On Thursday, I sent the devotional e-mail
from Girlfriends in God that was an excerpt from the book, "Experience
the Ultimate Makeover," to my sister who is severely depressed, anxious,
and recently been hospitalized. Her medications are so strong that she
is getting worse and the doctor is reducing them by 1/2. I have been
trying to stay in contact with her through e-mail, versus the phone,
because she has a hard time processing information.
I read your devotional about how Satan uses
our own thoughts to deceive and discourage us. You gave a very good hint
- attach "In Jesus Name" at the end of that thought to tell if it was of
God. I felt a prompting in my spirit to send it to my sister. I
didn't know how it affected her until she called me this morning.
She told me her brain was just not functioning and
she couldn't remember which medicine to take, it took her over 15
minutes to figure it out, and then she checked off the wrong one when
she did take something and started crying for 2 hours. Finally she got
herself up and checked her e-mails. She opened the one I sent, saw how
long it was, printed it off and decided to try to read it a little at a
time. However, when she started reading it, she couldn't put it down.
When she got to the part that stated, are you saying to yourself, "I
can't do anything right" she stopped and knew that this was a moment
from God. She had been saying this to herself for so long.
So when she read that phrase in your article
she was amazed that it was speaking right to her. Given the
circumstances of the last month with her stay in the Psychiatric
Hospital and the new drugs she was on, she was having a hard time
doing anything correctly, at home or work. This cycled into worse
depression and anxiety for her. The moment of change for her came
when she read in the part "Now it is you turn" from day 2 of the
devotional, that said the phrase, "I can't do anything right" and
your advice to attach "in Jesus' Name" She said she recognized what
she had been thinking as an attack from Satan right away and it made
so much sense to her. She kept repeating the phrase, "I can't do
anything right, in Jesus' Name." She finally understood this thought
could not be from God and that she was really being attacked.
She felt the darkness start to lift and she
decided she needed to try something simple that she could
accomplish. A simple task of sewing a seam. She sewed the seam,
turned it around to see her work and realized she had missed the
area that needed mending, but she didn't say to herself "I can't do
anything right", she didn't cry for 2 hours, she laughed at herself.
Laughed for the first time in weeks and said, I'm going to try this
again, because I can do something right, "In Jesus' Name" and she
did it! She called me to tell me all of this with such a grateful
heart and said, this e-mail devotional saved her from going back
into the psych hospital that day. She felt she was on the verge of
losing control completely and this came just at the right moment and
at the right time. She had given up on God, thought he had given up
on her, but through your teaching of your devotional, she knew God
hadn't given up on her at all, but was right there for her, loving
her so much that he used an e-mail to touch her mind and her heart.
Isn't God good!
WCSG-Michigan
back...
