The lies we believe and the truth that sets us free!

For years now, I have struggled with my weight, I have also struggled with clutter. During much of that time I have appeared to have my life altogether. I had an amazing career in TV news for 29 years. I was the first in my family to go to college. I am the daughter of immigrants who gave up everything, even their identity as citizens of another country to become citizens of a country where they were not necessarily wanted or appreciated. To many I seemed to have it altogether living the American Dream.

But I was tormented by lies; lies that stole my identity, that robbed me of who I really am. Those tormenting lies kept me defeated and overwhelmed. I felt overwhelmed by my weight, overwhelmed by my clutter. The weight on my body, people could see, but the clutter in my home most did not see. I would only allow them to see areas I worked diligently to keep organized, clean and clutter-free. I wanted to have the appearance of having it all together but deep inside the hidden places, there was torment that was keeping me imprisoned. I was imprisoned in a body, and imprisoned in a home that is beautifully constructed, a truly beautiful home. But in the hidden areas my home was not beautiful because it was full of clutter and junk everywhere, sometimes hindering the use of a room, or its purpose. We have a 3 car garage but have never used it as such because it is literally full of boxes and stuff that we have not used in the 6 years we have been here. I hate going in there because I hate how I feel going in there.

For years, I have read many books on clutter and organizing. I have also done a lot of praying for change, for revelation, for the why of this continued disaster, helplessness I feel to do anything about it. I’ve been through lots of counseling, lots of ministry, lots of deliverance. I’ve even identified ungodly beliefs that I was believing about myself and replaced them with God’s beliefs about me, but they were not MY truths, I didn’t OWN them. The lies were entrenched and hidden even deeper than I knew. But this season of my life is coming to a close as God has brought true revelation to what is going on in the hidden places.

I listen to and follow many Christian speakers. I’ve also gone to many conferences to learn new things. Recently, I was watching a Facebook Live post done by Jennifer Eivaz. She was praying for people for supernatural weight loss. I went through the prayer and didn’t think much of it. Then the next day she made another post sharing testimonies of people who had dropped weight overnight and one thing she said really stood out to me. She said she found that many, many women said they had gained weight to protect themselves from the stares of men. When I read that, it made me realize, oh my that is me, and quickly my mind went back to the many times men would look at me and I felt like they just wanted to devour me with their lust. I remembered how as a little girl I was molested by my cousin, and I had no choice in the matter, I had no voice, I was helpless. No one came to my rescue, no one knew what was happening to me. I learned to hate my female body that God had made, because to have that body was to be taken advantage of, to be hurt, to satisfy someone else’s passions, and there was nothing I could do.

I remember as a teenager, being at a family funeral with lots of people I didn’t even know, and this man was looking at me with such lust I wanted to crawl under a chair. His wife saw what was happening and looked at me angrily, like it was my fault that he was looking at me like that. I felt dirty, I hated my body and I hated my breasts, because that’s what he was staring at, and it’s not like I was dressed provocatively. It was such a horrible feeling.

As a young teenager, I helped my dad at his restaurant. Unfortunately, that coffee shop was just a block away from a science and engineering school where most of the students were young men. It seemed like my Dad’s coffee shop was the place for them to hang out. I hated being there, I felt like a slave with no voice, a slave with no choice, and it was there I learned to numb my pain with food.

Time to come back to the present, Jennifer Eivaz said she was going to pray again this time on Periscope for supernatural weight loss focusing on the pain and hurt for the women who had gained weight as a means of protection. I never listened to the Periscope because I knew I would probably cry my eyes out and I was afraid to feel that pain.

That same day I watched a webinar on clutter, put on by a Christian group. The woman on the webinar asked the question: “Are you believing a lie?” She said, “When you believe a lie you empower the enemy!” Then she said, “The only pre-requisite to getting rid of the clutter is the willingness to change. Are you willing to change?” Wow! I don’t know why these words hit me deep into my core. I knew the lie I had believed about clutter and that overwhelmed feeling was “It will never change, so why bother!”

I stopped the webinar, because it was just so overwhelming for me – I realized that lie I believed had me imprisoned.

Well, this past Friday, I had decided to go to a prayer meeting where they were going to talk about the healing of emotional pain. This woman, who is about my age, got up and shared her testimony. She shared how she had been molested repeatedly by five different men when she was a little girl. She shared how she had become a tough woman, who pretty much depended on herself, because God was not answering her prayers. She shared how her life changed when she got pregnant and realized she wanted to protect her baby. She turned to God, she was born-again and spirit filled, and sought God with everything she had.

She said she asked the Lord to show her how to heal the pain she had. As part of her healing the Lord had her in prayer place each of her abusers in a chair and tell them what she felt. She shared all that she felt, and how she hated them because they took away her voice, and there was nothing she could do to protect herself. Suddenly I realized wow! That’s exactly how I felt. I have no voice! 

The Lord let her know she has a voice, and he was restoring it, she chose to forgive those child abusers, and God restored her voice! Now she is helping others with their pain, to get healing.

After her testimony people were asked to go up for prayer. I sat and prayed that Father would let me speak to her and thank her for sharing her testimony. I wanted to let her know how much her testimony meant to me and how I had found out through her testimony the lie that I had believed all my life, “I have no voice! Things are done to me but I am not allowed to say no.”

When I was done praying I saw that she had just finished praying with someone, so I went up for prayer. I shared with her what had happened to me. She prayed for me, and then she asked if she could just hug me. I said sure, and she told me Father loved me and cared about me and wanted me to release all my pain. Inside I felt like there was a dam holding back so much pain that if I let it forth I would not stop crying. And then suddenly she just started crying, and crying and crying, truly she was wailing in pain, I knew she was feeling my pain for me. I’ve had that happen when I’ve prayed for people, but I’ve never had someone feel my pain and cry like that for me. Eventually I was able to cry and let out some deep pain, but I felt like Father was taking what I could not handle and letting this woman cry in my place. I felt so loved by God.

I felt so very thankful that I finally discovered the real lie I had been believing since childhood! I believed I had no voice! But God! He is restoring my voice. It was such a powerful experience I pretty much went to bed as soon as I got home.

The next morning, I got some text messages from a couple of friends who wanted me to go to hear this guy Jonathan Welton. The name sounded familiar and I realized wow, I think that’s the guy I saw interviewed by Patricia King & who has a bible college. Recently, I’ve been feeling like I want to go to bible school, but I didn’t know which one, and I remembered the guy I had seen interviewed by Patricia King and had asked the Lord to help me find him again. Voila, Father had two friends let me know I needed to hear this guy! They didn’t know I had asked God to help me find information on his bible school! And now here he was in town, and I could go see him speak in person! Wow! I had no idea what he was going to speak about but I wanted to go, and felt like this was one of those God adventures!

I have to say, the worship was so powerful, I felt God’s very presence in the room with us. Dr. Welton had us do an exercise on the three greatest lies that were holding us back. As my first most powerful lie I wrote “Nothing is going to change, so why bother.” I wrote that because for the longest time, this is what has come up for why I don’t lose weight, and why I have so much clutter in my home. It pretty much was my excuse for everything I thought was too hard! Dr. Welton wanted us to counter the lie with a truth. I was thinking, o-k I’ve done this many times, in healing and deliverance sessions, and usually I come up with a scriptural truth of what God says about me, but this time it was different. Dr. Welton said, “You need to own it.” He even had people share their lie and their truth, and then helped them own it. As I saw and heard him transform their original truth into a truth each person could truly own, and feel empowered by; a light bulb went off in my head. It’s like God was shining light on my lie which was partially true, but the true lie was “I don’t have a choice! I don’t have a voice!” That was the basis for all the lies that have followed. That little girl didn’t have a choice, that little girl didn’t have a voice! That little girl for decades now still believed that nothing was going to change because I had no choice! 

The revelation was so, so amazing to me! I also felt like this was the biggest God set-up ever! The biggest answer to prayer EVER! But it took time, and each of these different people played a part over several days in me getting this life-giving truth finally revealed to me! It’s like he wove a tapestry together using different people who had no idea what was going on. That’s my God! That’s my Dad! He loves me so much! He knows what I need – he hears and answers prayer!

Then this morning I woke up from a dream which, by the way, I’ve been dreaming regularly, nearly every night since I first heard Jennifer Eivaz pray on her Facebook Live post. In the dream I was walking through what seemed to be a massive resort with not a lot of people, but lots of paths. There were pools of water for swimming, There were spa-like places for relaxing and being pampered, but what stood out were the many walking paths without signs or directions, just paths. Anyway, I was walking along a path, and realized I had been living and sleeping in a room there at the resort that I really didn’t like and I decided I didn’t want to be in that room any more. I decided I’m getting out and going somewhere else. So I did, and suddenly I was walking on a path and it was beautifully landscaped with lots of flowers and I was excited to see where I was going.

 The next thing I know I’m working in a room with cubicles. I was working on a computer and there were other people I knew. One person in particular stood out. For some reason, she was leaving, and I was going to work on her computer. So I was working away, don’t know for how long, but her husband comes by and says wow, what are you still doing here, why are you working away? And then his wife comes by and is astonished I’m still there. I said, I wanted to get the work done, and I’m leaving now.

So, I’m going out of the building and I run into some people that I either worked with or knew from my past. They smiled and waved goodbye as I walked along the path, and then I realized I need to go the bathroom. Just before I get to the door of the bathroom, my pants suddenly fall off, because they are too big on me. I was suddenly slim and healthy! I quickly grabbed my giant pants, looked around quick to see if anyone had seen what had happened and ran into the bathroom. While I was in a stall some of the ladies I had run into earlier came in and said – are you ok? We saw your pants literally fall off your body in an instant! Then I woke up!

I am so thankful for this great work God is doing in me! Nothing could be better than the love and truth He is showing me about my life, my hurts, my pain and how the enemy lied to me. I now see how I gave away my power to the enemy by believing that lie. I was blind but now I see and can truly say and believe I DO HAVE A CHOICE, AND I DO HAVE A VOICE! THANK YOU JESUS!