“LET US HOLD FAST THE PROFESSION of OUR FAITH without wavering; (for He is faithful that promised;).” – Hebrews 10:23 King James Version.
While attending her son Paul’s graduation ceremony from medical school in October of 1981, Paul noticed that his mother had lost a considerable amount of weight. Her skin and eyes were jaundiced, so he suggested she see a doctor right away.
Shortly after, 48-year-old Dolores made an appointment with a physician. She was preparing for a pastor’s conference when the doctor decided to admit her to the hospital for a few days of testing and X-rays. What was only meant to be a couple of days turned into twenty!
“On December 10th of 1981, they did a liver biopsy, and we got the news that it was metastatic cancer of the liver. A tumor the size of an orange, plus two almond-shaped ones,” she explained. Dolores recalled the doctor meeting with her late husband, John, in the lobby of the hospital, sharing the devastating news that she wouldn’t live more than a few weeks. “The doctor stated, ‘There is nothing we can do. We can give her chemo, but it won’t prolong her life.’”
“Oh my. You couldn’t believe it. I said no, I can’t have cancer! I’ve prayed against it all these years, I’ve confessed the Word of God,” Dolores remembers saying. “But you know, doctors have facts. We have the report of Jesus. And I just thought, surely God will bring me through this. He’s not going to let me down.” Because no medicine could help her, she relied solely on her faith in God. Dolores was not speaking anything other than life, the Word of God! (See Proverbs 18:21).
The next morning, Dolores and her husband John woke up and lay at the foot of their bed. John prayed, “Jesus, I need my wife. The church needs her, the children need her, and you need her, Jesus. So, I speak to this cancer. I curse it at the roots like Jesus did at the fig tree. I command you to leave her and never come back again.” Dolores explained, “My husband, the head of the house, prayed. And when I got up, I just said, that’s it, I’m healed!”
From that moment on, wherever she went, Dolores thanked God for her healing. “I just did everything I knew to do, and Jesus made the dream come true.” As time passed, Dolores continued to walk by faith even though discouragement surrounded her. The middle of the night was the toughest. She’d hear lies playing in her head, “you’re not gonna live, you’re gonna wear that pink dress in your closet for your funeral.”
Her husband encouraged her to combat the negative thoughts with the Word of God. “I just spent most of my time replacing those bad thoughts with good thoughts, and I came through. Every day means so much to me because Jesus has let me live.” To hold fast to her faith, she placed two pictures on her mirror. The first one of her wedding day, and the other was of her riding a horse during a family vacation. This was one of many ways Dolores pictured herself healthy. They served as constant daily reminders of her healing.
Shortly after Dolores was diagnosed with cancer, she searched the scriptures and compiled a list of sixty-two healing scriptures. Those scriptures became her daily dose of medication. “I read them every day. Since they couldn’t do chemo, since they couldn’t take a lobe of my liver out, or treat me in any way, I just decided this is going to be my medication.” She went back to the doctor ten years after the diagnosis. There is no medical explanation for how she became cancer-free!
She lived more than four decades after the diagnosis, hosting monthly prayer events at Lakewood Church and traveling with her son, Joel Osteen, sharing her testimony and offering a message of hope for people facing impossible situations. “No case in the world is hopeless when you have Jesus because Jesus is our hope, Jesus is our courage.”
Dolores Ann Osteen, affectionately known as “Dodie,” was the mother of Pastor Joel Osteen and the matriarch of America’s beloved Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas. She used a terminal cancer diagnosis and turned it into a testimony of God’s faithfulness that she shared with the world for more than forty years. Cancer. The six-letter word that brings most people to their knees, leaving them with little to no hope is no match for Dodie Osteen and her late husband, John Osteen [father of Joel Osteen] because she held fast to her confession of faith in God`s revealed Word to her.
Dodie Osteen would have been buried forty-four years ago if she had resigned to fate, because anytime you resign to fate, your resignation will be accepted and the consequences will surely follow, but praise God Almighty, she chose to believe in God, and her faith has inspired many people around the world not to give up on God. Dodie celebrated her ninetieth birthday (granite jubilee) on October 22, 2023. She passed away peacefully in her Houston home on July 30, 2025 (about four months ago) at the age of 91.
Beloved, no matter the odds against you, always allow room for faith and refuse to yield to unbelief, which shuts people out from gaining access to their inheritance in Christ. HOLD FAST TO YOUR CONFESSION without wavering; (for He is faithful that promised;).” (Hebrews 10:23 King James Version).
