A Journey of Freedom from Bitterness, Fear, and Unloving
Oftentimes it feels easier to love God and others, rather than loving ourselves because it may seem selfish to us. However, the Bible tells us in Matthew 22:37-40 that we are to love others as we love ourselves. So, we must love ourselves properly before we can truly love others the way God intended. The following is a testimony from one of our Overcomers’ Community members on her journey of walking out of not loving herself.
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Matthew 22: 23-40 KJV
Salvation and then a Diagnosis
I am a daughter of the Most High King. A wandering and seeking Christian all of my life, but full of fear and the dread of death since childhood. I was saved in 2019, and my life was forever changed as I understood the Lord’s saving grace for the first time. I was full of joy and renewed hope until I was faced with one of my worst fears and promptly diagnosed with breast cancer in October of the same year. I believe God prepared me for the diagnosis because had I gone into that season of my life without that salvation moment, I would have been in fear of dying and going to hell.
God carried me through a two-year battle with cancer, which included a bi-lateral mastectomy, axillary node dissection, chemotherapy, radiation, losing my “breasts” twice due to infection (complete with a ten-day hospital stay during covid and emergency surgery), and finally a radical hysterectomy and oophorectomy, resulting in the immediate onset of full-blown menopause. At age 42, my body and my mind were TIRED.
The Beginning of a New Journey
During my cancer journey, a client recommended a book for me to read. I knew nothing of Dr. Henry W. Wright or of A More Excellent Way, and when I opened the book for the first time and began to read, I could hear God’s voice speaking truth to me. I was hungry for more.
As I read about God asking Adam, “WHO told you that you were naked?”, it was that question that lit me on fire. I had read that story a hundred times in the Bible but had never contemplated that there was an entire kingdom speaking to mankind that had motives and would stop at nothing short of our death and destruction.
Deliverance as a Result of Repentance
As I read on, my life would be forever changed when I digested the words on page 235. I saw my sin of bitterness toward my mother and the consequence of it expressly written on the open pages before me. Thoroughly convicted of my sin, I could see the truth of what was written.
As I read on, there was a prayer of repentance. When I prayed, I was delivered from a spirit of Bitterness. In confusion and alarm, as I began to groan from a deep place I had never known before, I ran to my bedroom (to hide in embarrassment and confusion from my husband) and I experienced a deep and powerful cleansing work of God. It would be over an hour before I emerged. I had no prior understanding of spiritual deliverance, nor any expectation of it. It was a deliverance from evil and a gift from God.
Unraveling Iniquity
Now, hungry for more, I took off running. I was seeking, watching, listening… living! The Holy Spirit was lit within me, and the fire was burning. Now I saw the destruction of my body as a result of the sin in my life and where I walked right into the enemy’s trap of guilt, self-condemnation, and shame. The invisible scars of sin now clearly visible in my life, and I began to self-blame.
We perish because of a lack of knowledge, and the enemy had taken full advantage of me. Fear was still an enemy, and it had room to grow in the absence of bitterness. This spirit of Fear is the foe who I hoped to defeat when I walked into the For My Life® Retreat in January of 2022. I came full of hope and expectation.
Deliverance from Fear
During the Retreat, there came a night that I never want to forget, not ever. The night before the teaching on fear, when I was doing my “homework”, I got a taste of what freedom looks like. As I went through the Fear ministry list, I was steeped in every single one, heavily and consuming. Thoroughly convicted of every fear on the list, I began adding to it. My heart poured out to God, and I was hysterical as I went through the 8 R’s in tears. I was delivered and forgiven.
And the spirit of Fear, which had known me since the womb, came out of my spirit with a sensation of my breath being completely evacuated from my body. And when the process was over, I felt an amazing freedom that I had never known before and was able to see myself as part of God’s Kingdom: empowered for God, called to active duty, no longer in darkness, ready to go and help others be free. Through tears, I began to sing, “whom the Son sets free, he is free indeed!”
Loving Myself
After what seemed like a lifetime, and with a sense of the Holy Spirit surrounding me, I decided to get ready for bed. It was then that I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I undressed. Until that moment, I had looked at my scars as being something I had done to myself through my involvement with the enemy and my relationship with bitterness. I would look at myself in the mirror and say, “look at what you have done to God’s creation through your sin.”
But that night, I saw myself as beautiful and strong. I saw myself as having come through a great battle, and I saw my scars as battle scars from my enemy. I called myself WARRIOR. Through tears of gratitude and joy, I could see and I loved myself for the first time. These are now the battle wounds of a woman who is in the process of becoming a great warrior. With eyes now opened, where once a fool lay on the ground taking the enemy’s beating, I was now upright and risen. Suddenly, quite aware of a battle going on all around me, realizing that we are all in the midst of a great war, but somehow previously veiled and completely unaware of it.
My Walk Out Journey at Home
I left the For My Life Retreat victorious, never feeling so close to God. I was in repentance mode, and the Holy Spirit was performing His cleansing work all over my life. It was as though my life was changed forever, and there was no turning back!
Since then, it has definitely been two steps forward and one step backward. In my lowest moments, the LORD has been there to rescue me, to kick down walls and tear down enemies that have become too strong. I have wrestled with unloving thoughts toward myself, guilt, shame, self-bitterness, and fear of letting my Lord down whenever my thoughts are not in line with His thoughts. I discovered that I have agreed with a fear of disappointing God. The battlefield has been all in my mind.
But I love the Lord; I know what freedom in God feels like. I got a taste, and I can never look back! I know the tools I can use when the enemy tries to give me his thoughts. And when things get so hard that it is more than I can bare, I remember that our Savior has borne it all in the heat of the day. I will continue on in my journey with the Holy Spirit as my guide and the help of the Overcomers’ Community for support. I am casting down thoughts when they come up and using His weapon—the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God! And I will never give up because I know He does not ever give up on me.
Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ: Philippians 1:6 KJV
Jennifer R.
Overcomers’ Community Member
Do you desire to learn how to be free from bitterness, fear, or unloving?
God wants you to be delivered, to avoid jealously and envy, and He has a plan for your freedom and healing. Be in Health has over 30 years of experience leading God’s people back to God’s best for their lives. Tens of thousands of people have come to our For My Life Retreats with mental and physical health issues, spiritual strongholds in their lives, and relationship breakdowns and they left with new hope, healing, and peace in God through Jesus Christ.
We invite you to join us for the For My Life Retreat. It’s available in person at the Be in Health/Hope of the Generations Church campus in Thomaston, Georgia. Or, if you are unable to travel at this time, we also have an online version of the For My Life Course.
Be in Health is a safe place to learn how to grow up as an overcomer and to discover God’s incredible love, grace, and mercy toward you.
Blessings,
The Be in Health Team
If you would like to read more articles related to this topic:
Can Arthritis be Healed? https://dev.beinhealth.com/can-arthritis-be-healed/
How God Healed Me of All My Diseases https://dev.beinhealth.com/god-healed-me/
How to Be Restored to the Father’s Love https://dev.beinhealth.com/restore-to-the-fathers-love/
