Suz was very comfortable in the medical world. She’d been a physician for some time, and appreciated the emphasis on science and evidence. When it came to understanding things, she wanted to see the studies, see the reproducibility. So while she had grown up in the Church, she didn’t have much of a paradigm for supernatural or miraculous events. That is, until God put it in front of her in a way she couldn’t ignore.
While Suz was a full-time physician and a mom with small children, she and her husband Cory were also on mission in their neighborhood. As their kids started school, they began doing everyday life with several other families who lived nearby—the families of their kids’ friends. Many of these families did not have an active faith in Jesus, and it was a very natural place to build relationships and have some spiritual conversations.
At the same time, Suz and Cory went through Novo’s Activating Prayer Cohort (previously called the Spiritual Authority Cohort). Suz was getting trained in all kinds of prayer tools for tapping into the supernatural and experiencing the power of God. She began to understand that it was important to share all three dimensions of the gospel in the way we operate in the world—the word of God, acts of love and service, and God’s power. But the power component still felt pretty uncomfortable.
An Unexpected Gift
God was definitely pushing Suz to leave her comfort zone. Suz and Cory attended a special service focused on praying for people to receive various spiritual gifts. When they got to the prophetic gifting, they prayed that God would show them if there were any prophets in the room. Suz felt a push and pull in her spirit. “No, anything but that God! I would be happy with any other mission! I think the supernatural is great and cool, but I can’t grasp it concretely like I can other things.” But Suz felt like the Lord was saying, “This is what I have for you.” (Most people don’t need a special service to receive a spiritual gift, but that’s what happened for Suz!)
A few weeks later Suz was out on a walk with her dog in the evening. She realized this would be a perfect opportunity to be prayer-walking in her neighborhood, using some of the tools that the Activating Prayer Cohort had taught her. So she started praying. And then the craziest thing happened. She started seeing things.
First, she saw seven angels around her, walking with her. “Are you showing me what you’re doing?” she asked God. “Yes, this is what I’m going to show you,” she sensed him saying. “Are you ready to go?” And then God started revealing what was happening in the spirit world in various places around the neighborhood. It was a unique type of prophetic gifting where she could actually see into the spiritual realm with her own eyes. Suz would walk past a house and it would light up, as if it had a spotlight shining on it. It was as if there was something good or heavenly going on. And then there were other houses that looked like every light had been turned off—something not good was happening in those places. She saw angels in various places around the neighborhood as well.
Internally, Suz was freaking out a little bit. This was 100% outside her comfort zone. When she got home she told her husband what had happened, and he was thrilled. “Now we know exactly who to pray for and who to pursue! We have insider information!” he said.
Suz continued to see these spiritual realities on her walks through the neighborhood and elsewhere as she went about her daily life. She kept quiet about it, because she still felt like it was all a little crazy. But she also responded to the things she noticed through prayer and a greater awareness of what God was up to around her, and she started to see those prayers being answered.
The Dark House in the Neighborhood
There was one house in the neighborhood that persistently felt dark, as if some sort of oppression was going on. The feeling was so strong that at times Suz even wondered if she needed to call the police. Was something bad happening to someone in the house? She didn’t know.
After a few months of praying for that house on her own, she asked her husband to join her. “There’s something demonic happening there. I don’t know what it is.” So he started to pray specifically for it. A few months later, when nothing had changed. Suz finally broke down and confessed the things she was seeing and sensing to her best friend in the neighborhood. Her friend was really excited about it. And she also joined in praying specifically for that oppressed house.
Two weeks later, Suz was walking past the house again, and she felt herself go weak. It was as if she was stuck on the spot, and she began inexplicably weeping. Suz turned to look at the house and saw something awe-inspiring and frightening. There was a huge angel, two or three houses tall, standing like a spike in the middle of the house. And demons were fleeing from the windows, the doors, even from out of the ground. Suz just watched for a while—it was really something to behold.
The next morning there was a giant dumpster in front of the house. Suz didn’t know if that was indication of a move, or the house getting cleaned out, or something else. But it definitely felt like a sign in the physical world that something was changing. And it only happened after she had invited multiple people to join her in praying for that house.
Burden for a Broken Family
There was also a specific family that Suz began to feel burdened to pray for. They were a divorced couple in the neighborhood whose kids were friends with her own. Suz told her husband about the burden she was feeling one evening, and they earnestly prayed together for that family. Over time, they began to see changes happening. The couple began to work on reconciling. They joined Suz and Cory’s house church. Eventually, they moved back into the same house as they continued on their reconciliation journey as a couple.
One evening when Suz was walking past their house in the neighborhood, she noticed several pockets of angels there. Her attention was continually drawn to one set of angels, and her mind kept flipping back to that prayer session she and Cory had had for this family two years before. Suz understood that this set of angels had been sent to the house in response to their specific prayers for the family. God had been at work in response to their petitions, and lives were being changed.
A New Perspective on God
Suz says that her awareness of how fully present God is and how near the Kingdom of God is has deepened a lot since receiving this seeing gift. She’s also become more convinced of how loving a Father God is. “It’s easy to sort of get down, and think that God isn’t fighting for us,” Suz says. “But I’ve watched the atmosphere change as a result of prayer, or him sending his angels to people. And it’s been really cool to watch how much he loves people—myself and my family too.” Personally experiencing the power of God to change situations has been really impactful as well.
As Suz has opened up more about this prophetic gift of sight and what she’s experiencing, she’s found she has a unique ministry to other science-minded “skeptics” like herself. Last year she shared some of these stories at a conference, and a man came up to her who was an engineer. “How do you know that this is real?” he asked her. “Especially with your science background?” “I know because I’ve seen it for myself,” Suz said. “I would have a hard time believing this if someone was telling me it, but I’ve seen it for myself. That’s how the Lord got through to me.” And he believed her. “There’s something about what your job is and how your brain works that sounds familiar to how my brain works,” he said. “And if you can believe it because you’ve seen it with your own eyes, then maybe I can believe you that you’ve seen it.” Others who know Suz well, and know her inability to be dramatic or make up things, have told her they almost believe her more than if they were seeing it themselves.
Why does that matter? Well, it’s encouraging more people that God really is at work in the world in supernatural ways. It’s activating people into prayer—both in Suz’s neighborhood, where her insight helps others pray with knowledge, and in other places, with people who can’t see what’s happening as they pray but believe that their prayers are making a real difference.
What About You?
How does Suz’s story impact you? Does it feel hard to believe? Does it stir up a desire to have a similar experience? Why not use this story as a springboard to talk to Jesus about your beliefs about the supernatural and his involvement in the world. Ask him if there’s some specific way he’d like you to respond. Maybe he’s calling you to pray more boldly in your own neighborhood, believing that he truly is responding to your requests. Or maybe he’s stirring up a prophetic gifting in you, to see or sense what he’s doing around you. Whatever the case may be, be encouraged that God is at work beyond what we might ever ask or even imagine. And his invitations to join him—though they might push us beyond our comfort zones—are incredible opportunities to grow in faith.
ABOUT THIS STORY
Suz Ozbun is married to Cory and lives in Kansas City, KS. Suz and Cory have three young kids. Suz is a full-time physician. Cory serves on staff with Novo, and also serves with a local organization focused on disciple making movements that he helped found called KC Underground. Together, Suz and Cory minister to families in their Kansas City neighborhood, and allow God to use their lives and stories to inspire others to get involved in gospel movements around the world.