Dodie Osteen, Mega-Preacher Joel Osteen’s Mother, Had Weeks to Live After a Liver Cancer Diagnosis. She’s Still Thriving 41 Years Later. She Says God Healed Her.
Osteen, 58, is one of the most famous and successful televangelists in the world, and his congregation, Lakewood Church, hosts an average of about 52,000 worshipers every week. In 2018, his televised services were anticipated to reach 10 million people every week in the United States alone. During the epidemic, Osteen set a new online-only viewership record, with 4.63 million people in just one weekend in March 2020. Joel Osteen and his wife Victoria have their own 24-hour SiriusXM radio channel.
Joel Osteen is hard to miss, but you may be less familiar with his mother Dodie. Dolores “Dodie” Osteen, the widow of Lakewood church founder John Osteen and mother of well-known megachurch Pastor Joel Osteen, indicated in an interview that healing miracles do exist, citing her own remarkable recovery from cancer. She has 5 children and 19 grandchildren, but in 1981, Dodie Osteen was diagnosed with metastatic cancer of the liver. She was told that with or without chemotherapy, she had weeks to live.
Before cancer entered the picture, Dodie, now 87, led an idyllic family life, working hard and spending time with her children and husband.
“I was just a happy little mama,” she said.
Dodie had endless energy. The children like to say that they never saw their mother when she wasn’t working. When Dodie noticed herself getting worn out more frequently, she didn’t initially make much of it. But when she went to her son Paul’s graduation from medical school at Oral Roberts University, he recognized something was wrong immediately. “Look, mom, you look a little bit jaundiced,” he said. “You look so thin and all…I think you better go have some tests done.”
Dodie took her son’s advice and went to the hospital for a visit she imagined would last two or three days at most. And on December 10, 1981, she couldn’t avoid it. At 48-years-old, Dodie says she was diagnosed with metastatic liver cancer. The doctors said she had weeks to live, and she was told that chemotherapy might only extend her life marginally. She chose not to undergo any treatment.
“At that time, 41 years ago, they didn’t have much treatment, and they wanted me to stay but John said, no, we just want to go home and pray,” she said. “And believe God, I don’t suggest that anybody else do that, because we just followed our hearts and you can’t just do what somebody else does.”
Dodie believes that she was rescued from cancer through prayer, and she honors this deliverance by spreading her story and praying for people who need healing. Dodie’s book, Healed of Cancer, tells the story of her disease and explains how important faith was to her recovery.
After being diagnosed with the disease, many people prayed for her. Many famous pastors, known for their healing ministries, have prayed for her, but one night she felt she heard God say to her heart, “Dodie, someone else’s faith will not cure her.” It’s YOUR belief that you must continue right now.” At that point, she knew, it was between her and Jesus.
Her son Joel Osteen continues to host “Night of Hope” events across the United States, focusing on a message of positivity.
Pastor Joel Osteen continues holding “Night of Hope” events across America, focusing on a message of positivity. Last week, he argued that he isn’t cheating anyone by not talking about hell and repentance, insisting that people have enough things to feel guilty about.
It’s crucial, according to Dodie, to acknowledge that this kind of dread and doubt is natural even for those who have unwavering faith. “I’m just human like anybody else,” she said. Whenever she felt doubt and fear pulling her in, she rooted herself in her faith by thinking of the prayer her husband spoke on her first night back from the hospital: “My husband needs me. My mother and daddy need me. The children need me. The church needs me. And you need me, Jesus.”
In fact, she got healthier. Did she go back for tests to confirm her health? No. She knew she was healthy. She didn’t want hospital tests messing with her faith. Finally, a few years later, she was impressed to see a doctor about another issue and they reported she was as healthy as a young woman. Her doctors, well known in medicine, say she was healed supernaturally and that is the only explanation.
