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I have written my life story on here . If you would like to read it, I'd be honored, and if there is anything that you would like to ask me or talk about, or if you would like a prayer for anything, please send me a message. I've lived a pretty interesting life, and God has worked a lot throughout all 54 years. If you are reading this and you're an atheist....that's ok. Even if you don’t believe in God, guess what…He believes in you! I know there are no atheists in foxholes....or in serious crisis. It's kind of like being a vegetarian...sometimes it's a phase you go through. I know I did. All I know is that God loves us, and is the kindest person I know. And that He is intimately interested in our lives. If you are going through something really hard, He is waiting to take your hand and walk you through it. God bless you!
I was talking to lol_mom last night and she told me to try and blog my testimony. After 54 years....it's several blog entries so I'm going to think about it. It started Nov.1954. I was born! How's that for a rip roaring beginning! I was given up for adoption at birth and adopted at 2 weeks old, by a couple who had an older boy 13 and I guess could never have any more children. They were never open about any information about it, except that I was adopted and loved and wanted. I have never had a desire to find my birth mother, but I feel through what the Lord has done in my life that my time with her was traumatic, and possibly there was violence involved.
My earliest memory is at about 2 years old. I was in my crib and overcome with fear. I tried to cry out but no sound came out of my mouth.I was fearful sickly child with constant bouts of bronchitis and time spent in a steam tent with a vaporizor. My adopted mom, (who will now be refered to as just my mom), was a sadly disfunctional woman. She was very concerned with social standing, and very controlling and a perfectionist. She loved me in the way she was able to, but we love as we are taught and I don't believe she was ever raised with anything but an impossible standard. For my entire life, even through many years as a Christian, I felt that I was not good enough and that I could never reach the standards she set. My father was a nice man, busy with his job as a school superintendant, and let mom have what she wanted in all things. She was the perfect wife, always promoting him and doing things socially for that. He was an absent father emotionally and as a result, no one ever really represented our Heavenly Father to me. I was plagued with fear almost all my life. I was afraid of the dark, of being alone, of death, of people...you name it, I was possessed by it. I was not the child who performed to try and meet expectations. That would have been better in my moms eyes. I became rebellious, continually trying to throw the yoke off of myself.
I started high school in 1968 and the next 14 years were a trip down rebellion lane. I used every drug known to man at the time, had lots of casual sex, became a hippy, and generally lifed like hell. I used to attend the United Church of Christ as a child. My parents were on many committees and church boards. This is the church that has now ordained homosexuals and decided that God is not our father , but a he, she or it, and rewritten the bible. I remember as a teen reading the cover of time magazine which said... and I quote, "IS GOD DEAD?" I said he must be, because he is not in this church. So for the next12 years I because an atheist. I dropped acid at a church trip to see Jimi Hendrix at 14. How wrong is that? I met my husband when I was 21. We decided to go to the big spring break party in Yosemite National park, and he drove. We spen our first day there high on mescaline, and miracle of miracles...we've been together ever since. We married when I was 22 and spend the next 5 years partying like crazy. In 1981 we moved to western Washington out of the Bay Area in California. We wanted to get out and Bill's mom offered him a job. We picked up and moved and then the job fell through. We made a pact that we wouldn't go back no matter how bad things got, and we never did. We went from making $40k a year to less than $3000 that first year. We never know where our food was going to come from, we had a child, Bill had a terrible time finding work. Talk about crushing. We lived in the country and had only 1 vehicle so I was stuck at home with a tv that only got 1 channel. Guess what was on it? What a set up! The 700 Club! I got saved by praying with Pat Robertson in Oct. 1981. Bill got saved at pretty much the same time, which I am thankful for. I was full enough of rebellion that I doubt we would still be married if that hadn't happened.
This ends the first chapter in my life...the BC one. I think I will write this in installments. Needless to say, it's been a journey and it's still going on. God has been faithful to keep me alive, and bring me out of darkness not only in this part, but later in life too. So more to follow.....stay tuned!
Chapter 2
Well, now begins the chapter starting with my salvation. I prayed with Pat Robertson to receive Christ. My husband's grandmother had passed away shortly before this and a Baptist pastor had performed the funeral service. Bill and I were newly saved and were thinking we needed to find a church. So off we headed to the Baptist church. Keep in mind that we were out of a pretty radical hippy, drug culture. Wow...the people were so nice, and they came to visit us and invited us to dinner and everything. But after several weeks we went to church and the pastor preached that men should wear ties and women should wear long dresses. This was ridiculous to us. Here we were, not knowing where our next meal would come from, and really not in to the whole dress code thing, and this guy preached that. So we left, never to return. In the meantime, our good friends and pot smoking allies, recommited their lives to God. We went over to see them and when we asked about the pot plants, the husband said that he had pulled them all up. We were stunned. They invited us to their church, the Foursquare church, and we said, "Why not?" So one Sunday...off we went. It was amazing. They sounded like angels in the worship. We were touched, but prayed, "Lord please don't let anyone touch us." They were singing in tongues, and truly worshipping. We were a little scared. But the pastor preached a message on something that we had been talking about the day before. We said..."How did he know about that?" We went out to our 1969 VW bug and before we hit the stop sign, we were lighting up a joint. "Wow man, that was pretty far out!" And we just kept going back. Every week, it was the same. Someone knew about us. The worship was like angels. And we lit up a doobie before we hit the stop sign. The funny thing is that God kept the people away from us and no one came to visit for a year. And we kept smoking pot, and rejoicing in the Lord. We would say, "It doesn't say in the Bible, don't smoke pot". One day, I got convicted, and knew it was time to quit. And a man was preaching deliverance in the church. I went up for prayer. He prayed over me and rebuked the spirit of pharmacea. Pharmacea is the Greek word for sorcery. Drugs and sorcery go hand in hand. I fell down and felt something tear loose. And when I got up, I was free. So we went to the county fair shortly after, and I was walking by a car where a bunch of guys were smoking pot, and it stunk like burning rope. I used to smell it and want to run towards it. Now it was awful. This is what the demonic can do to your mind. It can make something that is really nasty, seem good. At the same time I got delivered of a spirit that was connected with feminism.
We spent 5 years at that Foursquare church, being discipled, and taught. But there was a lot of flesh in me, and I had many personal issues of inner healing that were needed. When it was time to go, God took us on to other places. We spent a year at anothe Foursquare church in another city. And then we met some people who were ministers and prophets. They started a bible study, and we came along side. The next 4 years were a time when God taught me about worship. I play the piano and I was a worship leader in that place. The leaders were part of the Faith Movement. I learned a lot, but there were some basic things wrong. Faith is not to blame here. Without faith, it is impossible to please God. What people do with the faith teaching is the problem we had. It got to me that anyone with an issue, was at fault for that. Whether it was healing, or money problems or whatever. Compassion was a foreign word. People who have wounded souls, take the faith message and make it something it was never intended to be. The abuses I say drove me to throw faith out the window for many years, only in the last few years bringing it back into my life. I was given free reign to grow in my worship gifting during that time, and God was faithful. I learned about spending time in the heavenlies through worship. I am grateful for the things I learned about worship during that season of my life. However, unhealed prophets are a menace to everyone around them, and the pastors were unhealed prophets. They tried to make us into something we were not. As leaders, we were to act like nothing was every wrong, and we couldn't be honest about our lives with anyone. They would say, "Smile, trim your nose hairs, don't tell anyone any problems you have". Their view was that we have the vision and your job is for all of you to serve our vision. It got to be something really phony, and there was no life in it. But we were faithful like dogs. A dog will come and love you, even if you abuse it. The pastor's wife would have people counsel with her, and within days the private things were talked about all over the church. The Bible says that roots of bitterness defile many, and that was what happened there. The pastors were full of bitterness, and felt that confessing the word of God was all you needed. We as the congregation were also unhealed and so things just went south in a hurry after 4 years. It got progressively worse and worse. My best friend and several prophet leaders went to the pastor and wife to try and see if they could help work things out. They said, "There are problems here, can we help try to fix them?" That was not the thing to do. My friend was so viciously attacked that she tried to commit suicide. One day we went to church, and the pastors called a meeting of the elders, which we were. That day, they closed the church. It was like the Mutiny on the Bounty movie, except Captain Bligh put us all in a boat and sailed off.
I was a person with so many issues that were unresolved. I was adopted, had abandonment issues, rejection, bitterness, an adoptive mother who was a perfectionist, rebellion.....you name it, I was afflicted. I didn't know it at the time, but this was the beginning of a journey of healing for me. I was full of rage, bitterness, anger, rejection. What a mess I was. About the same time that the church closed, I went to some cousellors for some ministry for the first time. They prayed for me that God would crack open my heart and I would start to feel again. I had closed myself off and felt dead. Not feeling at all. After they prayed, about a week went by and I thought I was having an actual heart attack. It was physical pain. All the pain I had stuffed, started to come up. Thus began a 20 year journey to heal my soul. I continued to seek counselling and work on these things. In my woundedness, I damaged my children which is my greatest regret of my life. We see God the way He is shown to us by our parents. Mine did not show me the Father, and I did a really bad job of showing Abba to my children. Praise God that he is the restorer of the years the locusts have eaten.
I think I'll stop here for now. There is so much I can say, but you'll just have to wait for another chapter. Are you on the edge of your seat? Just kidding. When I feel led to, I'll continue!
There are a few things I want to go back to talk about that happened before I met Jesus.
The first thing is fear. I believe that as an adopted child, my foundations were built on abandonment and rejection. As a result my earliest memories were of being afraid. That fear went with me throughout my whole life. By the time I was an adult, I was possessed by fear, it consumed me.I knew the end of the world was coming and actually wanted to move to Quebec and buy land somewhere in the wilderness and wait for the end. I believe that if I had not met Jesus, I would have ended up in a mental instution, or as an agoraphobic, afraid to leave my house. My deliverance came as a surprise. I gave my heart to the Lord, and about 4 weeks later, I woke up and the fear was gone. There were still some small general fears, of rejection and things, but the all consuming fear was just gone. Thank you Jesus.
The second thing I want to talk about is way more personal. When I was around 22, I was newly married, and Bill and I were heavily involved in partying and the drug culture. I got pregnant and didn't know it until the beginning of the 4th tri-mester. I went to the doctor and felt that my only choice was abortion. Logically it seemed right, because of my substance abuse. So I made the appointment and was admitted to the hospital and was induced.
I believe that every man and woman has a concience. Even before we give our lives to Christ, we know right from wrong. I was devasted but this, because I knew it was wrong, but at the time, there were no voices speaking reason, or giving other choices. As I lay in the hospital bed I cried and cried. There were 3 other beds in that room and all those women were joking and talking. One girl was on her 4th abortion. I couldn't believe it, because I knew I had committed the unforgivable sin. Afterwards, my fears increased, I went into deep depression, and had thoughts of suicide many times. When Jesus came and rescued me, I asked for forgiveness for that sin and I believe when I asked, I received it. I had peace for the first time. So there were 4 years of mental suffering until I was forgiven. There are consequences for our actions, even if we are forgiven. We reap and sow sometimes in real ways. I had 2 miscarriages after that which I know were a consequence of my sin. I became pregnant with my son before I was a Christian and almost miscarried him several times. Sometime after that I went to a healing meeting and received prayer over the abortion and the physical effects of it. I received Christ when he was 6 months old. 4 years later I became pregnant with my daughter. I was lying on the couch and told my husband that we were forgiven, had gotten prayer and this shouldn't be happening. He went to the Lord and the Holy Spirit showed him that a spirit of murder had entered into my life. We prayed and he commanded it to leave, and it did. My daughter was born healthy and at the right time and my 2nd daughter was also. The sowing and reaping was cut off with that prayer.
I don't usually don't share these things, but I am being honest, because if there is someone who is suffering because of the choices they have made, I hope this testimony will help. Jesus is the answer. He gave His life for those things. He died that we might live with peace, joy, forgiveness and love. Abortion is not the unforgivable sin. I have children in heaven....3 of them, that I will meet someday. If you have been touched by abortion, you have children in heaven too. God has a plan for you, to give you a future and a hope. If anyone wants to talk about this with me, email me and we can talk and pray together. If you want to curse me because of this, then perhaps I have poked a deep wound. You might consider that anger is a sign of a deeper issue. I still bless you, and ask God to minister to you and bring you His peace.
This brings me up to date for the next installment.
God bless!
Around 1988 or so, after we were cut loose from the faith church, we ended up at an Assembly of God church in the town we lived in. It was a church of about 500 full of people who loved Jesus the best they could as full of unrepented sin as they were. I myself was full of it too, unforgiveness, bitterness, self righteousness, pride.....Yuck! And we all lived together happily ever after.....NOT! The church was full of gossip, strife, striving for promotion and self importance. People would gossip about who wore what to church, people's family problems, you name it. I was a little snot, and I said if they want to gossip, I'll give them a reason, and I would wear my worst holey jeans to church.
My adopted mom.. the only one I ever knew was a perfectionist, controlling, a social climber, and determined to make me in her image. I grew up with no feeling of worth, never measuring up. I felt unloved, unwanted, an orphan and the love of Jesus never quite got through those places at that time. I was a mean mean Christian, and a self righteous gossip, using "prayer" as an excuse to criticize people and cut them down to size by gossiping. At the same time I was involved with worship ministry....yikes....God is merciful. He didn't kill me. At that church it was about 10 years before they would allow you on the platform to do worship and I was up there in 5 months leading. Do you smell a set up here? The kicker was that the woman who was in charge of the ministry was a carbon copy of my mom with a spirit of control. She once made the comment to me that she didn't like Women's Aglow, because you couldn't be a lady. I think she didn't like the fact that they prayed and people sometimes fell over. One night I was leading and she was playing the organ. There was a moment when a very old man gave a very powerful tongues and interpretation that sent waves over the congregation. When it happened she started playing the organ and singing very loudly and the annointing left. I was horrified! I went to the pastor and he said, "You have to talk to her." So I prayed and fasted...very righteously I might add...I did what Paul did and built her up before relating the problem. I did it right....of course! Since when has that ever mattered to God? God is more concerned with our character than our comfort! In a few weeks I noticed that I was not getting phone calls to participate in worship. I was blacklisted! Of all the nerve! I went to the intercessors and said, "What is God showing you about Mary? (not her real name)" So we all discussed Mary and all the problems with great fervor as intercessors....which was very spiritual of course. We prayed too, but since we were all a seething mass of wounds, it was pretty pathetic prayer, which we thought was sooooo spiritual. After 6 months went by, of which time I was more bitter, angry critical...you name it, Mary went on vacation and I was asked to lead again. So I graciously accepted the call. After the meeting, I was going up to the platform to talk to the speaker, and God spoke to me audibly for the first time. It was not a happy word! He said, "You don't think it's Mary who has kept you off the platform do you?" I thought to myself..."Oh no.....I'm in trouble!" and I was right! For the next 6 months God proceeded to show me my heart and it was very ugly. I continued to get prayer for healing of those wounds in my soul, and it was one of the most personally painful times of my life. It's hard to look at ourselves and see our sin as God sees it, when we have thought we were doing so well. At the end of 6 months, I came through it, and was delivered of the spirit of performance and control. It was so awesome. My whole life changed. God told me I'd never have to submit my ministry to that spirit ever again and He has been faithful all these years...about 20. But I wasn't done with His correction. A few weeks after that I was asked to lead again. The problem was that the spirit of control was over the music ministry. By playing, I was coming under it, but did I ask God???? No! I just said yes....and then He proceeded to talk to me about obedience. He said that I was not supposed to be playing but my yes needed to be yes, and I was to play knowing that it was disobedient to His will. It was awful, but I did it. The next week I was asked to play again. Did I speak the truth? No...I lied and said I was going to be out of town. God made me call the guy that I lied to and tell him that I lied and why. Cleaning up after ourselves is humiliating....which really means a lesson in humility! Do you think I learned from that one? You bet.
The church had many problems and issues, and we got into some teaching that the church was Babylon, and we were the remnant. We left the church and met in a home church for 3 years. It was a truly awesome time of fellowship, teaching and receiving from God. The people who had the home church were friends with a pastor and we got every speaker that came through that church, who would come to our Sat. home group. We even had the worship leader from the Feast of Tabernacles come and minister. It was an awesome time. God finally talked to me and told me that we were as self righteous as the people in the church...thinking that we were the remnant...and that He wasn't done with His church. Once again I had to repent.
Life with Jesus is about getting cleaned up, layer by layer, going deeper and deeper, until our character matches His. It's not an instant process. God gave me Deut 7: 21,22 "And the LORD your God will drive out those nations before you little by little; you will be unable to destroy them at once, lest the beasts of the field become too numerous for you. 23 But the LORD your God will deliver them over to you, and will inflict defeat upon them until they are destroyed." When we are going through the process of being sanctified and made to look more like Jesus, it is a process. Just like with deliverance. If you try to do it all at once, then it's harder to walk out what has been done. God does a work, then lets you walk it out and get victory. Then he peels off another layer and you walk into that victory. If we ever come to the place where we think we're totally perfected, we've arrived, then we are walking in pride. Our life is to be a model of submission and humility to the voice and hand of God, and He will always be working with us until Jesus comes. So take heart...when you think that you are done, and then He shows you another wrinkle He needs to iron out....It's just life on the ironing board!
Well, here I am again with more life on the ironing board.
In Dec. 2003, God spoke to me and said...."Abraham got up and left the country of his relatives and went to a land he knew not". I was at the movies with friends walking in to see Schindler's List. I was a little perplexed...but God is sometimes like that. I went home and looked up the scripture in Gen 12:1, and God was telling him to take his family and go. I shared it with my husband and we just put it on the shelf. For the next year and a half, everywhere we went, we got that scripture. We would go to a conference, and the speaker would stop and say," I don't know who this is for, but the Lord says, Gen 12:1. Abraham left the country of his family to go to the land God would show him". It got to be a joke, and we would laugh & say..."I guess we're moving". About 6 months into the process, I got a vision of Montana, and that we were to go to Montana. Friends of ours had a vision for a Christian community, and had gone to Kalispell Montana with that vision. It seemed obvious that we were to be involved with them. The prophetic is always ahead of the actuality. I started telling my husband that we needed to get there now. I was very afraid we were going to miss God by not moving. I was new in all this prophetic business and so I nagged him unmercifully. He finally told me to cool it, and that when God told him, then we would start moving.
Time went by, and I was asked to do worship for a women't retreat about 6 hours from my house. When I got there, the speaker was a YWAM missionary and we got to talking. YWAM stands for Youth with a Mission. It's a non denominational missions organization that mostly takes young people, sends them to a 3 month school and then on an outreach in a foreign country. (I recommend Googling Youth With a Mission, or reading a book, "Is That Really You God?" by Loren Cunningham who is the founder.) As we talked, the woman told me that YWAM not only took youth, but had a program for families at 2 of their bases: Kona, Hawaii, and Kalispell, Montana. I was astounded, but my spirit lept when I heard it. When we got home, I told my husband and he felt the Lord in it, so we both went to prayer. God started to confirm and confirm in more ways than we could count. We kept a journal of everything.
We put out a fleece, which is not always wise, but this was practical. We said God if you want us to go, then You will sell our house without a realtor. We got to work fixing it up, and getting it in order to sell. Time went by...when I would waver, Bill would be strong! He would say..."Wait,let's see what God will do!" When he would waiver and think we should get a realtor, I'd be the strong one. But time was growing short, and so we finally called a realtor, and they came and did a walk through and gave us a price. The next morning we were to go sign papers. That night, I got a phone call out of the blue, and the person on the other end said, "I heard that you want to sell your house." WOW...talk about being shocked! We had been in the yard for 3 days working, and the house was a wreck. I had dirty dishes, clothes all over, black dog hair, and it was pretty messy. I told them to come later, and went to vacum, and the vacum cleaner broke. I took off to borrow one, and by the time I got back they were there. Their comment was that they had 4 boys and they understood messy. They made us an offer right in the middle of what our prices were. We accepted. That simple. The title company did the paperwork, and the house closed 3 days before we were to leave for Montana. That is God. If He wants you to do something, then He will move heaven and earth to work it out.
In the meantime, we had filled out the paperwork for YWAM to attend the DTS (Discipleship Training School), and we had some things that didn't look so good on it. We had been out of church for 3 years, in the home church, and we had a son who had some rebellion, and behavior problems. We did get a recommendation from 2 pastors, but they called and said they didn't know if they wanted us to come. We just figured God told us, He was working out the details, and we would keep going with the house sale, and our preparations. If they rejected us, then we would figure something else out. The house closed, and that day we got a phone call that we had been accepted. Our friends came and helped us clean, pack up our cars, and got us on the road. God said, "Go and don't look back!" On March 25, 2005, we left our home of 15 years, and the song that came on our radio was Steven Curtis Chapman, "The Great Adventure", and it has been our family theme song ever since. We got to Montana and the first night there, Bill celebrated his 40th birthday. I am a firm believer that life begins at 40.
We started the school, and it was wonderful. The teaching was some of the best I've ever heard. It was like eating steak every day. Our kids settled in to school there, and we started to adjust to life on a YWAM base. This one was on an old military base that had been a listening post in WWII. The organization had bought it, and it was full to bursting with people who loved God and were in service, or school. We lived in a barraks with all the other families in our school. There were about 30 of us. We had been there for 3 weeks, and my husband got a call that his aunt had died, then another call that another aunt had passed within 3 days of the first. It was sad, but then the real blow came. His baby sister was on the way home from the funeral with her daughter, hit some black ice, flipped her pickup over into an irrigation ditch, and drowned. Her daughter was unable to free her in time. We were stunned! This tragedy brought our team instantly closer as they came around us in prayer and support. We left to go to the funeral, and saw Bill's family for the first time in about 15 years. What we really learned is that when you obey God, you have to count the cost. The cost to him was everything. You leave all you know and you never know what you leave behind, or what will happen. You just go, with faith and trust in God.
When we got back, we settled into school, and training for our outreach. Our son was a troubled boy. He was 13 and in full rebellion. He was very angry that we made him move, leave his friends, and go on this dumb deal. They almost didn't let us go on outreach, but at the last minute, they decided we could go. We packed our suitcases, and went with 30 others off to Ukraine. We loved it! Many on our team didn't love it, and complained about the food, the lack of hot water, the toilets, the living conditions...you name it. We just loved every minute, from washing our clothes in a bucket, to riding on buses that were full to bursting. I had trouble with the heat, but found a house with a well near where we were staying. The woman gave us permission to use the water, and when we would come back from street ministry and I would feel like I was having heat stroke, I would pull up a bucket of water and dump the whole thing over my head. Each night we would have services for the Ukrainians, and the most wonderful thing was that we would sing songs in English, and at the same time, they would sing in Russian. It was like every heaven when every nation tribe and tongue will worship God together.
This experience gave us a greater understanding of God's plan for the world, not just salvation, but that He created every culture unique, and with their own instruments, songs, and styles of worship. We learned more than we gave, and one of those things was to honor what God created wherever we went. That has carried through to the present and my learning to love and appreciate Native American worship and dance, using their songs, their drums and their cultural style of worship. If they are worshipping Christ, then their way is God's way! It stirs my heart to hear it.
We were in Kiev, with about a week before returning to Montana, and I told Bill that since we didn't have a home to go to, and only 4 days on base when we got back, we'd better pray about where we were supposed to go. He prayed and got Idaho. My comment, was, "It's a big state! Do you think God might narrow it down a little?" We got Post Falls, and felt that God wanted us to go to the Elijah House school for counselling ministry. We got back to Montana, and went to our debriefing interview with our leaders. They said we got you some brochures from Elijah House and felt the Lord wanted you to check into it. Isn't God amazing? He knows exactly what we are to do, and how to get it accomplished. We left Montana and our friends there, and drove to Idaho, found a cheap motel room, and started looking for a place to live. Found a duplex, and started moving in. Bill went to the unemployment office and within 2 days had 3 job offers. God is good!
This ends this chapter of our lives. Stay tuned for the next one! God bless all who read any of this!
Well, here I am again with the next chapter or our lives. It has been a great adventure.
We settled into Post Falls, and decided to go to church. We just picked one at random, which is normally what you do in a new place. We walked in and it was totally different than we would have chosen. A really big church, and sort of an evangelistic one. Not charismatic, which is our preference. We sat down and people got up to describe the fall classes. When a guy got up and said he was teaching a class on Elijah House principles, we about fell over. God had led us to the place he wanted us. Not our cup of tea, but the place to begin learning what He wanted us to learn. We took that class and the next year we took a 6 month training class.
Inner healing is nothing more than evangelizing the unbelieving places in our hearts. The places where hurts, wounds, bitterness, unforgiveness and other things, have caused our hearts to have unbelief about who God is and about who He wants to be in our lives. We learned about some of the principles:
Honor your father and mother that it would go well with you, Judge not that you be not judged, forgive and your Father in heaven will forgive you. There are some basic laws of God and when we don't obey them, we put into motion the laws of sowing and reaping. If our wounds cause us to hate our parents, or to not honor them, it will not go well with us in those areas. When we don't forgive, we don't receive God's forgiveness. It's not that abusive people deserve honor, but we must forgive and honor the position of parent that God put them in, not their actions. None of our parents were fantastic, or very few anyway. Our father's job is to model the Heavenly Father to us, so we can know His character and love. Most didn't know how, and so we have a warped view of our Father in heaven. Many times we have judged our parents, have hurt, and unforgiveness, and God wants to come in and set us free. During this time, I learned so much, and and God worked much more healing in my life. It was hard, and wonderful all at the same time. Our hearts are like onions. God peels back the layers and takes us to deeper and deeper levels of healing and deliverance. When we think something is all done, he peels back another layer and says, "Let's go deeper!" Sometimes the process is painful, sometimes easy, but always good.
The summer of 1996 God sent me and my youngest daughter back to Ukraine, all by ourselves, to work with the youth of the church that we had met in YWAM. It was a different trip, and God took me to a deeper place in him there. I love the Ukrainian people. They are wounded, stubborn, kind, giving, and resilient. Most households are without fathers. There is a rampant alcoholism problem. The mafia runs everything. There is a distrust of everything and every one because of the former Soviet Union. God love them so much, and his healing is so needed. They so need to know the heart of the Father. My 2 summers there changed my life forever.
We came back and got back into real life. It's a bit difficult coming off the mission field. You kind of feel like everything is surreal. As time goes on, you settle in. Our kids were growing up and we were dealing with teen rebellion. I was part of a wonderful women's ministry at the church. I loved those women and they loved me. I've been dysfunctional, wounded, and still they loved me. Through all my growing pains in God, they loved me. I was becoming more and more dissatisfied with the "seeker sensitive" mode of church. I was so longing for more of the presence of God, and the church was not really interested or going that direction. The pastor died of melanoma at that time, and a new pastor took over. He was a seriously wounded man, who tried to take control of everything. God took me to serious prayer for 6 months, and gave me a vision of the Titanic going down. He started beating the sheep weekly, acusing them of all kinds of stuff. It was so sad, and I cried many tears.
This was all the spring of 1999. During that time the Great Adventure started to kick in again. The war between Servia and Kosovo going on. Bill and I were watching tv one night and they were doing a bit on the refugee camps. We both said, if we didn't have kids, and responsibilities, we'd go there in a heartbeat and help. The very next morning, a call came offering Bill a job in Albania. It was out of the blue. The next day the girls came home and told us they were learning about Albania in school. OK....God...what are You doing? They wanted Bill to leave in 3 days, but he told them he couldn't do it that quick, that he needed to really consider it. We went for prayer, and counselled with others. We felt it was the leading of the Lord, but when he called them, they said the position was filled. They would keep him on the list.
Back to the church. God spoke to my heart and told me I had to take the Titanic word to the pastor. I said "NO WAY!!!" I opened my bible and it fell open to Exekiel 3: 16-19.....if you give the warning and they don't repent, it's on them. If you don't give the word and they don't repent, then it's on you. That's my paraphrase. I said "I DON'T CARE...I STILL AM NOT GOING!!!!" So it flipped open again to 1 King 22:3...Which is about the prophet who opposed the 400 lying prophets advising Ahab, and they threw him in a pit. I said,"OK God, I'll go but not by myself. Bill has to go with me." In the meantime, Bill was waiting for a call to go overseas. He was thinking that he missed God, but he told God that he repented and wanted to go. 3 months went by and God sent us to the pastor. I gave him the word on paper, he thanked me, and I left. God told me to shake the dust off my feet because I was free to go. 3 days after that meeting, Bill got the call to go and 3 days after that he was on his way. God delayed the job until he was able to go with me as a protection. I believe that if I had not had his covering and protection, I would have been crucified by the pastor. 6 months later the church imploded, and was down from 3000 people to 50. Shortly after that the pastor resigned and for a long time was selling cars.
I went to be a part of a ministry that was extremely prophetic. I was on the worship team there for 2 years. It was a wonderful time, but there is a principle that seems to prove itself out. All Spirit, and you blow up...all word and no Spirit, and you dry up. There was no pastoring, just lots of prophetic teaching. The leaders were wounded prophets, and I was wounded as well. Hurt people hurt other people. I loved that place, even without any balance. It was a place I felt I could be myself. I grew in my prophetic giftings. I am not a prophet, but we all can prophesy, and I learned more about how to walk in that. Learned more about prayer, about myself, continued the process of the ironing board....God ironing out stuff.
I am going to write this in 2 parts...because the next installment is really a new chapter in my life, and the most difficult I have ever experienced. So continue on, or come back later....but God bless all who take time to read.
In May 2000 I finally got on line. We got the internet. I discovered Christian chat rooms. WooHoo. What fun! I found one I liked and started chatting. Sometimes people are so nice, and sometimes they are off the wall. Just like in life. I met a girl who had been saved through the chat room out of hard core Satanism. She lived in another state, and was really struggling. She had multiple personalities, lots of demons, and was trying to get better. Ever church she would go to in her home town, the Satanists would follow, and target the pastors and leaders. They would leave dead animals outside. They would come to her home several nights a week, and chant and curse. Because of the many parts in her mind, she was at war in herself. It is a very complicated thing, and not what most people think. We prayed many times on line, God did some deliverance through chat....that was pretty strange....casting out demons through typing. There were 3 of us who were praying and working with her. One in Canada, one in Indiana and me. We started talking on the phone. Sometimes we would 3 way or 4 way call and pray and minister to her. We never knew who would be talking to us....pretty different.
Bill came home in early August 2000, and we invited her to come and visit us for a week. That year, all 3 of us had her come for a week to visit. My daughter gave up her room and we made new curtains. My daughter made a poster welcoming her and naming all the different personalities and welcoming them. Sounds wierd, but that's what God led us to do. She came and was totally blown away.
In MPD, or DID which is what they call it now, expecially the kind that comes with Satanic Ritual Abuse, there are layers, and personalities are created through torture and drugs to do certain jobs. They choose people who they know they can split, because they can do what they want to more easily. I have a friend who is a Christian counsellor and she told this girl that her MPD was a gift from God, because without it she would have died. It is the ability to separate your mind and put the pain and torture in another compartment, and assign another "person" to hold it. The coven attaches demons to the different parts, but the parts are not demons. This is a common misconception that the church has. You cannot cast out a "person", you can only heal that part and help it to become whole again. You can as you gain cooperation cast out the demons attached to the "part" and bring freedom. Freedom leads to wholeness.
The first night she was with us, she came at me with my big kitchen knife. I don't know why I wasn't afraid, but I just took it away, and then hid all the sharp objects in the garage. I tried to minister Jesus to whichever part was there at the time. And little by little different parts converted and were delivered. She stayed a week, and went home. After going home the Lord started talking to both of us and telling her she needed to come here. The coven was still after her, and threatening to kill her. Where she lived, this is a big thing, and many police, and community leaders were involved. Not teen wannabes. At 18 she watched her best friend be crucified in front of her. This was real and evil and huge. We prayed for several months, and in Nov. 2000 I flew to where she lived, helped her pack and moved her to our home. This was the beginning of the hardest thing I have ever taken on.
We were going to church, and one night there was a prophetic song...kind of about baby Jesus. It was Christmas, and she freaked out. She had memories of having children to sacrifice. It was so real to her, but as with many things, many memories were planted by the coven. It doesn't matter. False or true, memories are real to the person, and Jesus has to handle them the same way. When the family would go to bed, she would wake up and every night was filled with warfare, and no sleep. I never knew what was coming at me. I would hear growling and then she would go for my throat. Jesus is way bigger, and I learned to ask Him to stand between us. This went on for a year. And we slowly and gradually worked our way through an inner world, that was unbelievable, with Jesus healing and showing His love, and the demons flying out by the hundreds. It was the kindness of God that transformed her, and caused wholeness. Not casting out demons. As His love came in, the demons had to leave. Their house was torn down, the place they attached to was destroyed. They had no place. This is the better way to deliver people. Through repentance, and forgiveness, remove the house, and the demons leave much more easily.
A few weeks later I was sitting in church and we were singing that song..."the nails in your hands, the nails in your feet, show me how much you love me."
I said, "God I'm not angry anymore, but I don't want to be hurt either". I was hurt by feeling abandoned by my friends when I really needed thm. God said, and I quote verbatim, "You don't have any right to be hurt....what is your life scripture?" Look up Philippians 3..."that I might know Christ, and the power of the ressurection, and the fellowship of His suffering, being conformed to His death". I said, "Oh Crap!!! I'm an idiot, why didn't I pick 'Joy unspeakable and full of glory?' " I was sitting there hitting myself in the forehead. I think the people around me were wondering what was going on. See, abandonment was my issue from adoption, and abandonment and betrayal are also the sufferings of Christ. I had prayed that scripture and in doing so, I set in motion the things that would bring it into being in my life. Be careful and count the cost, if you think you want to do deliverance ministry. When you go after Satan's kingdom, you paint a bullseye on your chest, back and the rest of you. He knows every deep place in you where you might have unresolved issues, and he will go after them. That's what he did with me. My case was extreme, but maybe that is because God wanted me to know how to talk to others about this. I am not sure what God will do with me now, but nothing is wasted. I had deep rooted pride in me, and abandonment issues, and some deep rooted anger all of which I wasn't aware of. I thought I was pretty healed. But when the pressure came, and it didn't let up, and I was daily dealing with the demonic, and challenging Satan's kingdom head on, he came after me, and all my stuff came flying out. I didn't cooperate with God, I got mad at Him, and so I spent 3 years bound. I said and did things I was ashamed of. I wept many tears of repentance. I was alone, and in pain. When I started to get my right mind back, God was waiting for me with His kindness and forgiveness. I am a fortunate girl, and blessed to have a Heavenly Father who is patient, kind, and full of mercy. It has been a slow walk to recovery and I am different than I was. I am better, more patient, less rash, more thoughtful. I think about things and pray before acting. I was crushed and broken, and now like the Phoenix, I have risen from the ashes to life once again.
My friend....is healed from all the Satanism and all the demonic. Her many parts have gradually become part of the whole again, gently, and gradually. Occasionally a little lost part will surface, and she handles it herself. She honors that part of her for taking her suffering and protecting her, and asks Jesus to bring healing. She is doing great, has a good job, a house she bought. She loves God, and God is working on her now for the normal stuff we all have. Thank you Jesus for bringing her new life.
Bill left for Afghanistan in 2003 and worked there for 4 years, He came home in 2007 and was home for a year and a half, and just left to go back last Sept. This is a hard life and I certainly don't recommend it to anyone else. If your marriage isn't strong, it will not survive the separation. He has grown both professionally and spiritually. I always say he is like the Centurion in the bible who said to Jesus, "I am a man under authority, I say to this one come and the other one go, just say the word and my servant will be healed." he works for the military, and has a deep love and respect for the troops. As a former Marine, he has never lost that bearing. it's a strange life, but God has called us to it and it works for us.
Now I am back at the Prophetic ministry which has become a church. It has been 8 years since I left. 8 is the number that means new beginnings, and this is a new beginning for me, coming full circle. The message they are pursuing there is the love of God. That is my message. To know God, and to fully experience His love for me, so I can pour it out on others. He love you with a love you can't imagine. He doesn't care where you've been, if you know Him or don't. he doesn't love you less if you walk away from Him, He loves us all equally. With a love that is so far above what we understand. I pray that you experience that love and come to know Him in a deep and abiding way!
God bless you!
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