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.
