An Almost Testimony

I was shown something and I just want to share for those of you sending me encouragement.

It would appear that ive been trying to fix my depression before I fully submit. Thinking it was my depression keeping me from him. (Satan you liar).If I'd just gone to him as I am, healing would be a given. There is no fixing without God so as I stated before, I've been in his way.

If you said that in a reply and i missed it, message received.

You are honest before God and pliable to His teachings...God will reward you for that. Seek Him now with 98.8% of your heart and He will reveal Himself to you. Wait that didn't sound right...Hmmm..Oh, He says 100% all your heart and mind and spirit. You have Him talking now just sit in front of Him to hear the answers. And when He talks don't just listen; learn. Learning implies a change of behavior. Obey Him. I am always available for any more specific questions if you need me....always open! God bless you richly, your humility has touched my heart as well.

"It is finished"

A good memory along with those perfect words. I'm already being made new. I can so rarely recall a positive moment from childhood. This is good. Very very good. Already the negativity is leaving me and I'm being filled with love.
I remembered my family cleaning house and singing along to the stereo. We had Petra on. That was a good day. Thank you Jesus

I think of my family and I'm smiling. Lol. Its not me. Its Jesus!

Being Set Free and Living Free 1994 Gospel Light
Permission granted to photocopy

Don’t wait to forgive until you feel like forgiving. You will never get there. Your emotions will begin to heal once you have obeyed God’s command to forgive. Satan will have lost his power over you in that are and God’s healing touch will take over. For now, it is freedom that will be gained, not necessarily a feeling.

As you pray, God may bring to mind painful memories that you had totally forgotten. Let Him do this, even if it hurts. God wants you to be free; forgiving these people is the only way. Don’t try to excuse the offender’s behavior, even if it is someone close to you.

Remember that forgiveness is dealing with your own pain and leaving the other person to deal with God. Good feelings will follow in time. Freeing yourself from the past is the critical issue right now.

Don’t say, “Lord, please help me to forgive.” He already is helping you and will be with you all the way through the process. Don’t say, “Lord, I want to forgive” because that bypasses the hard choice we have to make. Say, “Lord, I forgive.”

As you move down your list, stay with each individual until you are sure you have dealt with all the remembered pain, everything they did that hurt you, and how they made you feel. (rejected, unloved, unworthy, dirty, etc)

It’s time to begin. For each person on your list pray aloud:

Lord, I forgive…….for (say what they did to hurt you)…even though it made me feel…(share the painful memories for feelings).
Conclude with:
Lord, I choose not to hold any of these things against (name) any longer. I thank You for setting me free from the bondage of my bitterness toward him (or her). I choose now to ask You to bless (name). In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Overcoming Resentment
Norman Vincent Peale

FIRST: When anyone hurts you, put spiritual iodine on the wound at once. That is, pray hard about it. If you do not do this, it will fester
SECOND: If resentment has hardened in your thoughts, apply grievance drainage. That is, open your mind and let the grievance flow out.

THIRD: Do this by unburdening yourself to a trusted counselor or write a letter to the person against whom you have the resentment. Then tear it up and, while holding the pieces in your hand, pray for the person and forgive them.

Fourth: Become fully aware of the harm resentment can do to you, even to making you ill. Think of that whenever a hate thought comes.

FIFTH: Don’t stop with forgiving a time or two. Do it, if necessary, seventy times seven----490 times to be literal.

SIXTH: Thinking about forgiving is not enough. You must come to a specific moment when you say, “With God’s help, I now forgive.”

SEVENTH: Repeat the Lord’s Prayer inserting your offender’s name, “Forgive me my trespasses as I forgive…”

EIGHTH: Pray for the other person, asking specific blessings for them, especially concerning matters which have previously annoyed you the most.

NINTH: Speak in a kindly and complimentary manner and as often as possible about the person against whom you harbor antagonism.

TENTH: Make a sincere study of the personality factors which created an unhappy relationship so the “mistake pattern” in yourself may not recur.
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I posted these because I know from personal experience, possibly the hardest thing we face in this life is the ability to forgive. If you've never heard of Corrie Ten Boom, I encourage you to read her novels...particularly "The Hiding Place" and "Tramp for the Lord".

Here's an excerpt I think you will appreciate...
“It was in a church in Munich that I saw him—a balding, heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear. It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives.
“It was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land, and I gave them my favorite mental picture. Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander’s mind, I liked to think that that’s where forgiven sins were thrown. ‘When we confess our sins,’ I said, ‘God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever. …’
“The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe. There were never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947. People stood up in silence, in silence collected their wraps, in silence left the room.
“And that’s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights; the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor; the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie, how thin you were!
[Betsie and I had been arrested for concealing Jews in our home during the Nazi occupation of Holland; this man had been a guard at Ravensbruck concentration camp where we were sent.]
“Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: ‘A fine message, Fräulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!’
“And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course—how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women?
“But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. I was face-to-face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze.
“ ‘You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk,’ he was saying, ‘I was a guard there.’ No, he did not remember me.
“ ‘But since that time,’ he went on, ‘I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fräulein,’ again the hand came out—’will you forgive me?’
“And I stood there—I whose sins had again and again to be forgiven—and could not forgive. Betsie had died in that place—could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?
“It could not have been many seconds that he stood there—hand held out—but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.
“For I had to do it—I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. ‘If you do not forgive men their trespasses,’ Jesus says, ‘neither will your Father in heaven forgive your trespasses.’
“I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience. Since the end of the war I had had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality. Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and as horrible as that.
“And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion—I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. ‘… Help!’ I prayed silently. ‘I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.’
“And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm, sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.
“ ‘I forgive you, brother!’ I cried. ‘With all my heart!’
“For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands, the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely, as I did then”

God is so great!!! He keeps sending me messages that speak right to my soul.

I received a letter one day. I hadn't yet been consumed with anger, hatred, and this intense painful thought that God had turned his face against me. The letter came in a neon green envelope. Had no return address. Tearing it open I saw the sender and i smiled. It was from my sister.Their daughter. My measuring stick for my entire childhood (and perhaps much later). As I began to read what she'd typed to me, my lip curled and I began breathing heavily. I could feel it. Growing. And I ignored it. My body began to shake and i was gripping the letter so hard my fingers began to hurt. As I tried reading thru the tears that just poured out of my eyes, silent sobbing, It happened. Satan planted the hatred right next to the seed of doubt.

I have to get it out of me. THIS has been Satan's favorite ploy. Reminding me of this letter, sent by a woman who attended church religiously, homeschooled her children, studied her bible with our Mom and favored by our Dad. I looked up to Amy. Hated her, but she was my sister and she was so responsible. So... Christian. I thought. This woman who had watched and smiled while her father destroyed 4 little lives, sent me a letter to tell me SHE forgave ME. i was beyond shaken. She wrote to tell me i was forgiven. She didn't specify what for. I was just forgiven. Satan gripped me harder as I read on. She wrote in her letter that I had acted as God, played God, when I stood against our father and put him in prison. (Wow. I'm not angry. I'm feeling sorry for this woman.) She told me how she had prayed for trials and tribulations in my life because of this. She ended with asking for my forgiveness. The deal was done. Satan had his little victory. I laughed. I laughed a laugh I NEVER want to hear again. The intense hatred took me over. That letter.

That was the start of my depression. That's when doubt became so complete I totally forgot about one of Gods greatest and most visible miracles I myself had witnessed. We were in a storm so severe that our boys were terrified. The lightning bolts could be seen thru the blinds in our yard. My husband had grown up with and passed onto us, "in a storm, be still." So we all were seated together on the couch. I walked over and got our bible. Just wanted comfort. It was a verrryy scary storm. I handed my husband the bible and it fell open as he grabbed the spine of it, so he read from there. (We were in a financial bind at the time, nothing life altering, just difficulty) He read "deliverance will come to you this day." We looked at each other over our kid's heads and just smiled. Comfort delivered. Later after the storm had passed, I walked to the mailbox,our yard a virtual flood. In the mailbox was a check, for $2,000. From a friend. Deliverance had come that day!! Exactly as God had shown us in his Word. We went to our church around the corner and shared that day what God had done for us. Not in a testimony, but to our pastor.

My eyes are not clouded. My min is not closed. Satan is is fleeing!!!!!!!! I have forgotten so many blessings! So many things God had done to carry us through our hardships. He absolutely did carry me and like an ungrateful donkeys rear end I let Satan convince me with that letter that I was unworthy. That I was not God's daughter, Amy was. ( like God isn't not enough for ALL of us!!)

I am being uplifted. The clouds of doubt are leaving me. I am claiming victory over Satan with every move towards God's unchanging love. That letter. Satan's doorway. How did I miss it? That letter wasn't so bad. I should have simply prayed for her. But I let Satan in.

Student, amazing posts. God given. Step by step instructions on how to truly forgive. Thank you Jesus for these guys on CC. A blessing I can't even explain. Im so blessed. I'm so loved. God's love (insert heart)

Just. WOW! I'm in total amazement at God's grace and healing power. I'd forgotten so much!!! So many blessings. So many friends I shut out as I let Satan lead me to my destruction. God never hid from me. I turned my back on him. Father forgive me for not trusting in you, your power over Satan.

(I'm going to be offline tomorrow until next weekend. Please keep me in your prayers that I will hang onto my Jesus and keep seeking him out. That Satan won't find a single way in, but if he does, he's no quitter, that I will recognize it immediately for what it is and DOUBT NOT!!! GODS LOVE FOR ME!!!)

Im so thankful for you. All of you. For allowing yourself to be tools towards my healing. These words are so spot on. I believe they are absolutely inspired. God's grace is overflowing. May I never turn off the faucett again!!!

God bless you until it hurts!!!!! I love you in Christ Jesus xox

I'm floored!!! In total awe. Satan makes it seem so hard!! But its so surprisingly simple.

God is Love. Total unequivocal, unconditional love. I want that. I want to feel that for the family God gave me. They, above all else, taught me to have a child like love for Jesus on a foundation that has carried me over all of this. They showed me Jesus, introduced me to him. They showed me love when my family tossed us away. They simply lost their way. And i thank them. I forgive them every sin against me. Every one. It wasn't them hurting me, it was our enemy. They taught me so much. Without that foundation built on God's love, I'd be lost like my mother. I forgive her too. She needs our prayers. (Patti)

I have a letter to write, and tear up

Please pray for my family as well. Satan has them in his clutches. Please pray for their deliverance. May God bless them and keep them. My family! Gah!! Wow lol. So many good memories coming to light after so many years of hate.

Oh, Student said forgiveness isn't a feeling, its an act of the will. I grew up with Don Fransisco. "Love is not a feeling it's an act of the will."

You may not see it, but God knows how to talk to me. And he's using you to bring me long forgotten blessings. I know I need to focus forward but I think he's helping me replace the negative memories with new old ones I'd let go of. When I think of them I will now pray for them and I will smile while I pray for them.

I hope you feel God's love as sharply as I do right now. I've missed him so much!