Knowing your soul pain

Every time I get up in the morning I find myself yearning to get into the Scripture; however it is has been with tired eyes and many distractions mounting up for my day that I have given ten minutes to refresh my soul. These days I am plunged with heaviness, anxiety and I feel misdirected throughout my day. There was a time about a year ago where I was studying Scripture and in journal prayer time for hours each morning. Before the sun rose I would gather my cup of coffee, read the daily devotional scripture; and head to my office to do some deep reflective study.

The pain of your soul is not a coffee-shop talk with girlfriends on a bright sunny day. It seems that the world of illusion and facades has taken over and anything pretty, soft or pink has taken it’s place. There was a dark time in my life a few years ago and I really didn’t know what was happening inside of me. The nightmares were horrendous and the flashes of knives down my throat were terrifying! I remember pulling over on the side of the road and thinking I was going crazy, the tears streamed down my face and I reached out to a trusted friend for prayer. Instantly, her prayers lifted whatever was attacking me! Praise Jesus!

Gremlin Messages

During a hard season of my life I was in prayer and study about two hours each morning; and possibly an hour in the evenings. This season of my life I was speaking out about what I believed to be God’s Truth. I was ramming myself up against opposition, like I had never had in my entire life. The peace I had in speaking out was like fire in my soul. Little by little when the persecution was getting too heavy, I was allowing Satan to speak my Gremlin messages. The statements like “You are irrelevant, Jessica.” “No one cares about you, Jessica“. “You are not safe, Jessica“. “Everyone will leave you if you tell the truth, Jessica“.

Losing Your Identity

The decision I made was to lose my identity. Funny I say that now, when our world is in an identity crisis. My identity in Christ was no longer the first thing I would allow people to see. I took down my social media posts, stopped writing blogs, and decided I would retreat into silence, (for a time). In this silence I was devoured by the enemy inside. On the outside I looked like I was being ‘smart’, ‘successful’ and ‘really caring about how others felt’. This was a disaster for me as a person, my marriage and to be truthful probably everyone around me noticed a huge change in me.

Lying to Protect Others is Delusional

You see, being ‘quiet’ has never worked very well for me. While being ‘quiet’ helped others feel better about themselves, I was always the one to suffer. My relationship with God would always tank, my marriage would collapse, when I was ‘quiet’ about something that was sacred to my soul.

As a child I was sexually abused and you would think this was the worst thing a child should ever have to suffer. I guess, from the outside looking in this would be the case. However, I was told I was lying and that my mother would kill herself if this abuse was ‘actually’ true. At four years old, all a child cares about is their mom, the person who ultimately is responsible for caring for them; so for five more years I suffered in silence. I was anything but silent during this time, I learned how to tell stories, lie and eventually I was stealing. Outwardly, I identified as what my family called me as a four year old, “a liar”.

God’s Call to Alignment

God had always placed on me the gift of speaking. I could speak full sentences at two and was very articulate, so you see, I had not learned to talk to be silenced. When you are called a liar at such an early age and you hold such a deep secret in order to not harm anyone else you love; the most plausible outcome was silence in Truth.

Jump forward to a whopping nine years old. Jesus entered my life at a summer bible camp. I just wanted to be like everyone else, and when the pastor asked anyone to stay behind if they hadn’t asked the Lord into their heart, all of my friends left to the cabin. So I put two and two together and realized, “If I want to be liked by my cabin mates, I have to do what they have done”.

Asking Jesus that day into my heart, took all of the pain, lies, confusion and heaviness I was feeling. And I could HEAR His Voice! Instantly I felt heat, tingling and a lightness on my body that I had never felt before. I ran to the cabin to tell all of my new friends. I slammed the door open and shouted “I have Jesus in me.” They looked at me and laughed. For the first time in my life I didn’t care what they thought. I laid down in my bed, talking to Jesus, my new best friend.

Speaking Truth

Life changed and my voice was now speaking Truth! I was loud, proud and no one could shut me up, BUT THEY TRIED. It felt so good to finally say what was going on in the inside; and leave God handle what happened on the outside. Telling on my abuser immediately, I stood my ground when everyone said I was a liar. I read Scripture and talked about my relationship with Jesus every empty minute, to whomever would listen. Freedom finally came in Jesus.

Now, Adult Life

Those gremlin messages creep up when I second guess Jesus and His power through my voice. When I am in silence, I am in pain. He has always commanded me to speak, tell the Truth and let Him work out the outward details. The outward details have proven to be sometimes so much persecution I cannot bare it. They seem to exemplify the inside gremlin messages I have developed as a child and throughout the last year I harnessed silence again at the expense of internal pain.

Today is a new day and I am struggling with a balance of speaking out, and keeping silent. The direction I hear from God is to speak out, the keeping silent is from those I love. I am choosing to love the people in my life and speak out and let God handle their own hearts and minds.

My Calling

My calling is to speak. I will be speaking up where God calls me to and not be silenced by worldly gain. My passion is filled to the brim when I can help others identify their Gremlin messages and release them to walk in their own Calling from God.