 |
| New Year 2019 Fireworks, London |
2018 was a great year for me. So many lessons and revelations, far more precious than the gardening lessons!
Early last year two of my family members and I attended a seminar called, “Emotionally Healthy Spirituality” based on the book of the same title by Pete Scazzero. Whoa, that brought my world upside-down. I learned two basic things from that eight-week course. First, I realized that I kind of deny or ignore negative feelings like anger, fear, sadness, because I am not supposed to feel those things as a believer of Jesus. Anger for example, is definitely a sin according to the Bible. (Ephesians 4:31 and Colossians 3:8) So, when I have that feeling I don’t think further of what goes into that feeling, I just tend to forget them. I know I have to forgive anyway. Whether it’s my fault or the other person’s fault, it does not matter. I have to forgive! Or it won’t go well for me. That’s just how the Christian life goes. If you do not forgive men their sins neither will your Father in Heaven forgive you your sins. (Matthew 6:14,15) However, whenever I did that I was not exactly dealing with it. I was just suppressing it or ignoring it. I did not realize that not dealing with it results to denying myself or the reality of my state of heart. So, what’s so bad about that? It hampers one’s growth spiritually and it also can result into more serious things. When anger is bottled up and left to ferment it can blow up at any unguarded time or worse, result into a physical illness or a psychological condition like depression. The course we did specifically mentioned anger, fear and sadness. I was guilty with denying anger.
The course taught us to “embrace” every emotion, even though it’s negative, and bring it to God to be dealt with. We need God to help us in our difficulties and for me, it was facing my negative emotion of anger. Sometimes, we are not even aware we have those emotions. Like guilt, or shame, how do we actually realize we have those? Even unforgiveness. This is what sometimes people call being “in touch” with our emotions or connecting with ourselves. We need time and quiet to reflect and connect with ourselves. So, when we’re really busy or we have too many things in our plate this connection just doesn’t happen.
The second life-changing lesson I learned was that I realized I parented my children exactly the way my parents parented me. I’m a born-again Christian. I am supposed to have been regenerated through the blood of Jesus, the Holy Spirit and the word of God. My parents were religious but they did not really know the word of God nor lived according to it. My conversion to Christianity should have changed me. I should have been a better parent than my parents. But I wasn’t. Finally, the concept of parenting by example became real to me. I took on the mold of the examples my parents lived out before me and I imbibed the domestic aura they created for me and my siblings in our formative years. Unless that part of me is presented to Christ for cleansing and rebuilding (regenerating), that part of me would remain un-reborn (broken) and in dire need of healing. I had to have dialogues with my children and I had to confess and apologize and had reconciliations with them. It was painful and humbling, in the least. I would say this course was pivotal for me even for just this one important lesson learned.
Also, at the onset of 2018 I joined a church group that majors on inner healing and deliverance. What is that? As I had always mentioned in this blog, most of our illnesses are psychosomatic. Most physical illnesses have emotional or psychological roots. So, this group is learning from Bible mentors on how to receive emotional healing through prayer and counseling and in turn also to pray and counsel people for emotional healing, if it is perceived that their physical ailment is rooted in emotional brokenness. They are also taught that if a demon presents itself during the counseling and prayer, then the demon has to be cast out in a sensitive, biblical and dignified manner. This group is also taught how to receive prophetic words from the Holy Spirit and give it to the person/s to whom the edifying words are for. Hence, last year I learned a bit more on this through this church group, on top of the things I had previously learned from books, conferences, YouTube vids, etc., and my own personal time with God.
How does this impact me personally?
I had blogged here before about a physical healing I had on an inflammation called trigger finger. I had shared that I was healed after I started taking a herbal supplement of Moringga capsules. I had also shared that I was robbed once in front of our house and my right wrist was injured. It was in a soft cast for about five weeks. Apparently, when it was removed it did not heal completely at once. I continued having a kind of pain and stiffness on the ring finger and pinky and the area below them. That was early 2016. Then on top of that the ring finger started showing symptoms of trigger finger, maybe about a year later, in 2017. By around end of 2017 I remembered Moringga. I thought it is time to put it to good use again. Before that I was just taking the multivitamin VG7 on and off. So, I started a regular regimen of daily Moringga capsule intake. I expected the trigger finger to get better after one week just like last time. It didn’t. I waited a month. It still didn’t. I finished the whole bottle (60 caps, i.e. two months), it still didn’t. Now I thought, this is going to be embarrassing. The healing I had the first time was a fluke? Well, obviously, this one needs more than just Moringga. Well, it was time to pray for healing, seriously. I needed a miracle from God!
The inflammation went on until one day a miracle did happen. It was early 2018. I suddenly started having a sharp inflammation-like kind of pain on my left index finger. I was so annoyed by it. One night when my older daughter and I were having our mother-and-daughter bonding time at a restaurant I mentioned it to her. I told her that it is very strange that I am getting this kind of pain on my left hand when usually, I get this kind of pain only on my right. I presumed it’s because my right hand is more overworked than my left. (I have looked online and they say trigger finger usually affects older women like me because of repetitive motions like doing house chores.) So, she asked me when it exactly started. I told her it was just on the Wednesday night when we attended a church meeting. She remembered that Wednesday night I had told her I was so embarrassed because we were coming in to the church meeting very late. She also remembered that the Sunday before that Wednesday I had told her how embarrassed I was when my “signs and wonders” child made so much noise in church I had to walk her out while the pastor stopped preaching and waited for us to move out. A series of embarrassing events had recently occurred to me. My daughter said, “Mommy, I think that pain is caused by ‘shame’. You are just overly sensitive to embarrassment and it is now affecting your body and manifesting as pain.” At that time we were also talking about how our senior pastor’s wife had mentioned at our EHS class that “our body is the best prophet and that we should listen to it.” She had said that most often the emotions we ignore manifest as ailments in our bodies. So, my daughter reminded me of that because she herself had experienced pain in her body before which she identified as an emotion/s she was having right at that time. I thought about it. I said, "I think you're right." A few moments later I realized the pain on my left hand was gone! Totally gone, suddenly, from a ten to a zero! I told my daughter about it and we were shocked! We didn’t even pray for healing nor rebuke any spirit. We just talked about it and it disappeared!
In our next inner healing and deliverance church meeting there were prophetic words being called out and one of them was “shame”. I thought, “That’s me!” So, I went forward to be prayed for, and indeed, nobody else did, just me. I told the lady who called out the prophetic word about how I knew it was me, relating to her the story that happened with me and my daughter at the restaurant.
Then after that I reflected more where the root of this “shame” is coming from for me. I realized that my childhood was very much entrenched in shame. I come from a big family and my parents struggled sending us all to school financially. I remember going to school with holes in my socks. I remember not having a new box of crayons like everyone else whenever the new school year started. I remember I sometimes wore mended uniforms which were hand-me-downs from my older sister. My siblings and I also had to commute farther to school as we lived in the next town from where our city schools were located. I was often late because of lack of transportation and was reproved for it. We also spoke a different dialect from the city school where we studied. So, we spoke our own dialect at home but spoke the city dialect in school although it was just a 30-minute commute away. Often, I forgot to switch and my classmates would laugh at me because it’s the language of "backward rural people." I stood out for the odd and wrong reasons.
Besides all these there had been many embarrassing things I had to go through even in the last 30-40 years of my adult life. They probably should not have injured me inwardly that much but because I had these childhood wounds from shame, whatever embarrassment I have has a spiked effect on me because of that unhealed brokenness.
The trigger finger pain on my right ring finger still went on. I had prayed for its healing but it just won’t seem to go away. I stopped taking the Moringga capsules after I finished that whole bottle. Some months later I attended a Global Awakening (Randy Clark’s ministry) meeting held in our area and I went forward for prayer for that trigger finger. That was in late 2018. When it was my turn for prayer it was revealed that one of the associates had actually received a prophetic word for “trigger finger” but did not call it out. So, I was prayed for and I felt there was a reduction in the pain, from maybe a level 10 to a 6. For many days after that it remained at 6. It was still painful. I thought the healing prayer was just taking time to complete its job. But the pain did not leave at all even after weeks had passed. Finally, I thought, “What if this trigger finger was after all also just caused by ‘shame’, knowing that ‘shame’ seems to be a major issue of my life?” So, I thought, what is there to lose if I just try it? I started rebuking it as shame. I would just speak to it something like, “Shame, you have to leave now! Your cover is blown! You have no right over my body! I am covered by the blood of Jesus!” Or while massaging that finger I would say something like, “Shame, I apply the blood of Jesus upon you now! Go, in the name of Jesus!” Interchangeably sometimes I would also just pray, "Pain / inflammation, you have to leave. You have no place in my body anymore because I am in Christ!"
I did not observe a sudden change but as the days went by just praying that kind of prayer, the pain did reduce and sometimes it’s just a stiffness, and then it was down to zero! I don’t exactly remember when it left but all I know is it’s gone for 2-3 months now. I just know it’s gone! I am healed! And to think it was bothering me for about a year.
I had other healings and deliverances in the past year but suffice it to say God showed up miraculously and tremendously for me. I believe He has greater things ahead of me, not just in healing or knowledge on His healing power but in all of His Ways and Person. I know my narrative will probably get edited or fine-tuned many more times, and there may be more temptations of embarrassments, but I am trusting God at how my uniquely weird life is unfolding. I know my life and testimony are in the safest of Hands. For that I have great expectations and hopes for 2019!
I’m sure you have your own stories, too. Let me know in your comments below. A happy and blessed 2019 to you all!
___________________________________________
All Scripture references are from the 1984 New International Version, unless otherwise specified.
____________________
__________________________________________
This is a reblog. If you wish to read more of my blogs, please log on to www.purejoyland.com www.purejoyland.com
