No Easy Day

I haven’t seen Tenele in three weeks, but it seems like so much longer.  I have heard from her, though.  She wrote me a letter and gave it to Ayanda’s younger brother, hoping he’d give it to Ayanda to give to me the next time they met.  Luckily for me, it was sooner rather than later.  The letter was actually quite beautiful.  This is what she wrote:

“Dear Mama Kate,
Mom I want to say thank you for your love that you give me in my heart thank you for your help I want to tell you that sorry about I leave Teen Challenge. I no that you are not happy and thank you for you take care of my kids even I do that and I no that you are so angry about me right now Mom but still I love you so much and I pray for you that God give you the strength to feed your lamb and his sheep.  God always he is your light.  I will come visit you and my kids… Now I want to go found the job my sweet mom please forgive me the program is not easy it hard…sorry sorry love you forever.”

That was over a week ago and she has not come to visit.  Apparently, a friend bought her a phone, so she was able to send me a message a couple days ago.  She had texted me again that she was sorry and asked for forgiveness and claimed she would come the next day to visit.  I knew better than to trust her word; I felt like I was back in time four years ago with her empty promises.  Of course I was slightly hopeful, wishing she really would show up.  She didn’t.  So the waiting continues, like the father of the Prodigal Son. 

In the meantime, there have been other blessings that have lightened my load.  First and foremost, I have my Maria back!  It’s been like living with a miracle.  The changes in her since the casting out of demons episode have been nothing short of a new life!  She has become not just an obedient (mostly) daughter but an encouraging friend when I needed it most.  Last week I had a breakdown and had been feeling quite miserable actually.  One girl had her rape court case, another girl ran away from the home for the sixth time since the home opened, and still others had other emotional problems.  This is what I wrote in my journal: “Thank you so much for (Maria)! She amazes me with her hunger for you, reading the Bible every night and praying.  She said to me tonight, ‘Mama Kate, you’re not happy.’  I started bawling.  Because I’m not.  To be honest, I haven’t been happy for a long time.  How can I be, when I can’t have just ONE easy day?!  It’s always something EVERY day. And I’ve had enough.”  Maria proceeded to pray for me in English and it was extremely powerful and gave me tears and chills.  She prayed, “Jesus, put your blood in Mama Kate’s heart to chase out all the pain inside.”  Another day, she surprised me by hand washing all my laundry, hanging it out to dry, and even ironing it!  What a delight it was to walk into my room and see all my laundry folded neatly on my bed.  She's been doing extremely well in school and works very hard at home doing her chores.  Seriously, she's living proof that Good overcomes Evil.  Some days before bedtime, I'm too busy or tired to read the Bible with her, but she insists, and she'll wait however long it takes for me to make time to sit down with her.  In doing so, she reminds me to keep my priorities straight, and her hunger for the Word really revives my burdened heart.  What a gem! 

Another blessed provision from God is my teaching job.  I cannot begin to describe how incredible it is to combine two things I love: teaching and my love for Christ.  At African Christian College, I get to be ME.  I get to share the most important part of my life with all my students (ages 20-45) every Monday and Thursday.  And while it adds a little more work to my load, it adds NO stress at all.  In fact, I shared my testimony and a few life stories with my students last week, and I was astounded at their incredible responses.  Some raised their hands and affirmed me right there in front of the class.  Others chose to thank me in the written word (what I love most).  One student wrote one of the most empowering emails I’ve ever received, and here are just a few snippets of the long message:

"Dear Miss Kate:
We Africans take the Americans, British, or any white person to be Rich, without problems and everything starts from them they don't need to be given. but with you it's a different thing. I see power in your life testimony...According to your testimony which is still going, it shows that much of your stay here has been of worries and cries that would make you go back a long time ago and create your own world and enjoy yourself.  but you still persevered until you proved before God that you really are depending on Him and with Him youre strong and that He is good enough for you, like you said... You have given me courage that I can also do it, somebody, somewhere is waiting for my help.
...It is my prayer that may God reward you abundantly like Job my he bless you double of what you have lost already.  Your classes are awesome and everybody confesses that teaching is in you. you know how to run the business..everything you touch, you place your feet, is blessed. May God continue blessing you."

In my most difficult moments, God knows exactly how to speak to me.  Even in Tenele's letter, her comment about God giving me strength to feed his sheep was a Word from God himself.  He uses the written word to chase away lies and doubts that cloud my mind.  For example, right before I received the email from my student, I had journaled: "Lord, maybe I'm not the one.  Maybe I'm not supposed to be here long term.  I can't do it.  It's too hard."  And it was as if God used this student in the flesh to bring me HIS answer, his words of the Spirit.

While each day is a battle of its own, I'm falling more and more in love with my Lord and how he continues to sustain me.  He never said it would be easy, but he said it would be worth it: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it."  -Mark 8:34-35

Prisoner of Fear

“For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather of power and love and self-control.” -2 Timothy 1:7

Although nothing (“neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities…nor powers, etc”. –Romans 8:38) can separate us from the love of Christ, there is one thing that inhibits us from fully embracing his love:  fear.  Fear of the unknown (held back by unanswered questions), fear of what others will think of us, fear of not being counted worthy, fear of giving up control (because “my life is fine just as it is”), and fear of evil, darkness, and scary movies.  Fear—meaning terror, anxiety, distress, panic, and cowardice—is the antagonist of Faith.  Faith—the father of poise, assurance, comfort, declaration, and Hope—gives us authority over any spirit that tempts us into a state of timidity, a state in which Satan labors to keep us captive.

                After last week’s events, I was delivered and protected from this fearful state through all of the prayers I received from you, my blog-readers and faithful warriors.  There were nights that I was afraid to turn off the light before bed, afraid to sleep alone.  There were moments when I looked into Maria’s eyes and my stomach became like my flip flops.  But a dear friend reminded me of Michael and my vision I had while in Mozambique.  “After this victory, Satan will still work to put fear behind your eyes at any chance he gets.  Remember you have a God who sent you St. Michael the Archangel to fight for you.  He will be sitting on your bedpost and a dispatch of angels will be on guard at the gate of the house.  I will pray that you sense nothing but their holy presence tonight.” 

Because I felt overwhelmed by the love and prayers from people all over the world, I overcame this pressing presence of fear.  In doing so, Maria gained strength and hope day by day.  Though she’s been set free from demonic forces, she is still a prisoner of fear; she now believes in Christ’s power over her, but she doesn’t yet understand she has the ability to exercise that same authority.  In 1 John 4:4 it reminds us, “You belong to God, children, and you have conquered them (spirit of antichrists), for the one who is in you (Jesus) is greater than the one who is in the world.” 

She’s learning about this greatness day by day.  In fact, she won’t leave my side.  I really do feel like she’s my disciple, following me everywhere I go (even when it gets a little annoying, but I don’t tell her that).  She won’t go to bed until I tuck her in and read Scripture with her.  We’re actually reading through 1 John together, which has been really uplifting for her and she’s starting to gain strength.  For the first two days, it was by my plan to read and pray before bed.  But for the past couple days, she is the one coming to me, making sure we can pray together.  Just yesterday, I told the girls I would be gone Monday and Tuesday night for a personal retreat, but right before I left Maria came to me crying.  She’s afraid to leave my presence so I had to explain to her that it’s not me who protects her.  I’m just the one exercising the authority of Christ over her, but He is the one protecting and comforting her.  I reminded her that she has that same authority.  I also explained that Kiley would be staying overnight, and I left my iPod with her because she says the demons don’t come when she’s listening to “the gospel singers.” So, although, the victory is great in her life, she still has a long ways to go and still needs to be delivered from her state of fear.

Please don’t stop praying for her and us.

While satan wasn’t able to captivate me with his tactics of fear, I was shaken up by another event that occurred only two days after Maria was released from the demons. 

I watched Spiderman the other night, and the evil (Green Goblin and Doc Oc) reminded me of satan’s tactics as well.  Just as the Green Goblin knew how to get to Peter Parker (attacking his heart), satan knows what would break my heart as well. 

For the past seven years, I’ve spent my heart on the one that everyone else had cast aside—the one that people said wasn’t worth it, the one that people said would only disappoint me, the one that would take one step forward and two steps back, the one that God demanded that I show grace to, the one that finds it hard to love herself.  Tenele. She’s the one who in the past few months has made the most miraculous strides of faith I’ve ever seen.  She’s the one whom God intends to use to set her nation free, for this is a vision not only given to me, but also to the director of Teen Challenge and to a prophetess from their partner church that knows nothing of Tenele’s past.  She’s the one who prayed fervently over me the other week when I was really discouraged and stressed.  She’s the one who cried out to God in journal entry after journal entry, praising Him for how He has delivered her and expressing her excitement to share her testimony with others at the end of the year.  The program Tenele is in lasts an entire year.  Yes, it’s difficult and she gets lonely and sometimes wonders if she can make it the whole year.  But her faith has been her cornerstone; she has been a rock, and even the director has talked about how absolutely impressed she is with Tenele. She told me, “I had this vision that Tenele would run her own project like this someday.” 

On Thursday of last week, I came home after sunset to settle into my room, but Gogo grabbed my attention.  “Tenele,” she looked at me with sad eyes.  “She’s gone.”

Gogo doesn’t know much English, but her message was very clear.  “She call me and say left project.”

I wasn’t completely shocked, as the Saturday before Tenele had mentioned her wanting to leave but I talked her out of it.  I was, though, completely shattered.  Tenele wasn’t just walking away from the project, she was walking away from God, from me, from her children, from her future.  By leaving, she canceled out all the progress she had made the past four months since she began the program.  Worse, she was going all the back to stage one, Mangwaneni, where I had found her seven years ago.

The heartache is too great to explain.  The tears came through sobs I’ve never heard come from myself before.  I was so discouraged and upset. 

“Can I just get a break?!” I yelled at no one.  It gets too hard being strong for 15 individual girls with 15 different problems, let alone worrying about my own.  So I broke. 

It has now been five days since Tenele left, and I still haven’t heard a word from her.  She hasn’t called to explain what happened, she hasn’t written a note, she hasn’t even come to see her kids. 

She, too, is a prisoner of fear.

Though the heartache is great and the confusion is constant, I refuse to remain discouraged.  My friend Jenny said, “Well, that’s Hosea’s heart, isn’t it?  She ran away, back to a dark place from which she was delivered, just like in the book Redeeming Love.  Don’t give up.”  My God of Hope is the only God, the only Savior, the only Faithful one.  I believe in His plan for Tenele’s life, and I know it will come to pass in the visions He’s given us.  It may not be in my timing, but it will be done.  And that is Truth that satan cannot take away from me.  In the moment, I wanted to stop loving Tenele, I wanted to give up on her, I sometimes still do…but I can’t and I won’t.  Because faith is stronger.  Because hope is greater.  Because forgiveness is deeper.  Because “perfect love drives out all fear.” (1 John 4:18)  But I can’t do it alone.  Help me love her when I am too weak.

As the battles continue, I know that “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” –Psalm 23:4        

Mission: To Kill...Me

 “The thief comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.  But I have come that you may have life and have it in abundance.”  

-John 10:10

It makes sense now.  Everything.  The physical fighting, the knife-threatening, the exaggerated arguing, the falling asleep during bible study, the fact that I’ve been feeling this month like the girls home is a black hole sucking the life out of me.  Ever since break ended in late January and the girls came back from their homesteads, life at the girls home has been draining, exhausting, disappointing, and full of an undisclosed gloom.  For, unbeknownst to us, one of the girls who had been involved in witchcraft during break brought back with her a power of darkness I thought only existed in movies.  But, as I’ve told my students last year, “What’s done in darkness can only be healed when it’s brought to light”; so, praise be to God that the secret is exposed and the light is piercing this monthly “night.” 

These past few days were by far the most dramatic I’ve ever experienced in all my 28 years.  For some of you, especially Americans who don’t believe or want to acknowledge that there are real forces of evil [demons], you may think I’m crazy because what I’m about to disclose is something that even I thought only happens in movies… except now… this is not a movie, it’s my life.  I hesitated greatly in deciding whether or not to post this blog, but truth is truth, and if there’s one thing I learned from this experience, it’s not to hide.  As I recount an extremely dark experience, I tell you only to proclaim the power of Jesus Christ of Nazareth’s name that we all may rejoice in his victory!  And to encourage any of you who have not yet met this Victor in your life, to invite him into your heart, to set you free and fight your battles for you.  For, in the words of my favorite song, “there is power in the name of Jesus… to break every chain, break every chain, break every chain!”  

A certain girl, Maria (fake name), had been different the moment she returned from her homestead.  She had made such incredible strides in the months leading up to December.  She had been changing and maturing dramatically.  Her prayers would move us to tears and send Holy Spirit chills down our spines.  I became increasingly close to her and found such joy in spending time with her, while others might say she was still hard to love.  But I loved her deeply, with a love that I know was not my own.  So, when she returned from break acting confusingly cold, I knew something was wrong.  There would be a few good days without any problems from her, but those became less and less, and pretty soon I had to have the same talk and discipline for her every day.  A few days ago, it got to the point where I was so fed up with her attitude and the way she was treating people.  There were visitors over at our house and she made a big scene in front of everyone.  I sent her to her room (mostly for me to cool off before I lost my last nerve with her).  Awhile later, I went into her room to yell at her.  She refused to even look at me or acknowledge what I was saying.  Finally, I bellowed, “Maria, who are you?”  I paused and she hung her head.  I continued in frustration, “Where is my Maria?”  A few tears fell from her face.  In a softer voice I finished, pausing between each word, “I…want…her…back.”  She knew that question was loaded, and the tears broke the wall she had built up. 

She crumbled to her knees and started bawling.  I went to her and sat on the bed, holding her head in my lap and letting her cry.  “I’m s-s-s-sorry,” she whimpered in-between cries.  “I-I-I-I-I-I…” she kept repeating and couldn’t finish her thought.  The tears wouldn’t stop. 

“Shhhh,” I tried calming her, as her body was shaking with sobs.  “It’s okay…”

“I-I-I-I-I…” she tried talking again.  I held her and waited.  “I-I-I-I killed someone,” she wept. 

Not expecting those words to come out of a 14 year old, I didn’t know how to respond.  “What?”

“I-I-I killed someone,” she cried so hard. 

“When?” I asked, not knowing why that was my first response.

“2013.” 

There were too many questions whirling through my mind.  It was hard enough to understand her through the sobs, so I kept silent and waited.

“And, Mama Kate, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she continued.  “I-I-I-I killed Tenele’s baby!”  Her cries were so loud that Gogo and Sibussa burst into the room wondering what was going on. When they saw me with Maria they just nodded at left. 

“How?” Now I was getting really confused.  Did she give her abortion pills?  Did she give her poison?  Did Tenele ask Maria to help get rid of the baby?  Surely Maria didn’t kill Tenele’s baby herself; for, Tenele was at Project Canaan when she had the miscarriage and Maria was nowhere near her even a month before that happened. 

“At night time…w-w-w-with my chain…” she started shaking again. 

What is going on? I asked myself.  That doesn’t even make sense!  What chain?  At night time? When? How would a chain kill the baby?  Before I could verbalize any of my thoughts, Maria continued.

“He told me to, he told me!” she wept.

“Who?  Who told you to?”

“Yehovah,” she wailed. 

I was at my wits end.  It sounded like she said “Jehovah,” but I knew she couldn’t be talking about the Lord.  Because I didn’t understand what Maria was saying through her sobs, I did the only thing I knew best: I prayed.

As I prayed she cried harder and harder.  I tried to calm her down and said, “Maria, do you believe that Jesus Christ has power over you?”

“No,” she responded without a moment’s hesitation. 

The moment she uttered “no,” she renounced the power of Christ and by doing so, she gave the darkness permission to take over. 

In that one utterance of “no,” the evil spirits inside of her took over.  Maria’s body flung to the floor as I grabbed her arm, trying desperately to hold onto her body.  “Nooooooo,” she cried as I kept telling her to ask Jesus to set her free.  She pulled herself under the bed, but I was holding on with all my might on her one arm.  With my free hand, I shoved open the door and called for help.  Gogo and four other sisters rushed in and I explained that Maria had demons and I needed help holding her body and praying. 

Within seconds, we had Maria pulled out from under the bed; her lips were quivering and her eyes rolled back into her head and eyelids closed over.  But her body was strong, very strong.  I held her head in my lap and in-between my two hands to protect her from smashing her head on the floor as the spirit inside of her kept whipping her head and neck around.  (For anyone who does not know, when a person’s body is possessed by a demon, it truly is no longer the person but the evil spirit in control.  While a demon is being exorcised, it will attempt to self-destruct the body in anyway or just run away from the people praying, which had happened this this young girl before.) While I braced her head, two sisters were holding each hand and arm and two more were holding her legs.  Gogo stood above us trying to talk to Maria who was not responding.

We started praying.  I prayed, Gogo prayed, the sisters prayed.  It was quiet at first; we were all unsure.  But slowly we got louder.  Slowly, I saw the Holy Spirit overtake two of the sisters in particular who exercised the authority of Jesus Christ of Nazareth over these evil spirits.  One girl in particular is extremely shy, quiet, and very reserved.  This amazing teenager started proclaiming Truth like never before!  She spoke, cried, commanded, and then yelled at the evil spirits.  Her prayers overtook us all. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful. She put the Bible over Maria’s heart and that’s when Maria’s body went crazy.  She held the Bible over Maria’s head, and her head whipped violently back and forth trying to turn away from the Bible, and at one point she almost tried to bite it.  This “quiet” sister called, “That’s right! Eat it!  This is your bread!  The word of God is your bread!  You need it!”

Another sister who is exceptionally wise for her age and close to the heart of Christ, commanded the evil spirits to talk and identify themselves (which they did—they gave names), this sister and asked question after question.  During the course of this questioning and praying, we learned of a very, very dark and scary past that Maria had been hiding from us all.  A past of witchcraft, devil worship, and a cult belonging to a “king” they call “yehovah.”  As a part of this cult, they even called it “church,” they are assigned people to kill.  (Obviously, it’s not by Maria’s hand that she kills people, but the spirit at least convinces Maria or these people that they are involved in the deaths of people close to them.)  According to the demon, each person is given a list where they keep the names of people they’ve killed and add names of people they are supposed to kill.  The sister demanding answers from the demon asked who was all on this list.  Four people were named, one of which was Tenele’s baby.  The sister then asked who is on the list to kill next? 

“Mama Kate,” came the answer.

At this point, I wasn’t understanding what was being said, but when my name was spoken, one of the sisters started crying and I felt something in the pit of my stomach. 

By this time, two hours had passed, and I was soaked in sweat. Sweat was dripping off my face and my t-shirt was stuck to my body completely wet.  Finally, the pastor who was our neighbor and had prayed the demons out of Tenele last year, came over with his wife to continue praying.  Eventually the demons became powerless over Maria’s body and then were completely gone.  Maria opened her eyes, became herself again, and then secluded herself in my room listening to my Christian music playlist for the rest of the evening. 

She didn’t remember anything that had happened, not even me coming in to yell at her and how she started crying.  After dinner, we had bible study in which Maria was present and participated; but not all was well yet.  That night, Kiley, who had sacrificed her own night of comfort to come sleep over with me (because I was a little shaken up, I mean, who wouldn’t be when you are told you’re on a list to be killed?!), asked Maria lots of questions about this cult and what was going on and why Maria was involved.  Maria freely talked about it, as if by talking about it, she was able to let it all go.  She held nothing back.  She explained how her friend Sarah had gotten her involved in 2010 and how they claim their king “yehovah” and are instructed to kill others through witchcraft.  Explaining further, she said that at night it’s her spirit that leaves her body and can go to these cult “meetings,” where they drink tea, which she said is actually drops of blood.  She believed that her chain necklace, a ring, and an earring had the power to kill others.  Yet, she knew the difference between herself and the spirit.  Maria admitted that during break she had gotten back into the demon worship and was with this Sarah nearly every day.  When Kiley asked why she was still in it, Maria answered, “Because if I leave, they will kill me.”  After telling her that was not true she stammered, “No, I’ve seen it done.  They put you in the wires.  One girl almost got killed, but she changed her mind and said she wouldn’t leave, so they let her out of the wires.”

Though we prayed with Maria and things seemed to be fine, I couldn’t sleep hardly a wink.  I tossed and prayed and turned and prayed all night.  I felt a heavy darkness over me but I just kept praying the name of Jesus and claiming his authority over me.  I was glad when light broke through at morning.

The next day, I was gone so Rachel and her mom stayed at the girls home to help watch the little ones and counsel Maria.  I got an update text from Rachel saying Maria didn’t want to stay in the house because she was afraid the demons would come back for her.  And she kept, “Sarah is coming.”  When I got home and talked to Maria about it, she said she can see that Sarah will come and that she was hearing these voices yelling at her inside her head. 

“What are they saying?” I asked.

“I don’t know…I can’t understand.  They’re just yelling,” she replied. 

So that’s when we got into a really deep and wonderful talk about the power of Jesus Christ, his love, and his blood that covers us.  I helped her realize that the demons were weak under Christ’s name and the whole reason that everything was exposed is because one of the girls claimed the authority of Christ over the demon and commanded it to talk.  That at the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, demons have to flee and people are set free.  I told her not to fear, for when she’s under the power of God nothing can touch her.

“Just like me,” I turned to look her in the eye.  “You were supposed to kill me, eh?”

“Yes,” she nodded. 

“When?”

“Your name came on the list on Friday,” she answered.

“Well, it’s Tuesday now.  Why didn’t you kill me then?”

“I don’t know,” she said quietly.

“I do,” I smiled.

She turned to me.

“Satan's mission may be to kill and destroy me.  But he can't.  You can’t.  Because the demons can’t.  Because I am covered by the blood of the Lamb, and that demon cannot harm me.  I am not afraid.  I am under the power of the Almighty, the one and ONLY true God, and demons stand no chance against Him in me.  And that can be the same for you.  If you accept God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as your true King, you, too, will be saved.  They cannot harm you.  They cannot come for you.  They cannot kill you.  But if you still refuse his name, then His blood cannot protect you.”

I continued.  “Do you think this yehovah king of the cult loves you?  Does Sarah love you?  Do these demons and other people involved love you?”

She didn’t respond.

“Do they?” I pressed.

“No,” she breathed.  “They don’t.”

“Maria, do you want to be loved? Do you know that I would give my life for you if I knew you would then be saved?  That’s love.  But guess what?  I don’t have to, because someone already did that for you and for me!  Jesus Christ, God’s one and only Son, died on the cross, pouring out his blood for YOU, that you may have life.  Satan comes only to steal, KILL, and destroy, as you know very well, but Christ is here that you may have LIFE, and have it abundantly!” (John 10:10)

Later that evening, the pastor’s wife invited Maria over to their house and she counseled Maria through Scripture and prayer.  Maria confessed everything, letting the light expose every darkness.  And with the pastor’s wife, she prayed to accept Jesus Christ as Lord of her heart and life!

We gained another victory that night, too!  Another girl came to me and confessed sin from her past.  At first, she said, “I’ve sinned greatly.  I don’t think God can forgive me for that.” 

“Honey, you are never too far out of reach for Christ’s mercy.  If Jesus on the cross can say to his murderers, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing,’ then he can surely forgive you!”

She then expressed how being raped had changed everything for her and she doubted God completely.  After being raped, she became addicted to prostituting herself, and she didn’t know how to stop.  She also didn’t believe that God could still love her after that.

“There’s a story in the Bible of Jesus forgiving a prostitute.  He tells her that she is forgiven and she should go and sin no more.  Another time, he tells the woman caught in adultery the same thing.  The people from the community drug her out to Jesus to stone her to death because according to law, she deserved death.  That’s when Jesus says his famous line, ‘You without sin can be the first to cast the stone.’  Everyone left.  When it was just Jesus and the woman, he asks who remains to condemn her, and she says, ‘No one.’  He tells her lovingly, ‘Neither do I.  Go and sin no more.’  So again, your sin is not too much for Jesus.  Not only will he forgive you, but he will heal you.  Do you want this healing?”

“Yes,” she cried.  “Yes, I do.”

So we prayed together and she invited Christ to be the King and Savior of her life!  Just last night, she led bible study (during which Maria led a worship song) and preached from her heart, saying “For the past three years I’ve been crying and crying.  I don’t show it, but my life has been tears.  Now I can see that God is with me.  I still don’t know much about God or the Bible, but I believe in Him.”

It was absolutely beautiful!  After such grave darkness, it was beautiful to dance in the light together!  For we have much to rejoice over.

We can rejoice that confession is the best exorcism!  When we confess our sins aloud, we are ridding ourselves of sin and allowing Christ to take his rightful place.  Light pierces darkness, and no matter how powerful the darkness pretends to be, it stands NO CHANCE against our God of light.  For, “our God is greater, our God is stronger, God you are higher than any other.  Our God is healer, awesome in power, our God.  And if our God is for us, then who could ever stop us? And if our God is with us, then what can stand against?” 

The battle here is really just beginning.  But that’s a blog for another time.  In the meanwhile, my prayer for you is that you too will embrace the light and ask Jesus to come into your heart and take the thrown of your life.  Let him heal your darkness.  Let him love you like you’ve never been loved before.  Let him whisper, “You are never too far gone.  You are worth it.  You are mine.  For, I have come to give you LIFE.” (John 10:10)