Delores Winder: A Healing Ministry

Sid Roth has said that Delores Winder has one of the most outstanding verifiable miracles of the 20th century. She has walked in supernatural anointing for healing since she was surprised with her own miracle many years ago, and she has seen just about every kind of disease and disability completely healed. The details of her illness and healing are described in Part I. In Part II, I will share a brief summary of her miraculous healing, and then describe what she has learned and how we can have more faith for healing in our own lives. This article is based on Sid’s radio interview from February 2009 (listen to Week One and Week Two) with her as well as her book, Surprised by Healing (formerly Joy Comes in the Morning). Some of the quotes are summaries of things she has said and not literal statements. You can also watch Delores’ TV interview with Sid Roth on It’s Supernatural!: Week One and Week Two.

Surprised By Healing

For many years, Delores had suffered a painful, disabling bone disease and excruciating treatments to try to arrest its progress. However, it had gotten to the final stages and Delores was dying. Her kidneys had shut down and her esophagus was closed off. The end was very near.

An acquaintance had gotten her tickets to a Kathryn Kuhlman Holy Spirit conference, and she went, literally carried by a friend into the meeting. Delores went to the meeting with no expectation of her own healing. In fact, she felt opposed to the divine healing movement because it went against the teachings of her church. Delores went to Miss Kuhlman’s meeting because she wanted to learn more about the Holy Spirit and how the Lord might comfort her family after she was gone.

As she sat in the meeting, a sense of amazing peace settled over her. Delores began to experience the real presence of the Holy Spirit for the first time in her life. Feeling profoundly loved, she relaxed into a warm glow in His presence, and got the reassurance that she had longed for, as the Holy Spirit showed her how He would take care of her family. This comfort was more than she had even hoped to find.

As the Holy Spirit rested over her, her legs began to burn intensely. The pain scared her, and she felt that she had to get out of the auditorium immediately. As her friend was getting her ready to leave, a gentleman came down from the stage and began speaking with her. The Lord had shown him that Delores was being healed. He had her take off her neck brace and body cast, then he carried her up to the stage to meet personally with Kathryn Kuhlman.

With Miss Kuhlman’s encouragement, Delores took a few steps, then suddenly found she could touch her toes, walk and do all movement without pain. She was completely healed. At the time of her healing, Delores did not believe that there was such a thing as divine healing and she knew nothing about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Surprise and confusion mingled in with her joy at being free of the terrible disease. However, she went home completely well.

Delores Rebels Against Healing

Although she was overjoyed at being healed, Delores struggled because she could not explain it. People who knew how sick she had been were shocked at her vibrant recovery and wanted to know how it happened, and why it had happened. She said, “People that knew how sick I had been did not know what to think about my healing and wanted answers. I had no answers, and did not know what to think of it myself. I really believed that divine healing ended with Jesus and the Apostles. Also, I didn’t want to be any kind of spectacle at all. I wanted no part of the divine healing movement because of the way I had seen it portrayed on television.”

Delores tried to stay home and mind her own business doing housework and taking care of her family for the first time in more than a decade. But her phone kept ringing with people calling to talk about her miracle. She got to the point of not answering her phone and even asked her husband if they could move away someplace so that she could go back to being anonymous. She really wanted no part of the divine healing movement.

Her husband counseled her to stay where she was and see what the Lord would have her do. Her healing had come for a reason.

People began to show up at her house seeking prayer for their own healing. She always tried to help them as best she could because she understood the desperation that the very sick sometimes feel. Also, strange things were happening when she tried to help people. She was hearing words and getting images about peoples’ conditions that really confused her. When she prayed in accordance with these images, people were healed.

For example, a lady came to her house asking for prayer, seeming desperate but not really indicating the nature of her problem. Delores suddenly saw an image of this woman in a lesbian relationship. She was so shocked by this image that she wondered if it were from the devil. Then suddenly it was written on the palm of her hand what she had to say to the woman. To her amazement, the woman received her message and came back later and thanked her for the tremendous work Delores had done in her life.

After the lady left, Delores started to write down what she had seen written on her palm so that she could use it when others came, but the Lord spoke to her and said that she must trust Him to lead her in each situation.

Other strange things were happening also. Delores said, “I would get hot spots on my hands, and when it happened I would put my hands in my pockets and hide them. One day I was at Bible study when I got these hot spots. We were all standing up after class, and as I reached out to help another lady get up from her chair, she took hold of my hand. As soon as she touched my hand,  she fell down onto another person. I reached out to help this other lady get up, and she also fell over. Then I backed up and touched accidentally two others who also fell down in the Spirit. I was so upset about this that I rushed to leave and I brushed against a lady who was in a wheelchair, and I was later told she came out of that wheelchair.”

The Gifts of the Holy Spirit Are for Today

Although Delores had been a Christian all her life, she had never had any teaching about the power gifts of the Holy Spirit. In fact, she had been taught that they did not exist and firmly believed it.

A friend led her to visit a pastor who could help her understand the workings of the Holy Spirit. At first she argued with the pastor saying, “These gifts are not for today — they passed away with the Apostles.” The pastor challenged her to show him where in the Bible it said that the gifts were not for today, and she couldn’t find a single place where it said the age of miracles was past. Her eyes were opened to great teaching passages that said “Greater works than these shall you do.” And, “Nothing shall be impossible to you.” She saw how Paul, not one of the original Apostles, did great miracles, and how the early churches that he founded were based on supernatural manifestations of the Holy Spirit. One thing about Delores, she respected the Word of God. A light went on inside, and she heard the voice of the Lord saying to her, “I have taken your theology away.”

Delores said, “We have a watered down version of the Gospel. I am a prime example that God is the same healer today that He was in Jesus’ time. If people will only open their heart to it, God will do the miracles. People have become so programmed to the worldly way that they will not believe the truth of the Gospel. This is exactly what happened to me.  My prayer is that you begin to believe, and ask the Lord to help your unbelief.”

Belief  Matters

What you believe is important. If you seek healing, you must believe that God exists and that healing is for today as much as when Jesus walked the earth. Delores teaches, “Beware of the natural mind. It is programmed with all sorts of unbelief and belief in the wrong things. The natural man is programmed that cancer is a fatal disease and very often even the treatment kills. But cancer can be healed. It does not always turn out the way the doctors say it will. In my Bible study, we believe what the scriptures teach, not what man teaches, and we get results when we pray.”

“For example, a doctor’s wife came to our bible study with cancer throughout her body. Being a doctor’s wife, she had plenty of medical tests that documented the seriousness of her condition. The people in our Bible study were prepared to pray for her, so we prayed and anointed her with oil. Her healing was not immediately apparent, but three months after we prayed for her, she had a CAT scan that showed the cancer had gone completely away.”

Delores does not say to disregard medical advice. She believes that medical care is important. Delores teaches that what we should get rid of is our unbelief.

“The mind of Christ says our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. He needs to dwell in it. When he does, cancer gets pushed out. Our purpose should be to walk in the presence of the Holy Spirit, and to care for out bodies as the temple of the Holy Spirit.”

“We get so programmed with the world’s way of thinking that we cannot easily believe in healing. What works is to get so saturated with Jesus and so far away from the world that you know that you know you are healed. Unless God has told you that it is your time to die, you should know that you are healed.”

“God uses doctors and He uses surgery. We must be open to medical help, but we should go to God first.”

You Can Be A Healer

“Jesus is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. When He walked the earth, He healed the sick, cast out demons, and raised the dead. This was His ministry. He passed it on to His disciples, telling them to go make disciples of all nations and to pass this ministry on. He came to bring us abundant life. We miss this abundance because we are not expecting it. We have lived in the natural realm so long that we have forgotten that we also live in the spiritual realm. God can use anyone who is willing to be used to pass on these gifts of healing. If you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you lay hands on the sick and you expect that the Holy Spirit will heal them.”

“Healing gifts belong to the Holy Spirit, not the person. So if someone is sick, you should not wait for a healer to come on the scene, but you should lay hands on the sick yourself and expect — expect — that they will be healed.”

To illustrate this, Delores described an experience she had while ministering at a Presbyterian church in Shreveport, LA. Although the audience was filled with people seeking healing, Delores found her attention particularly drawn to a Catholic Sister sitting in the audience. She felt impressed to invite the Sister up on to the stage to minister with her, and the Sister agreed. Delores asked her to pray for a woman with a large, disfiguring growth on her face. Sister looked startled, and said, “I’ve never done this before, but I will try.”

“No,” Delores told her. “You will not try, you will do! Then God does the rest.” Sister laid her hand on the woman’s cheek and prayed. When she took her hand away, the disfiguring growth was gone. The first time this Catholic Sister prayed for someone, a great miracle was done through her!

“Always know it is the Holy Spirit doing the work. We are just the messengers. This the beginning of a great day in the church, where the Lord is pouring out His Spirit on all flesh. More and more churches will be carrying out the full ministry of Jesus, and healing ministries like mine will no longer be needed. The healing ministry will have returned to the church where it belongs.”

“Right now I know that God is changing hearts, preparing those hearts to believe in healing and be willing to be used. This is the cry of my heart, to see changed lives. This is the work of the church, to set people free.”

“I prayed for a man in one of my services who couldn’t walk. To make a long story short, I took away his cane and he started walking, then running around the sanctuary. This man is now a minister in India, serving God.”

Often we have to make an effort — to step out in some way. God will honor it.

Spiritual Weapons

One thing that comes through Delores’ teaching is that the spirit is primary battleground on which we must fight. Our security is trusting in the Word of God. She says that we must literally put on a new mind, seeing our bodies as the temple of the Holy Spirit. Welcoming His presence pushes disease out of us. With our hearts firmly anchored in the truth of God’s Word, we can better see how to fight off diseases that may attack us. This understanding helped Delores fight off a return of her deadly symptoms.

Although Delores was healed at the Kathryn Kuhlman service, in the back of her mind was a fear that her disease would return, bringing back misery and suffering. About a year after her healing, Delores was home doing housework when she was struck with a sharp pain in her back. The pain struck in the same place where she had had a spinal fusion years ago. Her first thought was that her healing was lost and that she would go back to her terminally ill state. She had heard stories of people who had lost their healing. As she prayed for guidance, she realized that this was an attack — the devil was trying to steal her healing! She began singing and praising the Lord, rebuking the symptoms in the name of Jesus. The pain went completely away, and did not return.

Another powerful principle that she teaches is to believe that once you have asked, that you have received, even if it is not immediately manifested.  Delores teaches that healing is a process that sometimes comes about gradually. We must be patient as it comes into manifestation. In her book, Delores says, “When we know what God has available for us, then we can come to Him and ask for it. But we don’t keep on asking. We start appropriating it. We say, “Lord, although I still have pain in my body, I believe that You are healing me because Your Word says so. I believe I am healed according to your Word. Then our physical body begins to change and the mind, body and spirit come into accord with God’s Word. We must be in accord with His Word to be healed, for it is basically through His Word that we hear from Him.”

“Most healing is not instant, but is a process that unfolds over time. Just keep saying, ‘Thank you. Thank you Lord. I am being healed.’ Know that healing power is at work within you. God says all things are possible to those who believe. Believe it, and it will be.”

The Centrality of the Holy Spirit

“The Holy Spirit is my life. Jesus sent Him to be with us always, to lead us, guide us, and use us. Without him we are trying to live our lives by ourselves, without hope. We keep him in the guest room of our heart. We must bring Him out of the guest room, into the living room. We are not to do anything with Him, but we are to let Him do with us as He decides. Anything can happen. But we have to surrender totally to the Lordship of Jesus.

“In practical terms it means I can’t live without Him. In the beginning the Lord would say to me, ‘Remember you can’t lift a finger without me.’ Today, I say, ‘Jesus, You are my whole life. You lead me and guide me and direct me. Take me where You want me to go. Use me.’ This does not mean He takes you out of your life. You are still in the same place, but He is foremost in your mind and your thinking and your awareness. I am still primarily a housewife. I am a wife and a mother. I will never go into a downtown office building to minister. So it is very important for you to catch the vision to minister, to have the gifts in operation wherever you are, whatever you are doing in your daily life.”

Wherever she goes, Delores walks in signs and healing miracles. More details about her healing, her miracle experiences and her teaching are revealed in her book, Surprised by Healing (formerly Joy Comes in the Morning).

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright ©1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.