Testimony: New Creation, Grace, and Healing!

4/9/11

Background

          For those who are not aware of the recent struggles I’ve had, here’s a brief summary to give you some background.  I am a born again Christian who loves the Lord and have been growing in my walk and learning much about the Lord’s ways since the tender age of 16. However, much of that time has been punctuated with alternating periods of trying to live my faith in my own strength, and living unrighteously in “backslidden” seasons.  

During those backslidden seasons I would run to “idols” (e.g. vain and empty objects) to comfort my flesh and ease my emotional and spiritual pain.  From a young age I distracted myself from my pain by reading books and watching movies and television. As a teenager I was battling severe depression; and I coped with idols like smoking cigarettes daily, sneaking alcohol, and gratifying lust with romance novels and secretly watching porn.  By the time I was in college I escalated to using marijuana daily (and other drugs “recreationally”,) as well as indulging strongholds of lust and self-mutilation. After college I escalated even further to worshipping idols by smoking weed and cigarettes, drinking, eating pills, cutting, lusting… Once I was high I would bury my head in movies to forget my pain and stop obsessive thoughts about how much I hated myself and what a loser I was.  

I would hear God calling me and drawing me out of these backslidden seasons, and I would return to church and again start trying to live righteously for God.  However, all my efforts to live for God were born out of my own strength.  Eventually condemnation would consume me over my sin, and I would turn back to those idols to comfort myself. I would get drunk and watch movies on Saturday, Sunday I was in church silently berating myself and crying out to God to help me, and by Tuesday I’d be hating myself so much I’d be drinking or compulsively burying me head in movies and books again.  

About 3 years ago I began seriously battling with emotional strongholds (“giants”) of condemnation, self-hatred, discouragement, and despair.  These were the same giants I battled since I was a young girl.  Eventually I became so overwhelmed with my strongholds and with condemnation, I found myself more frequently running FROM God in shame and fear, rather than running to HIM with my struggles. I felt so consumed with condemnation and self-hatred that I began drinking and running to those aforementioned idols more and more frequently to try to numb the pain.  (Of course, as many of you know, seeking fulfillment by drinking from broken cisterns and worshipping idols doesn’t numb the pain or solve problems; but instead, only adds to one’s difficulties and unhappiness, and increases bondages.)  Before long I felt completely defeated and powerless to stop worshipping those idols.  No matter how much I wanted to, I couldn’t stop drinking, binge eating, using pills, lusting, and running to any and every fleshly comfort.

So, after continuing to spiral downward emotionally and spiritually, I agreed to go to a Christian “rehab center” to try to get freedom from my addictions.  After two months at the program I had run out of my own strength.  I was hurting badly and knew I desperately needed HIS grace, but I didn’t know how to receive it. So, predictably, I ran from God and my struggles and left the program believing the LIE that I was a total failure who would always be in bondage to sin. 

I moved in with my older sister until I found a job and I was financially stable enough to live on my own again. I got a job “fishing;” that is, I went back to what I knew and was familiar with- working with “troubled” youth. But by then I had begun a season of living as a “prodigal” child. Every time I tried going to church or praying I just felt angry and separated from God in the sin I refused to let go of.  I was mad at God, because I blamed Him for my own mistakes and failures and refused to take accountability for my actions.

I stopped drinking for about 6 months on my own strength, but I began to be really depressed and started up again shortly thereafter.  I got treatment for the depression; but I was so consumed with condemnation I still kept running to my idols to numb the pain. I continued living backslidden for 18 months, struggling with God all the way.  I felt isolated and lonely, living only to work and refusing to acknowledge my faith.  As anyone who has tasted the goodness of the Lord and then tried to walk away can tell you, it doesn’t really work.  I was miserable and knew I had to get over my anger and loneliness and come back to God. 

Testimony

          In March of this year I finally reached a point where I decided to humble myself and truly repent to God for my sins.  I began praying, acknowledging my complete POWERLESSNESS and inability to stop drinking and sinning; and then I acted on the four-fold revelation God gave me earlier that week: 1) Acknowledge my powerlessness. 2) Acknowledge HIS power and strength. 3) Submit to God. 4) Pick up my cross and follow HIM! That same week, in the first outpouring of HIS grace and love, my heavenly Father completely removed the condemnation and self-hatred that had tormented me since I was 9 years old!  

From that night on I committed to follow those 4 steps. I also decided to get rid of my “idols” by laying them at the foot of the cross, submitting to God, resisting the enemy, and stepping out in faith to fight my “giants”.  And since that night in March, God has poured out His grace in a powerful way that I had never before experienced.   As I continued to practice those four steps and lay down my idols at the foot of the cross, suddenly God was pouring out His grace and enabling me to do what I had never been able to do before; and, for the first time in my life I’m FREE of them!  The temptation to drink or use pot, bury my head in movies and books, binge eat, etc… are nominal compared to my hunger and craving for God.  For the first time in my life I’m not trying to walk out my faith in my own strength, and by God’s grace I’m able to daily pick up my cross, deny my flesh, and follow after Jesus FREE of the weights and sins that previously conquered me!

          God has set me on fire for Him again.  I’m completely obsessed with praying, journaling, reading and studying His Word, worshipping and praising Him, and spending time with Him.  I’m so hungry for His presence and so longing to please Him that the thought of purposely sinning by picking up those idols again truly grieves my soul.  God is giving me massive revelation of the power of sin to destroy; and I’m also finally beginning to understand what it means to live by GRACE.   An example would be when the Lord told me I need to treat my body as a temple of the Holy Spirit; and without me even consciously trying to change, He poured out His grace and I started exercising regularly, eating healthily, and even fasting. (And anyone who knows me and my past hatred for exercise along with my love affair with food, knows I’m only able to do that by God’s abundant grace!)

          April 6^th of this year I had come home from work, and was spending time with the Lord in the secret place.  I was sitting on His lap, my head just resting against His chest and listening to His heart beat.  He began to speak and gave me a word related to a future ministry of what He called “healing in word and deed”... 

     Then He told me He was “marking” me as proof and a testimony by pouring out on me what He called a “total body overhaul”! Now I’m not familiar with automobile terms, but I knew generally that meant significant repairs!  Before I could even think about it the Lord healed my back, hip, and leg from sciatica that had kept me in significant pain the last 8 months!  Then He healed my stomach of three ulcers!  Then he healed my knees that had torn cartilage and bones grinding together! Then He healed my throat that was constricted from a past tonsillectomy!  He told me He was even healing my migraines and food allergies! It’s been three days and my body feels like it did when I was a teenager.  I’m still struggling to conceive the magnitude of His gracious blessings! I’d never even heard of God healing someone’s entire body of various ailments, much less experienced it; but it’s increased my faith and I’m believing for my mother to be healed next.

I know it’s not been long since I’ve repented and run back home to the Father, but I really can’t imagine turning back.  God has given me a new level of revelation about the power of sin to steal, kill, and destroy as well as an even greater revelation about the power of HIS grace to live victorious in Christ.  This new revelation of HIS grace has empowered me to win the battle over “giants” I have been battling since I was as young as 9 years old.  This new level of freedom has given me SO MUCH appreciation for the love, fear, and power of God to consider wearing another yoke of slavery. 

I know that as long as I continue to humbly submit to God, resist the enemy, pick up my cross, and step out in faith I will continue to remain victorious in Christ from the “giants” that used to torment me and keep me living in discouragement, depression, and fear.  It’s by HIS grace that I will continue to stand firm in Christ (Gal 5:1)! 

Thank you Lord, for the inheritance (healing, blessing, salvation, redemption, reconciliation, sanctification, justification, victory, grace…) that You freely give us in Christ Jesus!  Thank You, Father, for revealing to me the power of grace and the truth of my new life in Christ! I truly am a new creation!

                                         Love,

                                                   Your daughter,

                                                                        Amy S. Baynes