The Fall of Joyce Meyer – Literally – Part 1 | Joyce Meyer | Enjoying Everyday Life

Are you ready to get real? Today on Enjoying Everyday Life, Joyce Meyer speaks candidly with Ginger and Erin about some crazy health challenges she’s recently faced and what God taught her about pressing on during difficult times.

Joyce Meyer, one of the world’s leading practical Bible teachers and New York Times best-selling author, shares encouragement and advice to help us enjoy our daily lives.

With a heart to share Christ and love people, Joyce’s messages help people in all walks of life to grow in their faith, learn to study the Bible, find healing from the wounds of life, get answers to life’s questions and encounter the love of God in a powerful way.

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I don’t even know how I did it, but I fell.
And I caught both of my feet under my body. When I fell, I broke my left ankle.
I knew what I do because I’ve seen god’s power, transform my own life, and he will do it for you.
The key to everything is found in god’s work.
I’m Joyce Meyer, and I believe that god can heal you every where you heard.
Welcome to enjoying everyday life.
Now what happens when life doesn’t go as planned and you are completely thrown for a loop?
We have all been there. I know I certainly have.
And Joyce had an experience like this not too long ago.
It was serious, and believe me, she didn’t like it one bit. None of us do.
But in the end, she learned a lot through it.
And we can too, especially as she shares her story, and we can discuss it together.
So get comfy because we are about to talk it out. Hey, everybody.
Welcome to cock it out. We are back, and we are thrilled to be here.
This is where all of us girlfriends we sit down We talk about life and god’s word and how it applies to everything that we’re going through.
Um, we have our friends, Erin, clearly here with us. The one and only Joyce Meyer.
I’m Ginger Stockey, and we’re so glad to have you here with us.
We’ve got some changes, obviously, with with the podcast coming back after a very nice summer break. Yeah.
I
had to be careful when I say a summer break to Joyce. I’m sorry.
Don’t use the word break with me.
No. A summer hiatus.
Yeah. That’s better. Uh-huh. Today, you’re gonna get the whole scoop from Joyce herself.
She’s gonna fill you in on what Her summer’s been like and what’s been going on, we’re calling it the fall of Joyce Meyer.
But I did not fall into sin.
That’s not That’s not the that’s not the kind of fall it was.
We are going to clarify very clearly, but, um, if if you’re here, because you saw that title, welcome.
We’re glad you’re here. Yeah. But we we’re really gonna talk about a lot of things that you learned through an experience of having some downtime.
Downtown’s maybe not the right way to say it either. Yeah. I just I just the words are quiet.
Quiet time. Quiet time. That’s really good.
But we also have as as we’re beginning to talk it out again.
Um, we have some changes and some new things that are happening. We’re gonna we’re gonna miss our friend Jay.
Um, but we have a lot of great guests who are gonna be here with us.
Yep.
Uh, some new things that we’re starting.
We’re gonna start a re occurring topic for quite a little while talking about what are you thinking?
And, uh, just really focusing on the mind and how changing our thoughts, that battlefield in the mind that we all need to win.
Yep. So, um, we also have a a new thing that we’re gonna do at the end of every talk it out called walk it out.
We’re gonna help you dig in a little bit deeper and take what we’ve talked about and really apply it.
Maybe think about it a little bit longer. Meditate on god’s word.
Yep.
So I’m looking forward to all this.
Yeah. Good. Good.
I mean, it’s gonna be fun too to get to hear from some of our friends too and just I think over the years we’ve been doing talk it out.
It’s been fun to hear how people are saying, oh, I I relate to that too.
I have
the same questions. So getting to hear from our friends who are listening and hear what they’re asking, how they relate, and hear what god’s doing is gonna be really special.
Yeah. We’re gonna be having a lot of questions from you Yep.
That are coming from from comments and and social media. So that’ll that’ll be really nice
too. Can I share one now as we’re starting? Of course.
She’s directed towards Joyce Meyer herself, but it’s not a question yet. We won’t tell you that.
It’s more a statement of love for you.
Actually, I have a few.
I’ll just pick 1 for now. Natalia says sending hugs and love to you Joyce.
God is working behind the scene for your speedy complete recovery.
Many are praying for you, and we know that god listens and promises to answer when we pray.
Watching your program every day from the Woodlands, Texas much love to you. And one more.
Linda says, praying for you and your quick 100% healing in Jesus name.
May you be comforted with all of the comfort you have freely given all of us and all of these years, Joyce.
We love you.
I appreciate that. Oh, those sweet. And all the prayers really meant a lot to me.
That’s That’s really what keeps us going in difficult times.
Absolutely. Yeah.
I think I wanna start what I wanna say today by just saying you never know what’s gonna happen.
Yeah. And so you don’t wanna wait until you have a problem to get strong in God.
Mhmm. You wanna stay strong. I think that’s very important for people to hear because a lot of times when things are good, we kinda get lazy about our routine with god.
Yeah.
And then all of a sudden, when you have a problem, you you find time to pray.
You find time to spend time with him. You know, you find time to to listen to the words.
So in the days that we’re living in, especially, the closer we get to the end, the more the devil’s going to attack.
And we really need to make sure that we stay strong in the lord Yeah.
All the time because I certainly wasn’t expecting what I got, but I’m really glad that I already had a good strong relationship with god.
That got me through it Yeah. In victory. Yeah.
Tell everybody what happened. Well, I
I went in to have a minor back surgery called the laminectomy because I had some stenosis in my spine.
Sometimes as you get older, your spine will start to close-up in areas.
And if it’s pressing on nerves, it can really cause a lot of pain.
And I had one of those about 10 years ago in just, like, one spot, but I had three spots that were pressing on nerves.
And so was supposed to be a 2 week recovery. And it was the same
outpatient surgery.
Outpatient surgery. And so I waited a little while and all of a sudden I got in the worst pain, I think, that I’ve ever had in my life.
It was worse than having a baby. Wow. My family said I don’t even remember this.
That’s how bad it was. My family said I was down on the floor on my hands and knees just yelling.
You gotta get me to the hospital.
So what had happened, which we didn’t really know until the next morning, was I had developed a blood clot at the surgery site, and that blood clot I guess, was keeping blood from getting to my right leg or something.
And so then my back and down my bottom and all down my right leg was just so painful.
Yeah. The next morning, it did an MRI. I was in the hospital. Mhmm. It did an MRI.
And, um, saw the blood clot took me right into surgery again.
But now whatever trauma it did to my right leg, I couldn’t I couldn’t pick my leg up that far.
Wow. I mean, I just had zero strength. Yeah. In that leg.
So I stayed in the hospital for about 3 days, and then they transferred me to a, uh, a rehabilitation hospital.
Where I stayed for 14 days, and I did 3 hours of physical therapy a day.
1 was occupational therapy to teach you how to you know, which I told him I didn’t need too much of that.
But, uh, because I don’t do too many dishes anyway, because I don’t cook.
And occupational therapy teaches you, you know, how to take care of yourself if you’re if you’re injured.
And I said, I got a husband. He’ll
He can take care of that one.
He’ll do the occupation. And, uh, but then I had 2 hours of physical exercise a day, and it was to get that leg working again.
So during those 14 days, uh, one of my kids stayed with me all the time.
They took shifts, 4 hour shifts, and they stayed with me all the time.
And my family was just so good to me.
They wanted to make sure that I wasn’t there by myself and wanted or needed something and couldn’t get it.
And, So it’s great when you have kids and when the chips are down, you you know, that they’re there Yeah.
For you. And they said, we’ll do this no matter how long it takes.
And so I was there 14 days, and then they they’re gonna send me home.
And and I actually fell probably four times while I was there. Like Oh, wow.
Because my leg just didn’t have any strength.
Then I was I was on a walker, but if I you know, like, they have to teach you how to go steps.
And a couple of times, I fell trying to do that.
And then the day I was going home, I actually fell while they were wheeling me out.
So I obviously had a lot of work to do.
And, um, so when I got home, I was starting to get better.
I was doing physical therapy at home, and I was starting to get better.
But I was in my closet, and Dave was with me, and I was getting ready to change my clothes.
And I don’t even know how I did it, but I fell. Oh.
And I caught both of my feet under my body.
When I fell, I was actually sitting on my so I broke my left ankle, my fibula bone.
And so now I can’t walk on either leg.
That was your good leg.
Yeah. That was my good leg.
And so now I have a good leg that became the bad leg and a bad leg that was already bad.
So back to the hospital we go, they x-ray it. Yep. It’s broken.
So they put a soft cast on it for, uh, 2 weeks or something, and I went back to the physical therapy hospital for 10 more days so they could try to teach me how to get around.
I was in a a wheelchair, and then they’d take me down, and I would do physical therapy.
I stayed there 10 days. And then they sent me home.
And I went to the orthopedic doctor, and they put me in the pretty gray boot that comes up to your knee.
They said we have 3 we have 3 colors. We have gray. We have gray, and we have gray.
What color would you like? And I said, oh, I’ll take the gray.
And, anyway, this whole scenario took two and a half months.
And by the time I get I go to the doctor next Friday to get released, but One of the things that I found that was interesting that I think is the result of all the prayers is the physical therapist told me she said, the rate at which your body is healing, it’s responding like a fifty year old, not an eighty year old.
Wow.
And so I really, as bad as it sounds, I mean, today, I came in here walking on my own two feet, and this is the first day Wow.
That I’ve done that, that I haven’t because I went from a a wheelchair to a walker, to a cane, which I don’t like the cane at all.
For some reason, the cane makes me feel older than the walker does.
And, uh, but I wrote a book during that whole time. Oh, with all that is not surprising.
Don’t overthink it. That’s a good book.
And, But it, you know, it it was really important to me that I live out what I preach Yes.
During that time. That just Yeah. That was just foremost in my mind. It’s like, okay.
I preach this stuff all the time and tell people what to do when they have trouble.
But, you know, I didn’t really know how things were turn out.
I mean, you know, the devil puts thoughts in your heads.
Well, what if what if you never can walk right again?
What if your life doesn’t heal if the nerves and your legs don’t heal, well, you know, what if, what if, what if.
And so the mind is a big part of overcoming any problem that you have.
And so for all the people listening today, your problem may not be a physical one. Mhmm.
But whatever it is, if it’s money, if it’s marriage, if it’s your kids, if it’s you know, we all get in situations where we’re in the situation, and we don’t know for sure what’s gonna happen down here.
And you have to really be careful about the what ifs because they’re all gonna be negative. Yeah.
And so my thinking I mean, I just all the time, thought things like this will end.
It’s not gonna last forever.
And one of the things that I did in the very beginning is I said I have take this one day at a time.
Mhmm. Because at the beginning, 3 months sounds like a long time.
It does. Yeah.
And they pretty much told me that’s how long it would take. Yeah. 3.
And then and they say that this can hurt on and off up to 6 months and swell up to 6 months.
And so And I noticed, like, yesterday, I went out and did some things, and my, you know, foot was hurting by the end of the day.
And so it’s definitely slowed me down.
It’s taught me to be a little more careful because I probably wouldn’t have fallen in the closet if I would have been being a little more careful.
I’m pretty aggressive. And I know nobody knows that, but I’m I am shocked
by this
conversation. Surprised by that. Yeah. And, So I sometimes get a little bit ahead of myself and think I can do things that I can’t do, but
Like getting out getting out of a moving car because you’re
almost home. Yeah. Yeah. Starting to open the car door before we’re in the driveway.
But my aggressive nature has served me well all these years in ministry.
I wouldn’t be where I’m at if I didn’t have that.
So a lot of times, our one of our greatest strengths also becomes our greatest weakness. Yeah.
So what I have to do is discern the difference between When I really need to be aggressive Mhmm.
And when I need to be more careful.
Yeah.
And so I think I’ve learned to be more careful to use more wisdom.
And I said I’ve been quiet for so long that I find now that I’m just quieter.
And I’ve really enjoyed the quiet.
Yeah. A lot of peaceful time. Yeah. A lot of time.
A lot of peaceful time, and just you know, time to think, but I didn’t I didn’t think about a lot of you know, I just thought about a lot of the stuff that we’ve gotten to do in ministry and how I just wanna keep helping people.
And Yeah.
You know, you when you’re hurting or you’re going through any kind of a situation, like I was down in the um, exercise room one day at the rehab center.
And I was trying to rehab both of my legs but there was a girl on another table over here who had had both legs amputated.
Oh, wow. And so there’s always somebody. Yeah. That’s got it a lot worse than you do.
Perspective means a lot. And If if we can do this real quick, you talked about making sure that you lived out your teaching.
Right.
So we wanna show a clip where you were talking before all this happened.
About the importance of being prepared and and how you can win a battle before it even begins.
That’s good.
And then we’ll come back and we’ll talk a little bit more about how all of this works.
The more the things that you’ve learned and
what we
can all glean from it.
Alright. Proverbs 1814. Great scripture.
The strong spirit of a man will sustain him in bodily pain and trouble, but a week and a broken spirit who can raise it up or who can bear it.
If we stay strong spiritually, then really no matter what comes against us, we will make it through.
That doesn’t mean it’s gonna be easy. That doesn’t mean there’s gonna be no pain involved.
But truly, truly, we can do all things through Christ. Who is our strength.
Yes. You can make it through whatever you’re going through right now. And you know what?
You can get so strong in spirit that you can be going to really, really occult things.
And while you are, you’re still reaching out and helping other people, and they don’t even know what you’re going through.
Did you hear me?
We don’t have to be the kind of people that every term we have a problem we fall apart.
We can be strong in the lord and in the power of his might, but it’s gonna take some maintenance some regular doing of what we should be doing, not just waiting until all of a sudden, we feel like we’re falling apart and quick, quick trying to get to where we need to be.
Apeasians chapter 6 is a chapter in the Bible about how to defeat the devil.
We all love those kinds of messages.
Everybody likes to think that they’ve got the power and they can defeat the enemy.
And in ephesians 611 through 18, it teaches us about putting on the full armor of god and putting on peace and you know, all the different facets of armor that we can put on, which causes us to be victorious against the enemy.
But verse ten is one that we might not pay as much attention to as we should, and that precedes all the others, and it simply says, be strong in the lord.
Be strong through your union or your oneness or your fellowship with him.
Draw your strength from him, that strength which his boundless might provide.
So the first thing to realize the day before we go even further is whatever strength you hope to have in life, it’s gotta be in god.
He is our strength. He doesn’t just give us strength. He is our strength.
And the minute that you have any sign of difficulty, even before you have difficulty, every day, pray early.
God give me the strength today to deal with whatever I need to deal with because I believe that I can do all things through Christ who is my strength.
And I like what the amplified Bible says about that scripture.
It says I’m ready for anything. I’m equal to anything through him who infuses inner strength into me.
Let’s be the kind of people that are ready for anything. We don’t even know what it is yet.
But we’re ready for whatever comes our way.
And we already know we’re gonna have the victory before we ever have the problem.
What does it mean to be more than a conqueror?
I believe that’s what it means, that you are so convinced in spirit of who you are in Christ that you already know you’re gonna win the battle before the battle ever even comes your way.
So Joyce, how did that knowledge of god’s word and who he is even through this trial because I know it had to be frustrating.
It had to be disappointing at times. How did all of that come into play for you.
How did you pull it together?
Well, I can honestly say and I don’t mean it at all in any kind of a bragging or a prideful way.
I was really content. The whole way through the whole thing.
I just You didn’t
ever have a moment you’re
where you said, uh, for real. I well,
I mean, I’m sure that I did, but they weren’t they weren’t big enough.
I mean, I was so convinced that I would come out good on the end. Yeah.
And that god would give me the strength to do what I needed to do each day.
And, I mean, I could see god at work. He gave me a lot of favor.
I lot of great nurses and, you know, great people helping in the way my family responded.
And just all of our partners praying for us and the love they were sending our way.
And, uh, I I really saw how all the time you put in with god really does, I don’t know, payoff is a good word to use, but it you see the results of it then when you have trouble.
And that’s really the way that Christians should be. The Bible never promises us no trouble. Mhmm.
And but what we should be able to do is when we have trouble is we should be able to go through it pretty much as if we didn’t have any.
Yeah. In other words, to, to be the same, either way.
Rather you’re I mean, Paul said I’ve learned how to be content, whether I’m a based or a bounding.
And I saw a definition the other day of joy that it’s, um, contentment are a deep satisfaction.
And so the joy of the lord is not, you know, just giggling and laughing and hilarity all the time.
It’s just having that contentment that, you know, whatever happens. Yeah. Mhmm.
That god’s gonna take care of you.
And it doesn’t mean because when you say whatever happens, it it’s not necessarily the things you wanted or would choose.
No. And you had to cancel a conference. I mean, they’re Had
to cancel more than 1. Yeah.
The And that’s the first time in 40 years of ministry that I’ve had to do that.
Right.
So other than when COVID was
Sure.
Yeah. You know? So those are things that that at 1st year, maybe, like, you know, god, this was for you.
Yeah.
Yeah. How do you reconcile that? Because what you were supposed to be doing during that time was for him.
Like, the conference is
I didn’t try to reconcile it.
You just let it go.
You know, I I one of the things that I’ve, of course, I’ve been doing this a long time.
So, obviously, I’ve learned a lot you, uh, there’s no point in trying to get answers to questions that only god has that he’s probably not gonna tell you.
Yeah. Oh, there’s so much wisdom
out there. I mean, there’s so much people. You drive yourself crazy trying to figure stuff out. You know? Mhmm.
I mean, I I wrote a book during this time when I was down. It’s called don’t overthink it.
Mhmm. And it won’t be out for couple of years, but we just we we think about stuff and think about it and think about it and think about it and we get ourselves so confused And so I found that just not thinking about it and just dealing with whatever I had to deal with each day.
Day by day.
I mean, there’s there’s details to this that, you know, wouldn’t be proper for me to tell on TV, but just, I mean, even like I went through these different stages of how I could get to the bathroom, and I mean, everything from sliding out of bed on a sliding board to sliding into a wheelchair to sliding onto the toilet to slide sliding back.
I mean, it was like it was an ordeal just to have to go to the bathroom.
And, but I just took each thing as it came.
And I slept good at night, which I was thankful for.
Yeah.
And, I brought my coffee pot up, and I was thankful for that.
I had my coffee every morning.
So finding those things to be grateful for in the midst
still got up like I do at home 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning and had my time with with god.
And, I we don’t really we make ourselves miserable when we have trouble.
We do.
It’s not really the trouble that makes us miserable.
It’s the way we look at it that makes us miserable.
It’s always powerful to see the Bible verse.
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, walked out in a real life situation.
We don’t like to have to go through it ourselves. We don’t always enjoy it at the time.
But when we learn that we can trust in god, when we learn those things that Joyce talked about today and we see that he is faithful, it is a wonderful revelation and it changes our lives.
Joy said god doesn’t just give us strength.
He is our strength, and he will give us victory in every situation if we turn to him.
That means all of our frustrations, our complications, and pain can easily become distractions if we let them or even derail us completely.
But if we focus on the little things that god is showing us, the way he’s working behind the scenes, we can learn new ways to be grateful for him and what we have.
It all comes down to believing and standing on god’s word.
Now I don’t know what difficulties your face today, but we have 2 resources to help you learn to look for the silver linings.
This book is called Hold On.
It explores 10 ways to stay determined for better days with Bible verse art. I’ll tell you, it’s so pretty.
That’s just page after page that you just might wanna tear out and put on your mirror as a daily reminder of god’s word.
It’s really lovely and It’s a reminder of his faithfulness in every situation.
And when you reach out today, we’ll also include the best as yet to come.
It’s a journal So you can write down those things that god is showing you.
You can write out your prayers and then be able to look back and see the way that he’s answered and has been faithful It’s a small, hardcover journal that you can fit in your purse and it features Bible verses to think about in plenty of space to write whatever you’re going through today.
We want you to know that whatever it is, god loves you.
He is not turning his back on you.
He is your strength today, and we are praying that he will show you new things and the challenges that you’re facing.
We’ll see you next time.
How many
trips have you been on now?
Uh, this is my.
Uh, and what what was the main reason that you did wanna do She said you wanted to travel to help people.
Yes.
It’s, uh, it’s a total different work as a doctor here than back in my home country, but it’s really, I feel like I really, uh, wanted to do that to just help people in, uh, poor countries who cannot have access to medical care.
I do that because I love Jesus, and I hope that the patients feel that sometimes we just pray right at the investigation table with them.
So just to make them know that Jesus is the doctor all above us.
We hope you enjoy today’s program.
Please contact or visit joycemeyer.org to share your prayer request or partner with us in sharing price and loving people all across the globe.
This program has been made possible by the partners of Joyce Meyer Ministries.