because we have a relationship with God.

(In fact, the scriptures guarantee us trials and suffering while we remain here on earth. I mean, just take a look at Jesus’ 12 best friends. 10 of them were brutally tortured and murdered, that’s not including Judas the betrayer who took his own life. So, if you do that math, there’s about a 92% chance that your life is going to come with some level of sorrow and suffering at some point in time.

Biblical Womanhood

recently wrote a great post on the “thorn in your flesh”.⁸ I could make this post even longer than it already is or I could just link the article she wrote on it. That being said, you can find it here.)

The Apostle Paul or Paul’s Thorn by Rembrandt van Rijn, c. 1657

What Dan also warns about during his healing services is your thoughts when you see other people being healed. It’s those grumbling thoughts that we mentioned in our introduction that the Apostle Paul says can even give demons ground to destroy us. The ones that say, “That never happens to me. It’s never going to happen to me.” Or worse, and I’m guilty of sinking into thoughts like these too when life gets hard sometimes, “God doesn’t like me. He doesn’t care about me or love me. He loves that person more than me.”

But the biggest issue with these thoughts is that they directly contradict scripture.

“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?…No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:35-39

Instead, Dan Mohler says to take those thoughts captive and be disciplined by praying this instead, “Thank you God for what you’re doing and working in my life. I love you.” And then he says to do something that our feeble human hearts are often so resistant to, so defensive about, and even sometimes, so vehemently against. Keep having faith.

Because while doubt and discouragement are much easier (trust me I know), having faith in what Jesus is capable of is biblical. Because even if it is truly in His will to maintain the thorn in our flesh, He marvels at our faith. He is amazed. He turns to the crowd and says, “Truly I say to you, I have found someone with such great faith.”

This isn’t to say that we aren’t allowed to wrestle, to lament, to cry out to God in anguish. Just read King David’s laments in the Psalms or the Book of Lamentations and you’ll see that God is not only acutely aware of our lament and our wrestling, but these books even provide us a blueprint for how to navigate those emotions with the Father.

King David Playing the Harp by Gerard van Honthorst, 1622

But also Reader, if I may, if there is an ailment in your life that you are longing for God to heal, might I suggest that you just ask Him what He wants you to do about it.

Will He lead you to fast and pray? To give up some worldly idol that still has a high value in your life? To read the Bible every day for a month? To be bold in asking someone to lay hands and pray for you? Who knows. Truly, I have no idea. This is the guy that spit in dirt and rubbed saliva mud on a blind man’s eyes, remember?

Or perhaps He will reveal that there is great wisdom and sanctification that could not have been birthed without that thorn. Perhaps there has been no other way to get your attention and force you to lean on Him. Perhaps the Lord needed you to have a great level of compassion for others that would have been impossible otherwise.

Perhaps He wants you to rest in His molding of you into His Christlikeness, to cling to the cross like never before, to put your hope in the promise of eternal life with Him in Heaven so much that the inconveniences and misfortunes of this earthly life grow smaller and smaller by the day. Again, I don’t know. But feel free to message me and let me know if the Holy Spirit reveals it to you.

When I started this Substack publication, I made a promise to the Lord that I would glorify Him. That I would tell of His mighty deeds and works that He has done in my life. That I would spread the Gospel.

I am aware that there are a great many people who could be frustrated or even infuriated by a post like this. It’s too “charismatic”, too optimistic, or they will try to use their logic to disprove these events. Whether or not they’d like to admit it, the Lord is moving in these Spirit-filled spheres. Miracles are happening. People are getting healed. The dead are even being raised back to life. Google it, you’ll find great stories. Or rather, ask God to reveal it to you.

We can argue theology all we want, but Jesus is performing miracles. Maybe that’s the reason why those spaces are getting so much push back and hate. If I was Satan, I wouldn’t want you to associate with those people either. I’d want to make sure you stay in bondage or doubt lest your faith become more passionate by experiencing the power of God so tangibly here on earth, lest the proof of God’s existence leads you to tell others about it and lead them closer to Christ.

And for you Reader, if you are struggling with negative thoughts and judgement about modern-day miracles, as a Christian mental health counselor, with all the love in my heart, may I ask this?

Are those thoughts helpful?

What if you spent just as much time taking those opinions to the secret place and asking the Lord what He thinks about this topic?

What might you be trying to protect yourself from?

May the Lord bless you and keep you, friends. May He make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May He turn His face toward you and give you peace.⁹

Katie Donohue Tona

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1. “Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: “The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.” We should not commit sexual immorality, as some of them did—and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died. We should not test Christ, as some of them did—and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel.” 1 Corinthians 10:10

2. Revelation 12:7-12, 2 Peter 2:4, Jude 1:6

3. At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:2-3

4. Matthew 6:33

5. James 1:17

6. John 9:6

7. Mark 7:32-36

8. “Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” 2 Corinthians 12:7-9

9. Numbers 6:24-26