Transformation and Healing with Seantell Coffey - 37

What if the road out of suffering isn’t a shortcut but a map—one that leads through truth, courage, and the steady kindness of God? That’s the heart of our conversation with Chantel Coffee, a prayer minister whose story stretches from a chaotic childhood and early abandonment to a chronic illness spiral fueled by anxiety, mold exposure, and misdiagnoses. She shares how perfectionism and a fearful view of God kept her striving, and how reframing her prayer—from “heal me” to “how do I get well?”—opened the door to layered, practical, and deeply spiritual healing.

We walk through the turning points: receiving a grandmother’s legacy of faith, confronting the roots of bitterness and fear, finding skilled counseling for sexual abuse, and disentangling from new age practices that promised relief but deepened confusion. Chantel explains how she learned to invite the Holy Spirit into medical decisions, nutrition, rest, and daily rhythms that calmed an inflamed nervous system. One unforgettable moment: years of thyroid medication give way to normal labs and a quiet miracle that confirmed what her heart had begun to trust—God heals in unique ways, sometimes instantly, often in process, always with purpose.

Now serving as a catalyst for prayer, Chantel carries a humble boldness: pray for the sick, confront lies with scripture, and expect the Father’s goodness. We explore how seeing God as a loving Father—rather than through the lens of harsh or absent father figures—can unlock peace, restore identity, and accelerate recovery. If you’ve felt stuck between medical exhaustion and spiritual fatigue, this story offers a grounded path forward: integrate care for body and soul, ask better questions, and follow the next faithful step.

If this episode encouraged you, tap follow, share it with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review to help others find the show. Your story might be the next testimony someone needs to hear.

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

Kim McIntire 0:08

Hey everyone, welcome to the It's Time to Rise Up Podcast. Happy New Year to all of our listeners. We pray you are encouraged and blessed by what is shared today. If you're not familiar with our show, please check out our website at it'stimetoriseup.org. There you will find our social media links. And as for our podcast platforms, you'll find us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere else you find your podcast. I'm joined today by my co-host, Amber Sampson. Hello. Hello, Amber. Amber's a friend, a ministry partner. Yeah. She's co-hosted with me before in a previous interview, and I'm happy to have you in the studio with me today. I'm excited. We want to introduce to you our friend, Seantell Coffey. Seantell, we're glad you're here. Thank you. I'm glad to be here. Well, welcome. Um, Seantell has been a speaker at our Rise Up conference. Um, she is the prayer minister at College Heights Christian Church. She used to be on staff at Life Choices. What used to be Life Choices is now Choices in Joplin, Missouri. As she was on staff as the client services director. Um, most of all, she's a dear friend. Thank you. And she's a fellow prayer warrior. You're an encourager to me, friend. You too. And you are the iron that sharpens iron, let me just tell you. So when I need to uh be encouraged, challenged, or corrected, I just call my friend Seantell and she takes care of all that. Thank you, Jesus, for my friend Seantell. So anyway, I'm so thankful that you said yes to this interview because you have a redemption story that needs to be shared. So why you're welcome. Why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself?

Seantell Coffey 1:52

Yeah. So um I am the prayer minister at College Heights. I've been in that position about a year and a half. I did it as a volunteer before that, and really love that. And I've been married for 40 years, which is March. March, 40 years, which is crazy. We have two amazing adult children, a daughter and a son, Shaley and Randon. And then we have five grandchildren between between them. I have a sweet daughter-in-law, Nancy, and um I stay super busy between work and grandparenting, yeah, gardening, just and moving into a new house. Moving into a new house, yes.

Childhood Chaos And Early Wounds

Kim McIntire 2:35

We're excited. Unpacked and all the things. Yes, yes. Yes, I was so excited to tour it last week. It was great. Yeah. You've done an awesome job getting it all ready. So well, we're here to just talk about your story, Seantell. And I feel like a good place to start is just your childhood and going back even to maybe your earliest memories of childhood and what that was like for you.

Adoption, Safety, And Grandmother’s Faith

Seantell Coffey 3:04

So um my mom and dad got pregnant before they were married, and I don't think the plan was for them to get married. I'm not positive about that, but I just have a sense that that wasn't in the plan. And uh my mom was 19, and my dad was in the military, stationed in her in Amarillo, Texas, and that's how they met. And uh they ended up getting married and having me, and they both really came from difficult homes. And so they just they had struggles. They had a lot of struggles. And because of that, our home, their marriage did not make it, and our home kind of fell apart. And um there were, you know, there was drugs, there was alcohol, there was a lot of dysfunction. I think there was mental health problems. Um, and they would be on and off again, and they moved to Georgia, and the marriage just the the relationship just couldn't survive with all of that, the dysfunction. And because of that, I as a child, I was an only child, and I remember my experience of remembrance is just uh a lot of sadness, a lot of aloneness, a lot of fear, not feeling secure, not feeling cared for, not feeling important, not feeling valued, really just felt very survival-ish. I don't even know if that's a word, but that's that's how it felt. Just day-to-day, you know, and I think mom was trying to do the best that she could, but she had her own struggles and my dad had his struggles. And all of that together just it it set up a bad, a bad scenario for trying to raise a kid in. Sure. So when I was about 11, I think I was pr a pretty big handful. And my mom just decided, um, I was starting to drink, I was starting to, you know, I would like roll their joints, I would cut their lines of coke to snort. I, you know. At 11 years old. And younger. Yeah. Younger. And I remember like if we got together, you know, if my mom and dad, uh, they were divorced at this point, but they would get together. We'd be with other couples, and um we the kids would have their own stash of pot, you know, we had smoke pot. And I do remember it's kind of funny, I got checked for life insurance a few years back, and they said, now have you ever smoked pot? And I said, Yes. And they said, When's the last time you smoked? I'm like, I was in the fourth grade. So So I still qualify people. Right. Like, I still qualify. Right, right. So, you know, I love my parents and and I don't want people to think bad of them. I think they both had a lot of struggles. They didn't have support, they didn't have the resources. And they didn't know the Lord. And they didn't know the Lord. And so it it just was a bad situation. But I came, I came up to that point at 11 very angry, very angry. And so my mom, I was a bigger kid and I was starting to get aggressive with her. And she was, you know, she was aggressive. It just, it was volatile. And I think I don't know all the particulars around it, but I do know that my my mom approached my dad's mother, my grandmother, to to take me. And my grandmother said yes, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna adopt her. And praise God for that. I mean, that was honestly the best decision my mom ever made. And it was a battle with my dad. He he didn't want to give up parental rights, yet he would not settle down, make a home.

Kim McIntire 7:24

Right.

Seantell Coffey 7:24

And, you know, I'd walk in on him shooting up or having sex or there was porn all over the house. It just was a terrible, terrible situation. And I was very angry about the whole thing. So getting to go to my grandmother's was a good thing. But and how old were you when you went to your grandmother's? Eleven. Eleven, okay. Yeah. And I had been back and forth a lot. Like through the summers, I'd come up and stay with her, and then But her house felt like a safe place. Yes. And she was attentive and she was home and I felt secure. When I was when I was with mom and dad, I felt like the adult. Like I had to figure things out, I had to be in control, I had to keep it all together because it felt very out of control, very chaotic. So going to her house, my grandfather was there as well, but my grandma was just an anchor, and it wasn't perfect. You know, my grandfather was not a kind person. He was a very harsh Southern Baptist deacon and wasn't kind to his children and his grandchildren. But my grandma was, she was solid. And so she had a strong faith. Strong faith, yes. So went to live with her, and I was so glad to be there. Um, but I had a lot of just a lot of challenges as a kid, just sad and um very confused about, you know, I was all about, yes, I want to go live with my grandparents, but I didn't factor in. That meant I probably am not going to see my mom and dad very much. I just kind of thought that's where I'm gonna go live, but they're gonna come see me. And that's not really what happened. And so a big, a big wound that came from that was abandonment. I felt completely abandoned by my mom and dad. Sure. Um, and very confused by that. And I think my grandmother was trying to protect me because I would want to call mom or go see her. And grandma always just kind of, you know, we can't do that, or she'll call when she can.

Amber Sampson 9:40

Did you um did you live did grandma live close to your parents? Did she live in Amarillo?

Seantell Coffey 9:46

No. No. My grandmother lived up here. Oh, so my mom lived in Atlanta. Oh. We were in Georgia at that time. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So yeah, that's not a yeah, you can go stay for the weekend. I'll pick you up on Sunday. Yeah. So they would put me on a plane. When I was little, I was flying back and forth by myself. I would they'd put me on in Atlanta. My grandmother would pick me up in Springfield like as a little kid. I remember doing that. So that set uh that set up a a big wound, this abandonment rejection, and just confusion. Like, why are why will my parents not provide a home for me? Why do they love drugs more than me? Why do they love alcohol more than me? And then that set in just a stream of lies. I must be, I must be really bad. I must not be worth it. I must be, you know, all the lies. The enemy voice. Yeah, that you believe about yourself. And I I struggled with depression as a little kid, I all the way through until I until I went through a healing. But yeah, depression was just a constant, constant, constant gnawing. And really honestly, even not wanting to live. I mean, at a young age. I just thought, why?

Kim McIntire 11:03

Yeah. So was there any point in the ti in the time frame of your earliest memory until your teenage years with your grandparents? Was there any point that you you believed God was real? Or like what were you thinking? Like you're hearing the NMB voice say all these lies about you. Was there a point that you just knew like God's with me, or was that a question mark in your life? How would you describe that spiritually? Like what where were you at spiritually in that time?

Teen Years: Exterior Success, Interior Pain

Seantell Coffey 11:41

So what's really amazing about the whole thing is, and I think it's probably because of my grandmother, because of just the influence of being at church with her. There's not a time in my life that I don't ever remember the Lord not being a part of my life. Even when I was with my parents, not going to church, I still was drawn to the Bible, to church, to the things of God. Do you attribute that to her influence? I think so. I I think so. Okay. But I'm not sure I don't know. I'm not sure. The Lord was pursuing you even then. Yes. And I and I love the Lord, you know, as much as I could. And I remember one time being up here um when I was nine, I did accept the Lord as my savior and just believe like He is the Lord and He He wants He wants me, you know, and saying yes to Him. I had no idea what that meant, but I do remember that I said yes to Jesus at nine. At nine years old. Yeah. Okay.

Amber Sampson 12:47

I think that I think that's an encouragement if you're praying for your grandkids and you know, that you're you may you may not know it, but your prayers are effective. I mean, what else how else could you explain? Right. You know, that you were being drawn to the Lord at such a young age. Someone was praying for you. I do have that's an that needs I hope that encourages somebody who's praying for their grandkids who are or nieces, nephews. Nieces and nephews should be. That the Lord need that they weren't praying for the Lord to show up and be there for their family.

Seantell Coffey 13:22

I do have a friend that um was friends with my grandmother. She was mentored by my grandmother. And so she's an age, she's between my grandmother and I. And she goes to church with me now, and she said, um, she pulled me aside one day and she said, your grandmother prayed for you and her children and grandchildren. And, you know, this is she wanted her children to and her grandchildren to know Jesus.

Kim McIntire 13:52

Yeah.

Seantell Coffey 13:53

And and I didn't know that. I just this just happened in the last five years that that story came to me. Because there's really my grandmother would be over 100 years old at this point, you know, she was alive. So there's not many people that knew her. That's incredible. So it was sweet. I do attribute that. I she never verbally said, I prayed for you, but she had to have. Yeah. And I know that she took me to church, you know, when I was little, and that was important to her that I was introduced to that at an early age.

Kim McIntire 14:25

That's yeah, that's incredible. I want to just encourage grandparents, aunts, and uncles, parents let your children and grandchildren and nieces and nephews know that you're praying for them. Yeah. Verbally, by you know, by verbally saying so. Yeah. That's not something I know my grandparents did pray for me, but I don't have a memory of them telling me that. Yeah. So when I know they did. So it's just, I don't know, it's a teaching point, I feel like.

Marriage, Motherhood, And Grief

Amber Sampson 14:55

Well, and I remember as a growing up hearing my grandma pray, and when, you know, I was, you know, my twenties and I didn't live around, you know, wasn't at home and had moved away. I remember, you know, you know, driving down the highway and I should have gotten to an accident. I thought, oh, that's because grandma was praying or my mom was praying. And so I think it's, you know, let them hear you pray. You know, not only does it teach them how to pray, but then if they hear you praying for if they how do you say that? Like if if I hear but when I heard, you know, grandma praying for us or mom praying for us, I knew when things were happening or didn't happen that it's had to be because you know, my family was praying. And so that's a I'm I'm telling myself that you need to do better, you know, do better about that too.

Seantell Coffey 15:40

So it's powerful. Yeah, it's a good word. One thing that Randy and I do do together, we pray for our grandkids. We have five grandkids, and every one of them has a day that is their day that we really pray deeply for them, and they know it. Yeah, that's my this is your day, Gwen. This is your day, Amaya, Brooks, Lydia, Russ.

Kim McIntire 16:01

That's a good strategy.

Seantell Coffey 16:02

It is.

Kim McIntire 16:02

Yeah, that's encouraging. So, teenage years, was it more of the same? Feeling the abandonment, the rejection?

Seantell Coffey 16:11

It was there, but I got really good at being b busy and distracting, you know, I would distract myself, and I was involved in a million things at school and in sports and in band, and I really I had a good teenage experience. I was settled with my grandparents. We lived on a farm and I love that life and very involved in our church, went to Calvary Baptist, Charlie Burnett was our youth minister. That's where I met Randy was in charge. Oh my goodness. And uh we had a phenomenal youth group that did some really cool things. And amazing. So the because I was distracted and I enjoyed school and sports and everything, it wasn't terrible, but I also it was right under the surface, you know. I had had when I was with my mom and and dad, um, there were because I was left alone and with people, I was messed with sexually some. And even my grandfather, there was a a time when that happened with him. And so there was a lot of um I was looking, I was looking for, you know, a father figure for male attention. And um, and then when you when there's molestation and things when you're little um things things get opened up that shouldn't be opened up early, you know, as a child. And so because of that, there was just it it was a it my experience was good. I'm stumbling over my words, but my my experience was good as a teenager, but my internal life was not good.

Kim McIntire 18:08

Yeah.

Seantell Coffey 18:09

I just had I was not rested, I was not peaceful, I was not happy, I was not joyful, I was very brokenhearted. But I didn't know, I didn't understand. I just thought, you know.

Kim McIntire 18:26

At what point was there a turnaround? I know you met Randy really young. When did you guys marry?

Seantell Coffey 18:35

So we met when I was 15, and when we went on our very first date when I was turned 16, and we got married just a couple of months before I turned 19. Um, I really loved him. He really loved me, and we were just like, I knew I could make a life with him. He was a good person. And at that point, you know, when you're a teenager, most teenagers are thinking about, oh, I I this is what I want to do for a career. This is I want to get out of this house and go live life and go. I just wanted to go make a home. I just wanted a home. And so I, my grandmother, she loved Randy, but she she had got married young and it wasn't a good marriage. And so she was not super on board with that. But we just kind of said we're gonna do it, and so we did it. And um, besides saying yes to Jesus, marrying my husband was hands down the best decision I have ever made in my life. He he uh good Jesus has used Randy to transform me uh deeper than really any other avenue on this earth. Wow. It's been through him. That's quite a testament to your husband. Yeah. Yeah. He's a good man. Yeah. And he's been through a wild ride with me.

Kim McIntire 20:00

Well, so I'll probably say that to some degree. But and you have Randon, how soon after you get married?

Perfectionism, Fear Of God, And Legalism

Seantell Coffey 20:09

So we were married four years and then had Randon, and then two more years, had Shaley. And in that time, my grandmother, um, she got cancer and died right before Randon was born. And that was devastating because I had never babysit an infant. I'd never been around children. So when I brought my sweet baby boy home, I was terrified because I did not know how to take care of a baby. And so we kind of figured that out together. And I was grieving because she just died.

Kim McIntire 20:46

Sure.

Seantell Coffey 20:46

My mom was not doing well. She was very, very alcoholic at that point, and then dad was just kind of AWOL. Um, and then the next year my grandfather died, and then the next year my dad died of a heroin overdose. So it was a rough three years in there, and then I had tremendously seriously bad postpartum depression with Randon that I probably should have been in the hospital for, but I didn't know. I was trying to hide it and pretend like I was fine and I was not fine. I was not doing well.

Amber Sampson 21:20

Yeah.

Seantell Coffey 21:21

So most of your life was just surviving. It really was. Yeah. Yeah. It was a lot of surviving and not really even knowing how to live or I was always in crisis mode. I was always looking for the next crisis. And my youngest memories, my youngest fears, my youngest memories were I'm gonna walk in and find a parent dead. Like that was my youngest fear from the earliest that I could remember. And then when my dad did die from a heroin overdose, it was just like, well, we knew that was gonna happen at some point. So it's just fear, chaos, surviving, just. Not knowing how to cope with life.

Kim McIntire 22:04

And when you're going through this season of grief and loss, depression, what does your walk with Jesus look like?

Seantell Coffey 22:14

Well, at that point, I didn't understand a lot of things about the Lord, of course, because you know, I'm young and and I didn't understand his goodness. I didn't understand his love for me. So a lot of it was kind of um, I'm saved. Right. And I I need you because I know that you saved me. Yeah. But I guess you're doing this to me because I'm a bad person. That was a lot of my mindset. I'm bad. And so I got into this perfectionistic tendency to be the perfect Christian, to be a good Christian. And so I was a student of the word, but it was very legalistic. It wasn't on a foundation of God's love. And it was fear-based. I was terrified of God. I was terrified of sinning, terrified of messing up, terrified. And so I was just always not resting, not not not enjoying, you know, my life. Yeah. But just stirred up all the time. Yeah. And very depressed a lot.

Kim McIntire 23:28

And I know that you've had a health journey. Um just a struggle with health. And when when did that begin? A health struggle? Was it shortly after you had children? Or was it before that?

Health Collapse, Anxiety, And Misdiagnoses

Mold Exposure And Total Breakdown

Seantell Coffey 23:43

No, it was actually it was in my 30s. In your 30s. So we've been married for 15 years. I had a series of dental work done because I genetically am missing 10 teeth. And so I had a dentist that wanted to, he was learning some new things and he wanted to, he was kind of giving me a deal, you know, to work on my teeth to help my teeth look more normal. And so I said yes to that. And during that dental work, it was a lot of time in the chair over a three-week period. Um, I had a nervous breakdown and I didn't know what how the dental work and a nervous breakdown even tied in together. But um in, you know, in the past in the past six years, I got diagnosed with mast cell activation, and that explained all of that with the dental work. And it I'm not gonna explain all the medical stuff to that, but because I didn't know that I had that, that that diagnosis wasn't even a diagnosis at that point. It hadn't even that disease process hadn't even been found yet. Right. Um that's what happened with the dental work. And so we didn't know that, and it affected my nervous system. Okay. It really impacted my nervous system. So before I had all this depression after the dental work, now I'm on fire with anxiety. I mean, I can't sleep, I can't eat, I'm crawling out of my skin. And this went on, we had to move back. We weren't living in Joplin at the time, but we had to move back because I was homeschooling and I couldn't homeschool. I just couldn't function. And I was they the doctors put me on a lot of meds and trying to get me stabilized at this point. It took a year to get me stable. And so once I got stable, I thought, okay, I'm better, I'm good. I don't know what that was. That was weird, still no diagnosis, but I so I tried to get off my meds, I crashed again. Um, so this was a series of this for years. This went on for years until my body really started breaking down in multiple levels. So I went to Mayo, I had 13 diagnoses that I was given, not just from Mayo, but all the doctors, Mayo, everywhere I'd been. Right. And I was working at Life Choices at the time, and I deeply loved that job. I love, I love that ministry, I love what it's all about, but I could not function. And I was having all of these issues with depression and just I couldn't seem to just get better. Yeah. You know, I was managing it, but then if I got under a lot of stress, I would tank again. Yeah. So after a series of events, um one of my doctors here said, I want you to get your your house checked for mold, because I think a lot of this is mold related. Well, I didn't do that because I I had done enough research that if it was mold, that meant that meant a lot of things that I didn't want to have to deal with. So I just kind of went another route to try to work on my health. And I actually did have a lot of improvement. But um we decided to remodel a back room in our house, and that back room was full of mold. And I was in it, breathing it and whatnot. And during that whole deal, um I my I just crashed. My body completely crashed. Another thing I want to say that the Lord's just reminding me of right now that I think is super important. I, in my healing journey, which is long and complicated, and we I don't have time to go into all the pieces of it, but when I quit work at Life Choices, I went home to get well. And I was determined to get well. But it was more like, Lord, heal me, but I wasn't really asking how to get well. I was just, Lord, heal me, you know, that kind of a thing. And we went to a church that we didn't talk about healing, we didn't really pray about healing. It just wasn't something it was more of the mindset, well, God will heal you if he wants to, and if he doesn't, you're not going to. So, you know. Right. It's which is common. It is common. Mindset is common. Yeah. And that was a mindset I had. When people said, Pray for me, I'm sick. I'm like, why? Because God's gonna do what he's gonna do. It's not gonna matter what what my prayers are. But I inadvertently got into some new age stuff that I did not realize was a problem. And I had a had a friend send me a sermon from a local church that the pastor was talking about yoga, how you shouldn't be doing yoga. And I watched it, I'm just like, well, I'm not, I'm not posing to the, you know, in worship to these Hindu gods. I mean, that is not my heart posture. I'm just exercising. Right. But in my journey to get well, and I was doing a lot of natural stuff, I inadvertently got into a lot of new age stuff that I did not realize what I was into. And that opened some demonic doors in my life that sent me down a very bad path. Yeah. So between all the health stuff, all the spiritual stuff, all the trauma from my childhood, I was not in good shape. I was, I was rough, rough, rough, and not functioning. So then when the mold happened, the mold sent sent me into orbit. I mean, it sent my it sent my mind, my body, it just imploded everything. And so at that point, um, my doctor here just said, you are you are so sick, Sean. I mean, you can die from this. You should not go back to your house. And because my faith was not super strong, and because I didn't understand the power of prayer, I didn't understand that God is a healer, I totally listened to what he said, and I didn't go home. I never went back home to my house. Well, you take a person with trauma that moved around a lot as a kid and didn't have a home, and then you displaced them, that was that was the straw that broke me.

Kim McIntire 30:41

Wow.

Amber Sampson 30:41

How how old were you in that time when you moved when you never went back home? I was 51. Oh wow. Wow.

Kim McIntire 30:50

Yeah. And it you didn't mention this, but it was a family home that had been in the in the family for the whole time, decades. Decades.

Seantell Coffey 30:59

So you're losing. I felt tremendous ill from that. My kids suffered from that. Uh extended family members were hurt by that. I it was devastating.

Amber Sampson 31:13

Another piece of trauma.

Seantell Coffey 31:14

Oh yeah. I just and by then I just I did not want to live.

Amber Sampson 31:18

Yeah.

Seantell Coffey 31:19

I did not want to live. I could not handle ever I couldn't handle all of it.

Amber Sampson 31:23

Yeah. But well, I think and that's true. Like you really can't, your nervous system can only take so much. I mean, trauma at an early age, your brain starts forming differently. And I don't know all the side all of the details, but it's true. Yeah. And so you're not working with a brain that's the same as somebody who doesn't who's 51 who hasn't endured all those things. Right. You can't nobody's meant to manage all that.

New Age Detours And Spiritual Warfare

Seantell Coffey 31:48

Yeah. And I was pretty hard on myself. Like, why can't you get yourself together? What is wrong with you? Yeah. Yeah. You've got a good husband, you've got a good life. What's wrong with you? And I just I was shattered. The only way that I could describe my myself between my body, my spirit, and my soul, I was shattered into a bazillion pieces. And I did not know how to get it back. And my my nervous system was so shot at one point. I my your nervous system can get inflamed. I had to sit on a donut because my spinal cord, I it I was so inflamed. My I could not handle lights. I could I couldn't go to church for two years. I couldn't handle the the noise. I couldn't ride in a car. I couldn't handle the TV on. I couldn't handle the radio on. I couldn't even handle the vibration of my own voice talking. It was painful. It caused me deep pain in my nervous system.

Kim McIntire 32:54

And you know, I know that that in that season, the specific season that you're talking about right now, is a point in my life that I have much regret over because we were friends and I became very overwhelmed because I want to fix things and make things right and help right comfort. And I remember thinking nothing I do helps and nothing I pray is changing anything, and I don't know how to make this better. And I so regret stepping out of our friendship. And I've I've apologized to you for that and ask for your forgiveness, and I'm so thankful. We'll talk about that in a little bit, but I remember thinking that you were gonna die. Yeah. And it scared me. I thought I was gonna die. It caused me to want to withdraw. Yeah, we're getting to that. Yeah. But that let's go ahead and and move into the healing part of your story.

Turning Point: Asking How To Get Well

Layers Of Healing And Counsel

Seantell Coffey 34:00

So one other thing before we stop. For people who are in a chronic illness situation, I think one thing that people don't understand with chronic illness is that you don't you don't just lose health, you lose money, a lot of money. We lost a lot of money. We lost friendships. We lost church community, we lost a job, a home. Um, it was rough on my kids. And I think they were frustrated with me. You know, what is wrong with my mom that she can't get herself together? Um there's so much loss. And that's the enemy. And that's what I did not understand. The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. That's right. But Jesus comes to give abundant life. And when I got a hold of that verse, I'm like, I'm not living abundantly. Right. And that changed my prayers. Yeah. God, how do I get well? Right. Instead of get me well, how do I get well? What do I need to do? What's my responsibility here? Right. And through many things, many layers to the story of healing, yeah. God, God did it. God turned the tide and he opened the doors, and through layers of healing, of healing trauma, getting relationships out of my life that weren't good for me. Um I had to go for treatment for six weeks. And that was a crazy story because this treatment center was, oh my word, it was crazy. Crazy situations. I mean, two people that I was very close to at that treatment center have died since we were there. Um and so, you know, you it's the the story about the healing, it's deep and it's wide and it's long. But the gist of it, and and I listened to hundreds of testimonies online. Once I really discovered God is a healer and he's gonna heal you one way or the other. It's either gonna be instant, it's gonna be over a walkout, or it's gonna be in heaven. But he is a healer and he's true to his word. That's right, man. Amen. I grabbed hold of that. Yeah, and I just started listening to show me the steps, show me, show me the next thing. So we we've worked on trauma healing. We've worked on, you know, getting um my food where it needs to be, eating healthy food, which I've always eaten healthy, but like listening to the Lord. Yeah. What do you want me to eat, Lord? You know, right. Um what doctor do you want me to go to? What medication do you want me to take, Lord? I have an amazing story with my thyroid because I was hyperthyroid for years. And all the diagnosis that I had, I have stories about how they healed. And I've got like two things left on my list, and they're the longest standing things, but um, they're all different. And so I would listen to all these healing stories and be like, okay, I'm gonna try that, but not really understanding that God is a unique healer to everyone's circumstance. So I can, I could take something that someone did, but that may not be how God wants to heal me. Right. And, you know, just real quickly, my thyroid story is so fun. It's one of my funnest ones to tell. I once I started getting some healing, and and we did do a retreat. We went to a place called Be in Health down in Georgia, and I want to give a shout out to them. Yes, please do. Because I learned a lot about healing, God's heart from me, the father's love. Um, Randy went with me and he grew a lot. We got prayed over to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And nothing happened in the moment, but over the next months I started to see something is different about me.

Kim McIntire 38:16

Yeah.

Seantell Coffey 38:16

And Randy as well. But um, I came home and I just started laying my hand on my thyroid. Every morning I'd wake up in my bed and I just, in the name of Jesus, be healed, be healed, thyroid be healed. And I just, Lord, I want my thyroid healed. I believe, I believe you want my thyroid healed. So let's heal this thing. I've been on medicine forever. And it was not long, and my the medicine I was taking um got recalled and they stopped making it. So I went back to my doctor and he put me on a different one. I didn't tolerate it. I go back, I'm not tolerating this. Put me on another one, didn't tolerate it. I did this six times over six months. Finally, in the summer, I'm just like, Lord, I've asked you to heal my thyroid. I feel like you want to heal my thyroid. I'm so confused about this whole thing, and now I mess up on the medication. And I felt like he led me to call an endocinologist and to go to an endocinologist. And so um I went to this doctor and I told him the whole story. And he said, I want you to be off of your thyroid medicine, and I need you to be off of it for five weeks. And I said, But every time I am, I crash, like it's terrible. I can't, it's so uncomfortable. He goes, I don't care. You're gonna have to do it because this is how we're gonna see what's happening with your thyroid. So I walked out of that doctor's office and I'm like, I'm trusting you, Lord, and I'm pointing my finger up to you, looking, looking up, you know, Father, I'm trusting you. So I don't take it for five weeks, and I had to retest. So I went back in and he said, Your thyroid is perfect.

Kim McIntire 39:59

Praise God. It's perfect. And I'm like God, what?

Thyroid Miracle And Renewed Faith

Seantell Coffey 40:02

And he's like, Yes, Lord, it's you don't need thyroid medicine anymore. And I'm like, you do know that's a healing. And he goes, if that's what you want to call it, I'm like, I'm gonna call it a healing. So I'm just like, he healed way back when the medicine didn't work. Yeah, it was healed at that point. I didn't realize it. So the healing journey has been very fun, and all it's done is just ignite my heart, my passion to pray for people for heart healing, mind healing, body healing, that God is a healer. And we need to be praying for this and not hold back and not be ashamed of it. That's right. I was in circles, you didn't talk about it, you didn't pray for it, you didn't, and I'm like, I don't care anymore. I don't, I don't care if they think I'm weird. God is a healer, and if you want to be prayed for, I will pray for 20 years for you. It took me 20 years to get well. And so I just want to shout it from the mountains. And not only did he heal me, he indwelt me in the deepest, deepest, deepest, deepest place and filled me up to satisfaction. I have not been depressed, I've not wanted to die. I have had joy, unspeakable happiness. I feel loved, I love people. Yeah, I the healing is deep and the feeling is overflowing. It is deep. And the passion for God's word and his spirit, and I want everyone to have it. I want I don't want anyone to miss what God can do for them because he wants to give us abundant life and we don't know it.

Amber Sampson 41:48

So a lot of people are praying for healing as you were, and they all want many of us want the one touch in your healed prayer, you know, that to happen. And and God does that. He does. And that's emotionally, physically, mentally, whatever it would be. Um, but God heals through process, and that's your story. And one thing I pick no I you had decades of trauma and loss and so on and so forth. And that took up, you know, way more years. Your healing journey didn't last as long as all those years of trauma and dysfunction. So it just that was neat to me.

Kim McIntire 42:25

But that's so good.

Amber Sampson 42:27

God He loves us so much that He heals us through a process sometimes. And um I think that's I just feel like we should sit there for a second. Like, can you just talk about that? Like you know, it would have been great if God healed you in the moment, but you would have missed out on so much. What you feel in your heart, the passion that's been stirred up, what you learned about the Lord. Um, all of you wouldn't have gotten any of that if if he would have just touched you and healed you. Right. But he let you go through process, he let you discover who he was, learn more about him, get you know, and these passions came from that. Yeah. Um just think of all you would have missed out on. So like we can't we shouldn't despise the process. Because we that's where we get to know more of who he is. And um I remember having some difficult, you know, my childhood wasn't great either. And I remember asking the Lord, Lord, heal my heart. And he I went to counseling for six months, and in that six months, he healed my heart. And I was like, Oh, you're into a process, okay? Like, uh, you know, you could have healed me in a minute, but that's where I learned that he loved me. I didn't know that before. Yeah. And so, um, and so I just w hope that encourages people today. If you're in the process of a healing, you know, don't despise it. Dig in and go through the process and um and your healing's on the other side of it. It's coming. And so just stand in that faith. But it Find you know, just um ask the Lord, you know, what do you want me to learn in this season? What do you want me to learn in this process? What are you trying to show me? And um that's the thing I think is so cool about the Lord. He can do anything. Yeah. But he wants he wants more of us. Yeah. Anyways, we could I could talk all day about that because it's just so neat to me.

Process Over Instant Answers

Seantell Coffey 44:20

I think, you know, in many people, so through the healing process, what I what I've very much appreciated is I've learned many things about the Lord that I just didn't know. And I've learned many things about healing. I've studied it at length and at depth. And we people get frustrated, you know, in their healing journey, but they may not realize they've got things they literally need to deal with. There may be spiritual roots attached to their sickness, like bitterness or unforgiveness or deep fear, or they're believing lies from the enemy. And God's not mad at them, right? But he wants them to have an understanding and awareness that they have to come out of agreement with these things. That's right. They have to stop participating with bitterness and unforgiveness and fear.

Kim McIntire 45:18

Yes.

Seantell Coffey 45:19

And for me, I had a such an unhealthy fear of God and a and a really an inaccurate view of his fatherhood in my life. And because my grandfather was very harsh and my my my birth father was very aloof, that's how I thought God was. And God needed to correct that in me. And so through process that happened, I have I've had great counselors. I went through counseling for the sexual abuse, healed. I mean, totally. If you get a good counselor, you can be healed from you can be healed from anything. That's right. God is a healer. And so I think too that part of part of so one of the prayers that I had at the beginning of my healing journey, and this was like set seven years ago, six or seven years ago, Lord, I pray that on the other side of the hell that I've gone through, I would go through it all again to get the blessing that I'm now walking in. And I can definitely say he has done that. And he knew there was gonna be a ministry born out of all of that that I went through and I learned. And so I think for me, um that is probably one of the reasons why there were so many layers, is because he was gonna use this for ministry.

Amber Sampson 46:51

So good. I want to go back to what you said real fast though about your heavenly father. He's not he's not who your earthly father is. So you may not have a great earthly father, but that is not a representation of who our heavenly father is. Amen.

Seantell Coffey 47:08

And if you view God as you do a bad earthly father, you have an inaccurate view because our Heavenly Father is the best dad that you can imagine, that embraces you, chases after you, enjoys you, holds you, looks at you, tells you you're beautiful, you're worthy. That's right. He's with you, he's supporting you, he's cheering you on. That's right. That is who God is. That's right. And if you don't have that view, please find someone that can help you, pray with you, mentor you to discover the goodness of God. Because even that, that one thing can heal layers and layers and layers that need to be healed in you.

Kim McIntire 48:00

So true. So good. It's so true that God does not waste our pain or our suffering, that when we give it to Him, He redeems it and He uses it for purposes. So what the enemy meant for evil, God will turn for good. And so, in regard to the prayer ministry that you're leading at College Heights, um I just see how the Lord has used the things you've gone through and the experiences you've had and the healing you've experienced to really fuel what you're doing now. Do you want to just speak into that a little bit? Sure.

Reframing The Father Heart Of God

Seantell Coffey 48:37

So I really did not go looking for that ministry. I got invited in to work with our ministers on prayer. And through that time, those topics have come up. It was kind of fun. One of our ministers um got we prayed over him to be healed of Alpha Gal, and he was healed. And so, you know, I think the Lord um has called me to be a person that's just gonna boldly go in and say, Let's pray. Let's pray. Amen. Let's pray. And I don't feel the need to defend what God chooses to do or not do. I I feel called to do what scripture says, and it says to pray. Amen. It says to, you know, preach the gospel, heal the sick, cast out demons, cleanse the lepers. And so that's my call. That's what I do. And you're living it out. Yeah.

Prayer Ministry And Bold Faith

Kim McIntire 49:33

With humble boldness. That's what I love about you. Thank you. You're so bold, but you have such a kind humility to your spirit. Yeah. And I really think that's what draws people to you. And it's given you influence in the kingdom. And I thank God for it. And what I would like to do is invite you to come back to actually teach um a lesson on healing or maybe even a series on healing, because that's what you're well studied in. And you haven't just studied it, you've lived it, you've walked it out with God. And I think it would be very helpful to listeners who are in need of healing. Perhaps you're a listener who says, I don't really believe in healing. I promise you, if you listen to my friend Seantell, you're gonna change your mind by the end of the episode. You've been a walking witness for me, friend. Thank you. I thank you so much for saying yes. I want to close with a scripture. This is something I learned from you. Isaiah 53, verse 4 through 5. Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. Yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed. And I took a class from you about healing several years ago, and you had told us, you said, you know, when you look at this passage, you see and you recognize, and I've said this so many times since, Jesus shed his blood for our salvation. He took the stripes and bore the wounds for our physical healing. And he took our punishment to give us peace with God. So the blood is for our spirit to be healed. The stripes are for our body, our physical body to be healed, and the punishment was to bring us peace in our mind with God. So he gave a full atonement package. Yes. Body, mind, spirit. And all I can say is, thank you, Jesus. We praise you. And so right now I just want to pray over listeners. Father, if there are listeners that are struggling with anything in their health, God, or their mind, maybe it's mental illness, whether it be physical or mental or spiritual sickness, because they don't know you as their savior. Father, we just speak this word of God over them. Right now, Lord, we claim the full atonement package that Jesus gave us at the cross. And Lord Jesus, we say thank you. And we pray that your Holy Spirit would move in power to speak to every listener under the sound of our voices. And we believe, God, testimonies will come from this episode and let it be for the glory of your name. We praise you, God, in Jesus' holy name. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much, Seantell, for being here. Thank you. Thank you, Amber, for co-hosting today. And thank you, listeners, for joining us. Please rate us or give us a review on Apple Podcasts. We would love to hear your feedback. We pray God's peace and grace will be with you all in Jesus' holy name.