THE MAGIC MIRROR

I had the opportunity to share a message from my heart with a group of women, and I felt I needed to take it a step further by sharing a portion of it here on my blog. I started by giving each of them a mirror, and I told them it was a Magic Mirror. I can't give out mirrors through my blog, so I figured posting a picture of one would suffice. So let's just say the mirror in the picture above is a Magic Mirror. What makes this mirror magic, you ask? This mirror is special because it has the ability to reflect images from two different sources, God and Satan. Look at the mirror and think about what you see when you look into it. Ask yourself this question: Who am I? Who do you see staring back at you? Is the reflection controlled by God or Satan?

Self-perception is the way you understand, comprehend, and see yourself. When you look in the Magic Mirror, what is your self-perception? Do you perceive virtue, excellence, grace, beauty, distinction, loyalty, faithfulness, and purity? Or does the mirror reflect blemishes, flaws, deficiencies, faults, failings, betrayals, and impurities? Your self-perception (whether good or bad) will have an impact on your self-esteem, so what is self-esteem? It is your sense of dignity or value. Words have a powerful effect on one's self-esteem. Proverbs 18:21, "Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof." The tongue produces words! Plain and simple. 

The tongue is a double-edged sword because it is not only the words spoken that can harm an individual, it is often the words left unspoken that do damage. The lack of encouragement or love weakens self-esteem, and negative words are weapons that injure. Sometimes this is done unintentionally when a bad choice is made in wording, or it may simply slip past the speaker unaware that their words were harsh and harmful, but then there are those intentional words meant to shun or degrade. They cut, and often those cuts are deep. 

Your self-esteem will play a major role in determining your choices, and the choices you make in your life can define who you are. Look back in that Magic Mirror and ask yourself who is reflecting the images you see. If Satan is in control of the mirror, recognize the source of the reflection. The Truth can and will set you free from the bondage of a low self-esteem. YES, it is a bondage. If you are a born again believer, then you are a daughter of the Most High God! Your daddy is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. You are the head and not the tail. You are CHOSEN! Go to the Word of God and start reading THE Word that will uplift and affirm your self-perception. You do NOT have to allow Satan to control how you see yourself. He does not have to influence the choices you make. If you've already made choices as a result of a low self-esteem, there is a powerful word in the bible...FORGIVENESS. Hand your Magic Mirror to Jesus. Allow Him to be the one in control of the reflection you see. 

Be Blessed and Be Made Whole,

Pinky

 

Remove the Graveclothes

God has always had a way of using music in my life. Sometimes He will use the words of a song to speak to me, and other times He will simply use the anointing on the music to begin speaking to my heart. This happened to me this past Sunday. As I sat in a powerful service, God began to speak to me concerning Lazarus.

It amazes me how God can say so much to you in such a short span of time as you sit in His presence. It seemed as if I heard an entire message from Him concerning why my walk with Him had taken the route it had taken. He started with speaking the passage of scripture from John 11:43-44.

"And when He thus had spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.

And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with grave-clothes, and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go."

Jesus calls out to the hearts of all who are dead in their sins and trespasses. Our Father draws us to Him and through His Holy Ghost He convicts us of our sins and leads us to repentance. He had done so in my own life. He wooed me with His love for me and drew me to my knees in surrender to Him. When I fell to my knees in complete surrender, He cried out, "Schledia, come forth." It is what He did for you if you have been born again. He called out your name, commanding your spirit to come to life! 

That night in 1996 the Life of God entered my spirit. I was no longer dead in sin but alive in God. I walked out of the tomb I had lived in, but I was still bound in grave-clothes. When Lazarus came forth full of life, his hands were bound; his feet were bound, and his face was bound. Jesus did not walk up to him and begin taking the grave-clothes off him. No, he commanded those around him to Loose him, and let him go. That is the job of the church with the five-fold ministry (Apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, and evangelists) as its leaders. Jesus told the disciples to go into the world and preach the gospel and make disciples of all nations, teaching them to observe all things He had commanded them. (Matthew 28:19-20)

Scripture points out first that Lazarus's hands were bound. If the grave-clothes are never taken off our hands, how can we serve Him? How can we lay hands on the sick and know they will recover? Our hands are still bound. I believe unbelief is one of the grave-clothes that bind our hands. If we do not believe what the Word of God says about the Power He has given to us, how can we serve Him? How can we minister to the world? 

I was in a church at the time that taught the Word of God. Romans 10:17, "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." The pastor was a gifted teacher of the Word, and there were many great teachers placed in my life while in that particular church. My hands were unbound by the teaching of the Word. My faith grew and my unbelief diminished. I began serving in ministry within 6 months of my born again experience.

My question to you is: Have your hands been unbound? Have you desired to serve the Lord, yet you keep hearing the voices that tell you you're unworthy? Have you been called upon to pray for someone, and you simply brush it off because you don't know if God will actually heal them or deliver them? Are you hands bound by unbelief in who you are in Christ?

The next thing we see is that his feet were bound. If we are never loosed from our grave-clothes, how can we walk for long without falling? Yes, we can move forward in God, but our journey will be a difficult one to make. Try binding your feet together and see how far you can get without falling down. I think the things that bind our feet (and our legs, essentially) are the sins we were entangled in during our life before we came to God. Some of these are taken off by the church. We are taught to hide the Word in our heart that we might not sin against Him. 

We must hide the Word in our heart, but we need more than that to overcome sin. We need the Holy Ghost! Jesus told the disciples they would receive power after the Holy Ghost comes upon them. Acts 1:8, "But ye shall receive power, after the Holy Ghost is come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." The Holy Ghost empowers us to be a witness, to overcome sin, and to cast out devils. We need the Holy Ghost! I just can't say it enough. 

I received the Holy Ghost, and as I jumped forward a step, the church taught me the Word which exposed my sin, and the Holy Spirit empowered me to overcome it. One strip of grave-clothing at a time, I began being loosed. Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed? (Acts 19:2) Do you have the power to overcome sin and be a witness to the world?

The portion of the scripture that pricked my heart more than it all was that Lazarus's face was bound with a napkin. I felt the Lord show me my own face covered with a mask throughout my entire walk with Him. My hands had been freed to serve Him, and my feet had been loosed of almost every strip of grave-clothing, but my face had never been unbound. I had sought out counsel, longing for the cloth that smothered me to be taken off my face, so the truth of me, who I was, and what my heart was enduring could be revealed. I wanted to be completely free, but the cloth blinded me to seeing the road before me. God had set a path for me, a way to go, but it was darkness to me because my eyes were still covered. That caused it to be frightening, and fear set in. As a result of having to hide behind the grave-cloth that covered my face, I lived in a state of depression.

The last thing God spoke to me in that flash of a moment was the letter of the law brings death but the spirit of the law brings life. (2 Corinthians 3:6) This is where I was left for 21 years. The letter of the law had been ministered to me when I sought to have the grave-cloth removed from my face. It brought to my life the slow process of death through depression. I was still alive in God, but I was suffocating and slowing losing the breath of life. In that instant I knew God was revealing why I had struggled for so many years. It was the reason why I had hidden my heart from everyone. I wore a mask for everyone to see, but it was merely a painted grave-cloth. 

I continued for years to go to God, seeking deliverance from the strands of cloth still binding my walk and the cloth over my face; the two were intertwined for me---those things still binding my feet being the things I used as a coping mechanism to deal with the hidden pain I lived in daily. I got to the point that my breathing had slowed down. My last painful breath was only seconds away. I felt it coming, and I embraced it. I even begged God for it to come. I could no longer endure the pain I lived in daily. 

It was during that time when God sent a friend into my life. When I shared with this friend what was hidden beneath the grave-cloth, the spirit of the law was expressed to me for the first time, and for the first time in 21 years, I had God's light shine into my eyes, and He revealed the path He had before me concerning my situation and pain. The grave-cloth was finally removed, and I was set free from the remaining strips that had bound my feet and caused me to fall as I walked the path to my destiny. 

Are you still walking with a grave-cloth (a mask) covering your face---who you are and the wounds that have been inflicted upon you? I may not know what your painted grave-cloth is covering, but I can tell you this, if you walk away from counsel feeling as if you have been locked in a prison, the letter of the law was likely ministered to you. Most likely the ones ministering the letter do so unknowingly. They may honestly be well meaning. I know the ones who ministered to me meant well.

If you are a minister, seek God fervently before ministering to someone about the choices they have in their circumstances.  Ask God to lead you through the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law, and remember, the call of the church is to loose them, and let them go! 

Be Blessed and be made whole,


Pinky 

My Testimony

From a young age I was told by my father that I had a great calling on my life, but the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. He did so when I was very young. In order to protect myself, my mind put up huge walls around me---like the hard outer shell a hermit crab lives in. The hermit comes out on occasions, but always retreats inside the shell for protection. I often found myself alone, traipsing through the woods around my house in quiet solitude. It was the place I found comfort and peace. I had an ability to completely block out all reality, disconnecting myself from life with little effort. I had lost self-worth and constantly felt inferiority dripping over me like hot oil running down my head and oozing its way to my belly. I lived with nervous knots in my stomach and a huge hole in my heart, afraid to speak to anyone outside of my immediate family and close friends, all THREE of them!  Most of my time was spent alone in the quiet, listening to the sounds of nature. I’m quite certain God walked with me on those walks because of the peace I felt during those times. 

As I got a little older I learned to move some of those heavy boulders used to build that wall, and I put doors there to allow a few people through, but I refused to tear it down because it protected me; I only wanted to allow a handful of people in. The enemy found weak spots and forced his way through them, often using the words of my peers to pierce through and penetrate my heart, like being told I was ugly and unloved. I continued to spend most of my time alone in silence. When I was with others, I was still silent. I know this is hard for those of you who know me now to believe because I talk now, but ask anyone who knew me in school and they will tell you what they remember about me is that I never talked. One of my high school friends described me as being socially awkward, unable to talk to people and let others in. Another one said when asked, “No, Schledia never talked, but I could always tell she had a kind spirit.”

When my family fell apart, the enemy found another way in. He used that access and started reminding me of some of the things that had taken place when I was little, the reasons I had built the wall in the first place. I had not known why I had built it because my mind had locked that information away to protect me from it, but Satan reminded me of one of those instances. I began turning to alcohol to drown the memory. I didn’t want it to be true. It was during that time that I started to talk. Most of the time I cried, but I found when I was drunk, I could talk about my feelings and release all the torment bottled inside me, but Satan had gained entry and was effectively destroying my life. He had already stolen my innocence as a small child. His destruction worked quickly, leading up to his plan to kill. On the day he planned to carry out his attack and have me end my own life, God had a friend of mine give me a bible. It is the bible I still use today. God spared my life that day, knowing what the enemy had been doing to me all along. He was the one who gave me the ability to block out the memories and find solitude and quiet where I could spend hours not even thinking. It was his protection. It took me a long time to realize how He had shielded my heart and mind. 

Within the last several years, bits and pieces of other memories from my childhood have found their way out, but they found their way to my conscious mind at a time when I was rooted and grounded and able to bear what they revealed. I still don’t see the whole picture. Maybe because God knows I’m not ready to see it. 

I went on a Lady's Retreat some years back. We were asked to label rocks with our burdens, place them in a backpack, and carry them around. I put rocks representing the little things I think of on a daily basis, the things my mind allows me to see and feel. We were then asked to take a God Walk, not thinking, not singing, not talking, not praying. We were told it would be difficult to block everything out. I honestly didn’t understand how it could be difficult because it was my life. I had lived most of my life exactly that way.  I carried those rocks around with me on my God walk, doing exactly what came naturally to me, walking through nature, observing, listening without thought in complete silence. It was my safe haven, always had been. When I happened upon a rock that was huge, I realized it was the rock that should be in my pack, but it was much too big for me to carry. 

I took a picture of that rock to remind me of what should be in my pack, and I heard God say to me He had always carried it for me. He had allowed me to carry the burdens He knew I could handle, the smaller rocks that represented the inferiority, the self-consciousness, the loneliness, and the worthlessness I felt---all bits and pieces broken off the big rock He bore for me. The rock weighed too much, so He allowed my mind to hide it from me. He showed me how the enemy used his entrance after the destruction of my family to reveal the weight of that rock to me, and how that is what led to me not wanting to live anymore because I picked up the rock was I never meant to bear. 

This is what it means when the Word of God tells us He bore our burdens. He picked up the weight of all those things in our lives so we wouldn't have to carry them, but sometimes we take those heavy boulders out of His hands and attempt to carry them with our own strength. Give them back to Him. He never intended for you to take it from Him.

On my way back, I started to feel the weight of the backpack and the rocks. One side was heavier than the other and it pulled and strained on me, tugging me to one side. Going up a hill, the weight causing pain on one side of my back, I heard Him speak and tell me the weights we bear, while not put on us by Him, are used by Him to build strength, endurance, and character in us. 

You can do one of two things with the weights the enemy puts on you throughout your life. You can use them to build strength, endurance, and character, or you can stop, pull out the weights the enemy has placed upon you and start throwing those rocks at passersby, but those rocks are like boomerangs, they hit and inflict the same pain you feel on those you strike with them, but they come back to you, finding their way back in your pack, stained with the blood of those you’ve injured. If you choose the later, you will find you did not gain strength, endurance, or character, you gained bitterness, hatred, and revenge.

I urge any and all to think of the rocks and burdens you carry, the things the enemy of your soul has placed upon you. It is him who wants you to throw those rocks at others and inflict pain upon them. It is his whole purpose in this world. Think of those rocks and realize God intends for you to build spiritual muscle, spiritual endurance, and character, so that you end your journey full of love, compassion, and grace. And stop attempting to pick up those heavy boulders.

Do not play into the enemy’s hands because the blood of innocent people hit by your rocks is heavy, and when those burdens come back to you, they weigh more and increase the bitterness and darkness within your heart. They spark the hatred and set fire to the revenge, the weight of which is too difficult to bear and will leave you stuck in your path, never making it to your destiny. Use them, rather, to make it to your destiny full of purpose and power to change the lives of others and the world for good.

Be blessed and be made whole,

Pinky 

The Silence is Ending

 Artwork by Lauren Anderson

Words have escaped me (a writer) for some time now, a little over a year in fact. I have felt as if I've been placed by God in a time of silence as a test. It's not easy to surrender to a test of silence, especially when the silence means you can't defend yourself. It hurt. It was painful. At times I questioned God why I had to allow others to be able to say what they were saying and sit silently on the sidelines. My flesh wanted to scream at the top of my lungs at the passers by as they shot their flaming arrows through the sky. Some of those people looked me straight in the eyes as they shot their arrows while others pulled back their bow and released their arrows into the darkness surrounding them, but God kept reminding me that He would be my shield. 

God gave me a song many years ago titled, "I Will Be Your Shield." The Chorus of the song goes: "I will be your shield from the fiery arrows. No matter where you are, I'm never very far, and I will be your shield from the fiery arrows. The enemy may come, but he can't get past My Son, and He will be your shield." 

It doesn't matter where we are in our walk with God, He will be our shield. Yes, the enemy will come to shoot those fiery arrows, but he cannot get past Jesus if we hold up the shield of Faith and allow Jesus to be our shield. God was preparing me all those years ago to cling to Him when the battle full of fiery arrows would be unleashed upon me.

Recently words began coming to me, words I've longed to say over the past year but haven't been allowed to speak. I have felt as if the time of silence is nearing its end. I realized this when I recognized why the words were coming to me. I have a testimony. I have been through things that other women are going through, and my experiences may help them. It's time for the silence to end. It's time for me to speak, and I want to start with the silence.

I was strongly led by God to remain silent during my divorce, and that is what I did. It's actually the opposite of what most people do, and it's definitely the opposite of what my ex did. I had a very small handful of people I knew I could trust, and they were the only ones to hear my words. I lost friendships due to my silence, even when they arranged meetings and tried to pry words from me to "expose my guilt" while ignoring and excusing all the years of pain I had endured. My silence seemed to confirm my "guilt" to many. I even read a post from a church member that said in so many words, Your silence shows your guilt. But God kept telling me that my silence would do just the opposite.

It took me a long time to see what God was teaching me through it all, but in the end what I finally realized through my silence (as all the rumors and lies being spread about me kept coming back to me) was that this world thrives on inflicting pain, and Satan uses Christians just as much as he uses non-Christians. The sad thing is...most of those Christians feel justified when they snub you out in public because you left a person they think is wonderful, yet never once do they ask you "Why?" All they know is the lie they were told by the one who was left. 

You see, as Christians,God wants us to be like Him. Jesus stayed silent when He was accused, and that is to be our example. He cried out from the cross, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." I've had to first realize that even the Christians joining in on the attack against me "know not what they do," and I've had to forgive them. I've also had to look at my life and my walk and examine myself. I never want to be found guilty of doing what was done to me, and honestly, I can see in my past where I have been guilty, so I have found myself on my knees asking for forgiveness for standing in judgment of others. God never intends for us as believers to inflict pain upon other Christians. First and foremost He doesn't want that because He prayed we would be one in unity, and secondly, He doesn't intend that because the world knows we are of God by how we treat (love) one another.

Have you been guilty of listening to gossip and rumors within the church walls? Outside of the church? Maybe you've listened to rumors and lies under the guise of "pray for so and so." Have you in turn judged another believer by what you've been told? If you examine yourself and find yourself guilty, all it takes is going to God and asking Him to forgive you. If you can go to the person you've mistreated, do so. It will mean the world to them. Be the healing balm that God uses rather than the fiery darts the enemy shoots to inflict harm.

Be blessed and be made whole,

Pinky