Posted by Dena on April 11, 2005, at 10:40:32
In reply to Re: Williams: Guest expert on depression and anxiety, posted by Dena on April 11, 2005, at 9:14:11
Hmmm... it seems there's no way to edit my post...
Well, I did forget one aspect of my healing, which I believe is important.
I received my healing from a ministry that was outside of my former church. My church had done all that they could to help me (though their methods were heavily shame-based), and I was in despair of ever finding true help. I believed that I'd exhausted the best that the Church and the world had to offer.
The ministry that I turned to was new, but was based on the age-old healing that Jesus Himself had done when He walked this earth. Confronting error and replacing it with Truth.
He did so for me -- He Himself revealed the lies I was believing, and then gave me His truth to replace it. If another human being had done so, it would have merely lodged in my rational mind, having no affect on what was in my belief system.
But because this truth was given to me by God directly, right into my "believer", it had a profound and immediate effect.
The problem came when I tried, in my enthusiastic joy, to share my healing with my former church. They were skeptical, to say the least, and downplayed both the ministry, and my healing -- saying they wouldn't believe it was true until I'd been healed for a year or more. Fair enough. But when the year, in fact when four years of healing, had passed - they remained skeptical.
I couldn't keep quiet about my healing -- that which had dominated me, nearly killed me, for 21 years was GONE. I was free. Even when Jesus healed the blind man, telling him to be quiet, he still couldn't keep silent.
I was then accused of trying to split my church (as some believed me, and sought their own healing from the "outside" ministry, and others were "loyal" to the pastor). I was accused of having a "jezebel spirit", and even of practicing witchcraft (hearkening back to 1620 perhaps?).
I know what God has done for me. I can't renounce it.
We've since left that church, as things progressively worsened, and other abusive and legalistic things were revealed ... (my husband, who was ordained in that denomination, sacrificed all of his training and future plans, to stand by me, and to stand by the various healings that God has since done with me -- within us).
and while my attitude toward many churches has become jaded, my love for Jesus, my desire to follow Him, has increased.
We don't yet know where we "fit" in, regarding a place to fellowship. We've found our needs to connect with others being met in various - even surprising - ways.
I believe it's a shame that many of us who claim to follow Jesus continue to "shoot our wounded".
May God have mercy on us...
poster:Dena
thread:482701
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/faith/20050312/msgs/482755.html