The Breaking Down of Strongholds

Here is my next post from my "Breaking Free" blogger group and I feel I'm supposed to share:

So I was inspired by Juli's post to post one of my own, because the truth is, I've been set free too! On April 16, I started day 1 of week 6 (Beauty from Ashes). Day 1 was Ashes Instead of Honor. Background story: Earlier this year I went to an Extraordinary Women conference with a good friend of mine. One of the speakers (Angela Thomas, I think?) spoke about trading in our ashes for a crown of beauty (Isaiah 61:3). Afterwards, somehow I knew that I wasn't wearing my crown. A few days later, through this same good friend of mine, God asked me what did I trade in? I thought about it for a while and made a list of things, but I knew that I wasn't hitting the mark. Sin? Anxiety? What was I giving up? The things on my list were true, Jesus did take those things and replace them, but I just knew that somehow that wasn't quite what my ashes were.

Researching the biblical use of ashes really helped me. While going through the study for the day, I knew exactly what this was in reference to for me, and I knew that it should be significant for me, and for most of it, it was. By the time I got to the end of it, though, it felt distant, like it was far-removed from me, like it was 2 lifetimes away or for someone else. I was feeling like there should be something more going on, so I decided to skim ahead a little, and I 'happened' to read this, "In the margin write a prayer expressing to God what you're feeling right now about our lesson so far. If you're not feeling anything, tell Him! A lack of reaction to freeing truth can indicate a stronghold!" Hmmm...okay. So I decided to look at it square in the face and asked myself, "What am I feeling?" First I said, "Well, I'm definitely feeling some kind of resistance..." But no, it wasn't resistance, I decided. When I verbally pushed that label out of the way, I seemed a little bit closer, everything a little bit clearer. "Is it suppression? Am I suppressing this?" No, it's not suppression. Pushed that out of the way. When the other labels were out of the way, I could see everything clearly for what it was, and I was shocked. It wasn't suppression, it was OPPRESSION!! I had been feeling that there was something large holding me back that was right in the center of me, right below my heart in the pit of my stomach. In my mind's eye, I saw a large boulder there with a chain behind it, and I even saw the demon who had been assigned to it peering from behind it! I got the impression that he was the one who had put those other labels there, like his job had been to keep me from recognizing the stronghold for what it was, because he for sure did not want me to find it out! Not trying to scare anyone, so sorry if this is freaking you out, but he was not scary. To be quite honest he was much smaller than I would have thought--only a couple inches tall! Once I had 'pushed' everything out of the way and saw it clearly, it was obvious that there was nothing more he could do. He was completely powerless! AND he was out of a job!

I can trace my stronghold back to one single event, and I just simply was not expecting this to be a stronghold in my life. I had forgiven this person--I truly did not have any unforgiveness in my heart. I had allowed God to heal my heart--my heart wasn't broken any more. What I hadn't done was allowed God to fix my view of ME. My stronghold was shame. I had forgiven, and I wasn't broken, but I was carrying around the weight of shame with me that affected everything about me. I think it was in the center of me because it affected the very core of who I was. I somehow knew that if I worked through it with someone, I could break free. The next day, I sat down with one of my very best friends and told her everything. She worked through it with me, and by the time I was finishing my story, I couldn't help but smile. It was like with every word the weight got lighter, until, finally, the lifting took my mouth with it and it couldn't do anything else but curve! Freedom! Wow! It was absolutely amazing!

Remember how I have been in the same place for 12 years? After I shared that testimony at the women's conference, I asked myself why did I keep saying 12 years? As far as I knew, and as far as my journals showed, God had been telling me the same things since about my junior year in high school, which was only about 10 years ago. Yet it kept coming out of my mouth. 12 years, 12 years. Did I just think that was a good round number? What's with the 12 years thing? After I identified my stronghold, I thought about it. When this event happened, I was 15 years old. Now I'm 27. 12 years.

Later that day, I had to take the dog out. We don't have a fence in our backyard, so we have a large tree that we chain her to. No matter how fast she runs or what she does, she can't go anywhere else except around and around that tree. God showed me that it had been just like that for me. Spiritually, I was chained to that year of my life and just went around and around it, never going anywhere. But I'm not chained anymore! I broke free! Hallelujah!

The night I received the book "Never Give Up" by Joyce Meyer, I read this, "I wonder how many times people give up just before a breakthrough, on the very brink of success. You can feel the same way for ten years and then suddenly, one day you wake up and everything will change." I broke free from my stronghold 2 weeks later to the day.

Thank you all for sharing your own struggles/victories and sharing with me in mine, and thank you so much, Jess, for inviting me to Break Free with you!

Living Water

I have been doing a Bible study by Beth Moore with a blogger group. We are going through her workbook "Breaking Free" and I wanted to share what I posted earlier to the group:

I haven't posted in a while (my husband is still laid off and has been a total computer hog! :), and the last couple of weeks have been incredibly significant for me, so I have a lot to say. This covers a lot of topics so I may even break this up into a couple of posts if it gets too long!

Let me start from the beginning: A couple of week's ago I went to a women's conference at my church. While I was there they gave out door prizes, and I won one of them. No two prizes were alike, and my door prize was a Joyce Meyer book and dark chocolate with mint filling (yum!) During worship, God impressed upon me to share with everyone what had just happened. This is what I shared: "Yesterday I was talking with God about my spiritual walk. I feel like spiritually I've been going in circles. The stuff that God is telling me today is the same stuff that He's been telling me for years, since I was in high school. For 12 years He's been telling me this stuff! I was telling God, I don't know what else to do. I'm doing everything that I know to do, and I'm in the same place now that I was 12 years ago! I don't know what to do. I'm obviously not getting it. I just...I give up."

Then I showed everyone my door prize. The book that I had won by Joyce Meyer was called "Never Give Up."

Receiving that book meant so much to me because it meant two things: 1) God cared enough for me to make it so that whoever was in charge of buying the door prizes would buy that particular book AND He made it so that whenever that book came in line as a door prize MY name was pulled out of the hat. 2) It also meant, in a very real way, that although I had given up on myself, GOD hadn't given up on me! I had faith in God, but I had lost faith in myself. But it was ok, because He carried me. While I had faith in God, HE had faith in ME! How awesome is that?!! He's not disappointed in me--He still has HOPE that I can and will move forward, which means that I can have hope too.

OK, next thing. (FYI: I'm still about a week behind in the study, so this stuff may have been a while ago for you guys.) I really liked what Beth had to say in the audio for week 5. What she said about Living Water filling up every empty place made a lot of sense. Then when she talked about water finding it's way through the keyhole and underneath closed doors, I visualized God filling me with Living Water in every empty place, and filling in my closed rooms by going through the keyholes of my locked doors. Background story: Recently Jesus told me that He comes in from the inside and not the outside. He basically said that, frankly He didn't really care what my spiritual life looked like on the outside! He doesn't come from the outside, but what He saw on the inside was that I had "dark rooms" where I didn't allow Him access. These weren't rooms of sin, necessarily, just dark because they were hidden. To be completely honest, I didn't even know what they were! These were the rooms that I visualized being filled with Living Water. I guess it was my way of allowing Him access. Ironically, they were still closed to me, as I still had no clue what they were, but I did get to see (in my mind) the room flooded with a radiant light that shone through the cracks of the door and the keyhole, which is pretty amazing! My doors might still be closed, but they are no longer dark, because they have been flooded with Jesus' light!

(Living) Water has been a theme that has been coming back to me over and over. God showed me back in September of last year that instead of being empty/full, empty/full, empty/full (which is what I was doing), He wants us to be not only full, but overflowing all the time! This is why he referred to those who drink Living Water as having "a well of water" (John 4:14), and how we can be "like a spring of water whose waters do not fail" (Isaiah 5:11). He told me that He wants us to have "waters to swim in" (Ezekial 47:5). He desires to truly dwell within us, to set up His abode in us! At the same time, we are to abide in Him! (1 John 2:28). I think that this is what was meant by being in "constant communiion with Christ." I don't think it means being 'spiritual' all the time or constantly trying to commune with Him. It means walking in the Spirit, "for in Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). We are to live a life so surrendered to Christ, where we have so allowed Him to fill every empty place with His Living Water, that His glory will overflow, wether we are consciously communicating with Christ or not! If we truly allow Christ to abide in us, then when we are going about our daily tasks, making dinner and doing the dishes, Christ will radiate from our very beings! How awesome is that?!!

I have more to share, but it will have to wait for another day; hopefully soon.

"But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up into eternal life." --John 4:14

"And you will be like a watered garden/And like a spring of water whose waters do not fail." --Isaiah 5:11b

"Again he had measured a thousand; and it was a river that I could not ford, for the water had risen, enough water to swim in, a river that could not be forded." --Ezekial 47:5

"And now, little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming." --1 John 2:28

"And the one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And we know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us." --1 John 3:24