Finding Joy: On the Path of Divine Health and Wholeness

By Joy Marlena Lambe

Over a period of forty days, a 51-year-old African American woman living within a Pentecostal-Holiness faith tradition journals her quest for what she describes as divine health and wholeness while living with a terminal illness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9781973687528

Joy Marlena Lambe

Joy Marlena Lambe, an African American woman living within a Pentecostal-Holiness faith tradition, was diagnosed with inoperable cancer in 2002. She tran-sitioned on May 3, 2018 at age 53. In March-May 2015, in her quest for what she called divine health and wholeness, she wrote a 40-day journal based on the book by Freeda Bowers Give Me 40 Days for Healing. These journal entries comprise Finding Joy.

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Copyright © 2020 Harold and Marilyn Lambe.

Address inquiries and comments to: Rev. Marilyn Lambe ([e-mail])

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Edited by John Anthony Rogers

ISBN: 978-1-9736-8751-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-8750-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-8752-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020903942

WestBow Press rev. date: 4/2/2020

With Appreciation

For all who walked alongside Joy, offering

encouragement and strength in times of weakness,

care and comfort in the presence of great pain,

reassurance in places of discouragement,

reminding of divine grace enfolding and sustaining

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

The Journal

Afterwords

About the Author

Foreword

SHE WAS THREE and I was seven when I first met Joy Marlena Lambe. I remember introducing myself to her and telling her that I liked her cute, white socks. I am sure she thought I was crazy. Four years is a big gap when you are so young; so our friendship did not really solidify until our teen years, when we spent summers writing, practicing and singing gospel songs in a group.

Joy was a gifted musician and writer, and she had a unique style, very different from what we called church music in those days. Even in her youth, her music communicated both questions and hope at the same time. I find myself smiling, crying and reflecting on that same depth of soul as I read and reread her journal.

For the past fifty years, I have observed many followers of Jesus Christ receive healing from physical disease and pain. Their victories have varied in scope and time: an unexplainable miraculous healing during prayer or Bible study; a gradual recovery while being treated by a medical specialist; a transition from their suffering that ushered them into heaven. Each journey was both personal and unique. But in most cases, the intense pain and suffering produced an intimacy with the healer, Jesus, that few have been able to share in words that others could benefit from.

This was not the case with my dear friend Joy Marlena Lambe. She chronicled her journey in words, examples and images that breathe God’s kind of life into the reader. Her words help us understand that God’s life goes beyond the physical and informs every ounce of our being. Her words remind us that when we are searching for one type of solution, such as physical healing, we are often surprised by healing that also rebalances our emotional, mental and spiritual self.

Her words help us to find Joy!

Dr. Chyanna Mull-Anthony

Pastor, International Gospel Center

Vice-President, Osborn Ministries International

Introduction

JOY MARLENA LAMBE learned that cancer cells were residing inside her in 2002. Twelve years later, in the spring of 2014, she wrote a letter to encourage a fellow traveler living with cancer:

I was diagnosed in 2002 with a rare cancer called thymoma. It was and still is inoperable. I have been through years of chemo and radiation. I actually just finished my third time around with radiation about six weeks ago (second time within a year.)

I have recognized and admit that over the years, my reliance has been greatly on the doctors and what they had to offer. Yes, I am a Christian, pray and believe, but in the back of my mind I was always waiting for that wonder drug from the doctors and it was always a big letdown when the new chemo didn’t work.

I have been treated with every chemotherapy possible and have exhausted all chemo avenues. There is no more that the doctors can do for me. I go and they monitor me, but that is the extent of it. All roads with them lead to a Dead End (pun intended). But don’t get me wrong, doctors are extremely important. God made them for a reason and their knowledge has brought me through some really crucial and trying