One night, at the end of our prayer meeting, I asked for healing from depression.
I told the prayer team that I was tired of living with depression. I was constantly anxious about everything. I couldn’t get to sleep. At night, in bed, I couldn’t stop my mind from thinking how I had failed that day. The evil one was happy to have that opening. Old memories came to mind of things I had done in the past that hurt other people. Every night a new memory surfaced about something else I had done wrong. I did not like myself, at all. Some nights I just got up to distract myself from such negative thoughts. When I did finally go to sleep, I would dream of someone chasing me, and I would wake myself up calling for help! I woke up tired and stayed that way all day.
I have a nervous system disorder that causes me to overreact and jerk hard when I am startled, anxious or tired. Some nights when I was tired, my body would jerk me hard until all the tension in my body was released; then I could relax enough to go to sleep.
During the day, I was always tired, and hated myself for being so weak that I didn’t have the energy or will to do things that other people found so easy to do. I felt useless and worthless. I was depressed.
As the team began to pray for me, Mike asked me, “How long have you been depressed?”
I said, “Oh, I’ve been dealing with depression all of my adult life." “ Do you know when it started?” Mike asked. That took me a minute. I had to think about that. “It might have been when I was in college." “What else was going on in your life then?" “Well, my brother died!” I blurted out. “And I was totally surprised and unprepared!”
“How did he die?” asked Mike. Memories and emotions came flooding back. “He was born with a defective heart. He never could run or exert himself without getting out of breath. My mother used to tell me and my older brother and sister that if anyone asked what was wrong with Norman, we should explain that he has heart trouble. Tell them not to worry if he gets out of breath, that he just needs to stop and rest. He is not going to drop dead on the spot; he just needs to stop and rest.”
I lived with that promise in my heart: he wasn’t going to die; he just lived with heart trouble. When I was 18 and Norman was 22, he did die! It was from heart trouble. His heart stopped beating!
We had never talked about Norman’s heart condition. We had never talked about the possibility of him dying early. I was totally unprepared and devastated! And to make matters worse, after he died, we never talked about him then either! We were all in our own private grief, struggling alone.
As I was recounting the story, I began crying hard, and jerking hard. After a few minutes (or more, I had no idea of time), Mike asked me if I could forgive my mother for not communicating the whole truth about Norman’s condition.
As I dried my tears and tried to compose myself, I said, “Yes." I thought, of course I could forgive my mother. I knew she had suffered greatly during Norman’s whole life. Mike led me through a prayer to forgive my mother. I think he asked me to forgive myself for not understanding. Then he asked me to renounce the the lies that Satan had led me to believe. I renounced the lies that I was worthless and useless. Mike prayed, in Jesus’ name, to command those lies to leave me and not come back. After more prayer and a blessing, we were through!
I felt immediate relief. The story had been told, the emotions re-lived, and I was free! I went home that evening feeling so relieved and grateful. The next day I realized that I no longer felt burdened, but instead felt very light and happy, for a change. The next few days I continued to feel like I had walked out of a dark cloud into a lighter and brighter world. I had no trouble getting to sleep. I slept through the nights. I no longer jerked myself to sleep. I no longer had negative thoughts about myself before falling asleep and no bad dreams of being chased.
I still feel relieved of those feelings of self-hate and worthlessness. I thank God for his healing!
If I begin to feel those accusations from the evil one trying to regain my attention, I pray immediately, in the name of Jesus, for them to leave me and not come back! So far that has only happened once, Praise the Lord!