The Voice is Silenced

The Voice is Silenced

God has blessed me in many ways, one could argue He owed me!  One of the things He’s blessed me with is the way He communicates with me in different ways.  That’s not to say He doesn’t communicate with all of us, but He’s allowed me keep my eyes and ears open for Him and to notice when He’s talking to me.  It can be through reading, music, a beautiful sunset or spring day, a new thought coming to me, speaking to me verbally or in the form of visions.  The visions I receive are kind of like daydreams, I’m awake but my mind receives an image of something that is like a play or movie scene taking place in front of me.  I’ve had several of them and one of the commonalities is that they come when I’m in God’s presence through scripture and prayer.  If there’s one thing I can suggest wholeheartedly is that if you want to experience God in a real way, spend lots of time with Him.  Stay in His presence, keep your eyes and ears focused on Him, and He will speak to you in a number of ways.  You’ll have answers just pop into your head, you’ll start seeing helpful thoughts jump off pages of the Bible, you’ll have lyrics of a song speak to you in new ways, and in some cases you may see visions.  The key is to be consistent, even through hard times when it’s easy to lose focus or give up hope.  It’s a test, God wants to grow your faith but you need to trust Him, and you show Him that trust by staying in communication with Him even when things aren’t going your way.  It’s proof that you believe in Him, you believe in His plan for you, and that you know He will take care of you.

One of my most powerful visions was about my mother...shocker!  I had started writing this book and many revelations started coming to me, I started understanding my mother and myself in new and deeper ways.  A very important thing I started realizing was how my mother’s voice was continuing to live on in my head and control me, with devastating effects.  I knew it was there and that it was a serious issue for me, but I didn’t realize how controlling it was and that her voice was at the center of all my problems.  Every problem I had was tied to her voice inside my head, even issues I had that I believed were the fault of someone or something else was really driven by her negative voice speaking to me or my wanting desperately to avoid that voice.  I lied to people about things I did because I didn’t want her voice saying “I told you so”, I felt terrible about myself because of years of hearing that voice say “You’re a fat ugly loser!”,  I didn’t want to socialize because I didn’t want to give her voice a chance to say “I told you no one would like you”, I didn’t want to take any risks for fear that I’d fail and give her the chance to say “You’re a pathetic loser!”.  It was always about that voice. 

After I spent a week thinking about this concept a very clear vision come to me in two pieces, I’m guessing it came in pieces because God knew I wouldn’t be able to handle it at once.  The first part of it was pretty simple, and didn’t last that long but the importance of it was clear.  My mother and I were standing apart from each other, me seeing it from the side kind of like looking up at a stage with two characters facing each other.  It was dark so you could see mostly just silhouettes but I could still tell it was me and my mother.  I started walking towards her and she started badgering me with insults, the usual “You suck and everyone knows it” type stuff but I kept walking towards her anyway.  What I couldn’t see at first was that there was someone next to me walking with me.  When I got close to her, with her still yelling at me, I held my hand out to the side and said “Mother, I’d like to introduce you to my new friend.  I believe you know Him, His name is Jesus Christ.”

As I said that I turned and you could see Christ standing there looking at her, she had a panicked look on her face as if she knew she was busted.  In this first part of the vision all I heard was Christ saying to her ‘Hello Joan”, and then their voices trailed off as I walked away leaving them there to talk.  At this point I didn’t realize I was going to receive a second part to the vision, but the meaning of just this first part of the vision was very clear to me and I immediately knew the power that it contained.  I had been working for a little while on going to battle against my mother’s voice with God’s help, realizing that her voice was not the voice of God but of the devil in the form of her mental illness.  I started writing down the negative comments her voice would say to me, and then writing down what God’s view would be to try and replace or fend off her negative comments with more positive Godly comments.  This part of the vision was a visual representation of that same idea, I left my mother and her negative comments in the hands of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, good luck to her!

The day after the first part of the vision came to me there was a little part of me that was hoping that Jesus would really stick it to her, it’s like a part of me was cheering Him on saying “Go get her Jesus!”  But it didn’t take but a few seconds for me to snap out of that and know that’s not how the conversation was going.  I had read enough scripture to realize Jesus is about love and forgiveness, not judgment and condemnation.  I had also gone through a process of my own forgiveness of her.  So I knew the conversation between them would be about healing and not retribution, what I didn’t know was that I’d actually see it.

   

About a week later the rest of the vision came to me.  It picked up right where the first part left off, with Jesus saying to her “Hello Joan.”  The rest of the encounter went like this…

Jesus – “Why are continuing to torment John?”

Mother – “He’s a horrible person!  He’s shameful and disgusting!”

Jesus – “That’s not true, John is a child of God.”

Mother – “He’s disgusting! You know what he’s done.”

Jesus – “I know what was done to John, I know what John was the victim of.”

Mother – “It was all his fault!  He’s such a pathetic, fat, ugly shameful boy that your father told me to do it.  He told me John needed to be punished!”

Jesus – “My father would never say that about one of His children, He does not create shameful children.  My father is John’s father, and loves John as He loves me.”

Mother – “I’m his mother!!  I know how terrible John is!  I will never let him forget that!”

Jesus – “The Lord is John’s father first and foremost, and no one speaks of John with more authority then the Lord.”

Jesus – “There is indeed something terrible here Joan, but it is not John and it is not you.”

Jesus then walked over to my mother and touched her, saying…

Jesus - “You are healed”.  

At that point my mother’s body went limp and Jesus caught her in His arms.  As she was falling I could see a dark spirit coming out of her body, it looked like a ghost and came out of her chest .  I could tell it wasn’t leaving voluntarily as her body was being pulled in its direction as it left her, but Jesus was holding onto her and the spirit was forced out of her.  It was floating in the air at this point, a dark ghost like figure without a distinctive face but it was clearly evil.  While it was floating it turned and looked back at Jesus holding onto my mother, not wanting to leave.  The last thing Jesus said was…

Jesus – “Be gone.”

The spirit then left going thru the ground and disappeared.  I looked back at Jesus holding onto my mother who was still limp in His arms.  She wasn’t conscious but I could tell she was breathing.  Jesus then looked towards me and smiled, and ascended into the sky with my mother.   

Needless to say this experience was pretty overwhelming, but the meaning of it was clear.  God was telling me that she was freed from the dark spirit that caused her to do what she did, and drove her to say the things she said to me.  He was letting me know that her words were not His words, that He did not tell her to punish me and did not believe any of those things she said to me.  He was telling me that she was healed, and that He would heal me over time as well.  And most importantly He was telling me that He loved me and always has, and that I am His child and He will protect me from the darkness that had tried to drag me down so often. 

The voice that had tormented me for my whole life had been silenced by my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  He had stepped in and protected me from the spirit that had kept me in a state of despair for most of my life.  You may ask why He waited so long, why didn’t God just step in sooner, help me out when I was much younger.  But He was waiting for me, it was me that wasn’t listening while He was trying to talk to me.  Every time He saved me, God was waiting for me to look towards Him so that he could talk to me.  I had to turn my eyes and ears towards God to receive the messages He wanted me to hear.  By spending time with Him thru scripture and prayer, He had a way to communicate with me.  If we’re not willing to listen, we can’t blame Him for not talking to us.  It’s not God’s fault that these things happened to me, my mother was controlled by a spirit she couldn’t break herself from.  And while she was “religious” and went to church and prayed, she was only hearing the messages she wanted to hear, she was only listening to the dark spirit which twisted God’s words and led her astray.  And for decades I turned away from Him, continuing to believe what she told me and assuming that her words were true.  I spent years believing God hated me, I wasn’t listening to Him but instead put my mother’s voice before His.  But God faithfully waited for me to turn my eyes up to the Lord, and He was there waiting for me and ready to pull me out of the darkness I was in.  As I spent time with Him the Lord spoke to me, and He let me know the truth. 

A week in the life of an abuse survivor

My goal here is to describe the thoughts that go thru my mind when I struggle, to offer some insight into what abuse does to someone's mind.  If you are a survivor and have similar thoughts I hope you find some comfort in that you are not alone, and maybe you can find some encouragement in the experiences I have had.  If you have someone in your life that is a survivor maybe this can offer you some insight into why we act differently in certain situations.


This is definitely not a pity party, I don't want or deserve one.  We all have crosses to bear and mine are no worse then any others.  My wounds are deep, no doubt, but the person who caused them died 34 years ago and I have to take responsibility for not opening my eyes to the healing power of God's love until recently.  I ignored Him for decades and I payed the price, only by exposing my wounds to the healing power of His love will I recover, better late then never but I took a long time to figure that one out.

This is also most definitely not particularly fun, there are parts of this story that are downright embarassing.  But my wounds need to be exposed to God openly, and by sharing them and letting them free they will no longer control me.  Only by hiding and isolating myself can the devil control me, those days are over. He will continue to try and use my past against me to slow me down, to take me off my path towards God, but I have a mighty warrior on my side and He will not fail me.

A quick summary of my issues is probably in order, for those who may not know.  Starting when I was 4 or 5 years old my mother physically and mentally abused me, it lasted until I was 11 when she killed herself.  She was no longer able to live with herself, she couldn't stop herself so in an attempt to protect me from further damage she took her life.  Unfortunately the damage was done.  The memories were so devastating that I blocked them for about a decade, during my teen years I had no recollection of what happened, but I knew I was broken, I just didn't know why.  What I've realized over the years is that it was the mental abuse that did far more damage. It has molded how I feel about myself, it has left me with a degree of self doubt and self hatred that I wouldn't wish on anyone.  

So what does "mental abuse" mean? In my case what it consisted of is my mother teaching me to hate myself, to think of myself as a complete failure and unworthy of love.  How does one do that you might be asking....or maybe not.....doesn't really matter cause I'm going to tell you anyway :)  These are the types of things she would tell me every day:
"No one will ever love you"
"You are pathetic, disgusting loser"
"If you tell anyone about what we do together they will know how disgusting and horrible you are"
"This is all your fault, its happening because even God hates you and refuses to protect you"
"I'm the only one that will ever love you"
"Everyone hates you, they put up with you because you are so pathetic. But if you ever do anything wrong they'll never talk to you again"
"You are a horrible, ugly, disgusting, fat loser and an embarassment to everyone that knows you"
"Everyone that knows you would be better off if you were never born"
"No one else will ever love you, you are too pathetic to be loved, I'm the only one that would ever put up with you enough to be with you"
"If you are ever with anyone else you will be cheating on me. Are you going to cheat on your own mother?"

Thats enough to give you the idea, I'm sure you notice a theme! Not exactly empowering and encouraging.  What's worse is that she trained me to tell myself these same things.  I can still remember sitting in my bedroom repeating these same words to myself day after day, hour after hour, over and over again until they were so embedded in my brain that they became subconscious.  And once that kind of self hatred is subconscious it affects your whole life.  An image I often use to understand how my mind works is that I see the world thru colored lenses, the tint decides how I internalize what happens in my life.  A rose colored lens would have me seeing the world in a positive, encouraging way.  A dark lens leaves me seeing everything in a negative way, glass half empty, that has been me most of my life. 

When you are convinced that you are a horrible person its hard to be super confident, or even the slightest bit confident. The area of my life this has had the greatest impact is my personal life, which probably isn't surprising considering the source.  You know that saying that no one will love you if you don't love yourself, ding ding ding they nailed that one! You'd think I was living my life trying to prove that correct.  So long story short my personal life has been a complete disaster, and every rejection served to reinforce what my mother told me and convinced me she was correct.  

Funny thing is that the answer was right in front of me all along, and I refused to see it. The answer is God, His love for me, His forgiveness, His ability to take my shame from me,  His healing power.  When I finally became a believer in God and accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, I was immediately struck with the understanding that God loves me and has deemed me worthy, that His love is so overwhelming that He gave up His Son for my salvation, that He has a plan for me and a purpose for my life, and that He will look out for me and guide my steps to fulfilling that purpose. It was a moment that changed my life, as it changed the color of the lens with which I look at the world. He has given me a new life, He has given me a purpose and a reason to live, and He has told me that my life has meaning and that I'm one of His creations...and that He doesn't make mistakes.  

But that doesn't mean my past has disappeared, or that all my memories just vanished.  We all have our struggles, those weaknesses that haunt us, and this is mine.  I will always struggle with self doubt and hatred, my mothers voice will probably never leave my head, and the devil will always have this to attack me with.  And one thing I've noticed since being baptized is that whenever I make a significant step in the right direction towards God I get tested by these old demons.  Negative thoughts start creeping into my mind, self doubt takes over, the decisions I feel like God is calling me to make start looking like things I can't do, or I'll fail at.  I have this terrible habit of imagining conversations with people, and all the devil has to do is plant the wrong conversations in my daydreaming mind and off I go to doubting myself.  Here's how it usually happens, and yes the fact that its coming up on Valentine's Day doesn't help.
"So John what are you doing for Valentine's Day?"
"Nothing"
"What do you mean? Don't you have a Valentine?"
"Ha! Good one, thats funny. No, those types of things don't happen to me."
"Ok, so how's work?"
"Lousy, seems like no matter what I do and how hard I work its never good enough."
"Well that doesn't sound fair."
"My boss hates me, nothing I do changes that."
I really need a new hobby!

So you can see how easily I can slip into a negative state of mind where I would doubt myself and my ability to accomplish the dreams God has placed in my head. And this started happening to me a few weeks ago.  I've been mulling over some major decisions, next steps I believe God is calling me to make. And here comes the negative talk in my head, the doubts, the questions.  But I am slowly learning that my God won't let me be tested alone, and won't let me face problems without the solution being made available to me.  Each time this has happened He has helped me thru the test, He was using the test to teach me something, there was a lesson I needed to learn thru this trial and He was going to let me see it as long as I stayed in his presence. No matter how I felt I stayed the course, I kept reading scripture, I kept praying and I kept asking Him for help.  I prayed for the strength to get thru this latest test, and most importantly I thanked Him for this opportunity to grow and stretch my faith.  That prayer made a big difference for me as it put me in the mindset to look for the lesson, to accept that He is in control and was using this rough patch for good.  Slowly the lessons started coming, scripture started leaping out at me, positive thoughts started entering my mind and I started fighting back against the negative thoughts that had invaded my brain.  

These are just some of the more memorable moments:
Driving to work one morning I was listening to Rend Collective and the song "Joy" which I love!  I've listened to this song 50 times at least, but there's a line in there that I never noticed before, until this one morning.  The song was playing and I heard a voice say "Listen", and this is the lyric I heard "The dark is just a canvas for your grace and brightness".  This may not sound like much, but it meant the world to me that morning.  What is meant to me is that the dark times in my life are not without purpose, they are forming me into the person God needs me to be.  God shines brightest in those that are broken, His greatest glory comes from shining His light into the darkness and showing us the way out, and He has done that for me. Psalms 147:3 says "He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds". It is thru this healing that God shows his greatness, those of us are broken provide the opportunity for His light to shine.  I was so overwhelmed by His presence that I cried the rest of the drive into work.  This is just one of the lessons He showed me this week, I needed this particular reminder that we learn and grow when times are tough, and that I needed to keep praising Him in all things because He is using everything that happens in my life for good. He is leading me to where He needs me to be.

One of the daily devotionals I read is from Tony Dungy, called Uncommon Life. During this week two very important messages jump off the page.  The first spoke directly to the decisions I've been mulling over, and said simply that if dreams enter your mind in the process of seeking God's will and purpose for your life you should follow them.  He would not have placed them in your heart if they weren't important.  The scripture he pointed to is Romans 12:2, which speaks of letting God transform us and change our minds so that we can see His will for us, which is good and pleasing and perfect. This is exactly what had been happening to me, He has placed dreams in my mind that were showing me His will for me.   But the negative thoughts I started having were causing me to doubt whether I was capable of pulling it off.  This simple passage was a reminder of who is in charge, and whom I've committed my life to serving.  It gave me the confidence to realize that God had planted these dreams in my head, and that it was my job to make them a reality in order to serve Him.  It also helped me put my life into a different perspective, that I have very deep wounds that need to heal. That God is the only one that can heal me, but it will take time.  And while that process is taking place He will use this situation for good and move me in a direction that requires me to give Him my full attention. 

The other passage from Uncommon Life that moved me was about how to define success.  Dungy wrote of his first book and the temptation to worry about how many copies it sold.  But he realized that success had to be measured in how he was living his life and whether he was fulfilling God's purpose for him.  The scripture he pointed to was Isaiah 55:8-9 which speaks of His way being higher then our ways, and His thoughts being higher then our thoughts. It caused me to think about my life in a different way, I had been letting negativity get into my head by defining myself as a failure because of my difficulties in my personal life.  Its easy to do in our culture, I realize that I'm an oddball in a world that assumes everyone should have been married a few times by my age.  Its easy to define myself a failure based on my facebook status, but thats not God's definition.  I have one standard to live up to, God's, and He doesn't really care about my facebook status.  He cares about whether I'm seeing this world thru His eyes, and working to fulfill His purpose for me in this life, and whether I'm bringing scripture to life thru my actions and demonstrating to others what He has done for me by letting Him transform me into something greater.  That is my only standard, and that is the only thing that will decide whether my life is a success or not.

Another message that jumped out at me along this week was that my body and mind is a gift from God, it is not mine to do whatever I want with.  In order to stay on the right track and serve Him best I need to keep my mind moving in the right direction.  These fights with negativity slow me down, cause me to doubt myself and pull my eyes away from God.  In order to get the most out of the days He gives me I need to be mentally sharp and in a positive mindset.  I need to put the rose colored lens on and keep it there. The next day I woke up with a vision of a war raging between good and evil, God and satan, in the form of my mind and who rules over it.  I have declared war on my negative thoughts as they are the only thing that can keep me from seeing myself as God sees me, and the only thing that will stop me from fulfilling His purpose for me.  The first battle started that morning, I decided to stop whatever i was doing when negative thoughts entered my mind and write them down.  Then I would write down what God's words would be on that subject, immediately replacing the negative thought with God's view of me.  You see I have realized that these negative thoughts are not from God, and whatever isn't from God can be ignored. 
Here is an example:
Thoughts turning negative with all the stress of the list of items to complete at work, anxiety building as to my ability to finish and people getting mad at me.  The old challenges of valuing myself if I'm not perfect, if I'm not perfect people will hate me so my tension level rises.  God says I'm doing my best and He will take care of everything, I need not worry because He will provide all I need and He'll take care of everything and bring me all that is meant to be.  He tells me not to worry, that everything will get done because He is with me and I need not stress.
If I am to fulfill the purpose He has for me I need to see myself as He does.  I need to see myself with His loving eyes, and realize that He's planned out my steps because He knows I can succeed.  If I see myself with my mother's eyes I'll never live up to what He needs me to be, and that would be a sin against His vision of me.  He has a role for me to play in His great symphony, and in order to play my part I need to let Him be the master of my mind.

Even though I had a rough few weeks, I have learned some very important lessons. He has helped me fight against the negative thoughts to move forward with the plans for my next steps, with the confidence that He placed these dreams in my head to lead me in the direction He needs me to go.  He has shown me how to measure myself, by His standards and not by worldly standards.  He has shown me how to replace negative thoughts with His thoughts, to accept His vision of me as one of His children that He loves and has great plans for.  It has been a difficult few weeks but well worth it, He has set my course and placed my next steps in front of me.  Not a bad week!