Jesus heals counsellor of sorrow

J struggled to believe that God is good. Instead, she felt that her relationship with God only brought pain. As she humbled herself to seek the Holy Spirit’s counsel on this issue, God revealed that her feelings towards Him were rooted in her earliest childhood experiences where she first felt neglected and unloved. As J confessed and repented before God, she was freed from her feelings of loneliness, sorrow, and hollowness as well as accusing voices that had plagued her throughout her life. Praise God!  

(See Chinese versions: 简体中文 > 耶稣医治顾问的忧伤 | 繁體中文 > 耶穌醫治顧問的憂傷)

During my early childhood, both my working parents were too busy to balance work and care for a young child.

So, they sent me away to relatives in China, to have them take care of me, as was the practice of many working parents from their province in their time.

I don’t remember what happened at the relatives’ home from the time when I was one year old up to perhaps, three years old. What I do remember is how my mother was extremely upset about their negligence. My mother still complains about them from time to time.

Although she didn’t tell me all the details, I know that I was constantly being scolded for just being a child and doing what any young child would do.

Because my relatives were aging, they often forgot or were too lazy to change my diapers or feed me on time. Or they would overfed me.

Also, to save their energy, they would put me into a stroller so I wouldn’t crawl around and explore what’s around me. Due to these conditions and the treatment I was receiving, my mother went to China to get me and to end the caring plan earlier.

Because of this experience, I grew up with a sense of loneliness and rejection. I felt hollow and a deep sorrow. Because I didn’t remember my early years in China, I didn’t recognise that these feelings developed from back then.

My feelings of loneliness, deep sorrow, and hollowness became stronger when I began living overseas by myself.

Even with an outgoing personality, surrounded by people and participating in many activities serving at church or in the community, I would still feel hollow at the end of the day – even though it was a fulfilling, joyful, and meaningful day.

To ease my bitter feelings, I started to self-comfort and self-medicate. I turned to binge-eating, binge-drinking, and binge-watching.

This sense of rejection and deep sorrow not only hurt my body and emotional health, but it also hurt my relationship with God.

I recommitted and began to devote myself to Christ again in the year of 2013. Since the recommitment, I enjoy praying and worshipping God, but those times often seemed painful as a result of how I felt inside. I do believe that I can bring my pain to God and tears can mean healing, but after over seven years of the same feelings and experiences, I became aware that this was not normal and not what God intended.

Without being careful or aware, I began to eventually associate God with pain, and God as pain. I began to believe that everything He said to me and His plans for me would just result in pain. This affected my faith in Him and my prayer life.

There was always a voice inside that told me that praying was tiring and boring. I wouldn’t get anywhere or get any better –whether in life or my relationship with God. 

For years I thought it was my voice and my own beliefs until I went for an inner healing and deliverance prayer session.

During the prayer session, the counselor was led by the Holy Spirit to lay her hand on my head. She said she saw a vision of me as a little girl that kept crying and crying, and that I felt very hollow inside. She asked me if I remembered any time like that. Because of that experience, I learned not to respect my own body.

I had a bit of difficulty recalling my childhood but God brought me back to the times in China that I thought I had forgotten all about. I had thought it had no impact on my life or my faith.

But God knew the hollow feelings stored inside my memories that had grown up with me. God also knew it was a wound that hindered our relationship.

I started to remember the time that I felt deep sorrow and comforted myself outside of God’s words and outside of His love. That resulted in the abuse of alcohol, food, and mindless, meaningless show-watching. Those destructive habits surely harmed my health.

God did not just want to heal me from that, but He wanted to heal our relationship so we could be more intimate.

The prayer counsellor led me to pray but there was an accusing voice telling me that it was useless. It said to me, “Repeat, repeat, same, same, same.”

Again, the accusing voice was telling me that it was no use praying to God, that no matter how much I pray, I wouldn’t experience a breakthrough. It told me that I will always be sinful and I will never get to where God wants me to be. No matter how much I prayed, my sinful behaviors would just stay the same and my relationship with God would not move forward.

I cried so much! In my heart, I believed so much that I would experience a breakthrough and that God does love me, but my mind struggled so much with those thoughts.

Those beliefs contaminated my prayer life and relationship with God.

During the prayer session, I also learned that my judgments toward my parents had hurt me as well. The prayer counselor explained that judging my parents is the same as judging my root, judging them is judging their fruit – which is myself. Whenever I judge them I actually judge myself.

Although my heart did not want to judge them, it had been so hard for me to stop. The counselor encouraged me and told me that if I sincerely repented to God, He would give me a new heart to love my parents. By His Spirit, I can.

I knew I could not do it on my own. I needed God to help me.

I desperately wanted to get rid of those judgmental thoughts toward my parents. Judging them had taken away my joy and the love that we could have had at home.

I was willing to repent and give up my own ways, so the counselor offered to lead me in a prayer to repent of my judgments and my anger toward my parents.

But I began experiencing resistance to the repentance prayer.

I do not remember how many times I kept interrupting the repentance prayer. Different thoughts kept coming to my mind that I felt I must share with my counselors.

After over one hour like this, my prayer counsellors felt led to stop me and confront my resistance. They asked me about my heart and pointed out that there were unclean spirits (and their voices) inside me that were stopping me from going to God for freedom.

Eventually, with some effort, I was able to follow their guidance and finish the repentance prayer. During the repentance prayer, I experienced headaches, uncomfortable body heat, and a feeling of nausea. All those feelings were gone when I finished the prayer.

I know I was renewed because my mind was more clear after the prayer and a sense of joy seemed to enter my heart.

I am grateful that God is willing to reach down and lift me up from where I am and restore our relationship.

Since the prayer, I have experienced more of His love and joy. My prayer and worship time isn’t about pain and tears anymore. There were so much love, joy, and peace.

I feel like I am in a vast ocean of His love, joy, and peace when I pray and worship now.

There is no longer a voice telling me I should stop praying or that praying is useless. My mind, my heart and my spirit are totally one with God during prayer and worship time. There are no more distractions or interrupting, accusing thoughts.

I am truly grateful for God and His healing mercy on me.

I know I have experienced a breakthrough – unlike what that old accusing voice used to suggest; that I will never have a breakthrough.

God also tells me more of Himself and about His heart. God not only let me experience more of His love, but He also lets me know more about Him. This is the relationship that I desire – to know and hear everything about God’s mind and heart.

Also, I finally have less judgmental thoughts and less contempt toward my parents. I want to love them as Jesus loves them. I believe God will help me and will continue to help me.