Breakthrough through Mental Illness: Testimony Included
Do you remember that moment that changed your life forever?
You may have had more than one of those moments, but I want to focus on the moment that brought you to a Heavenly Spirit High and out of some chains you refused to be placed back in again.
I never admitted to people the postpartum depression that I had for three years from each child that followed my previous depression before pregnancy, nor did I ever express the anger that I had experienced in my past that was brought up again in my parenting season as a stay-at-home mother. I didn’t understand how I had changed so drastically from my past trauma experiences years later. Being a stay-at-home mother in a new town where you feel lonely (despite the friendly people who consistently reach out) can make you have only the company of lingering thoughts that can bring you back to memories that you stored away in the attic part of your mind. Those thoughts can only stir emotions of pain, sadness, anger, and bitterness from childhood into adulthood. But even the loneliness was not the fullness of what I was facing. It was more. I felt like I lost myself. I felt it happen during the pandemic, and I am familiar with depression as I had faced those battles in High School and College after the passing of my daddy, but that season of feeling lost was different. Despite my joy in parenting and my husband’s many attempts to get me out of the house to do things was not enough. Even him trying to set me up with other stay-at-home mothers he would meet through encounters was insufficient. I lost myself.
But!
There was a work trip in which my husband invited me and the kids that had changed everything, and it went like this.
My husband had to travel to Corpus for a work trip and insisted that the kids and I go because he saw that I had been mentally, emotionally, physically, and Spiritually down and needed to get out of the house. He also knew that I had best friends who were like family to me there and wanted me to have an opportunity to hang out with them that week while he was working to see if that would help, if any. I was hesitant because of everything I was facing in my mind, but he made up his mind about me going in the end, and so I did.
Although I was meant to hang out with friends, I was still not up to meeting them and felt like I needed space, although I felt alone. So, while I was there, I was able to train myself that week to wake up every morning to have gym time while my husband got ready for work with the kids asleep, and I was also able to enjoy breakfast that was prepared without the work of me and sit and eat. I was also able to have the kids eat breakfast, walk the shoreline from the hotel to the park and back, have beach days, spend time with a sister in Christ with wholesome fellowship, and have time alone with God in the hallway while the rest of the family was asleep.
In the timing of me being alone with God at night, I was able to read and meditate on His word and finish a book I started reading days prior to the trip called “Forgiving What You Can’t Forget” by Lysa TerKeurst. It was a good set-up, having that alone time to end the night with my Father in prayer and lay with my husband and family. After establishing my routine in just days, coming to the end of my trip, I had a night with God, my Heavenly gracious Father, that I would never forget. On this night, as I was spending time with Father, I remember talking to him as if he was sitting in the hallway with me, conversing back like a counselor, when I admitted out loud in tears and shock that I didn’t trust Him. I was hurt that I came to a place where I gave him certain areas of my life to control but not ALL the areas because I had no trust. I did not trust anyone in my life, and God was included. I had received revelation from ALL the depression and anxiety from the past and present. That moment of truth revealed to me felt like I was released from every pain and chain that I had in me, holding me down, leaving me in tears, weeping as if I was morning the loss of myself and what I had endured as well as what I allowed to control me for so long, and weeping the fact that I finally come down to the bricks of being fed up to where I am kneeling at my Fathers feet in bittersweet tears thanking Him for bringing me back to Him in true confession even if it meant harsh truth.
In the midst of my tears, I heard the lyrics “Trust in God” in my head and decided to look up a song with those lyrics. Before me was a song that left me floored in awe of God.
This song has become an anthem in my life to this very day. It’s my go-to song that reminds me of that trip. I can’t express enough how moving these lyrics are and how they allow me to just fully worship, but what I can tell you is that I came home from that trip DIFFERENT. I needed and wanted to be better. I thank my husband anytime I can for listening to God and really making it known that I was going on that trip, whether I wanted to go or not. My husband was hearing God and was the head that I needed to honor and respect to receive the wilderness retreat that I needed. I felt not like the old me but a me that had more authority over fear and insecurities. A me that I needed to stand up for with the Armor of God from the flesh and spirits of this world. I felt the empowering child in God that I know I am and knew God was making it known the body he resides in. This trip was the best trip I have had in a while, and I want to say it was the best one I have ever experienced.
I don’t know who this is for, but whoever is dealing with bondage and needs a breakthrough, let me tell you that it is happening right now, so much so that I am going to pray for it right now.
You don’t need to be enslaved any longer. You have a choice to choose freedom or the chain that once was enticing but led you to death. It’s easy to get comfortable in misery, depression, or mental illness of any kind when you have endured it for some time, and yes, there were maybe good days, but the bad days from your end that trapped and enslaved you feeling like it overpowered the goodness of God… Let me tell you again, let that be done and rid of right now. No more will you wake up another day thinking that you have to settle in a mediocre life that your Father did not intend for you to have.
This is not a time to be ashamed of what you deal with because we all deal with or dealt with something at some point. This is a time to believe in freedom. This is a time to choose the goodness of God and live life with Him, forgiven, healed, and redeemed in Jesus’ name.
I pray you get a wilderness moment of Breakthrough
Prayer
Father, I come before you right now on behalf of my sister. I come fully knowing that my sister needs you and needs your Holy Spirit driven prayer over her life right now to be delivered from any mental illness, and demonic spiritual warfare that has got her at the throat, unable to speak life and choking her from the inside out. Let my sister know Father that you are head in her life. You are Alpha and Omega, and you come to restore and bring a new creation in her from the scars that she has. Let her be reminded that you are a mighty healer, and you will heal her. Let her have true scripture written and engraved on her heart, mind, body and soul that she may keep that salvation and promises close and speak and declare it every day of her life. Father I pray that you will hold her hand. Even if she feels ashamed of telling others what she deals with, let her know that you already see it and you’re waiting for her to just confess it to you and ask for help. You are ready to listen to her and speak to her. Father, I pray that once my sister is delivered that she will testify your good name and who you are to others who may be secretly dealing with the same issues and be moved in your Holy Spirit to call out demons of any kind and really pray over the people you lead her to in encounters. Lord, we love you, and we know that you call us to meditate on your word day and night because the enemy does not sleep, but Father, we know you don’t sleep either, and so we thank you that everything done works out for your good. All to glorify you. Father, however, you have your encounter with your daughter, I pray that it will be a breakthrough moment that will leave her doubtless and faithful to you every day of her life and after. Father, get her! Holy Spirit get my sister right now and pull her out of the trenches of her mind and wash her clean. Let every tear that created a ocean to drown her be turned to an ocean that is meant to baptize her in the Spirit of truth. Please Father console her and bring the right people to her life that will help her in her journey too. Thankyou Father because I know who you are and know what you can do because of your love for your daughter, you will reveal yourself right now to her. Thank you for breakthrough, in Jesus’ name,
Amen
My daddy used to say,
“You can go in life doing whatever you choose to do, but when you wonder from God for too long, He has a way of bringing His child back, and on that day, His child will be brought to their knees crying out to God knowing that they need Him. So you can choose, but God has already chosen you and He will come back for His.”
Although he repeated this many times throughout my life with him, I never understood it as a child, but I now know what he was talking about.
Breakthrough Retreat Photo Album
Scripture
Psalm 130
A song of ascents.
Out of the depths I cry to you, Lord; Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. If you, Lord, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness,
so that we can, with reverence, serve you. I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.
Psalm 91
Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust.” Surely he will save you from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. You will not fear the terror of night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor the plague that destroys at midday. A thousand may fall at your side,
ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you. You will only observe with your eyes and see the punishment of the wicked. If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,” and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent.
For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone. You will tread on the lion and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent.
“Because he loves me,” says the Lord, “I will rescue him; I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name. He will call on me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him and show him my salvation.”
Of David.
Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits— who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.
Psalm 103:1-6
