7 Fill my cup

Do you ever reach out of your comfort zone? Ask for God to enlarge your territory? It's a very scary thing at first, especially if there's demons nipping at your heels. About the time Dad died, I begged God to give it some kind of purpose or value for who he wanted me to grow into. I remember about a month after he was gone and I was so shell shocked from his agony, I was trying to piece together sanity and went to a doctor to ask for anything I could take to try to keep it all together. She told me I just needed time. I suppose I didn't articulate my struggles well to her. I was losing it and it hadn't started with Dads illness, it had slowly built ever since I got pregnant with Hazel. My beautiful little Hazel's conception was when Satan saw me weak with inadequacy and lack of self confidence and he made a home in some corner of my soul and started to wreck havoc with my mind. You have to understand Jody and I were coming through an incredible struggle of job loss, moving three times in two years, losing tens of thousands of dollars on a bad real estate investment, a cancer diagnosis and two surgeries and had just beat the Insurance company on a $33,000 medical bill they didn't want to pay. We had been face first in the mud and were literally just getting up on our knees and moving into a rental that actually accommodated our family. I was so overwhelmed with these cares of the world I simply could not imagine how I could be a good enough mom to four kids. Iwould not normally have responded that way to a pregnancy and never had before. I had a very wobbly path after that slowly slipping a little further as time went by, but Dads death tipped me over the edge. Sometimes I was morose, sometimes screaming irrationally at Jody while sobbing so hard I was hoarse, sometimes verbally talking myself out of severe paranoia thinking people hated me or judged me. I had insomnia often sleeping only a couple hours at night. I had several panic attacks but those weren't new, I'd been having them since my pregnancy. Nick was failing in school, always writing about his Poppy for assignments. When the doctor turned me down for drugs I realized I needed to find my way out. I remember sitting in a restaraunt with my friend Jenn and asking her if she thought I was demonically oppressed. I was actually hopeful she would say yes because I know demons can be cast out but she just smiled and said she was sure I was just a little low from losing dad. Another time, I sent Jenny a text and asked her if she thought I could be bipolar. She thought I was joking and told me bipolar people never wonder that. I googled it and she was right. I realized nobody was going to bail me out. I had to do it myself. I started taking vitamins and began reading the gospels. They helped so much. Jesus was real to me again. I thought about him constantly and examined his motives and hidden messages and basked in his love. I happened onto a novel about Mary Magdelane who had seven demons cast out by Jesus and she and her deliverance came alive to me. I was getting better but still stuck. I joined a Bible Study that sounded like it was about being like Jesus. It turned out to be a long standing group of ladies battling codependency. I wasn't familiar with the term so I bought the book on it. As I read the book, my off kilter world began to right itself. I was able to identify problems in my life. All along Jenn kept talking about the healing prayer ministry. After deciding I was codependent, I realized I had no pride. I called Glenda with the healing prayer ministry at Jenns church and scheduled my first session. I had no idea what to expect but it was the most amazing experience of my life. Glenda asked me why I was there and I told her I just wanted joy back. I used to be so happy and it had been years since I'd had that. She told me that joy would be a result of healing in time, not an instant gratification. To have a time where someone was actually helping me connect my broken self to God and strip away all that was impairing my relationship with him was amazing. I was allowed to have this time to talk about all of my problems and ask the Holy Spirit where they came from and get answers. Glenda and Jenn pulled away the cobwebs and led me straight to Jesus and asked him to heal my hurts. There's no other way to describe what happened. They were so confident he was going to do it that I never doubted it myself. I went three times and every time I was restored a little more. There's been things in my personality I could never master like my temper. What I've learned this year is that no I never could have, but by Gods grace I can let Him master it day by day and the relief of this realization is just beyond profound. In healing prayer we found the roots of my feelings of inadequacy to raise four kids and denounced Satans lies, we broke the lines to my anger at family members, we found the roots of my codependency and broke Satans power there. We denounced his lies that I'm a bad friend to people which has been crippling me for years. I don't know what all we did through the work of the Holy Spirit but it felt so good and right and true. Now, I recognize Satans lies immediately. 

Friday I will be taking a two day healing prayer training. I'm so excited for this opportunity to learn more about Gods power and feel that he sent it to me as he leads me on a very exciting journey. Anyway, I'm getting more joyful. 😄