Carol is a long-time friend and partner with PITFH. She is walking out her healing journey very faithfully with Father, Son and Holy Spirit and making great growth strides all along the way. She is the kind of faithful friend we trust and ask often to speak into our lives. We hope you will enjoy her well written article on the subject of Predator/Victim.
Blessings,
Roger and Gerri
Having walked in the knowledge and acceptance of Jesus’ death and resurrection for the past forty-two years, I now hold firmly to the opinion that the enemy of our souls pulls out all the stops in order to keep us from learning of, receiving and walking in our God given birthright and inheritance. Perhaps this battle is our part of sharing in Jesus’ sufferings.
Since the age of three I have born the weight of emotional abuse from my earthly father. I don’t believe he willingly engaged in it; nonetheless, the damage was real, and it effectively shut down my ability to feel and project healthy emotions.
This first manifested in the extremely fierce and somber expression on my face in early childhood photographs. Later, during elementary school years, I began having trouble relating well to other students. By late high school I had given up trying to form relationships with peers, and was experiencing the beginnings of clinical depression. This elevated to increasingly serious thoughts of suicide, which were dealt with decisively and permanently one evening while alone in my college dormitory. In nothing short of a miraculous intervention, I heard Jesus say, as I was about to fall headlong into a black abyss, “Wait! I want that life.” In an instant of time I accepted His offer, felt Him snatch me up out of the blackness and set me on firm ground.
I have been free from clinical depression ever since. However, as I have come to painfully realize, deliverance from symptoms is not the same as healing of the root problem. I have long since forgiven my dad for his abuse, but forgiveness is not the same as healing, either. I still had problems forming healthy relationships: the adult wife and mother was operating on the emotional level of the wounded three year old. As a result, when around certain people, especially men, who exhibited similar predatory characteristics as my father, I freaked out. I put up an instant protective emotional wall between them and me, not being able to make eye contact or even to speak civilly to them.
As I began my healing journey through prayer ministry, Father God started the process of identifying the root cause of the problem and offered me the opportunity to look at it squarely in the face, own it, forgive the offenders, ask forgiveness of the many I’d hurt over the years, and receive His incomparable healing and restoration.
The price paid for wading back through all that pain and dealing with it God’s way now seems miniscule compared to the freedom I’m experiencing from the crippling effects of those childhood wounds. Freedom has not come all at once, rather, in stages or plateaus as I deal with daily circumstances in His wisdom and love. Specifically pertaining to predators, it was extremely helpful to realize that they act like predators because they lack fulfillment of one or more of the four basic human needs: unconditional expressed love, affirmation and affection, safety and security, and/or life purpose. In other words, they are no different than I was. Now, as a daughter of the Most High God in good standing, I can see where they are, where I am now, and have the capacity to empathize with their pain without becoming a victim of their predatory behavior. The key to consistent victory is staying in constant, intimate contact with my loving Creator. Only as my spirit communes with His Spirit do I have the power needed to ward off attacks of the enemy through predators and to pierce the darkness surrounding them with the essence of Father’s presence.
Have I ‘arrived’ in this area yet? Not a chance. Only when my homecoming is celebrated will I have complete, absolute success. In the meantime, I have ample, ongoing opportunities to choose how I will deal with predators: as a victor or a victim. The choice is mine every time; but as the experience of victory gets stronger with each successful encounter, so does the emerging healthy behavior pattern.
Isaiah 30:18 “Blessed is the man who waits for Him; for His victory, favor, love, peace, joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship.” YES and AMEN!