Something that is very clear is that many Christian's do not believe that a Christian can be possessed by an evil spirit or spirits. .... This is something close to my heart as I know from my own experience that this is a lie from the enemy. ....

Having lived most of my life suffering with anxiety, fear and depression, anger issues and other things I can say with authority that Christian's can be demonised! I know it may strike fear and unbelief into many hearts but I am led to debunk this myth. .... In no way do I apologise if Christians get upset because my main concern is that Satan is exposed more and more for the liar that he is, that the truth of the Gospel of Christ is preached in totality, the bits we don't like to think about too much as well as the good bits. .... The thing is its all good stuff, its wonderful news! The day I discovered that I had been a prisoner of Satan and his demons, most of my life, and the day I was finally set free will be forever etched in my memory banks. ....

Satan's demons had entered my life before I was born through a generational curse, then my own sins gave more demons access to my life and even when I became a Christian the spirit of deception entered my life, causing me even more problems!

The day I discovered I had lived all my Christian life as a nominal Christian was the day I really started to live. .... The day my discerning Christian friend told me my problems were caused by demons was the day my deliverance and freedom started. .... When I became a Christian I thought that was the start of a new life for me, the reality though was it just made my problems much worse and the inner turmoil escalated because now I also had guilt and condemnation. .... However more than 30 years after becoming a Christian I discovered that the real cause of all my problems were evil spirits. .... Once I could swallow my pride and accept the fact that I needed deliverance and needed to accept that I truly needed to be born again, (remember I thought I was born again over 30 years ago). .... What actually happened, when I received the gift of tongues, I actually received a counterfeit gift as I hadn't gone to the giver, (God) I had just asked for the gift (big difference). .... Anyway pride being dealt with, deliverance began, it took 3 years to be free from the tormenting evil spirits that had destroyed my life. .... The process of deliverance wasn't easy, it got very ugly and painful, I had to pay the price but the resulting freedom is worth it. .... I am still vulnerable and still have weak areas. I am still prone to self-pity but I am aware now of how the enemy operates, I am awake to his devious plans and devices and for the most part can stand against him. .... I still have down days, that's normal, but compared to the depressions I had before I can cope with the blue days now! I am still a work in progress but Praise God my life is going in the right direction. .... Of course like everyone else I have a lot to learn but let's all of us not give up until this race is over, until we hear our risen saviour. say.well done my good and faithful servant.

I ...am not saying that every problem we have is caused by a demon, but many times when a problem, affliction whatever doesn't respond to medical cures, counselling, heartfelt prayers, then we must explore the fact that demons lie at the root of the problem. .... The Holy Spirit is the only one that can discern the root cause of anything and we must listen to his counsel at all times. .... Satan is cunning and clever and loves to remain in the darkness but when the light of Christ starts shining into every nook and crevice of our lives then some very dark areas are exposed to it, and believe me they will do anything to hide from the light!  ....It doesn't excuse our responsibility to deal with sin in our lives, which give these things a place. .... Satan will lie and tell you that even sin isn't really sin, unless we know the scriptures and are convicted, so often we are ignorant and confused as to what sin is?. .... Believe me. I know what sin is now and Praise God for that! I wish I had known 50 years ago! We need to take this stuff very seriously, it isn't preached about in the main stream Churches, certainly not in the Western World. .... So many Christians live in ignorance, but we need to wise up. .... Everything that I have been through is in the bible, Jesus delivered people all the time and he told us to do the same. .... Let's not die in our ignorance but seek the truth at all times not just for our own sakes but for the sake of all those that are lost. .... I wouldn't be here now, telling you my story if it wasn't for God and his amazing and awesome grace and love for us. God has to be the first in our lives, no matter what we want our lives to be because only then do we truly start to live! God bless you all.

There seems to be so many Christians suffering with anxiety and depression and I really want to encourage anyone who is struggling with these afflictions.  My own personal journey in breaking free from these debilitating afflictions has shown me that there is new life for us.  I realise that I have written about some of these things before but now I am further down the road and my experience is that much greater now. 

For as long as I can remember I suffered with anxiety and stress, even from being a very young child.  At a time when I should have been discovering the world and delighting in its wonder, I was hiding in a corner, shrinking back in fear.  My parents were Christians and certainly not abusive, yet I was so shy and scared of everything.  Of course when I went to school the bullies picked on me because I was a prime target for them.  This continued right through Primary and Secondary school, I hated going to school and cried every day.  I had few friends because it seemed no-one wanted to hang around with a freak like me.  I retreated into my own world for much of my developmental years, even though outwardly I did try to mix with people and did take part in dancing classes and we did routines in the local pantomimes, inwardly I was a wreck and filled with anxiety and fear.  I managed to scrape through my exams at school even though I never had any confidence.  In my 5^th year at Secondary school, I managed to stand up to one of the main bullies, I think I was so sick and tired of being made to feel like a complete waste of space that something kicked in and I hit back (literally), I slapped this girl across the face, well she was so shocked she never bullied me again.  I don’t know where I got the courage to do that but I am glad I did. 

I wish I could say that my life got better after that, but it continued in much the same way, just the bullies got bigger and more subtle.  When I decided I was going to train to be a nurse, I moved from a small village to a big City.  I found courage to do this, because something within me was struggling to break out and not to be restricted by the limitations that were ruling my life.  Nurse training was a traumatic experience for me because I always felt so inadequate and my confidence was low.  Again it should have been a learning curve and a pleasure in facing new experiences, but for me every day was filled with dread, and the bullies picked on this and made life very difficult for me.  When I did eventually qualify and got a job, I was only given short contracts and had to keep moving wards.  No-one wanted to help me; they just wanted to make my life difficult.  I had to leave that hospital after 9 mths, but at least the last 3 mth contract was a bit better and one of the Charge Nurses actually seemed to believe in me and did try to help me, which did help my confidence.  After this I got a job in a hospice, I guess it was a safe environment, very hard emotionally at times but safe.  I was 21 yrs old when I became a Christian and I thought maybe that would make life better, but no because then I had to deal with guilt as well.  So whilst I had a relationship with God and Jesus, after a while I became consumed with a kind of legalistic Christianity.  The practical aspects, of ‘doing’ seemed to take precedence over anything too ‘spiritual’.  I got married after 2 yrs of being at the hospice, but I was a wreck really, emotionally, so maybe the decision to get married wasn’t the right thing either.  My husband was a Catholic so whilst I wasn’t Catholic, it felt safe.  A few years earlier in my life I had a relationship with an older man and basically he raped me, but I thought it was normal, I didn’t have any experience of men, I had never had a boyfriend.  So when I met my husband at age 27 yrs it was my first real relationship.  He suffered with bi-polar disorder but even that didn’t put me off, he was still safe to me.  Of course we had a very traumatic marriage for the most part, he was in and out of hospital and when we had children I was virtually a single parent, but it was still safe.  My depression took hold and I spent many years seeking help and taking anti-depressants etc.  I never needed to be admitted to hospital but it was bad at times.  My husband could never work because of his bi-polar but I had to work.  Nursing jobs seemed to stress me out and made the depression worse because of the legalistic work ethic that I had, I didn’t know when to say no to jobs because of my lack of self-confidence so I made myself ill and then had to take time off.  I had a job for 5 yrs that really didn’t challenge me but it was safe.  After that I did get a job that really did challenge me, I must have been feeling very brave.  I actually enjoyed this job and thought I was good at it.  However the contracts kept changing and I was re-deployed twice onto different contracts in different areas.  The last one just about finished me off.  As a Christian I was always honest and my bosses didn’t like this.  They made life very difficult for me, again bullying.  Eventually it led to an investigation into my work, from which I was acquitted, but 2yrs later I was again investigated after a complaint from a Social Worker.  This was the straw that almost broke the camel’s back.  Even though my bosses had no evidence and the social worker actually withdrew her complaint, my fate had been sealed, I was given a final written warning and 2 yrs supervision of my work.  They really wanted to sack me but they didn’t have any grounds. 

At the same time, during the 2 yrs before the final investigation at my work, I went on holiday to Egypt with my daughter and this was the catalyst that changed my life around.  I had to go through an adulterous relationship first, which ended my marriage but even though all this stuff was going on, when I was in Egypt that first time God spoke to me and told me I was to come back to Egypt and work for him.  So after 23 yrs of marriage I got divorced, the adulterous relationship ended in a real shipwreck in my life.  I made some dreadful mistakes but somehow God still took care of me.  I moved to live in Egypt over 5 yrs ago and even though I still made many more mistakes God has gently restored me. 

I have been through many valleys and anxiety attacks during the last 5 yrs , I have felt suicidal and even planned how I could do it, but at last over the last 2-3 yrs or so God has shown me the way to freedom.  A good Christian friend lent me some books, about breaking free from spiritual bondages and these have literally changed my life.  I now understand that behind my depression, anxiety, etc have been evil spirits, demons! I know these are real as I have seen them and certainly experienced the effects of them living in me all my life.  God has revealed to me how these vile things entered my life, before I was born, they were transferred from my Grandma, and I got all her emotional baggage.  Spirits of abandonment and rejection entered when I was a young child and I saw my parents leaving the house in the night, to go and take care of my father’s parents, but to me I was being abandoned.  (My Grandma lived with us, so I was taken care of).  Then of course other spirits entered because of my sins.  I was a breeding ground for all that was evil, even though I didn’t understand these things then.  So becoming a Christian didn’t change my life at the time because I was full of evil spirits and they were actually controlling me.  Even though the Holy Spirit did enter my life, it couldn’t take over because I had so much unconfessed sin and other things taking up the space.  What should have been a joyous wonderful thing, was hi-jacked by the enemy of our souls, from within.  When Jesus talks about ejecting evil spirits, he really means we have to get rid of them from our lives.  Satan lies to us and we give him legal grounds to do that because of our sin, or from things we had no knowledge of.  I was shocked when I realised just how much bondage I was in and it made me really angry.  I had tried everything to get relief from the crippling anxiety and depression that I seemed destined to be stuck with for the rest of my life.  I had taken anti-depressants and beta blockers and when they didn’t work, I had my ovaries removed as I and the Drs thought maybe it was hormonal

So how do we get rid of these things?, well we have to acknowledge that they are there and then choose the way of faith to get rid of them.  I began by giving inward commands to these things telling them that I knew they were there and now I was telling them to go.  Once we know we have the authority in Christ over every evil being that exists then we can tell them to go.  I haven’t had access to any deliverance ministry; I have had to do it myself, with prayer support from a very good friend.  Like I said It has taken nearly 3yrs, but step by step I have gained more and more freedom.  I have been through many times when the struggle was overwhelming and I have cried and cried in weariness and wanted to give up.  I have experienced many frustrating days and restlessness and not knowing what on earth was wrong with me.  Days of severe tension within me and stress that all I wanted to do was scream, and I did scream, fortunately I have been fairly isolated so no-one heard me, but it did relieve the tension.  Now I understand that these things don’t always go quietly, they had been in my life for more than 50 yrs, they don’t want to be evicted.  I did once see the face of a demon as it was leaving, that was horrible and frightening but I remember the relief when it had gone.  We have to be prepared to swallow our pride and unbelief that these things can exist within us.  This stuff isn’t preached about in the Churches, least not the ones I went to anyway.  So Satan can continue to keep us in bondage.  He devastated my entire life and he will not control me anymore.  I am thankful to God that he really does deliver us, but we have to play our part.  We can’t just sit back and expect him to do it as if by magic, I had to fight for freedom.  We have to rise up in faith and use the authority we have and forcibly eject these evil beings.  Jesus told his disciples to evict evil spirits, and a lot of his ministry was spent doing just that.  We have to do the same if we want to be free and if we want other people to be free.  Only now as I am moving into more and more freedom am I able to experience God’s love.  I knew he loved me but I could never really feel it, now I can’t get enough of it, having been denied the experience most of my life.  I am now looking forward to the future and to all the things that I know God has in store for me. 

I really pray that my testimony will encourage others who feel that they will never be free from these awful afflictions.  It isn’t easy to break free, it’s hard work and at times looks as if you are going backwards but don’t believe Satan anymore, once God starts working within your soul you are only going forwards, even if it takes a few years.  Don’t ever give up, and when, and you will, get hit by discouragement, determine that whatever it takes you to break free, you will endure it, because the results will be glorious.  I have recently come through another real battle with fear and depression.  It looked as though my future and plans were all in ruins and the enemy was hi-jacking my future, but Praise God he has helped me to overcome this attack.  I am sure the enemy will still try and attack me but with God’s help I know I will overcome whatever comes against me.  I still have occasions when I sense my thoughts are not so good, so I am learning to take them captive and make them obedient to Christ before they take root in my mind.  I asked God to tell me when I start to go off track and to be aware.  We are human, we are not always as quick on the uptake as we need to be, but God is always there and he really does help us if we ask him.  I needed so much help, honestly I felt like a demanding child always asking for help, never letting go of God, but God loves us and even though our parents may not have been responsive to our needs (or been absent from our lives, or abused us, or whatever).  God never ever leaves us, he will always help us and he really does understand when we have our tantrums and tell him it’s too hard, he just wants us to be free to love him and for us to experience his love.  May God bless you all as you seek to go forward in Christ.

I want to share something of my very recent experience in overcoming anxiety and depression.  I still don’t feel that I am out of the woods but have made great progress, even when I thought I had gone backwards.  People can tell you until they are blue in the face to stand on God’s promises and believe his word, Praise him and thank him all the time etc etc.  Well as I am sure you are aware when you are in the thick of a depressive episode and or anxiety attacks this is so difficult to put into practice.  Then you have the added guilt from the enemy who will tell you, what a terrible Christian you are, you can’t even read or believe God’s word etc etc. 

My experience this last time was when I returned from UK to Egypt, where I believe God has called me to be, I moved here over 5 yrs ago.  I had been told to leave Egypt for a while as they changed the rules around the visa situation; I was able to visit my family for Christmas and New Year.  As usual I felt led to buy a return ticket, even though my Christian friend here said she only ever buys a one way ticket, but I insisted I needed a return.  I had a great time with my family and told them I was hoping to marry my boyfriend, and maybe move back to the UK, we had discussed this and this was a plan as I thought.  Telling my family was an emotional experience for me for many reasons, but once I told them, including my ex-husband, I felt a great relief.  I thought life would be good when I got back to Egypt, lots to look forward to.  Well I am so glad I didn’t know what was around the corner.  I usually feel a bit down when I first get back, readjusting to things again.  This time however things went completely downhill and very quickly.  The day after I returned my boyfriend got cold feet and told me he only wants to be friends (this is the 2^nd time he has done this).  Well that threw me off kilter and because I was still readjusting I started to feel really down.  I started to question everything, and wondered why on earth God would bring me back here.  If I hadn’t had the return ticket I think I would have stayed in UK.  I have never had that feeling before, I always knew I was meant to be in Egypt, but in UK the life is better for me, as it’s my Country.  In Egypt there are so many restrictions as to what I can do, especially in terms of doing things I find relaxing, like swimming and playing badminton.  Anyway I was struggling with all this stuff and especially with my boyfriend who went into complete withdrawal from me.  However I didn’t get angry with him because I know his life is difficult and I know he struggles with depression and feels trapped in his life, I understand him very well.  It didn’t help me though and my depression deepened.  Before I left for UK, I had been leading worship in the local Church in Luxor every week and speaking to the Muslim people.  Now I didn’t even want to go to Church and certainly didn’t want to lead the worship.  Depression makes you want to withdraw from people.  I made myself go to Church, despite what I was feeling but I couldn’t participate and just cried.  We only have one or 2 people at these special English speaking services, so that’s OK but even sitting with them made me want to run away.  It was like this for a few weeks but gradually I could participate more in the worship.  I hobbled along in life feeling down and unmotivated, I only did those things that I knew I could cope with doing, which wasn’t that much, I resisted the enemies attempts to make me feel guilty because I knew that would make me feel even worse.  Life was horrible but somehow I had to keep going. 

Then came the time to renew my visa, (I had the visitors one from the airport), I wasn’t worried about this as I thought I would just fill in a form and that would be it.  Well how wrong I was, apparently they needed to see my rent contract; I said well it’s in my flat so I will come back tomorrow.  I tried to explain that they already had a file on me with a copy of the contract, I had spoken to the secret police twice and they had also spoken to my Landlord, but that wasn’t good enough, they needed to see the contract again.  So the next day I returned with the contract only to be told that it wasn’t the right one, even though it had the Govt stamp on it.  I said well what am I supposed to do now? The man scribbled something on a piece of paper and told me to show it to my Landlord.  The next day was Friday and that is the national holiday, because it’s a Muslim culture.  So on the Saturday morning I arranged to meet my Landlord near the Passport Office (he had to travel for almost an hour, as he doesn’t live near me).  I had been told that I would need to go to the Court to get the contract signed properly etc etc.  Anyway at the Court we were told that we needed an English Interpreter and needed this that and the other.  Then they said well does the Passport (visa) work, so we had to go to the Passport Office and ask if it was working.  They were horrible and said, ‘no it doesn’t work now’, I had applied too late and it was my problem.  I admit I did get upset because I was in shock, all they said was ‘Madam, you made the problem by applying too late and you have to leave the Country’.  I originally I had applied in the time period allowed but because of the hassle with the rent contract I was now late, which wasn’t my fault and they had in fact caused the problem.  I didn’t know the rules had changed, so I wasn’t prepared for all the hassle.  So I really didn’t know what to do, I was walking down the street with my landlord, in a real state.  He eventually managed to explain to me that if I was willing he could talk to some people and maybe sort something out.  (To be honest it all sounded a bit dodgy to me), but I didn’t have money to leave the Country.  I told my Landlord that I wanted to do the right thing because that’s who I am, he knows I am Christian, we have been through a lot together and he has seen me witness for the Lord.  Now I just had to leave it all in God’s hands and pray that I was doing the right thing.  I had to give him a little bit of money, but I would have had to pay that to the Court anyway to make the application.  Anyway last week my landlord took a copy of my passport and told me to be ready to go back and sign everything this week.  I have waited the whole week and heard nothing, I believe that today was the last day of the 2 week grace period so I was sure I would have heard today, it hasn’t happened.  What has happened though is I have relaxed and conquered my fears about the whole thing.  I have had such a battle with fear this week and stress attacks and felt really bad.  I tried to exercise faith by standing on God’s word and his promises sometimes it worked and sometimes I got too anxious. 

Anyway 2 weeks ago, about the time I was going backwards and forwards to the passport office, I got a surprise phone call from my boyfriend he wanted to meet me and go and see some of his family.  Turns out he had a really big problem with his mother and she accused him of mistreating her, which is an absolute lie, as he is one of the kindest men I have ever met.  He had left his family home and was living with his 3 half-sisters; it was these sisters that he took me to see again.  I haven’t been able to see any of his family for nearly 2 yrs because of cultural issues and it’s been very very difficult for me to deal with this.  (God has been gentle and loving with me, in helping me to cope with my feelings and emotions.).  Somewhere in the middle of all this I asked God what I should do to be obedient and he gave me the song ‘Stand by Your man, show him all the love you can’, etc.  So I knew that I needed to keep on showing love to my boyfriend even though I wasn’t getting anything back from him really. 

2^nd March 2017 D day (for the visa, as I thought).  This morning I woke up and thought well whatever happens today is in Gods’ control and I will leave it there.  I had a feeling it wouldn’t be sorted today so I was prepared to counter any panic feelings or frustration or any bad feelings.  So as it stands, I still have no visa but I do have more peace.  The other thing that happened this morning was my boyfriend (friend) rang me and told me he feels really bad.  I haven’t been able to ring him this week because I didn’t want to burden him with my fears; he had too much stuff of his own he was dealing with, however I was able to talk to him this morning.  Then God really took me by surprise as my friend (boyfriend) showed up at my flat later on.  We have been able to talk and it’s very clear that he thinks I am more than his friend, even though he is still reluctant to admit it. 

Oh yes, in the middle of all this, and again at the time I was going back and forth to the Passport Office, I met a Muslim man and promised him when I had finished I would talk to him on the way back.  God worked it out so I met him again and he took me to his shop, we drank tea and then I asked him what he thought of Jesus?  Well it sure was Gods’ time for this man to become a Christian because after I shared ‘the bridge’ scenario with him, he told me he loved Jesus and from this day his life would change.  Then he sat down, grabbed my hand placed it on his head and as I prayed God’s Holy Spirit came upon him and that was it. 

I hope my sharing this real life experience will encourage others to keep going even when it all looks wrong.  When the fear is trying to take over and you just want to run away.  So much is out of our control but we can control our attitude and how we react to whatever is going on around us and also inside us.  It’s a battle and so many times over this last couple of months, I have wanted to give up, to run away and be done with it all.  Yet I kept reminding myself, even when I was experiencing some real attacks of fear and frustration, that no one who puts their hand to the plough and turns back is fit for service in the Kingdom of God.  We are told we will have trials and tribulations in this life and that God never promised it would be easy.  Even when we are broken and feel useless, God will still use us to reach people.  All he wants is a willing vessel to work through.  So whilst I am still waiting for the practical things to be worked out (the visa) etc, I have peace now.  Whilst I am still waiting for God’s promises (marriage) etc, I have peace now.  I know my hopes and dreams for the future are still on track and all I have to do is to keep being obedient, even when it still looks wrong, humanly speaking, and most times I haven’t a clue what to do! Gods’ timing isn’t the same as ours and his ways of doing things are usually contrary to what we might expect.  However I am convinced that he knows what is best for us and will do it in our lives if we will let him.  God bless you all and may you find the peace and joy of your salvation again as you go through these times with the Lord our saviour.   

Just wanted to encourage people that are struggling with anxiety issues, depression and all these things.  i have shared before how I have struggled with these things for many years. I would like to encourage people that over the last year I have discovered that demons were behind most of my problems.  I know many Christians don't accept that as a Christian you can be inhabited by demons but I tell you that you can and many Christians are.  I am still working through this pathway to freedom but I am so much wiser now than I was a year ago.  we are in a spiritual battle and often the battle is within our own minds. We have been given all authority in heaven and earth to cast out demons and certainly in my own case that is what I have been doing for some months now.  Some days i can feel the freedom coming other days I know I Still have a way to go, but i am not turning back now i have come so far.  If you ask the holy spirit and are willing to work it through with him he will help you.  Today is a bad day, I am stressed and tense, i guess the enemy doesn't want me to write this journal post as it may lead others on the way to recovery and freedom.  I truly hope that people are encouraged to start on the road to freedom. It's a difficult journy, well for me it has been and at times i have been very sick but only because the demons that lay dormant in my life for so long are being rattled and as i tell them to leave some of them have been objecting but Praise God we have the victory.  WHen you are tempted to give in because it's too hard, remember that it's a journey to freedom and not a 100m sprint! as i have no-one here to pray with me i have had to rely completely on the Holy Spirit but he is faithful and when as today I was tempted to give in, he showed me that it was a spirit of rebellion, so i could cast that out.  God bless all who start on this journey and as we learn more about the spiritual life and how we can indeed set ourselves free. 'When the son sets us free, we are free indeed'.

When we are going through hardships and struggles, the storms of life, there are times when we will need to ask for help from our brothers and sisters. Sometimes it takes a lot of courage to admit that we need help from anyone.  When our confidence is low, low self esteem, no idea of our value and worth in the eyes of God, afraid to ask for help because we may be seen as failures or immature and condemned for our weakness.  We are lying weary and broken, bloodied and bruised from the battle and that's just because of what the world has done to us! We come to ask for help here because we need a place of refuge and we need loving brothers and sisters to pray with us and for us. 

I have come to realise that many people cannot cope when someone is very honest about their state of mind.  For me it’s a relief when I hear that other people struggle with the very same things that I struggle with because then I know that I am not alone.  I know that it’s our relationship with God that is the most important and we need to develop that relationship and yes eventually we will see that all we really need is God. However he did put us in a body together, the body of Christ, I always thought that was so we could help to carry one another’s burdens and share our struggles as well as our gifts!  When did it become the norm that when asked how you are ‘you reply, great, hallelujah, Praise the Lord’ all the time??.  I live in the real world and I know that there really are times when you need to be honest.  Trying to grow as a Christian is hard, it seems even harder when you have been a Christian a long time and never really grown at all!  Personally I am a very honest and upfront person both with myself and with God.  I have many struggles, with this Christian life! Many of us suffer with depression and anxiety issues and there are times when we just can’t cope! Is this a sin?? To admit we are not coping, when did this become the biggest sin on the planet?? All of us are sinners and fall well short of the glory of God, thank goodness God sent Jesus to die for us so we didn’t have to feel bad for the rest of eternity.  We don’t ask for help because we want to be trampled further down, we ask for help so that we can be lifted up.

I will continue to ask for help when I need it, I will also try and give others help when they need it.  Comfort one another with the comfort that you have received! If people don’t want to pray for someone else that’s OK, we can’t always pray for people, especially when we are facing our own demons! But there will be a time when we can and that’s OK!  So if anyone is very depressed just now, I pray that you will indeed find the comfort of God in your situation, that you will find his loving arms around you and you will find his love and peace come to rescue you from the torment and then you can rest in his love and care! We can never be so low that his love cannot reach us and lift us out of the mud and mire. In the name of Jesus. Amen

Much of this life is about perseverance.  Persevering through everything that comes our way.  Living with lifelong negative emotions isn't an easy thing to break free from.  So many times these things come into our lives when we are too young to know anything about life never mind make any choices about how we will respond to these life events.  Yet our enemy, Satan, already had a plan of destruction for your life. He comes in and then he has all the time in the world to work on you.  Until you become a Christian, you are unaware of his manipulative ways in your thoughts.  Even after becoming a Christian doesn't mean he just gives up. Many times we just accept things, being depressed is just the way I am made.  Yes we fight these things but we don't get significant victory in anything because we don't realise that Satan has built a stronghold in our minds, when he came in when you were that innocent child! We go through life managing the best we can, putting others before ourselves because that's what Christians are supposed to do! Until the day God challenges you about your own life and lets you know he has a special plan for your life! WOW what me God? Yes, YOU.  Then when you take it seriously and decide OK Lord I want to be delivered from all this negative stuff, do you think Satan just goes away and says OK, go ahead get delivered! Of course not he fights you all the way, the more you try to deal with your negative emotions and wrong thinking, and let God change you the more the enemy will fight you.  To gain victory you have to persevere.  I only had suicidal thoughts when I was starting to fight the lifelong depression and anxiety issues I had.  When I got real with God and stopped running away that's when the battle got very heated! It’s tough, it's very tough, and it isn't just a case of reading bible verses and quoting scripture. It's more than that. It's about being completely real with God and just letting him heal you, slowly very slowly sometimes! He has a lot of work to do, when your childhood is all messed up not to mention the rest of your life, he has a lot of healing work to do! But he is so patient and gentle and compassionate.  We already beat ourselves up about life, so other Christians who don't understand the struggles we face can sometimes make us feel so bad about ourselves. It can appear they are saying, aren't you sorted out yet? What’s wrong with you? Why don't you get it? Read these bible verses that will sort you out, jump through this religious hoop, that religious hoop, then you will be sorted! Well if it was that easy, we would all be healed and dancing for joy. There is hope though. We may go through the valley of the shadow of death many many times but each time we come through we are a little bit further down the road to being healed. Never give up, just keep trusting in God and let him start you over again, he will never give up on you! The light will shine in the darkness, no matter how long, how painful the journey, one day we will be victorious because Jesus died for us so we know that we will be victorious! Maybe this is the day that the Lord says, this is your time, this is your time to be set free! Never ever give up!!

Well here I go again, trying to unmask the darkness of anxiety, depression, insecurity, unworthiness, low self esteem etc etc. Whenever I seem to make some progress and growth I am hit again by something.  This week it was trying to do a job that I know I am more than capable of doing but yet the whole thing caused me to have a real stress attack and I only lasted a day and a half. God has been dealing with some deep rooted issues in my life and it's been hard and painful to face up to these and I still haven't found the root of the problem. Like all of us I need to find some work that will pay the bills, so I pushed myself to do this job! it was working as a dental nurse, I have never done that job before, but I am a qualified general nurse so I thought it would be OK! The job would be OK, just me that wasn't OK. Sitting in the dentist's office face to face with my boss and crying isn't a good thing to be doing really especailly in a foreign Country and I don't speak the langauge very well.  God showed me that I had taken a wrong path and he still has some healing work to do with me before I can go back out there and live and work for him again, in a fruitful and positive way.  So here I am writing this blog and putting myself on the line again.  To break free from all the above mentioned things is no walk in the park, yet I know before I can do anything more for GOd then I have to break free, this is the time for freedom! When these things have been with you since childhood and you have no idea why, and why I was an angry child and very insecure it's difficult to know how to change! I understand that God wants to deliver me and I want to be delivered but I don't know how to get from here to there!! The root may actaully be spiritual that affected my emotions in a very negative way. I know I had a spirit of fear that came in when I was a child. None of this stuff is our fault we just have to live with it until God puts his finger on it and says right now, this has to go! Only happens when we are truly seeking God with all our heart! So here I am seeking and praying and being real and crying and hoping that God delivers me soon because I have had enough of this, I am tired and sad from this life but not really looking forward to going to heaven either because I feel I haven't experienced any happiness in life down here yet, this probably sounds very strange, but I don't want to have lived my whole life on earth and never experienced anything of the abundant life that we are promised! To all freedom in Christ seekers out there, here's to freedom!! 

I called this topic 'unmasking the darkness' because that's exactly what dealing with depression is about.  It's about unmasking the darkness within our lives, within our souls. The Lord has taken me on a journey of recovery over ths last 3 years. I am still in the process, but much further down the track towards healing than I was before. We are scarred by the events in our lives, in childhood traumatic events can be an entry point for the enemy and then once he has a foothold he causes havoc. All my life I suffered with anxiety, depression, insecurity, unworthiness, low self esteem, everything that meant I was unable to enjoy most of my life because I was always battling all these negative emotions and overwhelming feelings.  I took anti-depressants for years, I had counselling, pschotherapy, etc. I was a born again Christian but never really felt freedom  and then of course I had a guilt complex. what the heck was wrong with me??  Like I said the Lord has unmasked the darkness within my soul over this last 3 years or so.  When I first came to Egypt I had suicidal thoughts, I had been through a lot of traumatic events prior to my move out here and to say I was emotionally overwhelmed is putting it mildly.  I was told, to pray, read the bible etc etc.  But how on earth could I deal with all these emotions that were destoying me inside.  I didn't have supportive friends here, the few English speaking Christians in the Church had no idea what I was going through, I never shared with them anything, I suffered alone in a strange Country. I wrote to the Samaritans, at times, like a suicide helpline.  I needed to talk about what was happeneing inside me.  I spent hours and hours crying and screaming at God to help me.  All I can say is that he did help me.  I have no real idea how, but I know he met me at the depths of my complete despair.  Here am I suppossed to be a worker for the Lord in this Country, where he sent me and I am an emotional basket case!

I can't say anything was instant it has been a very gradual healing, like the layers of an onion being peeled away.  He had to deal with my past, right back to my childhood, all my life to date! Yes I have had many temptations to give in and give up but the Lord also made me with a stubborn streak, and that has helped me to stand up to the enemy.  I had to learn about spirtual warfare and how to use the weapons we have been given.  I had been a Chrsiatin for many years but had no real idea how to live the life, peace and joy were things that other people had, not me! I never felt that I deserved anything good from God because I was such a bad person and would never be good enough to do anything.  Yet I knew, this was all a lie, the enemy had been lying to me all my life! Slowly, slowly the Lord has revealed to me those areas that need to be healed, it's been a very painful process and many times I have been in utter despair. Yet God has never given up on me, he has been so patient and loving and his compassion really has no limits.

 Today I woke up and I suddenly realised that the Lord has been answering my prayers all the time and he has been blessing me but I was too caught up in the darkness to appreciate it, to even be aware of it.  it really is like he has switched  on a light in my soul as I came to realise everythng that he has been doing in my life.  I guess like many of us, I expected him to do things differntly, but if he had done it any differntly I probably wouldn't have been healed beause this kind of emotional healing needs time and tenderness of God's care.  I know I am still a work in progress, but I am determned that from this day forward I am going to start to appreciate my life, each moment of every day, no matter what I have to face.  I know my redeemer lives!! The enmey was causing me to miss out in God's blessings because I was still in the darkness.  He had a lifetime to get me this messed up and God has turned it around and has restored so much of my life, I just needed to be aware of it! The enemy is very adept at keeping us in chains and bound up in our depression.  Other Christians can heap the guilt on us because we don't seem to be able to break free. Stick with God, he will never let you down and we can find the freedom.  Really all we do need is God, it isn't an easy path but I believe it's the best one to follow! Don't let anyone heap guilt on you if you feel that you fail and fall at times, I had so many apparent failures, but really they were just steps of growth and growing in faith! we can unmask the darkness,or I should say God will unmask the darkness, if we let him!