Sips from the Fountain
Learning to drink from Jesus, the Fountain of Living Water, isn’t as hard as I thought, especially when you just start with sips, and those will change everything.
Sips from the Fountain
When God Doesn't Heal: Life Wasn't Supposed to be Like This
Susan Litchford's perspective on suffering will challenge everything you think you know about healing and faith. After 37 years of living with rheumatoid arthritis, she offers wisdom that stands in stark contrast to popular prosperity-focused teachings: what if your unhealed condition is actually a profound spiritual opportunity?
Susan takes us back to the moment everything changed for her. Trapped in a church balcony, overwhelmed by physical pain, she heard a message about the potter who applies "pressure on the outside and pressure on the inside" until he creates a vessel he can use. This revelation from Jeremiah 18 didn't end her suffering, but it broke affliction's power over her mind and heart. While she has experienced partial healing—her crippled hands straightened through prayer and her twisted arm partially restored—she focuses not on what remains unhealed but on how God uses her circumstances.
The conversation delves into Satan's three primary tactics: bitterness (hungering for what we feel entitled to), jealousy (compromising to obtain what others have), and disappointment (testing God by treating Him like a vending machine). Susan counters these deceptions with profound metaphors, comparing our spiritual refinement to a silversmith purifying precious metal until he sees his own reflection in it. "Power is not in what I perceive as my perfect life," she explains. "Power is standing firm in the truth that God is making me a pot He can use."
This episode offers a refreshing counterbalance to contemporary Christian culture that often emphasizes instantaneous healing as the primary evidence of God's faithfulness. Whether you're struggling with chronic illness, emotional wounds, or unanswered prayers, Susan's testimony provides a framework for finding purpose in pain and victory in unwanted circumstances. Subscribe now to hear the conclusion of Susan's story in our next episode, where she'll share more personal experiences and wisdom about living on divine assignment despite physical limitations.
Hey you guys, before we get started with this episode, I just want to let you know I'm really excited for you to hear what's about to unfold. You know how you hear about heroes of the faith, people who have endured great difficulty in their lives but have become the most incredible human beings, not just by enduring what they've been through, but almost seemingly because of it. Some of them, you know, were famous historical figures that I remember you probably do too, and I feel like, personally, I've actually been so privileged and honored to know a few people I would characterize like this. I feel like these are usually older people who've had a lifetime of walking this journey with God and, if I'm honest, I feel like how could I ever walk in faith in life like they do? In this episode we get to hear what I consider to be one of those people. Our topic today is how to navigate the fact that we love and serve a God who can and does heal, but what to do when he doesn't. What you're going to hear today is not a popular theme in our faith culture in modern America. In fact, what you're about to hear is actually almost counterculture to how most of us approach God and faith, including myself. You'll hear at the end of the next episode. Actually, this is a two episode series where the Lord just opened something up that I realized I needed to deal with this during the podcast. It really is almost counterculture to how most of us approach God and our faith in our country today. Also, I just want to say I recognize that when we talk about health issues and healing and a lack of healing, we're treading on the ground of tender hearts and deep wounds, painful memories and disturbing thoughts about God and life, and I want to be so sensitive. That being said, what you're about to hear is not for the faint of heart, but I have bet my life on the fact that it's true and it's real, and that you're about to hear the secret that the saints of old and the saints that we know today have learned the long and hard way because there's no other way to get there. Because when he meets us in the long and the hard, we know him in a way that I don't personally believe we could ever know him otherwise. So you've been warned Buckle up, you won't be able to unhear this. Now let's get into it. Do you ever feel like life can get too complicated and maybe even overwhelming. Yeah, me too, and it's okay.
Speaker 1:My name's Martha Gannot, and in this podcast we're going to talk about life, love, faith, family relationships, all kinds of things, and we're going to drink from what God wants to pour into us, one small sip at a time, Because when it's the fountain of living water, small sips make all the difference. Sometimes it'll be just you and me. Sometimes we'll have a friend join us. If we could have lunch together today. This is what and welcome back to the podcast Really excited for this guest that we have today.
Speaker 1:It's not her first time in the Upper Room Studio, You've heard her before, but, boy, I cannot wait to hear what she has to share with us today. This is going to be life changing. Today's topic is health. What do you do when you know that God does and could heal, but he doesn't heal? How do you navigate that with your faith, who you know God to be, what your understanding of life is? And we're in the midst of our series. Life wasn't supposed to be like this. How do we choose victory instead of being a victim in the challenges of life? And my guest today is my mom, Susan Litchford. Welcome, mom back, Welcome back, Thanks.
Speaker 2:Martha, it is really exciting to be back. I'm really blessed to get to be here with you today and I was just thinking about how, as we share today, I'm going to actually be using a real Bible. So this will not be an app on my phone, so you will actually hear pages. I'm using my app.
Speaker 1:So don't think less of me if you don't hear Bible pages turning.
Speaker 2:That's so great, that's so great.
Speaker 1:Well, mom, I so appreciate you being here to share with us. I know just from living life with you. You know your email signature. If anyone's ever gotten an email from mom says I'm defined, my challenges do not define me, my possibilities do, and it's because you've had significant challenges in your life but you're very cautious about letting them define you, making much of them, giving them too much attention, empowering those things.
Speaker 1:And what that means is that you're going to be sharing some things today that people who know you very well are going to hear for the first time, because you're going to open up your kind of your private world to us. And I think it's so impactful because you really have a perspective about life and God that's really unique to our culture, to modern American Christianity, I think, and it's caused a lot of pain in the lives of people, a lot of striving, a lot of misunderstanding and confusion, even resentment, disappointment, bitterness, and it doesn't have to be that way, because we're coming from a wrong thinking, if I'm honest, a different perspective, and I can't wait for you to share the way you approach your life, the way you've had victory in so many areas that you could have been a victim. And yeah, let's just get started. How about just tell us about your story a little bit?
Speaker 2:I'd be so glad to. I was thinking the other day about how those scriptures, those scriptures have sort of layers, I would say. So there is a surface layer and then there's a deeper layer and a deeper layer to the same scripture. So, having said that, the Lord is real clear about how we can. We start out on the milk of the word and then we get ready for the meat. So this is going to be a little meaty. It's not intended to offend anyone. Changed in my own personal character and walk with God and with life on this earth. I've come to realize that everybody has a story.
Speaker 2:Everybody has a pain story. It might be emotional pain or physical pain. I was privileged to have both, and I don't mean that sarcastically, I mean that seriously.
Speaker 1:Wow, because that's a little sneak peek into your different way of thinking.
Speaker 2:Yes, so my physical pain began at 14 years old, and then there was another layer added at 16. Those were difficult, but nothing like what started at 40 years old, and that was rheumatoid arthritis. When this set in, initially everything looked pretty grim. It appeared that I was a couple of years from needing care of some kind. I could not get a glass off of a shelf, I could not walk to the mailbox. I had swollen, inflamed joints in almost every joint on the right side of my body. It was so torturous, I would say, without going too much into it, but I would lie on the couch at night and think whatever your name is, help me. I couldn't even remember Jesus' name that sounds ridiculous.
Speaker 2:So much pain, but it was a lot of pain and I wasn't accustomed to it. I didn't know how to deal with it in my brain. So I will say I have had prayer and healing. As a result, my hands were crippling it's crippling arthritis, so my hands were crippling. It's crippling arthritis, so my hands were crippling. And 20, I think it's about 27 years ago now my hands were straightened and they are still straightened. My right arm was completely twisted so I could not hold my palm up. My palm faced the floor but in 10 minutes of prayer by this sweet young couple, my arm was almost all the way unstraightened. There's enough of a twist let's go, just say that twist was there, yeah.
Speaker 2:So that is kind of the pain story, but this is the part where a light bulb went on. And I would say that in my life I have a string of light bulbs and this was one of the big light bulbs in the string of light bulb moments. We I wanted to hear the Bontseglers the the Baltzeglers was a family who traveled from church to church. It was the whole family, the granddad down to the children. They sang, preached, shared and it was just a fun evening and I wanted to go. It was at Mount Gilead Baptist Church, so Jim said he would take me, but because of the rheumatoid and the crippling I was slow, so we were late and when we got there there were only two seats left and they were in the balcony and it was the front row of the balcony and it was in the middle of the front row. So Jim and I climbed over all of these people to get to those two seats and the moment we sat down I knew for sure I could not stay. I was in so much pain, emotional pain, because God was showing me some things in my heart, and then the physical pain was literally unbearable. But as I looked to my right and to my left to see how am I getting out of here? Because I'm not going over the rail. I couldn't do it. I could not get out.
Speaker 2:And at that moment I became aware of Mr Baltzegler and he looked like he was about five feet tall behind that great big pulpit white hair and he was holding his hands above his head and he said and the potter takes that clay and he throws it onto the potter's wheel and he puts pressure on the outside and pressure on the inside. And he went over and over that pressure on the outside and pressure on the inside. And the whole time I'm sitting there looking straight at him and he's describing me. And then he says until he has a pot that he can use. I knew, I knew that whatever was going on with me, wherever it came from, which I knew was the devil, um, god was using it to make me a pot that he could pour out of to the earth. So in that moment the power of the affliction was broken, because I came into agreement with God that he was going to use this to make me a vessel through whom he could pour.
Speaker 1:Now you don't mean, the affliction stopped, the affliction wasn't broken. No, the power of the affliction, so your circumstances stayed the same.
Speaker 2:Oh, they stayed the same and got worse, but that scripture is Jeremiah, chapter 18. If anybody wants to go, look at it, that is the scripture Mr Paul Ziegler was preaching from. So, no, no, the affliction, no, no it kept on.
Speaker 1:And we're also not saying that it was that god made pain and affliction and illness. No, because there's no evil in god. No, one is saying that how do? You. How do you navigate that?
Speaker 2:well, basically, um, sometimes I see it in a variety of ways and I don't want to go too far down this road, but I do see it in a variety of ways, and affliction is an opportunity to exercise trust in God. So with affliction, in that moment, you say I trust you, lord, I trust you. In the midst of this affliction, I know you can heal me and I trust you with the whole thing. Whatever it is you're doing here, I trust you.
Speaker 2:So the second thing is it's an opportunity to pray for people who are afflicted and for them to have an encounter with God, because every time we pray for someone, something happens. Now in our minds, we decide what is supposed to happen. When we pray for an affliction, we decide that person is supposed to get this thing or they're supposed to get that thing. Maybe it's something healed or something changed, but we don't ever know what it is. I've seen too many things in all these years and and the healing has a purpose. So, for example, my brother, the first person we ever saw healed, he he said to his pastor uh, less, I'd like to see god heal one man one time of terminal cancer because he didn't believe we'd never seen god healed and we heard that people prayed for people.
Speaker 2:But so I was at my brother's church and heard him say that. But then four months later, my brother was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, cancer with three to six months to live. We went up and on a Friday we got there. My brother asked Les the pastor if he, the church, would pray for him in accordance with James chapter five, which speaks about praying for the sick, and the pastor said yes, anybody that wants to pray at 1230 on Sunday will pray. And so when we gathered to pray, the presence of God that we had never known before invaded that church. You could have cut it with a knife. People began to weep and wail and cry out to God for my brother to be healed, and that afternoon about four o'clock I noticed he wasn't coughing. And so that's quite a story We'll have to investigate one day on this podcast, but the short version is he was healed.
Speaker 1:He was radically healed, he was healed he.
Speaker 2:he was 40 years old and, as of this recording, he is 72 years old and works, and he has had a major surgery on his internal organs, like more than one time the body he's hadlation an ablation of his heart. He has had many things since he had a total healing.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So does that help you a little bit about your perspective about healing. My hands were healed, my arm was untwisted, twisted, and there is no question that I am able to be here today, because I get healed every second of the day. I know that for sure.
Speaker 2:Because of the situation. So so what is going on about troubles and trials and afflictions and healing in life? And this is what I'd like for us to do for a moment. So I'd like for us to look at Luke, chapter four. Did you hear me turn the pages in my Bible? That was a page of a Bible turning.
Speaker 1:That was not a day. Wish people will listen to this recording and be like what are pages? What are they talking about?
Speaker 2:so this is the coolest scripture and I love it beyond. I don't even know what to say about how much I love this scripture, but we're going to go through it quickly. But you're going to go back and look at it. It's Luke, chapter four, and in this particular scripture we see the traps laid by Satan. And so this is the scripture where Jesus goes into the wilderness and it says that he goes into the wilderness full of the Holy Spirit, and then he was led around in the wilderness by the Spirit and for 40 days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days, and so at the end of the 40 days he was really hungry and the devil said to him if you're the son of God, tell this stone to become bread.
Speaker 2:Well, what ended up happening here is the devil comes to us the same way. How am I hungering, susan? Are you hungering for a healing? For the last 37 years, since you were 40, are you hungering all the time, clamoring, hungering? If I could just be healed, then I'll do what god's call me to. Is that what I'm doing? What am I hungering for that I think that I never got. Did I never get the money I thought I should have. Have I never gotten the affirmation, the blessing, the attention, the time, fulfillment, hugs, health, love. What is it? I never got that. I have now become bitter because I didn't get it. Wow.
Speaker 2:Well, how Jesus responded. Well, let me say this first, what happens to us is the devil comes, he said. Came to Jesus and said here, have this bread. What the devil does to us is here, marry that person. They're going to give you all the love, all the affirmation, all the time, all the attention that you never got the money, the power, the fame. Do this thing and you'll be famous. Wow, here's the bread. And we think that. That's that, that is the answer.
Speaker 2:But how Jesus responded is well, actually, man shall not live by bread, of alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. So that is our bread, wow. Then the enemy comes. So bitterness is the first tactic of God. So we, that is our bread. Wow. Then the enemy comes. So bitterness is the first tactic of Satan. Then he comes and he, he, um, puts all the world out before Jesus and says I can, I'll give you all of this. He says that to us, I'll put you at the top of this ministry, at the top of that company. I'll make you the most famous, this or the most famous that I. I'll um or or. I'll give you the mentor you always wanted. I'll give you the president that's going to save your country.
Speaker 2:The king, oh the mentor the leader I'm going to I'm going to either let you be worshipped or give you someone to worship. Wow, did you hear me? Yeah, that and so that puts us in a place of compromise where we look around us and become jealous because we don't have what everybody else has. We don't have their power, their position, their fame. We don't have the mentor they have, the leader they have. If I had what they had, I would be this, that and the other, but I don't get it. That's the second tactic of Satan, which is jealousy.
Speaker 1:And meanwhile it's all lies. Everything he's trying to offer to Jesus was a lie.
Speaker 2:Well then Jesus says back the word of God. He says you shall worship the Lord, your God, and shall serve him. Only that's where it's at Then. The third thing that happened was that he put Jesus up on a pinnacle and he said you can just throw yourself down and the angels will save you. And so I would equate that to my brother was healed in January. I was diagnosed in October of the same year.
Speaker 2:Wow, so my life has been like just trying to figure it out. Do I do this medication, that medication, do I eat this way, eat that way, exercise, workout, sleep, like all of these things that do take time, do take attention and need to be addressed. But do I worship them? Do I bow down to my own solutions, solutions? So god, god is not a slot machine where I just try to do everything right, put out, put my, my, uh, all my good works, my good ideas, my good this, my good that into god, the slot machine, pull the lever and just hope I get a payout that I've done enough. Wow. Or is he a vending machine? Do I see him that way, where I put in my money, I punch E6 and I get the thing I want out of God? Well, he's not any of that, and so this brings up the third tactic of Satan, which is disappointment.
Speaker 2:So Jesus replied with this scripture. It is said you shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test. So when I look at him as a vending machine or as a slot machine, I'm putting him to the test. I'm saying if you love me, you give me this. If you love me, you give me that. If you love me, you give me this. If you love me, you give me that If you're real if you are real God, then you prove that you're real.
Speaker 1:Preaching now.
Speaker 2:By doing this or that or the other thing, Now I will say Jesus with his response. He went into the wilderness full of the Spirit, but he came out in the power of the Spirit. Now I want to tell you what.
Speaker 2:Power is not in what I perceive as my perfect life, wow, no Power is standing firm in the truth of God and that he's making me a pot he can use and that affliction, hardship etc. Is actually a privilege, because without it there's no pressure to form me into the image of christ. Now, having said that, there's a scripture in zachariah and that scripture is talking about various things, but one of the things it brings up is about how the people were being refined. Like a silversmith refines silver, so this was another thing. Not only are we pots through whom God can pour, we're fine silver pots.
Speaker 2:And so when a silversmith is going to refine silver, he takes a crucible and he puts that ugly what looks like? It's an ugly rock, the ore, silver ore in the crucible and he heats it and that heat causes all the dross, all the junk to bubble up to the surface, and then the silversmith scrapes that off. Then he heats it a little higher. More bubbles up. He scrapes off that nastiness and then he continues this process until he can look down into that crucible, into the silver, and see a clear reflection of himself. Wow, he never heats the silver so hot that it destroys the silver, but enough to remove the impurities.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, wow. I feel like that's plenty for today. You know that mind blown emoji? I feel like somebody needs to make us a spirit blown emoji because wow, in fact that's mostly all I say throughout both of these episodes, if you haven't noticed already here in the first one, just wow. So this is about half, actually, of what she's had to say about this topic, and in the next episode she's going to share more personal stories about what she's endured, how she's overcome, how she knows she's on assignment. Isn't it like sitting with one of those saints of old and learning how they became this way?
Speaker 1:I'm going to leave you guys to absorb what you've heard today and tune in next time to hear mom finish her story and pour out even more incredible wisdom and life into us. We'll see you next time. Hey you guys. Thanks for hanging out with us today. I hope you got some refreshment from this sip from the fountain. If you're curious to hear more or if you like what you've heard, you can go ahead and subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to yours, or follow our Instagram account Sips from the Fountain or our Facebook page by the same name. Special thanks for Cover Art Photography to the Sarah D Harper, and I can't wait to hang out with you guys next time. Thanks so much, love y'all. Thank you.