I wanted to write down a very wonderful thing that happened to me during a Wholeness conference this past weekend. Brother Jack Sheffield was talking to us about the Rest of God and how we could be in his rest and that God wanted us to be whole. He wanted us to do an exercise of sorts with us as a whole group and he asked us to hold out our hands and ask the Holy Spirit to show us things in our lives that had caused us pain or trauma in our lives. Honestly, I did not think that I had anything in me to be revealed. I felt like I had been healed from the abuse from my marriage to my ex husband and that was one major trauma. But I was mistaken. The Holy Spirit shined a spot light onto something I had buried many years ago.
God sometimes doesn’t always do things the way we think they should go. As we sat there with our hands up, I began to think of something that had happened to me 30 years ago. I automatically said No, God, no. I do not want to think of this. I had forgotten this and did not want to talk about it or even think of it. I even said, God this isn’t that big of a deal, I don’t need to get prayer for this, I already forgot about it. But the more I sat there, I tried to find anything else in my past that was painful to think of, but this thing was still there and the light had been shined on this. I began to cry and said, God, how on earth can I possibly even think of this or even remember it. Its so painful. I just kept crying. I know that Brother Jack began to pray with the group as a whole for God to deal with this issue and then had people stand up and talk about what they had experienced and I thought for a minute I was off the hook, that I wouldn’t really have to deal with this painful memory. We then had communion and I just couldn’t quit thinking of my issue. So when they called for prayer, I went straight to Anna Marie and took her hand and said, I’ve got something I need prayer for. I stood there and they asked me what I needed prayer for and I was so embarrassed and ashamed that all I could tell them was that I had suffered a great trauma as a 13 year old and that I couldn’t even say what it was. The tears were coming like a river out of my eyes. I just kept my eyes closed as I knew I had to deal with this horrible thing. I was thinking of that day when I was 13 years old, to a time when a 15 year old boy and I were walking around an empty baseball field in the evening and how he talked me into going onto the field, and when he got me there, he grabbed me and started kissing me, then he raped me. I begged him to stop. I was so shocked at what had just happened I went straight home and I was just shocked. I didn’t talk to anyone about it and I never told a soul about it. I imagine the next time I ever thought of this or talked to anyone about it again was when I was an adult. My family does not know about what had happened to me and I never shared it with anyone except a couple of friends a few years ago.
So here I sat, in front of this church, with people praying for me. They asked me how this made me feel, and I said angry and sad, but it was actually worthless. They asked me what I saw and I said darkness, and they told me to tell the darkness to go. I then saw Jesus walk up to me and hugged me. I told him, Jesus I give all of this to you, I don’t ever want to think of this ever again. I felt such a release. I felt like all those years of hiding this horrible thing that had happened to me, this violation which made me feel worthless for 30 years was gone. I had stuffed this memory down inside me for 30 years! I believe this was a root to a lot of things that had happened to me in my life over the past 30 years. I believe this is just the beginning that God has much more in store for me and I am willing now to allow God to shine that light into the dark places of my life and allow him to take away all of these things and make me a whole person spirit, soul and body.
I am writing this on Monday after the conference and I got this word and scripture in email that covers everything that happened this weekend:
February 27, 2006: There have been places in your life experience where spiritual blindness has kept you from seeing My truth. For, there are dark places in your soul that have not been brought to the light and bondages that have not yet been broken. But, now come to Me in earnest, seeking complete redemption from all that has taken you captive, and you will be released from this darkness. Assuredly I say to you that your light shall break forth like the morning, and your healing shall spring forth speedily, says the Lord.
Isaiah 42:6-9 “I, the LORD, have called You in righteousness, and will hold Your hand; I will keep You and give You as a covenant to the people, as a light to the Gentiles, to open blind eyes, to bring out prisoners from the prison, those who sit in darkness from the prison house. I am the LORD, that is My name; and My glory I will not give to another, nor My praise to carved images. Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them.”. (Small Straws in a Soft Wind by Marsha Burns)