Faith Still Moves Mountains

How can ordinary people experience extraordinary miracles in a chaotic world? In Faith Still Moves Mountains, journalist and author Harris Faulkner asks—and answers—that question through the lens of deeply human stories of loss, resilience, and divine intervention. Faulkner argues that modern society, despite technological progress, is suffering from a dangerous spiritual decline. Fewer people believe in God’s capacity to intervene, and fewer still believe prayer holds power. Yet time and again, she contends, faith and prayer have changed lives, healed bodies, saved destinies, and even altered history itself.

At its heart, this book is a testimony: a case study in divine order amid random chaos. Faulkner—a veteran journalist who has covered tragedies, wars, and miracles—builds a compelling argument that faith isn’t an abstract sentiment or passive belief; it’s an active force, a discipline, and a dialogue with God. Her stories illustrate that faith truly still “moves mountains,” as Jesus promised in Matthew 17:20. From tornadoes and pandemics to war-torn battlefields and personal despair, Faulkner gathers first-hand accounts showing how people across America rediscovered hope and purpose when they prayed.

A Nation Losing Its Belief in God

Faulkner begins with a sobering context: the decline of belief in God among Americans. Citing Gallup polls, she notes that belief has dropped from nearly 100 percent in the 1940s to 81 percent today, and only four in ten believe God acts in our lives. This cultural drift, she warns, has made faith seem outdated—a relic from more superstitious times. But her message pushes back forcefully: now, more than ever, people need reminders that divine love is real, that prayer is a living exchange, and that miracles still occur for those who keep the faith. Her book centers on rekindling that belief through vivid stories.

Stories That Test—and Renew—Faith

Every chapter presents evidence of God’s presence. We see an Alabama grandmother praising God after a tornado destroys her home but miraculously spares her prayer closet (Earnestine Reese). Two teenagers cry out for rescue as ocean currents drag them to death, and moments later a boat named Amen appears (Heather Brown and Tyler Smith). A mother suffering postpartum depression jumps off a bridge and survives when a trooper’s hand—guided by grace—catches her midair (Tina Zahn). An inventor-mom receives divine guidance to create a life-saving medical device for her son (Sarah Olson). Each narrative affirms that prayer is not a plea spoken into darkness—it’s a conversation answered in light.

Beyond personal stories, Faulkner reaches into history itself. She recounts how during World War II, General George S. Patton requested a prayer for good weather from his chaplain; days later, Allied forces broke German lines under clear skies in what soldiers called a “miracle.” Welsh missionary Rees Howells and his students prayed fervently for Hitler’s defeat, believing God’s power could “bend” him—and the timeline of Hitler’s missteps, Faulkner suggests, coincided with those prayers. These accounts place faith not just in personal survival, but at the center of humanity’s larger story.

The Silence of God and the Maturity of Faith

Still, Faulkner doesn’t shy away from the hardest question in religion: Why does God sometimes seem silent? Through Pastor Andrew Brunson’s imprisonment in Turkey, she explores the agony of spiritual abandonment. Brunson, a lifelong missionary, thought he had been forsaken when prayers for release went unanswered. Yet in prison he discovered what Faulkner calls unfelt grace—the quiet power that sustains the faithful when all else fails. His story reveals a key theological truth: faith means trusting God even in silence, realizing that divine timing often hides deeper wisdom. As Brunson said, “Pressure pushes us to run after God as never before.”

Faith as Discipline, Purpose, and Warfare

Throughout the book, Faulkner repeats that faith is not passive—it’s a discipline and a kind of spiritual warfare. Like athletes training for eternal crowns, believers must pray persistently. Faith restores order to chaos, she emphasizes, helping people see divine purpose in suffering. Her own reflections on her father, Lt. Col. Bobby Harris, illustrate this vividly. A decorated Vietnam veteran, he saw faith as a soldier’s armor, prayer as a weapon, and humility as strength. In his silence before God, Faulkner learned what true faith means: listening more than speaking, trusting more than demanding. The deepest prayers, she writes, begin where words end.

Why It Matters Today

Ultimately, Faith Still Moves Mountains confronts a universal human need: our longing for meaning amid suffering. It invites you to see adversity not as punishment, but as preparation—to view loss as the soil of miracles. In a world shaken by pandemics, war, addiction, and cynicism, Faulkner’s message is radical in its simplicity: we are never alone. God’s love is active, His timing perfect, and His miracles ongoing. Reading this book reminds you that even when you can’t move the mountain, faith can—and sometimes, it moves you instead.

Faulkner insists that prayer is far more than passive recitation—it is a form of action. In her view, prayer and faith mobilize divine power and align human hearts with God’s will. The opening stories of the book illustrate this directly, showing how a simple cry to Heaven unleashes results that defy all logic.

When Faith Calls for a Miracle

Consider the story of two high school seniors, Heather Brown and Tyler Smith, stranded in the turbulent Atlantic after an ill-advised swim. Exhausted after hours, they joined hands and prayed, begging for rescue. Just then, a yacht named Amen appeared—a boat whose owner didn’t even plan to be there that day. The rescue not only saved their lives but reignited the faith of everyone involved. Eric Wagner, the boat’s owner, later admitted the event renewed his own belief after years of complacency. This narrative shows Faulkner’s recurring theme: prayers ripple outward. The miracle wasn’t confined to survival—it changed lives far beyond the moment.

When Prayer Is a Response to the Unthinkable

Faulkner also recounts the Alabama grandmother, Earnestine Reese, whose home was destroyed by a tornado. Seated on rubble, she thanked God: “Tell Him thank you!” Her prayer closet, the one space she used daily for communion with God, remained intact amid wreckage. For Faulkner, this symbolizes divine protection—not from suffering but through it. The surviving room became a global metaphor for enduring faith, proving that prayer is not about sheltering us from pain but sustaining us inside it.

How Faith Turns Suffering into Purpose

The book’s most striking insight is that miracles often require human cooperation. Prayer—spoken sincerely, consistently—creates readiness for God’s action. It changes you first, making room for the miracle to occur. Whether Patton’s Third Army praying for fair weather before the Battle of the Bulge or Tina Zahn’s silent cry before her suicide attempt, Faulkner highlights that faith transforms despair into divine opportunity. The moment you invite God in, mountains begin to move.

“Prayer completes the circuit—it is power.”

General George Patton’s words, quoted in the book, encapsulate this truth. To pray is to connect human potential with divine electricity. It is the switch that lights miracles.

Faulkner wants you to see prayer as engagement, not escape. When you pray, you don’t attempt to change God’s will—you align with it. That alignment is what makes the impossible possible. In a secular age that laughs at miracles, Faulkner’s stories invite you to witness them firsthand—and remind you that prayer isn’t a whisper into emptiness; it is the language of power itself.

Many of Faulkner’s most moving stories revolve around moments when God seems absent. Through journalist’s precision and pastor’s empathy, she explores the paradox of divine silence—the experience that drives believers either toward deeper trust or toward despair. The story of Pastor Andrew Brunson, imprisoned for false charges in Turkey, is the book’s centerpiece on this theme.

The Silence That Tests Faith

Brunson spent two years in isolation, wondering why his endless prayers went unanswered. He lost his sense of purpose, his confidence, and nearly his belief itself. Yet Faulkner portrays his suffering not as failure but as the slow forging of spiritual steel. As Brunson realized later, breaking doesn’t mean losing faith—it means eliminating illusions. When he finally admitted his anger and despair, he began to understand that God’s silence wasn’t rejection but refinement.

The Grace You Don’t Feel

Faulkner calls what sustained Brunson “unfelt grace.” Even when emotions vanished, divine strength quietly persisted, keeping him faithful enough to endure. In modern psychology, resilience often arises from self-acceptance after trauma; Faulkner reframes it spiritually—resilience is what happens when God carries you through the valley unseen. Brunson’s eventual release revealed that grace operates beneath awareness: when you cannot trace God’s hand, you can still trust His heart.

Lesson for Every Believer

The story’s relevance goes far beyond missionary work. Almost every believer experiences a “silence moment”—a divorce, diagnosis, or loss where prayers echo unanswered. Faulkner argues that these pauses are not divine neglect but space for revelation. Like Brunson’s Turkish cell, silence is where we learn surrender. Faith matures when it moves from seeking outcomes to trusting presence. The question shifts from “Why won’t you speak?” to “What are you saying through the quiet?”

Brunson ultimately emerged stronger, proclaiming that he loved God “not because I understood Him, but because I still could.” That statement could summarize Faulkner’s theological core: genuine faith isn’t built when God answers; it’s proven when He doesn’t.

Faulkner proposes an unsettling but liberating truth: suffering can be sacred. Across the book’s stories, pain becomes the crucible where divine assignments are forged. Instead of demanding comfort, the faithful learn courage. This theme shines in three transformative examples—the Gengels of Massachusetts, Sarah Olson of Minnesota, and addiction survivor DeEtte.

Turning Loss into Legacy

Len and Cherylann Gengel’s daughter Britney died in Haiti’s earthquake after texting her dream of building an orphanage. Her parents promised to fulfill it—and did. Against corruption and disaster, they built the Be Like Brit orphanage, home to sixty-six children. Through grief, their faith turned tragedy into service, echoing Paul’s counsel in Corinthians: God uses the “foolish things” to shame the wise. Like Job emerging from ashes, the Gengels discovered purpose greater than pain.

Motherhood as a Divine Assignment

Sarah Olson’s story complements theirs. Faced with her son Levi’s suffering after surgery, Sarah challenged God, demanding answers. Her prayer became a blueprint—God gave her an image for a new medical device. Step by step, Sarah joined faith with ingenuity, creating the LECS catheter stabilizer now saving children worldwide. Her mantra—“Faith is a choice”—distills the book’s principle: when you stop asking why and start asking what now, miracles unfold through your hands.

Redemption of a Broken Life

For DeEtte, seventeen years addicted to heroin, divine purpose arose not in victory but surrender. After her niece’s death, she entered rehab and prayed for forgiveness. God’s response came through visions commanding her to forgive abusers and share hope. Today she runs recovery ministries, demonstrating the book’s recurring idea: pain isn’t punishment—it’s preparation. Through pain, God reveals purpose.

“Everything we encounter can be used for good, but not everything we encounter is God.”

Tina Zahn’s insight after surviving her suicide attempt summarizes Faulkner’s thesis. God doesn’t cause suffering, but He transforms it.

Reading these stories reframes your own hardships. If mountains symbolize obstacles, the faithful realize they also mark holy ground—places where purpose is born. Faulkner reminds you that faith does not erase pain; it redeems it.

Moving beyond personal testimony, Faulkner connects faith to historical consequence. She argues that prayer has power not only to heal individuals but to alter nations. Her accounts of General Patton’s wartime prayer and Welsh preacher Rees Howells illustrate how spiritual conviction reshapes world events.

General Patton’s Weather Prayer

In 1944, Patton asked Chaplain O’Neill to write a prayer for fair weather, believing rain was hindering victory. The result—a simple card given to 250,000 troops—became legend. Days later, skies cleared over Bastogne on Christmas morning, enabling a decisive Allied strike. Patton’s concept of prayer as a military strategy aligned spirit and mission: “Planning, working, and praying,” he said, “complete the circuit.” Faulkner uses this to show that faith operates even through pragmatic minds; miracles can wear uniforms.

Rees Howells and the Prayer Warriors

Across the Atlantic, Welsh intercessor Rees Howells gathered students at the Bible College of Wales to pray “Lord, bend Hitler.” Their relentless petitions, Faulkner writes, coincided with Hitler’s tactical blunders—the delay at Dunkirk, the reversal from invading Britain to attacking Russia. While skeptics call it coincidence, Howells saw divine intervention. He believed prayer could literally move history’s mountains. His example echoes Faulkner’s thesis that faith is power expressed communally: when believers unite in prayer, they shape destinies.

Faith as Historical Catalyst

Faulkner’s retelling transcends miraculous romance—it’s a reminder of faith’s geopolitical relevance. Prayer is portrayed as strategic, disciplined, and world-changing—a belief also explored in Eric Metaxas’s Bonhoeffer and C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters (both emphasize spiritual warfare in real events). Faith, Faulkner says, is not retreating from the world—it is entering battle with Heaven’s strength. Through prayer, even history itself can bend toward mercy.

For readers, this means every prayer matters. You never know if your whispered words contribute to someone’s rescue, a nation’s peace, or the unseen choreography of grace. As Howells proclaimed, “God’s part is the victory; ours is the prayer.”

Several chapters celebrate miraculous physical healing, proving that faith’s reach extends beyond spirit to flesh. Faulkner doesn’t sensationalize these accounts; she treats them as mysteries both divine and human. Healing, she suggests, is rarely instant—it unfolds through courage, forgiveness, and openness to God’s grace.

Walking Again Through Faith

Perhaps the most cinematic story comes from Dani Laurion of Michigan, wheelchair-bound by disease for thirteen years. During a healing service led by Dr. Mary Healy, Dani raised her arms and asked God to hold her “like a little girl asking her father.” Moments later, she disconnected her ventilator and began walking down the church aisle. Faulkner uses this scene to illustrate the culmination of radical trust: when words fail, posture becomes prayer. “I wasn’t broken,” Dani later said, “I was never broken—only my ideas were.”

Healing the Heart Behind the Illness

Faulkner emphasizes that miracles often start with forgiveness. Before her healing, Dani prayed forgiveness for estranged family and reconciled her bitterness. Similarly, Lisa Martin’s COVID-19 recovery begins when she abandons her death wish and accepts divine love. Doctors called her survival impossible after fifty-nine days on a ventilator, but as her husband Jeff testified, “God shouted loud enough to penetrate illness.” Both stories suggest that healing begins not when medicine works but when the soul says yes.

Faith Restores Hope and Wholeness

Even emotional healing reflects divine art. Survivors like Ann Van Hine—the 9/11 widow turned tour guide—found “the peace that transcends understanding” by hearing God’s promise, “I will be with you.” Her transformation mirrors Dani’s: where pain once defined them, purpose now does. Faulkner suggests you approach your own wounds the same way—see them as openings for grace, places where God proves His nearness.

In the end, faith healing isn’t superstition. It’s participation. The miracle isn’t that pain disappears—it’s that peace arrives. Faulkner invites you to believe that healing can happen anywhere a heart whispers, “Hold me, Father.”

Faulkner concludes her reflections by turning inward, exploring the daily practice of faith. Prayer, she insists, is a relationship—not a ritual. It’s formed through listening, humility, and perseverance. Her most personal passages about her father—Lieutenant Colonel Bobby Harris—reveal how faith becomes a lifelong training ground.

Discipline as Spiritual Training

Citing Paul’s comparison of believers to athletes (1 Corinthians 9:25), Faulkner reminds you that prayer takes practice. Just as soldiers or dancers perfect motion through repetition, faith builds muscle memory through persistence. Her father’s advice defined this ethos: “Stop telling God what to do and just listen.” In silence, he found clarity to navigate literal battlefields and the figurative ones of life. Prayer, then, is not noise but awareness—an act of listening for command from the ultimate General.

Humility Before Honor

Faulkner’s meditation on her parents intertwines patriotism and theology. Her father’s modesty—speaking little of his heroism—embodied Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom.” Her mother’s constant refrain, “Let me be a light,” translates faith into service. Together they modeled what she now teaches: the purpose of prayer is less about asking for blessings and more about becoming one.

The Warrior’s Prayer

Reflecting on King David, Faulkner sees parallels with her father: courage married to compassion. True warriors, she writes, can fight fiercely and love deeply. Like David’s plea, “May your will be done,” her father treated every battle—physical or spiritual—as an act of obedience. For both, humility preceded victory. This balance between power and surrender defines mature faith: listening, loving, serving, and trusting that God leads even when silent.

Through these lessons, Faulkner urges you to view prayer as the world’s most potent discipline. Mountains move not because you shout at them, but because you listen long enough to hear how God intends for them to be climbed.