Grace full mama

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that we live in a world at war. The little things that we struggle with every day, the little jobs, the doldrums take all of our energy and we wonder why we are so very sapped. It isn’t a war on the surface. It isn’t a war that we can see. That, I think, is what makes it so dangerous. It is a war from within, in an unseen world, that can sap us of our energy and pollute our purpose.

I’ve been in the trenches lately with my own war. It has been a quiet war, attacking me from the inside with insidious thoughts that don’t line up with the words of my father. The enemy has tried hard to convince me that I am not lovable, valuable, precious, redeemed. In turn, he has tried to convince me that because I am so unlovable, of course my husband can’t actually love me.

Our enemy doesn’t fight fair. There is no code of conduct in silent, daily spiritual warfare. He uses the wounds of my past to inflict pain in the present; to try and make his lies more believable. If ever I was unloved before, it had to be because I was unlovable, right?

My husband has been so fantastic, asking how he can pray, and reassuring me at every turn. But somehow that still doesn’t make the lies that crawl inside me and start gnawing away run for cover. It’s a little bit like a band aid trying to stop internal bleeding.

I have been fighting valiantly. I know that I have been under attack, but the siege continues to throw darts at me. This morning as I lay in bed in that state just between asleeep and awake, where you aren’t sure if you are dreaming or not, the enemy threw a lie out about my husband. I can’t even remember now what it was! It was just something that made me think that I am not lovable. In my sleepy state, I went to Holy Spirit. “Don’t take offence,” he told me,”It didn’t actually happen.”

Hmmm. How much of what I fight against is based on lies? Lies about myself, lies about God, lies about the people around me? If it is a lie, it can be disintegrated completely by something as simple as recognising there is no truth in it! No matter what feelings the enemy tries to impose… feelings of pain, fear, anxiety so crippling it steals my breath; it is an engine with no gas. Truth is where the power is. All I have to do is see and believe the truth… and recognise the powerlessness of the lies, and they will fade from my mind. The battle is actually SO SIMPLE.

I look at my son, 23 months of absolute perfection, and I see someone who knows he is loved. He has never been given any reason to doubt it. He runs to me for hugs and I drop what I am doing and hug him. He is secure. Right now, the enemy has no clout, no “proof” to make him believe that he isn’t exactly who he is. If I were to respond differently to his needs, if I were to reject his sweet whines for comfort and make him believe that he was a burden, would it change anything about him? No. It would just give the lies purchase in his mind. He would still be the precious boy who needs his mama; but he would be a precious boy who wonders if there is something inherently wrong with needing his mama.

So. This “depression” that tries to take hold of me is as simple as the enemy using the pain of my past to make his lies believable. But a lie has no truth to it. It is powerless.

The truth shall set us free, my friends. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.

Seeing the truth is like letting our heads come up out of the water. We were never drowning after all!

May you be able to seek Jesus for the truth, so that you can reject the lies!

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12

Make no mistake, you are in a battle for your very soul. Know your enemy, know his tactics and weapons! Look to your commander for your marching orders and your own weapons! The battle belongs to the Lord.