Confessions of a Fan Girl: When You Fall
Now before you say “you felt like this because of a
show/book/fandom? Let me just say this…NO I didn’t feel like that because of
those things. I felt like this because my heart was full of sin and self-doubt.
I was not where I personally wanted to be with God, and I didn’t think that I
ever could be. I questioned everything, I had isolated myself not only from my
family and friends, but also from my church family. I felt alone. I wasn’t…but
I sure did feel that way.
It was very hard for me to confess this to my husband,
because I had hid how I felt for so long. He didn’t even know what was
happening in my heart, because I was ashamed to tell him. In my mind, I had
failed as a wife and mother, and that thought devastated me. It took me to dark
corners inside my heart and mind that I hid myself in. It led me to believe
untruths, and contemplate things that I would never had thought about...those dark corners, those whispers that were not of God,
led me to believe I was unlovable, that I would never be enough. I was plagued with nightmares. And
because of those nightmares, I would go days with no sleep. Because sleeping
meant that I would be in a world that terrified me. I tried to be happy around
my family, and I succeeded in putting on a great show, but I just couldn’t seem
to actually be happy on the inside.
This in not just about a fandom, no this is about the war
that is fought on spiritual ground. I let something in that crept into every
part of my life, and it was not going to let me go. When I opened up the door
of my heart and allowed in witches, vampires, and yes my favorite man in a blue
box, I said to the devil, make yourself at home.
And he did.
The moment I started saying he was an unwelcome guest in my
heart, he started fighting back. And when the devil fights back, he fights
dirty. He called up every sin I had ever committed, every word I had spoken in
anger. Every time I had gossiped, or listened to gossip, every time I had
failed…it was all there. I would lay
down to go to sleep, and it was like a movie playing in my mind. I would lay
awake and cry, and I would beg God to forgive me and I would hear a faint
whisper “you are not good enough, He will never forgive you” and I believed it
for the longest time.
It wasn’t until I was sitting in a church service and I
heard a minister say that if I had asked God to forgive me, that He had already
done so. What I had to work on was forgiving myself.
It was life changing.
I started thanking God for his forgiveness and asking him to
help me forgive myself. The freedom you can receive in just knowing that God
has already given His forgiveness can be overwhelming.
For me it was a game changer. It changed my outlook on life,
it made me realize that the whispers saying I wasn’t good enough, were not
true. I could be the filthiest sinner, with the blackest heart, and God would
still look on me with His amazing love.
Growing up in the church, and having heard this my whole
life, it makes me wonder why I didn’t piece it together sooner. I knew that God
loved me. I knew that He would always be there for me, and I knew that no
matter what I did He would still love me…I knew all of that, and yet I allowed
the devil to whisper lies to me, and because I was so full of self-loathing, I
believed the lies over the truth that I had been taught my whole life.
When we fall, our Heavenly father is going to be there, with
His hands wide open, ready to save us, but He will not be the only one there.
The devil loves it when we fail. He will not give up one
opportunity to make us doubt ourselves, or the love of God. He is going to be
shadowing us, waiting for and encouraging us from the sidelines to fall.
When
we fail, he is there to whisper in our ears. He will start by saying “we are
not worthy of God’s love.” He will then get into our head and tell us how many
times we have failed, that we must be ready to give up by now. He will make us
question everything we have done. And we must not let him! We must stand strong
and call on Jesus! Go to scripture and pray His word.
Psalm 86:5 says “For You,
Lord, are good, and ready to forgive. And abundant in loving kindness to ALL who
call upon you.”
The devil has no control over us unless we give it to him.
He hates when we call out to God, because he knows that Gods promise are to all
of Gods children, not just to some, like he would have us believe.
When we fall, it is so important that we get back up, we
call on God, and we move forward, without looking back. When we glance back at
our past failures, all we are doing is making it easier for the devil to put a
stumbling block back in front of us. And if he can cause us to stumble, based
on a past failure then he has done his job. What can make us give up faster,
then failing over and over again on the same thing?
He will use everything in his power to make us fall, because
when we are down, he can feed off of our despair and shame.
This is why it is so important to guard our hearts from the
get go. If I had never allowed him entrance into my home and heart, I would not
be battling him years after the fact. My daughter wouldn’t have had to go
through 6 months of night terrors. I wouldn’t struggle every time I see
something that has a supernatural element to it. Yes, I still struggle daily…I
am constantly asking God for the strength to not fall victim to something that
may seem “harmless” to someone else. I pray every day that God will place
hedges around my home and the hearts of my family. We are now very strict about
what we allow into our home, because we know what it can do. We know that while
it may seem harmless to some, for our family it is a gateway to something
worse.
Remember, When you dance with the devil, he is the
one leading.NO matter how much you "think" you are in charge, you are not.
Comments
Post a Comment