Principles of Health and Healing
This article "Principles of Health and Healing" was taken from the Heart Magazine, Volume 10, Number 4.
PRINCIPLES OF HEALTH AND HEALING
A Visit with Mrs. Victor Paul Wierwille
Story by LewEllyn Finch
HEART–Volume 10, No. 4 – page 5 and 7
I called Mrs. Wierwille, as Staff members at The Way International headquarters often do
when faced with sickness or questions about health. I knew that many went to Mrs.
Wierwille because of her simple, practical insight into God’s Word and belief in His power
to heal. Now I needed help.
“Since I was a child, I’ve had a real interest in people being well,” says Mrs. Victor Paul
Wierwille, First Lady of The Way International. “That’s why I became a nurse.”
Mrs. Wierwille received her R.N. degree from Deaconess Hospital in Cincinnati, Ohio,
and practiced three years of general duty before her family and the work of the ministry
claimed most of her time. She maintains her registered status and is active in the field of
health care within the ministry. She combines practical knowledge with an understanding of
the spiritual enablements God has given her and His will concerning healing.
Sitting in the soft lamplight of her living room, Mrs. Wierwille asks what’s bothering me.
She asks questions and lets me talk. Then she shares the simplicity of God’s Word and will
and gives me practical suggestions, emphasized by incidents from her experience in
ministering to others. She calls in Louise McGlothen, her housekeeper of over seventeen
years, and the three of us hold hands while Mrs. Wierwille prays for me. She gives me a
warm hug, and her final exhortation is, “Keep a merry heart.” She repeats this whenever we
see each other in the weeks to follow.
I know God’s will for me is health. Even so, sometimes I don’t feel healthy. Knowing
what is available from God, I tend to feel like a failure when I don’t manifest that perfect
health. Mrs. Wierwille often helps to correct this kind of thinking as she works with believers
who need deliverance.
“The first thing I do when someone comes to me,” Mrs. Wierwille explains, “is to take
that person to a quiet place where just the two of us can talk. I determine how he feels about
his troubles, what his mental attitude is, so I know how I can build him up with positives and
steer his thinking back to the logic of God’s Word.”
Mrs. Wierwille often works with people on two points. Number one is self condemnation. They feel bad about themselves for being sick, forgetting that they’re still
sons of God and that he still loves them. “Before we knew the accuracy of God’s Word,” she
recalls, “we thought that keeping ourselves condemned was a wonderful, humble thing,
because that’s what we were taught.” Now she reminds me, “Who is it that condemns us? It
wouldn’t be God – He justified us! We work from where we are now, not from what we did
not do yesterday. God is interested in us where we are today.”
The second point Mrs. Wierwille makes is that the spirit of God quickens our mortal
bodies. “When you’re born again of God’s spirit, you have Christ in you – his eyes behind
your eyes, Christ behind every cell in your body. Believe that the spirit from God is
quickening your body, making it alive and healthy.”
Both of these truths are found in Romans chapter 8, a chapter often recommended by
Mrs. Wierwille as daily reading. Here, God tells us plainly that we’ve been delivered. “God
has made it so easy for us,” she says. “We just have to think of ourselves as God thinks of
us.”
I know that when I feel sick it can be difficult to think and believe the positive statements
and promises of healing in God’s Word. Sometimes I try to struggle through on my own, not
wanting to involve anyone else in my dilemma.
Mrs. Wierwille shows me that when you’re very sick, you are not going to feel like
praying, giving, or believing. You need help to do these things. “If you’ve ever had pain and
tried to get your head above it,” she shares, “you know that you need outside help. How
wonderfully God has designed the Church as the Body of Christ, with Christ as the head and
all of us members in particular. As James 5:15 and 16 describe, we work together to keep
each other built up. No one stands alone.”
Over the years, Mrs. Wierwille has learned principles that she applies in working with
people to help them get the deliverance they want.
First of all, they do have to want the deliverance. She lets people come to her with their
needs. She explains, “In the Gospel accounts, I haven’t found any place where Jesus went out
of his way to heal anyone who didn’t come to him looking for deliverance. You’ll see many
who need help, but unless they come to you, there’s not much you can do.”
She says that when we deal with others who need help, we ourselves should be built up
with the Word of God and have confidence in our God-given ability. Being born again of
God’s spirit, we have his power over us. We have to know that this is what God’s Word says
and believe it. We must study God’s Word daily so that we’re prepared to minister.
“I encourage being in fellowships where God’s Word is taught, says Mrs. Wierwille. “As
we take advantage of every teaching that’s available, it helps build or renewed minds so that
we can have confidence in God’s ability to deliver. Each fellowship is like a healing service,
because God’s Word heals. And being united in prayer at these fellowships brings
deliverance beyond our expectations.”
When Mrs. Wierwille meets with someone who needs healing, she has confidence that
God works in her. She believes that He will bring to her mind the things she should think
about and cover. “Several sick people come to me each week for help,” she explains, “and it
all works out so easily.” Things come to my mind, and say them – simple things; nothing so
extraordinary. This is God working.”
One day a young man stopped by to see Mrs. Wierwille. He was going home early
because he had such a severe headache he couldn’t work. She saw that he just needed to let
go and laugh. “Well, I guess God’s out of business then,” she remarked after he’d told her his
trouble. He laughed long and hard, and then went back to work. The pressure was off, and his
headache was gone.
Mrs. Wierwille keeps it light. She knows that a cheerful heart has a powerful and positive
effect on our health. “Think of how quickly a blush comes on the face with a thought,” she
tells me. Our thought processes affect the thousands of chemical reactions that constantly go
on in our bodies.
Proverbs 17:22, in the Rotherham translation, says: “A joyful heart worketh an excellent
cure, but a stricken spirit drieth up the bones.”
It is crucial to guard our hearts. Our believing
and our actions emanate from that deep, innermost part of the mind, the heart.
Someone who is sick particularly needs to hold the right thoughts. The one working with
him must be aware of the importance of words. A seriously ill person might ask, “I’m not
going to die, am I? I don’t want to die.” What kind of picture does that paint? Help him
change his negative statement to “I want to live.” Mrs. Wierwille advises, “Don’t say ‘my
pain’ or claim the symptoms or disease as your won. They are foreign invaders. Give them
no place.”
When caring for someone who is ill, she brings his mind to the Word in every way she
can think of – with the pictures on the wall, the music in the background, reading aloud,
taped teachings, prayer times. He needs a specific personal goal, a picture of how he wants to
see himself and what he will do once he’s healed. He is encouraged to spend five minutes
every day picturing and concentrating on this goal.
Thankfulness is the frame of mind to maintain. In Exodus 3:14, God says “I am that I
am,” correctly translated as we understand it, “I shall become what I shall become.” We can
be thankful always, trusting in this promise as well as many others. In every circumstance,
God will become for us what we need Him to become. God wants to supply all the need we
might have. Our vision can be above and beyond our circumstances no matter how bleak the
situation seems.
Serious illness puts a weight on the family and everyone involved. They need all the little
things we think of to cheer them, like flowers and cards, but most of all God’s Word and our
prayers. Mrs. Wierwille recalls and incident of a long, drawn-out illness that challenged the
spouse to renew his mind according to God’s Word.
“One day his head was just hanging and his shoulders were stooped. I shared this verse
with him.
1 Corinthians 10:13:
There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but
God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will
with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.
This man’s eyes lit up as he believed what God’s Word said he could do with the power
of Christ in him. He became very strong in the situation. The nurse told me how wonderfully
he helped with his wife that day. God does not promise to restrain the adversary from
tempting us, but rather that every believer has the ability to overcome the temptation he
faces. Every believer has the faith of Jesus Christ and the potential to be more than a
conqueror in every situation.”
When Mrs. Wierwille prays for me, she has Louise join her. She consistently includes
another person when she ministers to or prays for someone. She explains, “In known that
when two or three agree as in Matthew 18:19 and 20, there are powerful results, and the
person helping learns and gains experience. Ministering is standing in Christ’s stead,
operating the manifestations of holy spirit. It is by revelation that you minister healing. God
will tell you who to minister to. If He doesn’t then you simply pray for the person. Real
prayer is believing. You can expect things to happen when you pray.”
Every situation and each individual is different. Mrs. Wierwille does not rely on similar
cases or past patterns in determining what to do for me. “We have the written Word, and we
have Christ in us,” she says. “We can do what God asks us to do. You are there with another
person, and God says to do something for him, you do it. If not, there are plenty of promises
in God’s written Word that you can claim and that God has guaranteed.”
Mrs. Wierwille admonishes, “Seeking help from physicians and other health-care
professionals does not exclude God from working in the situation. When you go to a doctor,
you want help, so do what he says. If a doctor suggests something drastic for your life, then
you should get a second opinion. But don’t always be running from one to another, never
following any instructions. If you can have a doctor with the spirit of God in him, that’s the
best. But if not, find someone you can trust and have confidence in.”
It’s always God first. I learn from Mrs. Wierwille that when we need healing we go to
God first in prayer, and He remains first in our hearts and believing as we take whatever
further steps are needed. No matter what steps we take to get the deliverance, God is the
Source of our healing.
I ask Mrs. Wierwille how to stay healthy. “Taking care of yourself, with good physical
habits of food and cleanliness, is important,” she answers. “But mainly, for myself, I just
keep from being burdened. I leave the burdens on God’s shoulders. We can’t carry them all
anyway, so give them to God. Stay light, keep a merry heart, and do your best to stay
healthy.”
Mrs. Wierwille’s love and care for me are apparent. As I leave the soothing atmosphere
of her home, I feel at peace, comforted, and confident of my deliverance. I’m inspired to see
myself in a better state of health than ever before, and today it is becoming a reality. I see the
importance of physical health in being our best for God. God knows it’s important. He has
devoted much of His Word to incidents and promises of healing. Mrs. Wierwille has a love
and understanding of this field, and the principles that she has mastered in caring for others
are ones that each of us can apply.
“Everyone has a part, a very vital part, in the working of this family,” Mrs. Wierwille
states. “God will be glorified by us, His family, as we work as a family to keep each other
happy and blessed.”