PRESENCE IS THE MIRACLE

He inhabits the wounded temple.

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There were images of my wounded hands. Tiny needle pricks as evidence of something much bigger at play. I tell my phlebotomist, “Pray over my blood” as she loads the sixteen tubes into the tray. My request speaks as much to the reality of my situation as to a desire to bear witness to the presence of the Healer in every line of life’s story, particularly today.

I do not have good news. To refine that statement, there is some good news served up with the hard. The first is my body is vigorously and impressively repairing and restoring. Yet, this healing is also woven into an environment saturated with disease.

These five words italicized at the very beginning—
We don’t often think of it that way. We imagine God drawing near when the sanctuary is swept clean, when the offering is fragrant, when the body is whole.

The truth is stranger and more tender: the Holy Spirit sets up residence inside broken structures, scarred places, cells that carry both life and death.

This is where my struggle lies. Not in believing that God can heal — I know He can. The wrestle is whether He will heal me. In this body where tumors stake their claim. In this moment when the next medical step is unclear.

And so, the cry rises: for Presence, for intervention, for something greater than the limits of the body. What I crave most, His nearness, has already been given. He inhabits the wounded temple. He has made my scarred frame His dwelling place.

The miracle is not His arrival after my plea. The miracle is His residency before I asked. Already here. Already indwelling.

Presence itself is the miracle. Not absence of suffering, but companionship within it. Not the fixing of the temple, but the inhabiting of the temple that is.

Prayer, then, is not summoning Presence but recognizing it—
It is the way the Janene that angsts and wonders, learns to notice what my spirit already knows:
He dwells here.

I remember a conversation with my Pastor, a heartfelt admission that I believed my design work was unimportant in the bigger scheme of things. He led me to the Temple. God was precise about its design. Every cubit measured, every stone cut to exact dimension, every lampstand hammered to perfection. Holiness was equal to perfection. Only then would His Presence safely dwell.

But when He chose His final dwelling, it was not marble courts or golden sanctuaries. It was us.

The Holy Spirit does not wait for perfection. He enters wounded spaces within us—
Scarred corridors.
Cancer-marked rooms.

The same God who once demanded exact cubits now bends low to inhabit uneven, broken frames. Once, God demanded perfection before He would enter.

Now, He enters and makes the imperfect holy.

I have lived the potential He sees in our brokenness, in my work in sanctuary design. I crave the broken, abandoned homes—
ones sad and sagging with neglect,
cracked and peeling walls,
beams no longer doing the heavy lifting,
rooms lonely and empty without hope.
I am drawn to them — not in spite of their flaws, but because of them. I walk into the broken space with imagination and compassion, already seeing what could live there, already breathing life into corners long abandoned. Isn’t that precisely what our Creator does? He passes over the flawless house to inhabit the wounded one.

He walks into the spaces laden with the weight of our humanity and says: This is where I will dwell.

Prayer. And presence. Not one reaching for another. But partners standing side by side. To pray, then, is not to beg God to arrive but to awaken to the God who is already here. To breathe Him in as atmosphere. To resonate with His frequency. To amplify His promises with a voice that is mine.

And within this wounded temple, to know:
The miracle isn’t always what changes. The miracle is Who remains.

He inhabits the wounded temple.
Presence itself is the miracle.

NOTES
Practices for Presence and Prayer

1. Presence as Environment
Practice: Breathe slowly and whisper, “You are the air I live in.” Picture every cell resting in His nearness the way lungs rest in oxygen.

2. Presence as Reversal of Exile
Practice: Place your hand over your heart and say, “I am not cast out; I am carried in.” Let His Spirit remind you that disease does not exile you from Him.

3. Presence as the Already of Healing
Practice: Each morning, thank God for one way you are already being healed — peace in despair, comfort in loneliness, strength in weakness. Let gratitude anchor you in the healing already begun.

4. Presence as the Healer Who Shares Space
Practice: When you notice pain, lay your hand gently there and pray, “You dwell even here.” Remember: He is not outside the wound but within it.

5. Presence as the Final Word
Practice: When fear or lab results speak loudly, respond aloud: “But You dwell here.” Let His indwelling be the louder word over your body, your story, your future.

Image: Some of you may have seen this image earlier. The willingness to “out” our wounds is central to who we are. I love that so many of you commented with words of encouragement. But this is what I love even more—our shared humanity draws us in when one suffers. We feel that suffering too. This is how we were Created. Not to gasp and run but to lean all the way in, allowing what wounds to transform us, asking what troubles us to lead us into a more perfect trust in the One who knows precisely who we are.

Presence is NOT the consolation but communion...Presence is not instead of healing. It is healing at its deepest core.