Tag Archives: migraines

My Christmas Gift from God

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I woke up early this morning from a dream in which my ex-husband and I were in a living room somewhere.  I don’t remember details, but in the dream I felt only compassion and agape love for him.

He had been verbally abusive to me, and had betrayed and hurt me very badly (emotionally).  When I left him, I was literally running for my life, being in grave danger from suicidal thoughts.  Since then we have had no contact and I’ve had no contact with his family, either.  There is no hope for reconciliation of the marriage, but I had hoped for reconciliation for the sake of our sons (at some point in the future, there is the possibility that our paths could cross at an important life event, like the wedding of one of our sons.  If that happens, I would like for it to be a pleasant meeting).

This past fall, I was traveling in Texas, and specifically through the town where he lives with another woman.  On passing through that town, I had hoped not to run into him.  That night God gave me a dream in which I was reassured that I would not run into him.

This dream of compassion for my ex revealed to me that I have truly forgiven him, and hold no bitterness or resentment against him.  Not long ago, I had received two prophecies which were fulfilled (at least in part) by this dream of forgiveness.  The first one that came to mind was given to me just about a month ago:

Do you feel My expression of joy over you?  If you do, then you know that I have been with you, that I have spoken to you, and I have encouraged you.  So, let this moment rest upon you as the mantle of anointing for the season that is ahead.  I would have you embrace the season that is ahead.  I would have you embrace this season with joy and faith.  And, I would have you to march forward in triumph because you know that you will win the battles that are necessary.  You will receive your reward in this season.  For, I have chosen this time to demonstrate My love for you by the giving of gifts, says the Lord God Almighty, (emphasis mine).

And before I go on to the second one, I’ll explain that part about the “battles that are necessary.”  We tend to think of battles at Christmastime as being a battle against your negative cousin Daisy or crabby old uncle Clyde.  But I have been fighting a different kind of battle these days.  That battle is against myself—specifically, the old mindset that hears criticism and turns it into self-condemnation, among others.  In the book mentioned in my last blog post (A More Excellent Way to be in Health by Henry Wright), old mindsets like mine actually are far more sinister, sometimes causing disease through the sin (separation from God) that they reveal themselves to be.  So I have been praying and working through these old mindsets, bringing negative thinking and self-condemnation into line with God’s Word.

The other prophecy was the one I wrote about in my post The Table:

God says that He has put a big Table before you, and it is full of everything you could ever want or need.

I had become overwhelmed by the task of speaking to the American churches about missions in Europe.  I began desperately to seek the Lord, weeping and begging for Him to show up.  Then I remembered the table full of everything I could ever want or need.  And I said, “Lord, the gifts are great, but I don’t want any gifts!  I want You!  I need You!”  Then God spoke, and in a very tender voice He said: “My child, I am in every gift!  I am on the table!  Every gift is simply more of Me!  Why do you think I keep inviting you to take everything you need, everything you want from the table?  Because I am everything that is on the table!  Take all you want of Me!”

In reflecting on the dream and that prophecy—especially the part about gifts—I realized that God had indeed given me a gift: more of himself.  Every time I win the battle against my flesh, I take on more of His likeness—thank You, Father!  It’s a bit big, but I hope to grow into it!  God is good!

He Loves Me!

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Yesterday I had another struggle with a terrible headache.  It might have been a migraine because of the nausea, but it was very untypical of migraines.  What was typical was that the pain was horrific and lasted all day.

When I finally started feeling better I looked up migraines in the book A More Excellent Way to be in Health by Henry Wright.  What it says about migraines is that migraines are caused by guilt, inner conflict and self-hatred, and fear.

This planet has been infected with sin.  And the longer that we have spent on this infected planet, the more that sin’s infection affects our physical bodies.  Sickness and death were never part of God’s plan.  God made us as immortal beings.  He designed our bodies in divine perfection: all our parts to fit together perfectly, to function perfectly, and to last forever.  But sin gave the devil the right to put disease on us: disease in our bodies, disease in our minds, disease in our relationships.

For a long time I have struggled with the problem of why everyone is not healed.  I had thought that it was a matter of faith, and in part I believe that.  But there is more to it than faith because lots of people pray in great faith for themselves and for others, and some are healed and some aren’t.  There is not one single instance in the Bible of someone asking God for healing and being refused healing.

Some people point to Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” as an instance of healing refused, but a careful reading of that passage (2 Corinthians 12:6-10), particularly verse 7, which spells it out as a messenger of satan.  Messengers in the Bible are angels.  I believe that they get confused and spiritualize the thorn as some kind of illness because verses 9 and 10 use the word infirmities is used in the King James Version.  But the more reliable NIV translation has it properly translated as weaknesses.

So since the Bible doesn’t show God refusing to heal people or giving them diseases to teach them patience in suffering, why do we accept illnesses?  As children of God, we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.  Sickness and death are not part of our inheritance, so why do we accept them?

According to Henry Wright 80% of disease has a spiritual root.  As with migraines, that root is a separation from God (and accepting sickness in the belief that it’s just life—think about how people say something about “my cancer,” for example), separation from self (self-hatred), and separation from others (bitterness, envy, unforgiveness, etc.).

So this morning after a good night’s rest, I spent time in prayer and meditation on all this.  I was reminded of what God did for me a few years ago.  I was going through a hard time, and I happened to see a sermon on God.tv about how very, very much God loves us.  The preacher said, “Think of God’s love continuously falling, falling, falling on you like Niagara Falls.”  I’ve been to Niagara Falls, and pictures don’t do it justice.  There is a place on the Canadian side where you can go through a tunnel and see the falls from underneath.  From that vantage point, you can see how much water is continuously going over the falls.  From above it looks like a lot, but from underneath, you can see that it is really a spectacular amount of water—like a whole lake—going over every single minute of every day.  So when he said that, I closed my eyes and thought about God’s love falling on me like Niagara Falls.  Immediately I felt the sweet weight of that love falling on my body.  In fact it was too much to take sitting up, so I laid myself down on the couch and basked in His love, feeling it in my physical body.  And I laid there for a full two hours, feeling the weight and force of His love.  It was amazing.

As I meditated on all this, I realized that God loves me as tenderly as a doe with her fawn and as fiercely as a she-bear with her cub.  When people mistreat us, it’s easy to forget that even if they are people who love us, they do not accurately reflect God’s love.  Other people’s love is conditional.  So is God’s love, but I’ve already met the condition: accepting His Son, Jesus Christ.  And nothing can ever separate me from that love.  Nothing!  God is good!

The Whole Inheritance

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Greetings from Rome!

I am here at Transform 2013, an outreach program of OM.  At the airport while waiting for the bus to the conference, I stopped at a coffee shop for an after-lunch espresso, as is my habit.  Next to me at the coffee bar was a friendly woman.  She smiled and spoke to me in English.  It turned out that she was also headed to Transform.  We hit it off in an instant friendship.  But Monica and I had no idea at the time just how compatible we were.

Transform in Rome is to prepare missionaries for short-term missions in the countries around the Mediterranean.  “Where are you going after the conference?” Monica asked me.  This would become one of the 2 most common questions to strike up conversation at the conference.  The other being, “Where did you come from?”  I told her that I’m from Texas, living in Milan, Italy, and going to Malta after the conference.  Her smile widened and she said, “Me too!”  Both our jaws dropped open.  Right on cue, the bus arrived and took us to the conference.  Monica and I rode together, each glad to have found a traveling companion.

When I arrived in Rome, I was already going on 2 nights in a row of only 4 hours sleep.  Monday night (or technically, Tuesday morning) I awoke at 2AM with a migraine attack beginning.  The enemy frequently tries to prevent me from going or from being effective on missions trips by attacking me with migraines.  But the Lord said to get on my feet and fight.  So I stood there in the dark room, rebuking the enemy silently so as not to awake my 3 roommates.  The migraine immediately went away and I was able to get back to sleep, but had a 3rd night of only about 4 hours sleep.  Something would have to break.  The next night (yesterday morning) I woke up again at 2 and simply couldn’t get back to sleep.  It wasn’t that my mind was busy, I just laid there feeling my breath going in and out, and not sleeping.  About 11 that morning, I was considering going to the room to see if I could sleep through lunch.

But my morning prayer partner suggested that I pray with someone who knows about generational curses.  She suggested this because I had opened up and told her about my concerns for my son, who had written on Facebook that he hadn’t been happy in a year, and had asked the question, “Why should I go on living?”  I noted that it was about a year ago that his grandfather (my former father-in-law) had committed suicide.  The person she led me to was Monica.

I told Monica about my son and father-in-law, and also that 4 months later, I also lost a close family friend to suicide.  She said that there is a spirit of suicide and a spirit of death that are generational spirits.  That means that they tend to cling to a person’s family, encouraging death among family members.  I had already broken other such curses off my family, but not specifically suicide or death.  I told her that in the last year that I lived with my husband, I suffered thoughts of suicide all day long, day-in and day-out.  And that finally, when I left him, I was literally running for my life—not because of physical danger from him, but because of the danger that I might, in a moment of weakness, act upon those thoughts because of how intolerable life had become for me.  One day I did come close, but instead called 911 and was referred to the County Mental Health Clinic, where I was given a prescription for an anti-depressant.

Monica took me to her room, laid hands on me and prayed for me, breaking the spirit of suicide and death.  She prayed for the healing of my memories and other things that I don’t remember.  What I do remember is that her hands smelled very nice and felt soothing on my skin.  When I commented on the fragrance of her hands she showed me a little vial of Frankincense.  It has a lovely smell!  It’s really very soothing.

After Monica’s prayer, I felt my energy return.  I did take a nap, but not until after lunch, and only for about 45 minutes.  Last night I slept very well, getting about 8 hours—6 in a row!—thank You, Lord!

Today almost everyone has gone into the city of Rome on outreach, taking many paperback Gospels of John in Italian, 3000 dvd’s of the Jesus film to give away, and thousands of tracts to hand out.  I decided to stay behind, knowing that without a nap, I could never last a whole day into the evening, walking around Rome.  On Fridays I pray for Italy from 3-4 in the afternoon.  So I went to the prayer room, with their big floor map of the Mediterranean countries.  I knelt down on Italy and prayed and wept over it.  Then I stretched out over Italy, my heart right over Tuscany.  For a long time I had no words to pray, just mute longing for the salvation of the people of Italy, and my heart beating over Tuscany.

Then I lifted up my head and saw the words printed on the corner of the map: “Ask Me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession,” (Psalm 2:8).  It was 3 years ago, just before I went to Transform 2010, that I received a prophecy, saying (in part): “You will not just receive the blessing, but the whole inheritance.”  So I stood to my feet and began to ask for the nations as my inheritance, and to claim the whole inheritance.  As brokenhearted as I had earlier felt for Italy, I began to feel confident that God will indeed bless and save the people of Italy—no matter what their background.

Then I remembered a prophecy I received a few days ago, but read this morning: “When your faith is in what you want Me to do for you instead just wanting Me, it is misplaced,” (emphasis mine).  Yes, my faith is in God Almighty, and He alone is the hope for Italy.  God, who helped me yesterday when I was in trouble, can help Italy, too!  God is good!

Our Last Night in Sofia

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With this prayer trip finished, some of our team flew back to their homes from Skopje, and some of us were flying back from Sofia.  The teammates that had driven up to Sofia from Greece drove back home again.  We hugged and said our goodbyes, most of us will see each other at the next prayer trip in April.

There is a lot of love and unity that develops when people pray together, and especially when they are praying for each other.  This time I was the recipient of a lot of prayers because of a spiritual attack masquerading as a migraine.  It came 2 days ago, the evening before our prayer walk in Skopje (see my previous post “Prayer Walking in Skopje”).  I suddenly had a very sharp pain just above my left eye and in the left side of my neck just where the spine meets the skull.  This was accompanied by nausea.  I went to the room, skipping dinner, and I prayed there through the evening session.  The next morning, I heard that another one of our team had also felt sick, as with labor pains.  Hers was a reaction to what Macedonia was experiencing in the spirit, while mine was a full-blown attack from the enemy.

I know that mine was an enemy attack because I have been attacked this way many times, and it is always just before I go on mission trips.  As I prayed, I was in such pain that I was really beyond words.  But I heard the Lord say to my spirit, “Relax and rest in Me.  Listen to My heartbeat.”  I tried, but much of that time I simply couldn’t hear His heartbeat.  Finally, after about 2-3 hours, I really can’t say exactly how long, I felt better, and I heard the Lord say, “It has loosened its grip on you.”  What He didn’t say was that it was gone.

The next night, after our prayer walking day we were again praying and worshiping.  One pastor there said that Macedonia suffers from a spirit of rejection, and that some of the people present also needed to be freed of a spirit of rejection.  He invited the people to come forward who needed prayers for rejection.  Then he looked at me and said, “Sister, your body language says that you are suffering from rejection.”  I had my arms folded across my chest.  He said, “Open up and receive the freedom that God wants to give you.”  So I opened my arms, and he prayed for me.  I suddenly began to cough very violently—it was like the cough came all the way up from the bottom of my abdomen, and I was bent double coughing.  He continued to pray and I continued to cough, then I fell to the floor (but I think someone caught me, I really can’t say).  Once on the floor, a deaconess from his church came and prayed for me.  As she laid her hand on my stomach I began to feel peace and the coughing stopped.

Then I heard the Lord say, “The demon has loosened its grip on you, now you need to loosen your grip on it.”  I did.  In my spirit I let it go and began to push it away.  I turned on my side and began coughing again, and then it was gone.  I turned onto my back again and the relief I felt was so great that I began to cry.  When I stood again, I returned to my chair feeling exhausted, but good.  Then I began to laugh.  And I just sat there, laughing and laughing.

Yesterday in the car on the way back to Sofia another attack came.  About an hour outside of Sofia we stopped for lunch, but I didn’t eat, feeling again nauseated.  They advised me to take authority, but in my weakened state, I didn’t feel like I could.  The group prayed for me, and took authority over the thing.  The headache and nausea passed, and by the time we were in Sofia, I was feeling much better.

As I was praying about it, the Lord told me that I need to take authority over the demons.  The authority is mine, but I need to take it.  He said, “When you enter a place, they should all flee in fear of you.”  Then the Holy Spirit reminded me of 2 Timothy 1:7: “For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love, and self-discipline,” (emphasis mine).  And I heard Him say, “You shouldn’t be timid.  You need to be bold.”  And I understood the last words of that verse: “power, love, and self-discipline” as a triangle.  That power and self-discipline come from love.  It’s like love is the battery that gives power and self-discipline their strength.  As I tap into the love, I will find the power to take authority over the demons that they will recognize as His authority, and they will flee from me.

Likewise, by tapping into that perfect love, I will find the self-discipline not to simply ride-out the attack in prayer.  Prayer has worked in the past against these attacks, but now I need to exercise the self-discipline to take authority over the demons immediately.

So last night Angie and I stayed another night in Sofia.  She is flying back to Germany as I write, and I will fly back to Milan this evening.  For our last night in Sofia, Bill and Vasha and Anton took us to the Mall of Sofia, where we ate at the Happy Bar & Grill.  Happy features traditional Bulgarian food and sushi.  Bill suggested a dish called Happy Bits with corn and cream.  I also ordered a Bulgarian salad with the wonderful Bulgarian cheese on it.  Angie had sushi, but hadn’t ever tried mixing a bit of wasabi into the soy sauce.  I’m not sure that she liked the wasabi so much.  For me, it’s just not sushi without wasabi.

After dinner, Angie did some shopping for her family.  I had already gotten bears from Bulgaria and Macedonia, so I didn’t need to do any shopping.  I definitely want to come back to Bulgaria.  The work that the Lord is doing here is amazing, and I love the people here.  God is good!