Healing as a Leader: Strengthened by the Helper

I hope we all know by now that your soul can’t lead what it’s not healed from. But even more than that—our spirit can’t lead strong if it’s not continually strengthened by the Holy Spirit, our Helper.

I feel the Lord pulling me deeply into complete healing—not just so I can lead better, but so I can carry the kind of capacity required to equip healthy leaders who multiply. There’s this holy desperation rising in me to be a strong, whole, steady leader—and I know that longing comes from a place of having longed for it my whole life.

I’ve been abandoned by earthly fathers and even some spiritual fathers—people I looked up to, trusted, and thought would cover me. Those wounds taught me independence, but not necessarily intimacy. They taught me how to survive, but not how to rest.

And now the Holy Spirit—the Comforter, the Helper, the Healer—is taking me back, layer by layer. Not to reopen pain, but to redeem it. To restore every place where disappointment and distrust tried to harden my heart. Because while my soul may still feel tender, my spirit is being strengthened by the Spirit of God Himself.

“That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man.” — Ephesians 3:16

I’ve seen and heard what unhealthy leadership looks like, and I know that’s not the kind of kingdom culture God is building. He’s raising up a generation of healed leaders—spiritual mothers and fathers who lead from love, not lack. I can hear Him whisper, “You are becoming what you never had.”

Before I can multiply healthy leaders, I must first let the Father multiply healing in me. Because only a healed leader can reproduce wholeness in others. And only a Spirit-led leader can sustain that wholeness through the power of the Helper.

“The Spirit helps us in our weakness…” — Romans 8:26

“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” — Psalm 34:18

When I allow the Holy Spirit to breathe into my inner man, He revives what pain tried to suppress. He teaches me to lead from rest instead of striving, from security instead of question, and from intimacy instead of independence.

“Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit,” says the Lord of hosts. — Zechariah 4:6

Can We Pray Together?

Father, You see every place in me that’s still tender from abandonment—every time I trusted and was let down, every place where spiritual covering was missing. You’ve been the only One who’s never left me. Thank You for being my true Father, for teaching me what love, safety, and covering really look like.

I surrender my need to be strong on my own. Holy Spirit, my Helper, I invite You to fill the empty spaces that rejection and disappointment created. Heal the younger version of me who learned to lead from survival. Strengthen my spirit man when my soul feels weak.

Teach me now to lead from rest, from wholeness, from Your embrace. Make me a spiritual mother/father who leads strong in truth but gentle in love. Let my leadership be born out of healing, not busyness. And let every person You entrust to me encounter the safety, nurture, and freedom of the Father’s heart through the Spirit that lives in me.

In the mighty name of Jesus, amen.

Pastor Sarah Bell