What Happened To Me

For the past couple of weeks, I've been reflecting on how just about every part of my life is completely different than it was five years ago. The life I live now is a stark contrast to the life I once did. Everything has changed. I've recollected on what the trigger(s) were that made everything shift. I've also been questioning why it happened to me when it did and why I don't see it happen to other people very often. And if it is happening, why aren't they talking about it? This sort of thing isn't something that happens without telling people. For goodness sake, this is why Born Again Home and this (as small as it may be) platform exists! It's a way for me to communicate to anyone that'll take the time to read what I've found. My sincere desire is that something you read here will stir you to want what I have for your own life and your family. It changes everything!

So let me first start off by saying, I am in no way superior to anyone else. That is NOT why what happened to me happened. In fact, when this change occurred I was living and acting in a way that deserved the worst of the worst. The way I treated others and myself, and the way I thought was repulsive. I was a legit mess of a person. I did absolutely nothing to deserve what happened 5 years ago. If I'm being honest, I think it was a collaboration of events that led to the shift with an umbrella held over them. That umbrella was a being and that being was Jesus Christ. He is ultimately what led to my change. He is the sole place holder between my old life and the life I now live. But to the person who may be reading this who doesn't yet know Jesus the way I know Him, this sounds super cliche. And I know this because before I knew Him, this is how I thought. I despised people who were Christians that tried to force Jesus on me. To me, they were fake and self-righteous. I couldn't stand their "goodness". And the message of Jesus, that I was raised hearing, just never really penetrated. I never understood. Until I did. So I will begin by sharing with you some of the things that, quite frankly, brought me to the end of myself. To make it easier for me and you, reading, I will list them.

1) Desperation. I was literally suffering from a physical ailment that I thought would kill me. Turns out, it helped end my life alright - just not the physical one. This just so happened to be the last "woe" of a series of them that finally got my attention. I realized during this period how desperate I was for healing - both physically and, though I didn't realize it at the time, spiritually. I knew about God and I prayed to Him. I have journals upon journals of prayers. But He wasn't a part of my life and up until this point, I wasn't really interested in what He had to say. There was such a need in me from as young as I can remember for "the next best thing". I was always searching for something, anything, to fill this need and nothing could do it. It left a void in my heart. Bed ridden, I recollected on all the many things I'd turned to in order to temporarily fill the void and how, yes, all those things had been fun and satisfying for a moment but that was just it - a temporary moment. I was desperate for a permanent solution. I realized how hopeless I was, and I'd be lying if I told you I didn't believe I was suffering because of the poor choices I had made up until this point.

There's a story in the bible about a woman who bled for twelve years. She tried everything to remedy her situation. Nothing helped. One day she saw Jesus walking through a crowd. Knowing she had exhausted all resources and desperate for healing, she pushed and shoved her way to Him and grabbed the hem of his robe as He walked past. He stopped, feeling the power leave Him, and looked down at her. The woman was healed instantly. In a lot of ways, I relate to this woman. I may not have been physically bleeding like she was, but I had come to a point in my life where I was desperate for healing.

2) Truth. Somewhere around this time, in an attempt to salvage our marriage, my husband had signed us up for marriage counseling. I despised it. I didn't want to go at first because, at the time that he signed us up, I was content in my filth and unwilling to disengage from what I had been involved in. But I also wanted my cake and to eat it, too - I wanted the stability of marriage but I wanted to do what I wanted. We went through all but the last session of the therapy program while I faked change. All the while, my heart was still hardened. I told my husband and the counselor what they wanted to hear so we could be done. It wasn't until before the very last session that I was driving down the road when all of a sudden things started coming to my mind - events that had happened in my life that I had been super hurt by. Really awful things that had been done to me that I had suppressed and tried to forget for so long. Like a tidal wave of revelation, the memories flooded in. As soon as I got home I was compelled to start writing them down. Shortly after that, I took a shower. While in the shower, I knew I needed to tell our therapist everything that had come to my mind during our last session with her. I almost couldn't wait to get to therapy so I could tell her everything. Needless to say, once I had gotten everything out, her mouth was on the floor. She decisively concluded her and I needed to have some one-on-one sessions immediately. During one of those sessions, she recommended a book to me that undoubtedly aided in my transformation - "The Bondage Breaker" by Dr. Neil T. Anderson. For the first time in my life, a light was shown on who my real enemy was and how he had tried every which way to steal from me, kill me, and destroy me and everything I loved. "How had I never heard this before?", I thought. This new information changed my life. The truth that I was not fighting people or myself but that there were spiritual forces of darkness that had been after me my entire life was earth shattering.

3) More Truth. As I lay in my bed suffering from excruciating pain and the thoughts that death was surely at the door, I had a moment where I looked outside at my kid's playing and everything was slow motion. Good memories started surfacing in my mind as I watched the smiles on my kid's faces as they chased each other outside. I started thinking about how God had gifted me those children in some of the darkest days of my life. I started counting the ways God had provided and cared for me, all the ways He'd literally saved my life, and how He had been there the whole time. He had been there despite my mistakes, my poor choices, and my failures - He was right by me the whole time. In this moment it became crystal clear how incredibly loved I was. And I knew I was loved despite the mess I had made. In fact, the mess I had made, the people I had hurt, had ZERO bearing on how much God loved me. This, out of everything else, was one of the primary keys that turned the whole thing around. There is an instance in the book of Romans where Paul asks a sobering question. He asks the church of Rome, "do you not know that it's God's kindness that leads to repentance?". The truth that God loved me despite how "bad" I was, in this moment, did in fact lead me to fall on my face before Him and repent.

4) Surrender. Because it was made known to me how loved I actually was, not only did I tell God how sorry I was, but I also surrendered my life to Him. Up until this point, nothing that I had tried worked. All the fleeting pleasures life could offer served me no value. They had all led me to dead ends with no hope in sight. The one thing I hadn't tried was surrendering my life to Jesus. So I very plainly told Him, "I'm ready to follow you now". And it was in that moment that I gave up my ways, my thoughts, and my desires and traded them for His.

I used to hear people talk about "surrendering to God" and I would eye roll. Like what did that even mean? But when you actually realize what a monster you've been and that someone loved you despite, giving all of yourself to that person seems like the right thing.

5) Deliverance. In conjunction with the realization of how no fault of mine could shake how much I was loved by God and "The Bondage Breaker" book, it became clear that God wanted to set me free. He used this book to do so. I prayed the deliverance prayers in the back of the book and for a week straight was holed up, sick, in my room crying and confessing things to God. I want to be very honest with you because it was very obvious to me early on that not a lot of people will talk about this. Why? I'm still not sure. But I can tell you there are many spirits, but there is only One that is Holy. I had been under demonic attack and this was extraordinarily clear. There had been so many footholds that I had opened for the enemy to gain access to my life. Demons had controlled my thoughts and I had allowed them to. Once I surrendered to Jesus, the Holy Spirit filled me and I was awake and taking direction from Him. What followed after being baptized by the Spirit has been incredible and still happening.

My life hasn't been the same. I'm on this adventure with God and it's brought true and lasting satisfaction. Several things in my life that had been destroyed have now been redeemed, including my marriage. I did nothing special. As stated before, I was at my worst when Jesus showed Himself to me. The lie that you have to do all the things to be right before God needs to go back to hell where it came from. God delights in the person who doesn't have it all together and realizes they need help. I pray that if that's you and you're desperate for change like I was, you would just call out to Him. Ask Him to show you how much He loves you. I can't do it for you and no preacher can either. Jesus is the only one that can take your life now and change it.