Week 2 C
Guidelines and Assignments for you
For best results:
Do these assignments on the last 5 days of Week 2 after you’ve read through the material in section A and B
Day 1
Please click to watch the video below:
HOW CAN YOU GET RID OF IDOLATRY?
First: Decide
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YOU HAVE TO TRULY, FROM YOUR HEART MAKE A DECISION TO GIVE UP THE IDOL OF FOOD (OR ANY OTHER IDOL) THE LOVE RELATIONSHIP NEEDS TO END. IT’S YOUR DECISION AND ONLY YOU CAN DO IT
Important: Deciding to give this up is not easy and it sure won’t happen overnight – but it’s the first step in the right direction, and no one else can do it for you. *Please see the notes below if you feel that you’re just not ready to give up this idol. |
Do you really want to be free?
You see, you have to make up your mind whether you’re really WANT to be free and whether you’re willing to untangle your heart from your idols. GOD WILL NEVER FORCE YOU TO GIVE IT UP, HE GAVE YOU FREE WILL.
However, God is willing and able to help you if you ask Him. Let the Holy Spirit help you search your heart. If you are ready to give up this abusive lover, then repent today from the sin of idolatry. This is such a personal thing that I am not even going to give you a prayer to pray. It is between you and God. There is nowhere to hide. He knows you better than you know yourself, and He will know if you have truly had enough of eating with the pigs like the prodigal son. It’s no way for a daughter of the King to live. Your husband is Jesus Christ, you are His bride and He is waiting to give you a crown of beauty, instead of ashes. He wants to give you the oil of gladness instead of this sadness and depression you have lived under, and instead of a spirit of despair he wants to hang a garment of praise around your shoulders. Please go read again Isaiah 61:1-4 if you think I’m exaggerating. Jesus came and died so that you and I, His bride, can be free!
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IMPORTANT: SURRENDERING YOUR IDOLS TO GOD TAKES TIME What if you feel that you just can’t do it, that you’re not there yet?
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I invite you to pray this prayer with me if you honestly feel unable to let go of food or other idols right now
“Jesus, I’m not ready, I want to be ready, but I’m not. I still love food and I’m scared and not prepared to let it go. Will you please open my fingers one by one so I can let this false lover slide out of my hand. I know I am asking this according to your will, seeing that you commands us to love YOU with all our hearts, our souls and our minds. Please teach me how to love you even more than I love food right now. This thing is too big for my human strength, I ask that you will help me get there because nothing is impossible with you. Thank you Lord. Amen”
Second: Repent
Always start by clearing the air between you and God through repentance. Repentance is one of the mightiest tools and most wonderful gifts God has given us.
Let this verse sink in and be new to you today:
I John 1:9 NIV
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness
Take this time to just pour out your heart before Him and confess the sin of idolatry.
The enemy has used these idols to steal many years of your life, and God wants to give it back to you. This is a good day. It is the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God. (Isaiah 61:2 – my own words).
He wants to comfort you, so go ahead and cry before Him if you need to. He loves you so much. He has been waiting, like the father of the prodigal son, for your return.
Not sure which things are really idols in your life?
Start by writing down those things that you think you have put above God in your life. God already knows, you don’t have to feel ashamed in His presence. Some idols are obvious but others have crept into our lives, almost unnoticed. God knows about every idol in your life. Remember this verse?
Jeremiah 33:3 (AMP)
“Call to me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things, fenced in and hidden which you do not know”
Third: Expect GRIEF
You will quite possibly feel relieved and even the joy of repentance come over you when you repent from the sin of idolatry.
Now I wish I could say that this would be the end of it, but that will not be true. Many times we’ve worshiped these idols for such a long time that they became part of who we are. This idol might be so woven into your life and personality, that you might have to put a few more things into place. I had to deal with a great deal of grieving. I was sad, angry and confused and I was disappointed in myself that I couldn’t just let it go. This is why I made this next video for you, to warn you of some of the things you can expect.
How do you deal with grief?
Grief is a natural process that we all go through if we lose something dear or familiar to us. So don’t deny it and don’t beat yourself up about it, just go through it. God never said that we will not experience difficult emotions such as anger and sadness. He did however promise to be with us through it all and get us safely through it, if we will let Him.
Isaiah 43:2 (Amp)
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned or scorched, nor will the flame kindle upon you”.
Let me encourage you that this grief process will be behind you before you know it, but you will be so glad that you stuck it out, because the freedom that comes from leaving an idol behind is priceless!
Please click on the video below:
PLEASE STOP! DON’T GO ANY FURTHER TODAY!
To get the most out of this course, please apply it to your life in the bite-size pieces that I recommend. Take AS LONG AS YOU NEED, but be sure to take at least ONE DAY.
DAY 2
HOW DO I STAY FREE FROM IDOLATRY?
James 4:7 has the answer: Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
FIRST: Submit and Surrender to God
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IMPORTANT: THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF YOUR HEALING! IF YOU DO NOT SURRENDER TO GOD, YOUR FREEDOM WILL NEVER BE PERMANENT I always wanted to wait until I had my eating under control, or until I laid down my other idols, before coming into God’s presence. But that never happened. We don’t have the power to “push out the bad stuff” in our lives. It is when we come to Him and surrender, in our filthy state, that the idols start to fall off.
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What does it mean to surrender?
When I realized what a huge role SURRENDERING TO GOD played in my healing, I wrote an eBook on this topic.
Please Read the following excerpt from my book where I explain what it means to SURRENDER:
What is surrender? How do you do it?
I started looking into the word surrender. I know it means to give up, like in a war or a game. Giving the other party the “right” to say “I win”. That doesn’t sound so good, I know. Definitely not in our society where everybody encourages you to “Go for the gold”, “Be your own person”, “Don’t let anybody tell you that you can’t do something”!
This is what I found in the Bible:
Rom 6:16 (AMP)
“Do you not know that if you continually surrender yourselves to anyone to do his will, you are the slaves of him whom you obey, whether that be to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience which leads to righteousness”
This part of the verse jumped out at me;“surrender YOURSELF”. Wow, can it be that God actually wants me to surrender all of me?
Does that include my whole mind, body and spirit? That would mean all of my time, my money, my relationships, my work, my interests and yes my eating habits. I started to think about this, and how everything in my life works together, and has an effect on each other.
How many times have I shoved hands-full of potato chips down my throat after I had a stressful telephone conversation? And how about the times that I ate anything I could find after I spent money that I really didn’t have?
Jesus said that if anybody wants to follow Him, they have to take up their cross daily, leave all of their own interests and desires behind and follow Him (Luke 9:23, my own words)
I started to get the picture: If God would have just ‘saved” me instantly from my eating disorder, I would still not have learned to surrender to Him. A miracle like that would have been wasted on me, seeing that I most likely would have picked up another addiction or harmful behavior to “help” me deal with the chaos in my life.
The reason for the chaos was due to the fact that I wouldn’t surrender MY LIFE to God. Life is hard, make no mistake, this is why we desperately need God. But if we take up an idol, such as food, and put it in God’s place, we make our own lives harder, in fact our lives become unmanageable. This is why, even at times when I lost weight through questionable means and looked great, I was not happy, and I found other harmful ways to try and fill my life.
So I have to choose; will I become a slave of Christ or a slave of this world, my own selfish desires and ultimately Satan?
THE WAY TO SURRENDER IS ACTUALLY SO SIMPLE, BUT SOMEHOW SATAN HAS MANAGED TO MAKE US BELIEVE THAT SURRENDERING TO GOD IS ONLY FOR A FEW FORTUNATE SOULS AND TO THE REST OF US IT WOULD ALWAYS BE AN UNATTAINABLE MYSTERY. THIS IS SIMPLY NOT TRUE.
THEN HOW DO WE SURRENDER?
WE SIMPLY HAVE TO MAKE TIME FOR GOD, FRONT AND FOREMOST. WE HAVE TO WORSHIP HIM BY GIVING HIM OUR MOST PRIZED POSSESSION: OUR TIME.
IN SHORT: WE HAVE TO STOP, WAIT, LISTEN AND OBEY.
So why is this so hard to do? Why do we avoid doing the thing that we need the most?
I think that the main reason for this is continuous activity. We live in a world where everybody is always busy with something, and nobody has any time for anything.
This is a real problem, seeing that AS LONG AS I KEEP MY BODY OR MIND BUSY, I CAN’T HEAR GOD, AND AS LONG AS I CAN’T HEAR HIM, I CAN’T OBEY HIM AND MY LIFE CAN NOT BE CHANGED.
It seems so easy; just settle down, just calm down, just listen. And maybe it is because of this simple truth that we tend to not believe that it can be true. We want a deep theological explanation of how to draw near to God. There must be something more substantial that we can do. Do you know that stopping activity is probably the most difficult thing for people to do, in our society? Satan obviously has a field day with this. As long as he can remind us of ten thousand things that still need to be done, he wins. If we are busy, he’s work is done, we can’t hear God, so we can’t obey Him and we’re as good as dead in our bonds.
The truth that many Christians refuse to see is that we are at war; there is a battle raging for our freedom and our hearts. Satan has us in bondage and there is no way he would just willingly open up the prison door and let us walk free. But there is a key to our prison, and that key is God’s presence. It is in His arms, on His lap, and at His feet where our chains start to break and fall off.
I believe we are all born with a yearning for His Presence. Sometimes I would have fought this yearning for so long that it literally died. I would still have the vacuum, the terrible thirst for something, but I wouldn’t recognize it for what it was anymore. Days will go by, weeks, months, and years where I started to feel more frazzled every day. The pain would later be so fierce that I would cry while stuffing my face with anything from cereal to pork chops.
I also remember times when I just stopped listening to the voice of the enemy in my head and all the voices surrounding me. Times when I listened to my heart and started searching after God with my whole being. I would read Jeremiah 29:13 (Amp)“Then you will seek Me, inquire for and require Me, and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart” and it would always make me cry. I would cry because I had such a longing to find Him, and hearing this promise made me think that He might be worth searching for. These were times when I let down my guard of unbelief and started searching for Him with all my heart. It was in a time such as this, that my chains fell off and I could walk free.
How does one stop? You have to stop the train that you’re on, ON PURPOSE! Throw out the idols of business, TV, computer, food, cleaning, shopping, church activity, yes even those friendships that take up all your time. YOU HAVE TO STOP: GO SIT AT HIS FEET, SURRENDER – WAIT, LISTEN AND OBEY.
STOP, WAIT, LISTEN AND OBEY
So what you need to do first of all is: STOP! Stop the busyness and the craziness. Think about one day out of your life: Just during the course of one morning you could endure frustration, pain, and an enormous heap of stress. Life is like that, we can’t get away from it, so we need to unload, refuel, and sort out the lies from the truth. You can find a time in your day to just STOP. Don’t make anymore excuses, especially if you’ve been running from the only One that can save you.
If this is as hard for you as it was for me, start crying out to God. I mean really cry out to Him, in the car, in the shower, wherever you are just say: “God I need you. I want to surrender to You, but I don’t know how to just be still. Help me, show me how, when and where!” If you start to pray this prayer, I can guarantee that you will start to hear His voice calling you to a quiet spot: a chair in the back yard, your car, a park, the privacy of your bedroom, or somewhere you’ve never even thought of.
Remember how the prodigal son hesitantly came back to the father in his filthy rags, thinking that he will not be recognized as a son anymore. But the father embraced him and gave him a new robe and a ring for his finger and prepared a feast for him.
COME JUST AS YOU ARE! Don’t wait to be perfect or for the perfect moment when you have lots of time. It’s never going to happen! Come to God right after you purged, he saw it all anyway and he’s heart is so tender towards you in this time of pain. Start calling out to him while you are binging; you can cry, eat and pray at the same time, he understands. Just come as you are and where you are. Every time you stop to talk to him, every time you invite him into your struggle instead of shutting him out, you are taking one step closer to freedom!
In this intimate moments with Him, pick up your Bible or your note cards (we will discuss this in Day 3) and start meditating on a verse. Ask Him what it is He wants to tell you. Just wait for Him to speak to you. If you are serious about this, He will speak to your heart. He has things to tell you about your heart, dreams that he has placed in there.
You can also talk to Him, let this be the start of a prayer life for you. You don’t need fancy words, he knows you so well, he is the only one with whom you can truly be yourself. Just talk, like you would to a friend, about your day, about how things have affected you.
Especially talk to him about the times you ran to food. Open up to him about the hidden places of pain and frustration in your heart. He has all the answers about your life, including your eating disorder.
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Remember: STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING, AND JUST GO TO GOD. Don’t wait until you are “better” or “cleaner”. He will make you clean and whole, you can’t do it without Him. He is waiting for you with open arms, just go! THIS IS A PART OF YOUR LIFE WHERE YOU HAVE CONTROL – YOU CAN MAKE TIME TO GO TO GOD! |
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Tips:
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PLEASE STOP! DON’T GO ANY FURTHER TODAY!
To get the most out of this course, please apply it to your life in the bite-size pieces that I recommend. Take AS LONG AS YOU NEED, but be sure to take at least ONE DAY.
DAY 3
SECOND: Resist the Enemy
Please click to view the video below:
REMEMBER THE ORDER OF THINGS ACCORDING TO JAMES 4:7
First: Surrender to God
Second: resist the enemy
Third: and he will flee from you
If you made the decision to surrendered your heart to God and stop the fast train that you’re on, then you’re ready for the next step:
It’s time to strap on your armor and join the war.
Up until this point the enemy had a field day with your life, every day of your life. He would tempt you, and you would just give in. He would harass your mind and you would just fall for his lies. He would abuse your body and you would just shrivel up in your corner and wish you could disappear. And now he is the one telling you to fear. Please listen to me dear woman of God: don’t believe him, he is and always will be a liar!
With God on our side, the powers of darkness are already defeated, and we have nothing to fear!
The Bible says:
2 Timothy 1:7 (Amp)
“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity [of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear], but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control.”
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So what’s it going to be? 1. Stay in bondage every day of your life, for the rest of your life
I think the choice is pretty obvious, don’t you think? |
Temptation will come – Resist the enemy!
God is indeed faithful, He will not let the enemy tempt you with anything that He knows you can not overcome (through the power of the Holy Spirit in you). Don’t give in to the enemy’s temptation, but ask God to provide you with that way of escape. Start practicing today to stand against the temptations of the enemy. God is for you and you can overcome by the Power of the Holy Spirit. We will discuss temptation in more detail in a later week. In the meantime, don’t be surprised if you are tempted, the enemy wouldn’t let you go without a fight.
PLEASE STOP! DON’T GO ANY FURTHER TODAY!
To get the most out of this course, please apply it to your life in the bite-size pieces that I recommend. Take AS LONG AS YOU NEED, but be sure to take at least ONE DAY.
DAY 4
How do you resist the enemy?
Please click to view the video below:
Would you please write down these Weapons in your journal. You can even print it out and put it up somewhere where you can see it all the time to remind you that you are not powerless against the temptations and attacks of the enemy.
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Your weapons1. ASK THE HOLY SPIRIT TO SHOW YOU THE WAY OUT (See Day 4) 2. THE WORD on NOTE CARDS(See below) 3. WORSHIP MUSIC 4. PRAYER 5. TALK TO A FRIEND 6. RUN TO GOD’S PRESENCE 7. RUN FROM TEMPTATION 8. JOURNALING
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NOTE CARDS
(God’s Word is a mighty weapon against the enemy)
Now that you came this far, it’s time to add something to journaling: NOTECARDS.
This, just like journaling, has been a life saving tool for me and a mighty weapon against the enemy.
So I urge you to buy a big pack of note cards, punch some holes in them and attach it with a key ring or a ribbon. You can also purchase spiral bound note cards at an office supply store. This works so well, because you can take it anywhere with you. Believe me, it’s a good idea to have it in your purse, seeing that Satan doesn’t limit his attacks and temptations to the safety of our houses.
If you are just starting to break out of an eating disorder or any other addiction, you will most likely be very weak and vulnerable. Your spirit needs to be fed and your heart repaired by the truth of God’s Word. Knowing the truth is the only way to spot the enemy’s lies.
Please believe me when I tell you that this wouldn’t just come naturally. What comes naturally to you right now is probably self abuse, guilt and shame.
Like me, you might have bought into the enemy’s lies for so long that you can no longer distinguish between his lies and your own thoughts. God’s truth might not be familiar to you at all right now, and that is what we need to change:
Are you ready…
Would you please write on your first note card:
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I am putting the TRUTH and LIFE of God’s Word into my mind to push out the LIES and DEATH of the enemy!
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Here are a few of my personal note cards to get you started. I still pray these out-loud almost every day, asking the Holy Spirit to show me if I let some things creep back into my life, such as unbelief, pride, and idolatry:
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Confess UNBELIEF and accept God’s forgiveness Matthew 21:22 (NIV)
2 Corinthians 5:7 (NIV) |
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Confess PRIDE and accept God’s forgiveness
Isaiah 66:2b (NIV)
Proverbs 11:2 (NIV) |
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Confess BUSY-NESS and accept God’s forgiveness
Isaiah 30:15 (AMP)
Isaiah 40:31(NIV) |
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Confess IDOLATRY and accept God’s forgiveness
Jonah 2:8(AMP)
Mark 12:30 (NIV) |
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Confess PEOPLE PLEASING and accept God’s forgiveness
Gal 1:10 (NIV) |
In the beginning you might have to repent daily and keep knocking these idols down until they stay down.
REMEMBER; we are at war with Satan, it is not a game. If you don’t rebuke him and stand against him with the truth of God’s Word, he will walk all over you. Even Jesus used the Word of God against Satan’s temptations. So find a Scripture that stands against every form of idolatry that you let into your life. If you don’t know the Bible that well, you can look it up online on a site such as www.biblegateway.com or in the back of your Bible.
I also always remind myself to not just confess but also accept God’s forgiveness, as the enemy can come back and keep on condemning me about things God has already forgiven if I never accepted God’s forgiveness.
*Please see you Member’s Home Page for some more Scripture verses that I recommend. This is only a tool to get you started. As you grow in the Word and fall more in love with Jesus, you will start to build up your own “collection”.
PLEASE STOP! DON’T GO ANY FURTHER TODAY!
To get the most out of this course, please apply it to your life in the bite-size pieces that I recommend. Take AS LONG AS YOU NEED, but be sure to take at least ONE DAY.
DAY 5
START your 40 days TODAY
Please click to view the video below:
40 days of Warfare
- START TODAY:
Don’t put it off. No more excuses. Start taking back your heart from the enemy today
- TAKE CARE OF YOUR HEART:
Spending time with God to hear Him talk to you about what’s going on in your heart is the MOST IMPORTANT thing to do during this 40 days. If you only fall in love with Jesus, the lover of you soul during this 40 days, then you are on the road to victory. Make time to stop, wait and listen. Start your own prayer life!
- GET BACK-UP PRAYER:
Phone a few friends whom you know will truly pray with you and for you, and get some support prayer for your 40 days
- JOURNAL:
Don’t wait any longer. Let today be Day 1 of your 40 days. It makes the world of a difference to keep a journal of your journey. Putting your thoughts on paper actually exposes the lies of the enemy, and just seeing your own progress is a huge encouragement. You will be amazed to see, even after one week, how far you have come. I made my journal of a 40 day journey available to you for encouragement and hope. Go check it out on your Member’s Home page.
- GET TO KNOW THE REAL LOVER OF YOUR SOUL:
See the Bible Studies and books that I recommend at the end of this page. If you start to dig into the Word of God, you will get to know His heart and fall in love with Him for sure. There is no one like Him! The right Bible study will make a huge difference though, especially if you are just starting out. So find one that fits your personality and level of maturity, you will not believe all of the treasures hidden in the Bible.
- SAY GOOD-BYE TO FOOD and OTHER IDOLS
Remember: Grief is bound to come your way during this 40 days, especially when you start laying down addictive foods next week. Expect it, don’t feel bad about it and don’t deny it either, stay close to the Holy Spirit, He will help you get through it.
But also expect JOY to flood your life once you get to the other side. You will not believe that you once were so attached to this dead idol, especially once you start having personal encounters with the Living God!
Bible studies and books that I recommend
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Tip: I love Beth Moore’s Bible studies for women. All of these are wonderful, and she wrote quite a lot, but there are two that I would strongly recommend while you’re breaking free from an eating disorder. You will get the most out of her studies if you can do it with a group in your area and watch all of the videos. However, in the midst of my own struggle I started doing it without the videos and it still blessed me and helped me to fall in love with Jesus. So here’s the two I recommend:
Breaking Free: Making Liberty in Christ a Reality in Life |
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Tip: Books that deal with the purpose and passions in our heart: Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge |
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Tip: Books to establish a great prayer life: |
Scripture quotations are from the following versions with corresponding abbreviations:
AMP = THE AMPLIFIED BIBLE,
EXPANDED EDITION. Old Testament copyright ‘ 1965, 1987
by the Zondervan Corporation. The Amplified New Testament copyright ‘
1958, 1987 by the Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. Words in
brackets [ ] and parentheses ( ) are those of The Amplified Bible
translators, not the author.
NIV = Holy Bible, NEW
INTERNATIONAL VERSION. Copyright ‘ 1973, 1978
International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible
Publishers.
PS: Please help me improve the quality of our members area by using the comment box below to let me know if you pick up on any technical errors, spelling errors, or typos. Testimonies are always welcome as well:) Thank you
In #2 about Take Care Of Your Heart. The last sentence: Start you own prayer life (I believe you meant – YOUR instead of YOU)
*Just saw you wanted us to tell if you we see anything 
These studies are absolutly wonderful! I hope you get a chance one day to publish this or something to make it more known!! 
Thanks Maria! I really so appreciate it if you ladies help me out with this. I paid some college students a few years back to edit this program for me, and I’m going through it myself again, but there are still some things that slip through the cracks:)
Thank you, thank you, thank you 100X’s for putting this together for struggling women. I cant even describe what a blessing this is in my life. I know when I fully surrender my heart to the Lord, he can do amazing things that I could have never imagined possible!
You’re so welcome Erin! I’m so privileged to serve and get to know each of you awesome women of God:)
Something awesome is happening in my spirit. I unoffically started this journey after finding your website and reading your ebook. Now that I am fully subscribed and officially started the journey it seems that when I get to each day of each week of the study I have already begun to do the things you suggest and it is a “confirmation” to me that I am on the right road- a Spirit-led journey.
I can only say I wish I had found you Heleen, and the wisdom God has given you years ago. I have been so aware this last week of the amount of lies satan has been feeding me. I start my 40 days of warfare TODAY! Thankyou
There is so much unresolved issues in my heart…..due to the people pleaser that I am….God help me!
Just take it one step at a time with your hand firmly in the hand of Jesus Ellie. I know all this can seem overwhelming, so move through the material at your own pace and open up your heart wide to the Holy Spirit. According to the Bible, He is our Counselor to help us deal with even the most difficult issues in our lives.
In His Love
Heleen