March 13

Have you ever had thoughts that made you think "where the heck did that come from?"

When I first became a Christian, I started having a lot of disturbing thoughts. I thought there was something wrong with me. Since I was new in the faith, I did not understand what was happening. It got to the point where I could not get out of bed or go to work. My mom finally convinced me to talk to our preacher about it. I will never forget his reassurance that this was not unusual. He told me to read "The Bondage Breaker" by Neil Anderson.

This book helped me tremendously. I realized that I wasn't the first person to experience those types of thoughts and realized it was referred to as spiritual warfare.

In the years that followed, I have read everything I can find about spiritual warfare.

My preacher counseled me for a few weeks and then decided I needed someone who specialized in spiritual warfare. I went to a Christian counselor. I walked in thinking we could resolve the spiritual warfare issue fairly quickly. I was wrong. I had to work through everything that held me in bondage and gave the devil a foothold in my life. I had to forgive people I never thought I could forgive (that was one of my biggest issues) including myself. I then had to learn about boundaries and how to set them so that I would not resent others. I had to face the fact that I was a people pleaser and I needed to change. I worked on letting go of the past. I ended destructive relationships and began godly ones. I learned about generational sin and realized that my family was not the Brady Bunch family I thought it was and the connection to the spiritual attack I was under. I learned how to live an authentic life that is pleasing to God and that God's opinion is the only one that matters.

I had to talk about the thoughts I was having and that was very difficult for me. I had to deal with issues of shame, guilt and rejection. I did a lot of hard work. It wasn't something I could just "get over." Until you have been in spiritual bondage, you don't realize how debilitating it can be.

Satan tormented me with these thoughts:

1. Are you sure you are saved?

2. Are you sure there is a God?

3. Blasphemous thoughts

"Resist the devil and he will flee" is indeed true. I still struggle with these thoughts occasionally when I am drawing closer to God or about to begin a new work for Him.

Satan's battlefield is the mind. If he can defeat us with lies that we accept as our thoughts, then he has already won. "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

He who is in us is stronger than he who is in the world.

I clung to these scriptures during Satan's assaults on my mind. If you are experiencing spiritual warfare, talk to someone who can help you or who can refer you to someone with the expertise to help you overcome it. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

Here are some other books I read that helped me during this time:

I did this Beth Moore Bible study.

I read this book when I was still single and said "If only I had read this book when I was 17." I could have saved myself so much heartache.

I included this book because I struggled with my past and this book helped me realize that there are no perfect women in the Bible and that God forgives and loves us.

Would I want to go through that time in my life again? No. But the blessing I received from this period of my life is a closeness with God that I would not have experienced otherwise.