I almost didn't post this, because I am afraid of what others will think, because it is long, and because I'm sure everyone's tired of hearing me praise Yahweh for healing...and it's only been 2 days!
I don’t remember not knowing Jesus. Or rather, knowing of Jesus. I have always believed He was the Son of God. I didn’t often go to church as I grew up, but I came to a time when I read the Bible and prayed every night. In this way, I began to build a relationship with Yahweh.
When I was 10 years old, I was diagnosed with Clinical Depression and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. My mother was smart enough and loving enough to take me to a psychiatrist right away. I was placed on medication, which I took faithfully for eleven years. It didn’t seem to help anything, but I always feared if I didn’t take it things would be even worse. Though I knew Yahweh, I didn’t know that He healed.
When I was 16 or 17, at the end of Freshman year at the University, my best friend, Laura and I met. Basically it went like this:
Laura: Hey, you remember when we talked on the first day of class?
Me: No
Laura: O.O
Laura: Umm…wanna come to cell group?
She dragged me to Chi Alpha, then. And I learned and grew. It was there that I learned that God still works in this world in the same way He did in Biblical times. It was there that I learned that a believer needs to be immersed in Holy Spirit.
The first time I was asked if I was open to the baptism of Holy Spirit, I had no idea what was being said. I had never heard of such a strange thing. What did it mean? When I was told that it meant that, subsequent to salvation, a believer can grow closer to Yahweh by being utterly immersed in His Spirit and begin to speak in tongues, I was not open to it. It took quite a while for me to even say I wanted more, and immediately after I did, I recanted, for I had been attacked by the enemy, who told me I had sinned greatly against Yahweh for believing this of Him. For me, belief is of the utmost importance, and to change what I believe was no easy task. I think I even asked for Yahweh’s forgiveness.
About six months later, I read a book by Beth Moore. Naturally, I finished it at 4 a.m. I felt…exhuberant. I wanted to DO something for Yahweh. But what can one do at four in the morning? It was then that I realized I could make a choice to believe in something I had been wishing and hoping was true. And with Hebrews 11:1 “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see.” I prayed and chose to believe in the Baptism of Holy Spirit. I did not recant this time.
Still, I was not so sure this Baptism was actually for ME. It was not until another month that I was baptized myself in Holy Spirit, with the evidence of speaking in tongues. It was…amazing. And I felt one of my first Spiritual Highs. That dancing ecstasy of Yahweh’s Presence. This was on September 30, 2007.
I graduated from the University in 2008, and immediately went into a 6 month period of depression. I had no identity anymore. Before, I had been a “student” And I was a good student. Then, well, I had no purpose and no idea even what that purpose could be.
Yahweh delivered me from that in October, 2008. I came out of the depressive episode and started going back to a church I had attended a few times with my mother: The Dwelling Place. I grew closer to Yahweh and learned to love His people more. I had a great place at Dwelling Place. The people and the pastor were amazing. I was loved and I loved. I taught Spanish and hung out with the children, and I got a first inkling of what my professional purpose would be while I was there.
I stayed at Dwelling Place for about another year. Then I began to feel hunger. That verse about hungering and thirsting for righteousness? That was me. I ached for more, MORE of Yahweh. And Pastor Marcus at Dwelling Place always said that “the craziest thing in the world is to keep doing the same thing and expecting different results.”
At this time, my friend Laura came back into my life. She had gone to Belize for a year or so and I missed her terribly. But now she had moved back to the area to attend our law school! She told me about her ekklesia. It had just the “more” I was looking for, but I was hesitant to leave behind all the wonderful people at Dwelling Place and make so big a change. It took a month of going to Dwelling Place on Sundays and The Rock on Wednesdays for me to realize that yes, Yahweh really DID want me to change churches. He had told me I could not have two churches.
So, after talking to Pastor Marcus, and without any animosity, I left Dwelling Place in September 2009. I will always love and bless the people at Dwelling Place, and I often pray for them.
At the Rock, I began to notice changes in myself immediately. I was getting more and more revelations. I had been getting revelations since I had been baptized in Holy Spirit, but now I was getting them more often!
Then, the enemy struck. He knew something big was in store for me, and that I would take my place against him if I were allowed to continue on my present path. So depression came back into my life. I went into another depressive episode. This one came with the apathy and the “I don’t care/what’s the point?” attitude I knew so well. Of course, peppered among the apathy was the depressive episodes of utter torture.
But this time, I had learned a few things. I learned that there is the seen and then unseen realm, and that I am who Yahweh calls me, no one else. I learned that, more than just believing in healing in the future, I should believe that my healing was already accomplished…in the unseen realms. The only thing to do was to speak it over myself so it would be made manifest in the natural realms. I began to speak things over myself every night before bedtime, when I read the Bible and prayed to Yahweh. This was November 2009.
Christmas is my favorite time of year, because I can feel the joy of Yahweh so fully then. Thus, when Christmas came around, I felt the depression lighten. Still, the fear that, once Christmas was over, it would come back, lingered in the back of my mind.
The Monday after Christmas, which was on a Friday in 2009, I had a depressive episode. I had another one about a week later, on January 3, or so. This was to be my LAST depressive episode. I kept speaking. I kept believing. I kept growing.
It was then that I decided to write up my revelations, which I called the Time Revelations. These were all about the eternal-ness of Yahweh and how I am who He calls me. I don’t have to wait for His promises, because they already are.
Knowing all this, I was having a conversation with my online friend, Michal one night, and a word came to me. “Sometimes, we are afraid to take the word Yahweh has already given us and run with it.” I knew this applied to my purpose. I had, in July 2009 or so, decided to go back to school to get a Masters of Arts in Teaching degree. I felt I had to do something and teaching was a logical choice as I love children and I love Spanish, which is what I will be teaching. I didn’t claim that this purpose was from Yahweh, though. I was afraid to. But after I got this word, I realized that yes, Yahweh HAD told me my purpose was to teach. And yes, I could claim it. This was on a Friday. I think it was February 12, 2010.
Sunday, February 14, 2010, I went to ekklesia again. I had been feeling fine for months now, since January 3, really. Yet, the fear still lingered. I thought it would come back. It had always come back before. So I thought it would have to come back again. So I went to the altar when Apostle Todd called those of us forward who didn’t have complete peace. Then and there, I determined that this would be the last time I would go to the altar to get rid of my depression.
Not two minutes after I had been prayed for and spoken over, I realized that the word I had gotten on Friday about being afraid to take Yahweh’s word and run with it was not only applicable to my purpose. It also applied to the depression.
The next day, February 15, 2010, my day of freedom, is a day I will never forget. It wasn’t a lightning bolt or an obvious thing. But suddenly, in the middle of being online, and after talking with Laura for a bit about spiritual things, I stopped believing Yahweh would heal me. I KNEW I was healed. And so it was.
After that, I proclaimed publicly what Yahweh had done for me. And it’s amazing! I floated. I danced. I sang (lots!). But mostly I KNEW. I am healed.
Today is Wednesday, February 17, 2010. I know my healing was just the first step. Just the beginning. For in the unseen, there are things that we don’t even know about. Things that are more than we can ever imagine. No eye has seen, nor ear has heard. No mind can comprehend what Yahweh has prepared for those who love Him. All I can do now is sit back, lift my hands, and say, “Dazzle me, Lord!” And He will.
Be encouraged! If He can heal me (and many friends) He can heal YOU!
Tags: Christ Praise Healing
She sat there and stared, her eyes dull and glassy. She sighed. Her feelings were as dull as her eyes, like a knife that has been used too much. Her thoughts were slow, and to reach each one was like swimming through molasses. Sometimes it was too much of an effort to reach them, and they flitted away from her on the breeze that brushed her ash blond hair across her face. She sat on the porch and stared at the lovely garden and evergreen trees, not really enjoying them at all.
“God,” she begins a prayer, but doesn’t finish. Reaching Heaven is more difficult than reaching her thoughts sometimes. It’s like swimming through quicksand, at any moment, knowing you could be pulled down, and never moving very fast. “When will it end?” she manages to whisper. Gathering the strength to say the words is difficult, physically and emotionally.
A stray thought comes into her mind. “They tell me to speak good things over myself, but how can I do that when I don’t have the energy to speak?” And then , “Won’t You hear me even when I can’t fight? Won’t You fight for me when I can’t fight for myself?”
She picks up her IPOD and puts the headphones in her ears. Casting Crowns’ “Praise You in This Storm” comes on. Perfect timing. Life is a storm, but God is still worthy of praise. She knows that. If she could muster up the energy to praise, then maybe she could muster up the energy to fight, to break free of the lethargy and apathy that has been holding her prisoner for so long.
Of course, she muses, the apathy may be preferable to the other side of the coin—the sharpened knife. Sometimes the pain and agony were so unbearable, she wanted to die. The only thing that stopped her from killing herself was knowing that she had given her life to God years ago, and she refused to take it back. Her life was not hers to take. It was God’s.
Still, the apathy was awful. Joy, she missed joy. She missed feeling the Presence of God. She had felt it recently. A slight reminder of all she didn’t have at the moment. Not that she didn’t want to feel it again, or that the reminder was painful. Nothing about the Presence of God was ever painful, except the apparent lack of it. She knew, oh she knew, that God was always, always with her. But she didn’t always feel it. In fact, she rarely felt it nowadays. And she missed it.
She wished she had more faith. She believed God could and would heal her of her clinical depression someday. Someday, but never today. Never now. Always in the distant future. And what good was that? How does the future help the present? What good is eternal expectation when it never seems to be realized? Why can’t there ever be any joy in the present?
The song ended, and she picked up her notebook and pencil and began to write.
Oh, Lord, won’t you come back
And take away the sorrow
The pain of just existing
The burden of tomorrow
Sick of being sick
And tired of being sad
Why is life always awful?
Why is life so bad?
She heard people talk about living in the moment, instead of always looking to the future for joy, instead of looking forward to Heaven, walking in joy in the present. But there was no joy in the present. Only despair. Or at best, dullness. Her eyes closed slightly. “Who wants to live in this moment anyway?”
She opened her eyes slightly. She shouldn’t sleep so much, she knew. Fourteen hours of sleep was resting, she supposed, but useless. Sleep was a good escape from the pain of the world, from the responsibilities of the world, from the world. But she did the Kingdom no good asleep.
“I do the Kingdom no good awake, either,” she thought, wondering if that thought was her own or a lie of the Enemy. Perhaps she did something good by living, but she didn’t really see what. She knew God had created her for a reason, for a purpose, but she had yet to discern what that might be. And she secretly feared she would never fulfill it. Especially in her current state of seemingly endless depression.
Not that she really cared what she did for others at the moment. It was all she could do to deal with her own problems. Plus, no one else seemed to care about her. She was so lonely. Always lonely. Perhaps she could talk to God and feel less lonely, but then, praying was so hard right now.
“You have the victory already,” she thought, remembering a Revelation she had gotten from the Father a few months ago. God was unchanging and perfect, so He had already won. She was on His side. So she had also already won.
“What is victory?” she asked. “It certainly doesn’t make you feel any better.” She then wondered if she would ever feel better. What if her lot in life was to attempt to glorify God with this thousand pound burden of depression tied around her neck. How could she possibly ever succeed in that?
Yet there were those who expected just that. That she “get out and do something.” As if that would solve anything. As if the reason she were depressed was because she was sedentary, instead of the other way around. As if the depression were somehow her fault. How dare they condemn her? They were wrong. Yet their lies, like those of the Enemy, got to her sometimes.
Tears began to run down her cheeks. What if they were right, and it never, ever would get any easier, and she had to glorify God anyway? What if she had to exert this huge amount of effort just to live for the rest of her life…and was expected to add even more effort than that which she was already exerting? What if God were displeased with her? Yet what could she do, what more could she do? She fought, she fought so much, so hard, so often. But she was so tired. So, so tired.
She wiped her eyes. Fight. Fight more. Fight harder. Fight. All of life is a fight.
“Every day is a struggle against the Evil One. Every day you must fight him with words, prayer, prophecy, obedience to God, and anything that might glorify God and ruin the Enemy’s day. Every day you put on the full Armor of God and go to war. Every day is a battle. Some days are easier than others, and you may not even know you’re fighting. But even when you’re joyous, that is something that ruins the Enemy’s day,” she thought, quoting another Revelation she’d had.
Her whispered prophecy was part faith, part prayer, and part plea. “I am a person of joy.” She had spoken. God would have to do the rest. Because right now, she didn’t have the energy or capacity to do more for herself.
I wish this story were more interesting. More entertaining. More hopeful. I wish all stories could end on a happy note and have the main character fight and overcome all odds. But this is a true story, though it is not over yet, and sometimes the happy endings must wait a while.
Tags: Short Story
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