The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Fully Restored Story of Faith, Hope, Prayer, and a Miraculous Healing by David Markwalder

Episode Date: July 23, 2026

Fully Restored Story of Faith, Hope, Prayer, and a Miraculous Healing by David Markwalder https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GQDGJVYR Davidmarkwalder.com For five long years, retired Air Force Chaplain Dave Markwalder found himself in a dark wilderness of suffering—battling an unexplained medical condition that stole his ability to walk, think clearly, and live fully. Once a strong and active man, he was suddenly shuffling instead of walking, forgetting words mid-sentence, and losing hope as one doctor after another said the same frustrating words: “We do not know what’s wrong. Come back in six months.” Desperate for answers. Dave and his family faced an impossible decision: take a huge medical risk with no guarantees or accept a life with no quality. With faith as their anchor, they chose to move forward, placing their trust in modern medicine and the power of prayer. On September 20, 2021, something incredible happened. After a complex brain surgery, Dave woke up to a complete transformation—his walking, balance and cognitive function fully restored and no more incontinence. Even his neurosurgeon was stunned, saying: “I can’t take credit for this…. You had a miracle.” This compelling and faith-filled memoir is more than just a medical journey—it’s a powerful testimony of hope, perseverance, and undeniable power of prayer. Through struggles, doubts, and unexpected setbacks, Dave’s story proves miracles still happen today.

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Because you're about to go on a monster education role. roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hello, folks, Voss here from The Chris Voss Show. John Langellian, the elderly things that makes official welcome to the big show. As always, for nearly 20 years and nearly 3,000 episodes of bringing the Chris Voss show because we love you. We like entertaining you.

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Go to goodrease.com, fortresschristch, Chris Foss, YouTube.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, and all those crazy places on the internet. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement. review of any kind. Today we're going to be talking to a wonderful young man about his insights and his book entitled, Fully Restored, Story of Faith, Hope, Prayer, and Miracuous Healing by David Mark Walder. He's joining us on the show. We're going to get into his details and all that good stuff. Welcome to show, Mark. How are you, sir? Doing well very much. Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you for coming. We really appreciate it. Give us dot coms. Where can people find out more about you in the book. Yeah, I do have a website. It's my first and last name, David Kahn, and you go on there, and then you can order the book, and you can also contact me if you so. And it also, it's going through this, it has free shipping for your request there. Oh, great. So they can order for the website, get free shipping? Yes. Now, you've been, you've done some pretty interesting journeys and some of the things you discussed in this book, you were retired for five long years. You found himself in a dark wilderness of suffering, battling an unexplained medical condition that stole your ability to walk, think clearly, and live fully. Once a strong and active man, you were suddenly shuffling instead of

walking, forgetting words, miscendence, and losing hope as one doctor after another saying the same frustrating words. We don't know what's wrong. Come back in six months. That's crazy. So let's get into the deeds. Give us the 30,000 overview of this book fully restored. if you would. It really is sum up in the title. The subset of the title says a story of faith, hope, prayer, and a miraculous healing. And two themes that I strongly put into this book. The first one is that miracles still happen today. Thank God. And number two, the power of prayer, which is often so underestimated bias. And so that's pretty much the synopsis of the book. I would suggest to you that it's for anybody who is facing a difficult, physical, mental, emotional, relational,

problem in their life. Or maybe they have struggled in the past and they need to get over it. This book can be a real encouragement for them. And so I would just, it's short. It's easy read, and it's something that will be a real strong encouragement to people. Now, you're a multi-book author. We should point that out so people know you're writing all the books. Let's put it out. And we're going to get into the second book here in a bit. But did you publish the first book and then you published this one?

It seems like the first one was kind of a memoir of this kind of is too. But did this take place after you'd publish another book? Or is this in tandem, I guess? It took place a year afterwards. The first book started during the COVID. I was looking for some kind of purpose in my life. I had just retired after being in the ministry for 32 years, or 42 years, I'm sorry, as a presbyterian pastor.

At that time, I was Air Force chaplain for 26 of that. And so I said to my wife, I want to write a book. And she goes, you want to write a book? Really? So much faith, honey. You're throwing at me. You know how the wives are. They always challenge you. But she goes, yeah, why don't she just start with one chapter, Dave? Because you got to understand it was during COVID. I'd already started facing the problem that ended up being with me for five long years.

Oh, wow. So she knew I was struggling. So she didn't want to discourage me, but the same time she wanted to be realistic. So I wrote my first chapter. I wrote my second chapter. I wrote a third chapter. Now these chapters are. only one to two pages long, most of them. And then I kept on writing until I wrote 144 chapters. Wow. And I thought, I've got, you got war in peace right there. Material here for people to read, not just a legacy, because at first it was just going to be a legacy for the family and friends.

Here I am a person who have been on six out of seven continents. As an Air Force chaplain, I was detailed out to 9-11 at the Pentagon right after 9-11 happened. Oh, wow. saw the drama and the huge pain that Washington, D.C. was facing at that time. Yeah. And then also, I as a family man, we owned a 20-foot motorhome, and we went across the United States several times. And so there are a lot of good memories. Anyway, it's a book, a memoir that I believe people would really enjoy getting a lot of fun out of.

Yeah. And what a life, too. So tell us more about this experience with fully restored. How did you, how did you, it sounds like you were going to the doctors, you were trying to figure out what was going on. Was this connected to COVID? You'd mentioned it. So tell us, give us a kind of an overview of what happens there. You don't have to tell us the ending if you don't want to blow the ending.

But it sounds like you were definitely having some health issues. You bet. I'll save the ending until later. I first started noticing that something was wrong. within a couple months after I had just retired as a Presbyterian pastor. And I was exhausted. No question about that. But I also knew that there was something else going on.

My wife picked it up. She was the only one in our family that noticed that, okay, Dave, what's going on here? I ended up going skiing with my daughter and son-in-law, December of 2016, four months after retiring. and I ski once a year whether I need it or not. I'm just intermediate skier. And normally I fall down once or twice. This time I fell down seven, eight times. Wow.

My balance was goofy. But worse yet, on the hill, I couldn't figure out how to get that crazy skis back on my feet. There was something going on cognitively. Really? And after skiing, my daughter, who is a marriage and family therapist, she goes, dad, I want you to make an appointment with your doctor, have them check you out for Parkinson disease. Oh. Something is wrong.

For the next five years, I not only suffered from depression, but balance problems, anxiety, brain fog, and incontinence. Wow. I went from being a very, very strong, active person who would jog all the time to somebody who could barely shuffle. Yeah. It was just keeping myself healthy. I could barely shuffle them and they thought I had Parkinson. And so I knew that there was something terribly wrong. And it was just very, very frustrating for me. And the doctors were keep putting you off and stuff? Yeah. I ended up having three different neurologists, two in Colorado Springs and one, up in Denver at Onshoots, which is a research hospital. And one after the next, they kept on

saying, we don't know what's wrong, but come back in six months. Come back in six months. If you're still alive, come back in six months. That's not reassuring at all. You can only handle that so many times before discouragement sets in. You're like, what the hell? I know there's something wrong. The doctors have done a lot. Don't bother sending me your bill, dude. That's right. It's called practicing medicine. I don't know.

Now, so can you, we want people to buy your book. We want people to read your story and we don't want to blow the endings if those are important. But what was, I believe you talk in the book about what was the journey you went on and maybe some of the things you discovered in dealing with this. Maybe some of it had to do with your faith or you, I'll let you speak on that because you, it's your story. Sure. Sure. The hardest part about that five minutes in the wilderness, five years in the wilderness, as you say, was that I noticed I kept on deteriorating, kept on declining. I kept on getting worse. And I just didn't know if there was going to be anything good that was going to turn around and help me. And after seeing all the doctors, the doctor's not encouraging me.

And I felt like I had exchanged going to work full-time to going to doctor offices full-time. Oh, wow. So there was a lot of hopelessness during this journey. It just was very discouraging, very hard to keep going. Now, during that time, my faith did remain strong. But there were moments of when I questioned God. I said, God, where are you? What's going on here?

Hey, man. Why is this on? Why is this happening to me? Yeah. This is on? This is Mike on. God. Hello.

You're there? Yeah. Yeah. Really, I felt at times like Job in the Bible. Oh, wow. Who just couldn't understand why he was being treated like that. Yeah. And I just didn't know if there was going to be any change, if there was going to be any hope.

and it was tough. It was very hard. I'll tell you what. Finally, my doctor, who is just a wonderful Christian man, he said, Dave,

you've suffered for four and a half long years. Let me see if I can get you in a Mayo Clinic. So they'll be able to figure it out. So he was successful in that task. And we went there Memorial Day weekend of 2021. And I met with a neurologist and neurosurgeon. And they said, first things out of their mouth was, we're puzzled by your condition. You're like, so am I.

And I'm going, oh, not again. Come on. We don't know what's wrong, but we're going to figure it out. And I said, I hope so. So they gave me some more test. And then they said, can you come back in two months? And this was from May to July of 2021. I came back in July and they said, we want to do a spinal tap on you for 48 hours in the hospital. And so it simulates putting a shunt in your brain to drain the excess of fluid off.

So every hour on the hour, they would take a shot glass out of your back fluid and test your walking and your balance and your balance and your cognitive and all that kind of stuff for the 48 hours in the hospital. It's the only sure determiner whether you have hydrocephalus, which is water on your brain. Hydrocephalus, water on the brain. I never even heard that, but I've heard of blood being on the brain. So was, was that what it was? Was it water on the brain? Yet too much of it? It ended up being that, but let me let me get back to what happened. By the way, Joel, the singer, the popular singer. Billy Joel. So he has hydrocephalus. Oh, God.

Is that why he canceled the tour I wanted to go on? That's why they just discovered that. Anyway, so. Send him your book. The doctor goes, yes, that's right. Doctor goes, look at, after the test in 48 hours, he's came back to me, and he shook his head and he goes, Dave, I'm so sorry, I still don't know if you have hydrocephalous or not. Oh, Jesus.

You know what you do? you take the brain flute in that shot glass, you give a little sip like wine, where you shoot it like a good whiskey or espresso, and you can get the flavor of it, and then that might help, I don't know. So anyway, he goes, and I have to tell you that I did see a little bit

improvement in your walking during the 48 hours. My wife spoke up and said, I didn't. You got to impress her, Doc. That's right, man. So he goes, Yeah. But I will do the brain surgery, but I have to tell you that brain surgery is always dangerous.

Yeah. There can always be excessive bleeding. There can be a stroke. There can be complications. You can end up worse than you are right now. It's true. And I also have to warn you that there is no guarantee that you are going to get any improvement in the four areas that you are being affected by. four areas is my walking, my balance, incontinence, and cognitive decline.

Wow. It's not very, hey, this is a hell of warning. Yeah, yeah. But he says, I will do it. I'm going, thanks a lot for your encouragement, doctor. One of the leading doctors in Mayo discouraging me like that. I'm going, oh, man. So I went home.

I talked to my wife and three daughters who were in their 40s, and I said, ladies, we need to do something. I don't have any quality of life. Yeah. There's just nothing good going on here. And they totally agreed with me. They said, let's go for the surgery. So we went back September 20th of 2021, had the surgery.

And before I had it, as I was going into the operating room, I can totally tell you this. I had an incredible calmness and peace knowing that God was with me. and that many hundreds of people were praying for me. Yeah. After the surgery, the doctor met with my wife in the waiting room, and she said, Marcia, the surgery went extremely well. Wow. And she loves, my wife loves to touch people when she talks.

Okay. She could not touch his arm or body at all. There was such an aura of floating. around his body, which we believe was the spirit of God was all over this doctor. Wow. So I was in the meantime in the recovery room. I should have been only in there for two or three hours. I ended up being in there six or seven hours because it was COVID.

They were short of rooms. They were cleaning up rooms and stuff. Finally, after my room came available, I said to the nurse, nurse, I have to go to the bathroom. She grabbed my wires. We started walking towards the bathroom and I'm going, huh, something is different. My balance seems to be so much better. That's my first clue. Next day, Marsha picked me up at 10 in the morning. I only stayed overnight one night. I only took Tylen off for my pain management. And she said, how are you feeling? I said, I'm feeling really good, Marcia. She goes, are you feeling good enough to go to Walmart with me? Don't most people who

have brain surgery go to Walmart within 24 hours? Yeah, yeah. But she wants to shop. So your answer is, oh, no, I'm going to be damaged for 10 years now. That's right. That's right. Yeah. So you got to play smart, man. No, I'm just kidding. We had to stay there for a minimum of two weeks in case there was complications. Yeah. So she had to get food and then bandage and gauze and stuff from my wound. And so we went to Walmart and she said, I want you to hold on to the grocery cart for your balance. I said, that's fine. I grabbed the grocery cart. I took off like a jackrabbit. My walking was back. She could hardly keep up. Really? Yes. That's awesome. So within 24 hours, not only did my balance improve, my walking improve, but I no longer had any more incontinence.

Oh, wow. That is nice. Isn't that great? That's got to be great because, you know, yourself isn't always fun. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I ended up sticking in the area. We ended up for the next two weeks. It was like a mini vacation for us. I was feeling so good. We went to the zoo. I ended up walking five miles two days after surgery. We went to the, the music museum, we went to the aquarium. I was feeling so good and I, my wife knows I love sports cars. I said, Marsha, we've got to visit the Ferrari dealership. So we even went and

visited the Ferrari dealership and we got to listen to one startup and I'm going, oh, this is Ferrari. Ah, yeah, that's a lot of fun. So that's what was going on. It was a miracle that happened immediately. and I was feeling good. And it was just the surgery as soon as you got that water off made a difference, huh? It was that, but let me finish the story. Go ahead. I'm sorry. I just had to let you know.

No, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. I'm monologuing too much here. You're fine, as long as you don't give them too much away because it won't be. Okay, okay. So we ended up, one of my daughters, the one I was, snow skiing with earlier on, she decided to fly out and help Marsha drive 800 miles back to Colorado Springs. And she said, Dad, I just went to this professional conference and I bought a book and I listened to a doctor speak on overcoming depression for life.

She knew I had been depressed for five long years. Wow. She said, Dad, I want you to read this book for me. I haven't had a chance to read it. And I want you to tell me what you think. So the day and a half that they drove in the car, I read the. whole book. Oh, wow.

Something I hadn't been able to do in five years. And whenever I came to a rich part of it, I would read that paragraph out live with speed and comprehension, something I couldn't do for the past five years. My mind was back. Praise God. Yeah. It was unbelievable. That's awesome, man.

God, five years of suffrage and gone. But hell, at least you finally fixed it and figured out it was right. Yeah. Yeah. So we get back home. and then we end up having a Zoom call two weeks later, four weeks after surgery, with Dr. Turkmone, my neurosurgeon, and I said to him on the Zoom, I said, Dr. Turkmoney, I want to thank you, thank you, thank you for being God's hands of healing me.

I've got my life back. I'm a new person again. I've got improvement in all four areas. And he goes, he looked at us like a deer in the headlight stare. And he says, Dave, I can't take credit for that. Wow. And my wife said, we had an army of prayer warriors praying for Dave. And he says, that was the key. That was the key.

You had a miracle. So that's what this book is about. After I got the miracle, God said, don't hide it under a bushel. Share it. So I've been speaking at churches. I've been speaking at workshops. and now wrote this book. And what is it like for you now?

Is there an ongoing issue or just getting that water off the brain fixed it? Or is it something that has to be medicated to make sure you don't get water in the brain again? How does that work? Right now, I have had five good years of normalcy. I mean, I did have five months after the surgery in February of 2020. I did have a setback for two weeks. Oh. And I had to have the shunt, which is right here.

It had to be reset from a two setting to a one and a half. Oh. And what's amazing is a neural surgeon in Colorado Springs. He had this little plastic cap with magnet in it. And he took 30 seconds and just adjusted it. He looked in my eyes and said, you're back. Just like that. Wow.

So I am definitely thankful for God and is healing me. No question about God healing me. But I'm also thankful for the miracle of modern medicine, which can do this kind of stuff. Oh, yeah. Modern medicine, man. It's wild some of the stuff they're doing. A friend of mine had had his cancer right now and he's throat, suffocis cancer. And he's doing really well, and he's in Texas.

And like the technologies they're using on him are crazy. I don't want what the bills look like, but the technology is amazing. And you're just like, wow. And so, yeah, it's really cool some of the stuff they can do. So you're out sharing your message, spiring other people, all that good stuff, and letting them know. Let's stick a little bit into your other book, if you don't mind. The ones entitled, called, I believe. Yes.

Give us that title because I don't have it readily. Yeah, it's called. And then the subtitle is Air Force Chaplain, Colonel. colonel, minister, and family man. I'm called to do well in all four of those areas. And I started that book, like I said, during the pandemic. And it just kept on growing, and now it's just been a wonderful thing for people to read and enjoy my stories. Oh, yeah.

Wonderful stuff, man. Wonderful stuff. You can help advise people on those things. I guess you're, how long have you had your faith when were you born into your faith or discovered later life? And how much did that faith being a chaplain and counseling other people for a lot of things help you through this sort of experience as well? Yeah.

My faith definitely was an important part of the story. It helped me to stay positive. I really believe that when we go through hard times like this, it's important to try to not get buried down into the poor me syndrome. Yeah. But stay above and realize that, okay, what you're going through, hopefully is not going to last forever. And hopefully there's going to be some good ending to it.

Being in the ministry, staying positive, helping others is definitely helped myself get through this. That's wonderful. And what a wonderful message to share with people because this is the great thing about authors and stories we profile on the Chris Foss show is everyone, it goes through different journeys and cathartic moments, but they're similar in the different things that we experience. Other people have had them. And so a lot of times if we don't really study the rest of the world, we kind of feel like we're alone. I'm just alone in the world and this is my problem and no one else has my problem. and Po is me, and I'm so hopeless and horrible. And once we find out that other people have been through something similar,

maybe they have blueprints that we can utilize to overcome our moment as well. That's where we really help each other out because the world doesn't come with owner's manuals. No, it doesn't. So as we round out the show, give people a final pitch shot to pick up your book and where they can get it. Of course, they can get the free shipping and all that good stuff. and your dot-coms. Sure.

Yeah, again, you can go to Davidmarkwaler.com, and you can order the book from that, as well as contact me if you so choose. And I would encourage people not only to buy the book for yourself and be encouraged for yourself, but also think about other people that you know that may be suffering and going through these kind of crisis things, that they would be encouraged. because it's an easy read. It's short and it's really for all people of all ages. So I just encourage that.

And you're right. We do struggle. Well, life is difficult and there isn't easy answers. And none of us are exempt from the tough things in life that can happen to us. But we can pull together and we can learn from one another and be encouraged from one another. And that's why I wrote this book. Yeah, spread the awareness, spread the love, and all that because people need as much support as they can get. And there's probably somebody out there with those issues.

It's sad to know Billy Joel has it because I really want to see him on tour again. Hopefully he can remount that road. I know it's tough probably his age, but this is the problem we have in this world. Everyone keeps getting old. When they get old, they get unhealthy. Can we stop getting old people? This is the real problem of life. That's right.

Stop getting old already. Damn it, don't make me come out there. Thank you very much for coming the show. show. We really appreciate it, David. Thank you for sharing your wonderful journey. Thank you very much for having me. I enjoyed it. Thank you. And I enjoyed it as well. Give us on your audience, order up his book where refined books are sold. Go to fully restored story of faith, hope, prayer, and miraculously healing. You can get that from his website, of course, the title of the book by David Mark Walder. Thanks for us ford for us fordustchristchristch, Chris Foss, one on the TikTokity and all those

crazy places on the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning. Consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter,

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