If you’ve ever wondered whether your past is too messy for God to heal, this conversation is for you.

A few weeks ago, we met Nanci Lamborn on the Living the Reclaimed Life podcast. Her story of redemption moved so many of you, an “angry daughter” whose life was transformed by a radical encounter with Jesus. In this episode, Nanci returns to unpack how that healing happened and how God led her from corporate America into full-time ministry, helping others find freedom.

Finding Jesus in the Pictures of Our Past

Before 2016, Nanci had never heard the phrase inner healing. “If you’d told me about it,” she laughs, “I would have thought it was some kind of woo-woo New Age thing.”

But she came across a description that changed her perspective. Author Mark Virkler once wrote that inner healing is like walking down the hallway of your past, looking at the photos on the wall, and finding the ones where Jesus isn’t in the picture and inviting Him into them.

“When Jesus steps into the photo,” Nanci said, “it’s healed, no matter what it was.” That truth became deeply personal for her.

From Anger to Awakening

Nanci’s story began with deep pain. After surviving eight years of domestic violence, she escaped with her children and started life over again. “I literally left with what I could carry on my back,” she recalls. “That season was about survival.”

Therapy was her first step toward any kind of healing. Her counselor didn’t just address the trauma of her marriage; she gently led Nanci back to her childhood wounds. “I thought I was there for my marriage,” she said, “but people don’t usually choose abusive partners unless they’ve already been abused. The enemy knows exactly how to keep us trapped.”

Through counseling and Scripture, Nanci began learning what it meant to love herself biblically, to see herself the way God saw her. In time, she remarried a Godly man who would become a powerful part of her healing story.

Yet old habits die hard. “I was still angry. I’d slam cabinets, throw dishes, I was a Christian, but I was still carrying so much brokenness.”

Then came a defining moment.

One day, her husband came home to find a heated argument between Nanci and her teenage daughter. “He looked around, realized what was happening, and said calmly, ‘That’s not how this house is going to go.’ He got down on his knees right there in the hallway and said, ‘We’re going to invite the Holy Spirit into this home.’”

That prayer changed everything. “Peace filled our house that day, and it never left,” she said. “It redefined what normal looked like.”

Learning to Love People

For years, Nanci and her husband were active in church, busy serving and raising teens. Eventually, they joined a new congregation with a prayer room, a concept that felt strange at first. “I thought those people were kind of out there,” she laughs. “But they had something I didn’t, peace and freedom.”

Through that community, God began stirring something new. Her husband started praying that the Lord would reveal Nanci’s destiny. And then she met Lucy, a mentor who invited her to her home for prayer. That invitation changed the trajectory of her life.

In their first session together, Lucy led Nanci through forgiving her mother and facing long-buried pain. During prayer, God gave Nanci a vivid mental picture. “I saw myself as the little girl from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Jemima Potts. She was who I always thought was beautiful, and in the vision, Jesus was gently wiping dirt off my face.”

For the first time, she felt loved, clean, and seen. And in that same picture, Jesus held up a book, one she hadn’t yet written. “It was as if He was saying, You’re going to tell your story.”

When the Student Becomes the Healer

Nanci kept meeting with Lucy, diving into books and teachings on biblical healing. Slowly, she stopped seeing inner healing as “woo-woo” and started seeing it as the heart of the gospel, Jesus setting the captives free.

Then she attended a conference led by Monty Bromley, founder of Beth Shalom Ministries, which means a house where nothing is missing, nothing is broken, and there’s an absence of chaos.

“Monty talked about people being healed of deafness, skin diseases, real physical miracles, because their hearts were healed first. I sat there thinking, This can’t be real, but my spirit was on fire. It was like the Bible came alive. I’d read a passage and think, ‘That wasn’t there before!’”

The Lord began whispering to her heart, You could do what Lucy does. Her first reaction? “No way.” But God had other plans.

One day, after admitting to Lucy that she didn’t really like people very much, Nanci experienced a life-altering vision while driving through the Georgia mountains. “The Lord opened my spiritual eyes,” she said. “I saw people in their homes on their knees, begging God to send someone to help them get free.”

She calls that moment being baptized in holy anguish. “In an instant, I went from judgmental to compassionate. God gave me His heart for people.”

When God Says Go

Soon after, Nanci found herself at a church cookout for the homeless. It was the last place she expected to meet God again. “I used to think homeless people did it to themselves,” she admitted. “But the moment I stepped out of the car, the Lord said, ‘This is My church, and this is beautiful.’”

God prompted her to pray for a young woman in Christmas pajama pants. As she did, He began giving her insight into the woman’s life, things she couldn’t have known. The woman began weeping, repenting, and experiencing freedom right there in the park. “I knew in that moment this was what I was created to do,” Nanci said. “It was like all the pain of my past suddenly made sense.”

Then came the call: Quit your job.

That was a problem. Nanci had a successful corporate career, a good salary, and kids in college. “I told the Lord, ‘You’re going to have to tell my husband,’” she laughs. “And He did! God gave my husband confirming dreams without me saying a word.”

On January 1, 2017, Nanci walked into her office and resigned. Her company not only blessed her, but they also gave her seed money to start her ministry. Within months, she was ordained under Beth Shalom and fully booked with clients.

“Since then, I’ve never advertised,” she said. “I’ve had a four-to-five-month waitlist for years. Over two thousand clients. And I get to watch Jesus heal people every day.”

Healing That Brings Freedom

Nanci emphasizes that what she does isn’t about techniques, it’s about obedience. “Yes, there’s structure,” she said, “but it’s the Holy Spirit who does the work. I just make space for Jesus to speak to people.”

She describes inner healing as walking with someone into their painful memories and inviting Jesus to meet them there. “When they hear His voice for the first time, it never gets old,” she said.

In today’s world, Nanci says the most common struggles she sees are anxiety, trauma, and lost identity. “People are conceived in anxiety. It’s become normal. But that’s not God’s design. He wants His children to live in peace.”

That’s why she requires every client to complete Freedom in Christ videos and read Neil Anderson’s Victory Over the Darkness before their first session. “Identity is everything,” she said. “When we know who we are, a firstborn son or daughter of God, not a beggar hoping for scraps, it changes everything.”

What Matters to You Matters to God

When asked what she’d say to someone who feels too broken or too old to change, her encouragement is simple: “Start small. Bring one thing to God. Ask Him, ‘What do I believe about this pain? What do I believe about myself?‘ He’ll show you where you’ve believed lies. And when you trade that lie for His truth, the weight begins to fall away.”

As she puts it, “Why tolerate on earth what God never intended you to carry?”

Experience More of Nanci’s Story

Nanci’s ministry now includes several powerful resources:

• 📘 Angry Daughter – her award-winning memoir of redemption and healing.
• 📕 Crazy Has a Name – her debut novel exploring emotional restoration through story.
• 📗 The Shift – a 30-day heart-healing devotional guiding readers through Scripture-based prayer.

All are available on Amazon, Audible, and through her website at LambornAuthor.Ink.
You can also connect with her on Instagram and Facebook at @lambornauthor.

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Ready to Begin Your Own Healing Journey?

If this conversation stirred something in your heart, I want to invite you to take the next step.

🎧 Listen to the full episode of Living the Reclaimed Life with Nanci Lamborn—where we go even deeper into her story of freedom.

📱 Download the Reclaimed Story App for a safe community, healing resources, and encouragement for your journey.