Because Healing Matters: A Pursuing Wholeness Weekend In Clute, Texas

A post-event reflection from Sister Debbie Simler-Goff | The Rock Church United | August 28–30, 2026

I am still thanking God for the weekend we just shared with The Rock Church United in Clute, Texas.

This was not a first visit. Last December I had the privilege of walking with this precious church through a Grief & Grace weekend—the science and the soul of grief, the tools of healing, and the grace that meets us in loss. So when Pastor Ronald Evans felt led to close a three-month series called Because Healing Matters by inviting Pursuing Wholeness back for a full weekend seminar, it felt like family calling family home.

Pastor Evans had spent months bringing special speakers to the saints at TRC. Healing had already been preached, prayed, and believed for. He sensed the Lord wanted to conclude that season not with one more sermon, but with a workshop—teaching, interaction, proclamation, and room for the Holy Ghost to do deep work. Bishop Jeffrey Smith and TRC Ministries opened the doors wide. I am grateful.

Wholeness is a process. It is not a one-and-done altar moment. That became the heartbeat of the weekend.

Friday Night: Packing the Good Before We Unpacked the Brokenness

Friday’s session was “Unpacking My Brokenness.” That is where we were headed. But we did not start there.

We started by packing the good.

Each person taped a “Packing the Good” paper to their back. Then the room moved. Saints wrote on one another’s papers what they appreciated, what they saw, what they thanked God for in that brother or sister. Afterward I asked another person to read each list aloud so the whole room could hear the good that had been spoken.

Something holy happened in that simple activity. People heard, out loud, what others already knew about them. The soul—mind, will, and emotions—is often loud with old labels. That night the room spoke a better word.

Bishop Smith loved the concept so much he asked everyone to give their papers to the church secretary so they could be framed. At the close of the weekend those framed words were presented back to their owners. What began as an icebreaker became a keepsake of identity.

Only then did we begin to unpack brokenness. You cannot dump a suitcase on the floor with no place to put what is worth keeping. We packed the good first.

Saturday: Unforgiveness, Pursuit, and Blessing

Saturday opened with breakfast and prayer, then three sessions that built on one another:

Session 1 — Unpacking Unforgiveness

Friday opened the suitcase. Saturday morning we took out what most of us would rather leave zipped: unforgiveness. We named it, we refused to baptize it as “just how I am,” and we let the Word divide what we feel from what God requires. Forgiveness is not pretending the wound never happened. It is refusing to let the wound keep the keys.

Session 2 — Pursuing Wholeness

Wholeness does not chase you down while you stay passive. We pursued it on purpose—with Scripture, with honest conversation about mental and emotional health, and with the reminder that the spirit can be born again while the soul is still noisy. Wholeness is a process, not a one-and-done altar moment.

Session 3 — The Miracle and Power of Blessing

Blessing is not a polite Christian habit. It is a force. After we unpacked unforgiveness, we learned to speak life—to refuse to let the tongue of judgment rest on what God has already called righteous, and to bless instead of merely analyze.

Then we stopped talking about it and did it. The room split into groups and practiced proclaiming the Word of God out loud. Not reading it quietly. Not agreeing with it in theory. Speaking it until the soul had to hear what the spirit already knew. The sword of the Spirit is not the Bible on a shelf. It becomes a sword when Scripture leaves the page and is spoken. That afternoon, the Word left the page.

The Weekend Blade: Hebrews 4:12–13

Again and again I had the room read the Word aloud. Not silently. Aloud.

“God’s word is alive and working. It is sharper than the sharpest sword and cuts all the way into us. It cuts deep to the place where the soul and the spirit are joined. God’s word cuts to the center of our joints and our bones. It judges the thoughts and feelings in our hearts. Nothing in all the world can be hidden from God. He can clearly see all things. Everything is open before him. And to him we must explain the way we have lived.”

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We read it in the King James. Then we read it in the Easy-to-Read Version. We let it cut.

I taught the difference that so many sincere believers have never been shown:

•  The soul (psyche) is the self-life: mind, will, and emotions. It feels, reasons, remembers, and reacts. It is where personality lives. The soul can be saved and still be noisy. It can love God and still be ruled by hurt, fear, memory, and opinion. When we only speak from the soul, we proclaim our pain.

•  The spirit (pneuma) is the God-conscious part of us—where we worship, hear, and agree with heaven. The new birth quickens the spirit. The Holy Ghost fills the spirit. Then the Word trains the soul to follow.

The Word is given to tell the soul the truth. We do not wait to feel it. We speak what God has already said. That is why we proclaimed:

• No weapon formed against me shall prosper.

• I forgive, and I bless.

• The scepter of the wicked shall not rest on the land allotted to the righteous.

• The Word of God is living and powerful in me. I will not only read it. I will proclaim it.

Healing begins where the Word is allowed to tell the truth. Verse 13 reminds us nothing stays hidden. That is mercy, not threat. God already sees. We can stop hiding from the only One who can make us whole.

Depth, Laughter, and the Holy Ghost

The Holy Ghost moved deep. There was real teaching—biblical principle next to mental health insight—not as two competing languages, but as one conversation under the lordship of Jesus. There was also fun. There was laughter. Impactful interaction is not the enemy of reverence. Some of the most sacred work of the weekend happened while people were smiling.

One brother, Kevin “SoldierinChrist” Wood, later wrote a five-star review that still humbles me. He recalled both weekends—Grief & Grace in December and Pursuing Wholeness this August—and said anyone who attended had the ability to walk away blessed and changed if they chose to. He wrote that the activities were “NOT just games,” but “impactful interactions to teach and guide us towards where God wants us as His children.” His biggest takeaway: proclaim what God says about me… His Word. He thanked me for being utilized by the Holy Spirit, for mental health expertise and a counseling approach, and for making both experiences interactive and fun without taking away from the depth to which God used the weekend to take us.

That is the highest compliment I could receive. The gift is not mine. The Spirit is. My part is to stay usable.

Sunday Morning: What the Mirror Says—and What God Sees

On Sunday at 10 a.m. we gathered for the Because Healing Matters service. We worshiped. We celebrated the healing work of Christ. And then I preached about the conversation most of us never admit we are having.

What do you say to yourself when you look in the mirror?

The soul has a script.

Too old.

Too much.

Not enough.

Still broken.

Still that girl.

Still that boy.

Still the label somebody else stuck on you in a hallway, a house, a pew, or a hospital room.

The mirror will preach if you let it. But the mirror is not the discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. The Word is.

God does not see you the way the glass sees you. He does not see you the way your last failure sees you. He sees you through the blood, through the new birth, through the name He has already spoken over you. And if what you say in the bathroom does not match what He says in the Book, the bathroom is not the authority.

So I told them what I had been telling them all weekend: stop proclaiming your pain and start proclaiming what God says about you.

Say it to your own face. Say it until the soul yields to the spirit.

You are not looking at a leftover. You are looking at someone beautiful in His sight.

That is the identity. Not a pep talk. A proclamation. We did not treat Sunday as a closed chapter. We treated it as a commissioning: keep looking in the mirror—and keep telling that reflection the truth God already wrote.

To Pastor Ronald Evans—thank you for hearing the Lord about a whole season of healing, and for trusting Pursuing Wholeness to help close it. To Bishop Jeffrey Smith, Sis Sandra, the church secretary who framed those papers, and every saint who showed up hungry—thank you.

You did not just attend a workshop. You answered a call.

I bless The Rock Church United in Jesus’ Name.

Now It’s Your Turn

Wholeness is still a process on Tuesday. The Word still divides soul from spirit when nobody is watching.

I would love to hear from you in the comments:

• If you were in Clute this weekend, what is one thing God said about you that you are taking home?

  
  

• What have you been saying to the mirror—and what Scripture are you going to say instead?

  
  

• If you could not be with us, which of the verses above does your soul need to hear out loud today?

  
  

Type it. Proclaim it. Let somebody else be strengthened by the Word coming out of your mouth.

No weapon. I forgive and I bless. The Word is living in me. I am accepted in the Beloved. I am beautiful in His sight.

Sister Debbie Simler-Goff

Certified Mental Health Coach (AACC) | Certified Biblical Counselor (AACC)

Licensed Minister, UPCI

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