Category Archive: Testimonies

• The Father formed me: A testimony

  Testimony from Slovenia

  I will testify about the event that followed the retreat with the MPC in Slovenia (Škofja Loka, 31.5. – 2.6. 2024). To make it better understood, I will briefly outline my history.

  I was born in 1973 as an illegitimate daughter. My mother came from a peasant-village background. The parents were deeply religious and devoted Christians with five children. My mother was the youngest and got pregnant while still attending high school. My biological father has decided to disown me. When I was only one month old, my mother had to leave me in the care of my grandmother, because her brother insisted that she finishes her last year of schooling. She only came to see me on weekends. At school, she met my stepfather, whom she quickly married and who adopted me at the age of one. After two years, my half-sister joined me and we lived in Maribor (east Slovenia). My sister and I often spent our holidays separately at our grandparents. That was strange to me. I always went to my mother’s, and my sister to my father’s. Exactly 40 years ago, when I turned 11 and spent the summer holidays with my grandmother, my life changed forever. Me and my cousins spent time reading, looking at old photos in albums, when our aunt, my mother’s sister, joined us and browsed with us… One of the photos showed a group of workers. The aunt said: “______ look, this is your father!” I remained completely silent because I didn’t understand what she was saying and I just looked at her. That’s when she realized, laughed loudly and asked: “What, do you not know that?!” All I could say was: “It’s not true. My father is in Maribor and he is now at work.” Then I avoided everyone all day until my mom came over and I confronted her about it. I learned that my biological father had started a new family and that he had two daughters. 

  In 1997, I started a job as a teacher at the high school in Škofja Loka (central Slovenia) because I wanted to be as far away from home as possible. In May, my mother called me and informed me that my father was dying of lung cancer. I wanted to secretly visit him in the hospital, but my relatives strictly forbade me because his family didn’t know about me. Father died, only 47 years old. And I have never touched him…

  In 2006, my half-sister found out that my father had an illegitimate daughter when his (fathers’) wife was cleaning his things two years after his death. Among some documents she found a letter that I sent to him at work. She kept it secret. 

  I waited and took courage in 2011. Facebook was popular and I thought of my half-sisters again. Not long after, I sent the younger one a short, heartfelt message. She replied that she believed it was possible, but that she did not want to have contact with me until my older sister and mother agreed. 

  Retreat with MPC, 31.5. – 1.6.

  On Friday morning, on the first day of spiritual weekend, my chest began to tighten and a terrible restlessness settled in me. This took me completely by surprise. A bit of a scare, too. I began to doubt whether I should go at all and struggled to make a decision. After all, I decided to go. I arrived at the reception confused, things were falling out of my hands, I was ashamed. I wanted to go home, but then, suddenly, I felt that I should accept this feeling. I no longer wanted to control anything, I was simply there.

  They prayed for me on Saturday. Something started to open up… Then in the evening Andraž had a testimony about his biological father, who revealed himself to him on his deathbed… This reminded me of my half-sisters. 

  On Sunday, I asked others for a prayer. I wished to be freed from longing and at the same time to accept my life. Because I no longer wanted to exist, I just wanted to become so small and invisible that no one would have problems with me. Then the lady opened Psalm 139, which tells that the Father formed me before my mother and father did. So, my life was not their decision, but the Father’s!

  That’s when I made a decision. 

  On Sunday, after the end of the retreat, I went to the town near by (Brdo pri Kranju), where my half-sister was supposed to work at a fair (at the retreat my cousin ‘coincidentally ‘ told me that). My whole body was shaking, I couldn’t calm down. I was looking for her at all the stands, but I couldn’t find her. I decided to go through all the stalls one more time. More calm this time. And I saw her. I knew it was her right away. She had two last clients. I waited, greeted her and asked if she is Ms. _____. And I said to her: “I am _____, your half-sister” . She looked at me, stunned… then we hugged and cried… all the time she was apologizing for not contacting me, but she was constantly thinking about me. She didn’t dare to stand up to her sister and mother, who claimed that I was lying. But she knew I wasn’t lying, she said: “You have your father’s nose, lips and eyes!” The best part was hearing that this day was one of her most beautiful days, besides the birth of her now five-year-old daughter. And that I should never call her half-sister because she is my sister. We haven’t been in contact since then, but it’s emotionally very exhausting for both of us and I believe that what the Lord started, He will finish. Glory and honor to Him forever! Amen.   

  Participant of MPC retreat in Slovenia

• Healing from the Disease of Introspection: A Testimony

  Like all MPC prayer ministers, Jim Server can personally witness to the God who heals. He’s written his story for you here, and you can also listen to this recording of Him sharing at the Green Lake school in 2022 (recording begins with worship music).

  

  Sarah asked if I would share about one way I fell into the disease of introspection and how I was healed of it.  In a sense, I almost feel as if I were born into it and didn’t start to recover until I became a Christian in my late twenties.

  Looking back, I can see how my entire family was made up of “introspectors,” beginning with my parents.  In their own way, they were wounded, unaffirmed people who brooded over the hurts and disadvantages that had limited their lives.

  My father, in particular, held on to an anger and self-hatred that he medicated with alcohol and often projected onto the family.  He preferred spending time at the local tavern to being with his wife and children.  A boy who questions, as I did, if he’s really loved or wanted isn’t likely to develop a very favorable self-image.

  My mother, on the other hand, did what she could to make a home for us.  But she was an emotionally frail person, a victim of severe misogyny with low self-esteem.  Her own fragile sense of being made it difficult for her to nurture a healthy sense of being in her children.

  The best thing she did for us was to take us to a church where we heard the good news of the Lord’s love and forgiveness.  Although I wasn’t ready to accept it at the time, perhaps partly because I had trouble relating to God as a loving Father, it remained dormant in my heart until I was open to receiving it at a moment of great need later in my life.

  I wasn’t an orphan in the usual sense, and yet I believed I was on my own by the time I was ten, if not earlier.  I somehow knew I couldn’t share my fears and struggles with my family.  Generally speaking, my father didn’t want to hear it.  My mother couldn’t handle it.  And my older brother was in his own world.  Siblings who grow up in a stressful family environment sometimes cling together for mutual support, but sadly, we tried to manage our lives mostly apart from each other.  Children will model themselves on their parents in good ways and in not-so-good ways.  We didn’t have much in common with that loving television family you may remember, the Waltons.

  My tendency was to become more withdrawn as I got older.  I didn’t have boundaries so much as fortress walls around me.  After I became aware of my same-sex attractions, which were yet another source of shame and anxiety, I was even more guarded.  I preferred to soothe myself with fantasies of idealized relationships.  If anyone ridiculed or rejected me, I’d try to get back at him by belittling him in my imagination.  I can remember replaying a scene over and over in my mind to exact the sort of punishment I thought he deserved.  I’m afraid I had very little mercy for myself or for anyone else.

  Incredibly, I came to believe that the only safe place I had was inside my own head.  I was so lacking emotionally, socially, and spiritually that I was elated, at least at first, to discover I could excel academically.  There was one part of me, anyway, that seemed to work.  I began focusing all my energy on my studies.  In high school and beyond, I was driven by anything but the joy of learning.  It became, in fact, a grim daily exercise in which my sense of self-worth was constantly at stake.  I was a highly competitive kid who displayed his knowledge to earn the praise of teachers and the envy of classmates I had sometimes envied.  My overachiever lifestyle was a coping mechanism, a survival technique, to compensate for the chronic dysfunction at home and the unhealed trauma in my heart.  At bottom, it was really an attempt to fend off a kind of despair, and I was running hard to stay ahead.

  But after a while, the “life of the mind” wasn’t enough.  By itself, it was a narrow, lonely type of existence which couldn’t possibly satisfy my other needs.  So, I looked around and eventually decided to join the student anti-war movement going on at the time.  My role as an activist drew me out of my isolation to a certain degree.  Our operation provided the sort of camaraderie I could be comfortable with—relations that were based on our political goals, with no personal intimacy involved.  All the drama and passion of those days could incline even a cautious introvert like myself to feel a little less inhibited and somehow more alive.  When that era ended and the crowds dispersed, I had an empty space to fill and I was running out of options.

  It was only a matter of time until my long-neglected issues would catch up with me.  The hurts and deficits I hadn’t wanted to address, or hadn’t known how to, were showing up in some very troubling behaviors.  I was subject to bouts of depression interspersed with anxiety attacks.  I didn’t leave my apartment any more than I had to.  It was all I could do to get through the long days and dark nights.  In retrospect, I should probably have been under a doctor’s care.  I was so accustomed to living inside a bubble that I can’t say it ever occurred to me to seek professional help and I wasn’t about to open up to some stranger in any case.  I wasn’t tempted to medicate with drugs or alcohol, if only because altering the mind with substances was a risky proposition to someone who only felt safe inside the head he was familiar with.  Suicide was never an option, regardless of the pain.  In words from the song “Ol’ Man River,” I was “weary and sick of tryin’ … tired of livin’ and scared of dyin’.”  I still preferred clinging to my pitiful little psyche to suddenly standing before a God who, for all I knew, was like my earthly father, distant and forbidding.  I was filled with fear and confusion.

  In the midst of my turmoil, though, I couldn’t shake the feeling that God was reaching out to me.  I got a strong impression He was urging me to relax my grip and let Him take control.  One very bleak winter’s day—to be exact, a Saturday, January 12, 1974, at about 3:00 in the afternoon—I was finally willing to say yes.  I was at the campus library trying to work on a paper I couldn’t seem to finish when all at once I was overwhelmed by a sense of futility.  It’s meaningless, I thought to myself.  It’s ALL meaningless.  The God who reads the heart saw that I’d forsaken any hope of saving myself.  The next moment, a warm sensation settled on the top of my head and flowed throughout my body.  As I was being enfolded in an indescribable sense of peace, I whispered my first prayer as a believer: “Put your arms around me, Jesus.”  And He did.  He had come to take me to my Father.  I saw with perfect clarity that there was not only a God, but a God who loved me.  Earlier that day, I had trudged out of my front door like a dead man walking.  When I fell asleep that night, I was alive as never before and enveloped in a light the darkness can never overcome.  

  

  I seem to be one of those individuals who have to come to the end of themselves before they’re willing to surrender to the promptings of grace.  I’ve often wondered if I would have ever turned to Christ but for the pain He allowed me to suffer.  I’d been living in a prison of my own making for many long years.  It was a “severe mercy” that brought me out of it and into an abundant life with Him and eventually with His other children as well.

  As I began my new life in Christ, I felt a bit like the Israelites returning from exile—like “those who dream,” whose “mouths were filled with laughter” and “tongues with songs of joy.” (Ps. 126:1-2) I was hungry and thirsty for more.  I couldn’t get enough of Scripture.  Things I remembered from my boyhood church were falling into place.  I started attending a nearby congregation which eventually became my spiritual home.

  While I dearly wanted to be part of my Father’s family in every way, I had a longstanding practice of keeping others at a distance.  I came to see I’d have to repent of my prideful aloofness and replace my make-believe friends with genuine relationships based on openness and trust.  The Lord helped me get my feet wet in the warm, inviting waters of a charismatic prayer group.  I’d never met Christians who expressed their love of God so joyfully or moved so freely in the gifts of the Spirit.  I remember thinking, What right do these people have to be so happy?  For someone who had been so painfully self-conscious all his life, it was wonderful simply to forget myself and to lift my heart and hands to God in praise.  So very different from my old striving to justify myself in my own eyes or to elevate myself in the eyes of others.

  To some extent, I was still struggling with my old fear of exposure, but I meant to obey a word the Lord had given me from Isaiah 54:2: “Enlarge the space of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back.”  I’d heard of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship as a good way to connect with other believers and I developed lasting friendships with people I met there.  A group of us lived together in a household for a while.  I was impressed by how easily and naturally those young evangelicals spoke of their relationship with the Lord.  It wasn’t unusual for someone to start a conversation by saying, “So what did the Lord show you in your quiet time this morning?”  It was like a home where I could share my daily life with brothers without the strife and tension I’d grown up with.  

  As I would hear Leanne Payne say later on, “We know who we are only in relation to others.”  I would benefit greatly from numerous prayer partnerships over the years that would both affirm me and challenge me to keep growing in my newfound freedom as a child of God.  When I joined a support group for men and women dealing with gender confusion, I could be open in an even deeper way with folks who understood what I was dealing with.  I wasn’t at all concerned about being judged or rejected.  I could let go of more of the remnants of shame, anxiety, and self-pity I had carried around for much of my life.  

  I’ve learned it’s important to be intentional about our healing but also to be patient with the process.  If we’ve practiced a habit like toxic introspection for many years, we shouldn’t be surprised if we’re still prone to fall back into it, especially in the beginning.  I was encouraged at my first PCM school when Leanne told us not berate ourselves if we regress periodically (which would be merely another form of introspecting) but simply to look up to the Lord for His objective truth and to practice His presence instead of our own.  Like the bent, disabled woman who joyfully stands erect when Jesus heals her, we straighten up and praise the God who continually renews us. (Lk. 13:10-13) We are called to be recovering introspectors who keep choosing to love the Lord, ourselves, and others in the light of His truth and by the grace He gives us.

  

  Knowing I’m boundlessly loved has enabled me to love more freely in return.  I once read that learning to love is similar to learning to speak a foreign language.  It’s best to begin when young because it comes to us more easily then.  If we wait until we’re older, we’re more likely to talk with an accent.  I expect that I will always love “with an accent,” but my Teacher, my Abba Father, is wonderfully patient and kind.  He tells me to listen attentively to Him, to be compassionate with myself and others, and to persevere in my journey homeward.

  From Psalm 40:1-3: “I waited patiently for the Lord; and He inclined unto me and heard my cry.  He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.  And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.”

  Artwork:

  Bernard Vaillant, 1632–1698, Socrates Looking in a Mirror

  Hans Holbein the Younger, 1526, Christ as the True Light (Christus vera lux)

  Author unknown, 1873, Jesus ascends to heaven

• Pandemic Imagery & Symbol: A Testimony

  INTRODUCTION:

  COVID-19 has altered the gestures and rhythms of life, and while we’re able to cope and adapt, our hearts still register these changes at a deep level. As Leanne Payne observes in The Healing Presence, we are mythical creatures who depend on symbols to bind up reality for us. I’ve recently been pondering how our hearts read the symbols of the pandemic. In many places around the world, we are seeing one another less. And when we are together, it may be behind masks or at a 6-foot distance, possibly forgoing handshakes and hugs. On a conscious level, we understand that these gestures and rhythms are a symbol of care for one another, an accommodation to the reality of the coronavirus expressing our commitment to the well-being of all. But beneath this rational understanding of circumstance, our hearts have a language we’ve spoken all our lives. And in this language, the distance and barriers necessitated by COVID-19 may symbolize the opposite of care.

  In the ordinary lexicon of our hearts, declining to touch or draw near to one another symbolizes a lack of familiarity and intimacy or even ambivalence, aloofness, or rejection. A mask may symbolize illness, vulnerability, or danger (or perhaps highway robbery for big fans of spaghetti westerns). We’re finding new ways to convey a warm hello, offering a big, squinty-eyed smile that is visible around the edges of a mask, keeping our heads turned to the side for a COVID-safe hug, or using words to fill the gap of distanced body-language.

  Through all this complexity, our inner translator is working overtime. Our rational minds can explain the reasons for it all, but that takes repeated, conscious effort. The number of times I’ve had to go back to my car for my face mask before entering a store proves that I haven’t learned these symbols by heart yet. I believe this is one of the factors that’s causing weariness as the pandemic continues.

  There is much more to us than our rational grasp of circumstances. Coping is good, but to embrace life in God’s healing presence we must listen to our hearts and how these symbols are registering deep within us. The gestures and rhythms of the pandemic may be echoing with past experiences where the pain of separation or deprivation of touch and warmth were threatening to the life of the spirit within us. Even the present inhibition of our own reaching out may resonate with earlier times in which the love we were eager to give wasn’t welcomed and received. We needn’t suppress these echoes, because the One who can soothe them and heal the wounds they uncover is near.

  At the peak of my pondering on these matters, I received a beautiful letter from a dear sister in Christ. She was writing to share how God had drawn near to her, working through the pandemic for her good. I was moved and encouraged, and so glad when she gave permission for me to share her story with you. Our merciful and compassionate God truly is nearer to us than we are to ourselves, and stands ready to show us our hearts that we might receive His life more wholly. I pray the Holy Spirit will anoint her story with illuminating, liberating, healing power for you today.

  TESTIMONY:

  As you know, COVID has altered life in many many different ways. It’s been difficult for me to remain resting in God’s peace through the changes and difficulties of life during a pandemic. An issue that is hurting me a lot, but is also being used by the Lord to reveal what is still on my heart, is my deep sense of rejection and the feelings of not belonging, not having a place, not having the right to exist, and being excluded.

  I’ll share the picture of my personal situation: I live alone, a 40 minute train ride from my father’s home. My father is elderly and has leukemia, although he is currently doing well. My single brother lives with him and takes wonderful care of him. My sister has also lived with them for the past year. During the COVID lockdown they have been afraid to get sick and have remained strictly isolated because of my father’s illness and chemotherapy a few months ago as well as my brother’s asthma.  I did not visit or see them for three months. When the quarantine was lifted, I went to see them for the first time since covid, but things had changed.

  I thought I was understanding and accepting, but pain and hurt began to emerge strongly. I felt a bit shocked, for I was not allowed to enter the house (my family home) and hadn’t expected it. I was only allowed to be in a very small terrace they have. I was not allowed to touch anything, and they did not allow me to enter further into the living room or house. I was shocked and hurt, but tried to be understanding and patient. After a few week my father asked his doctor about my coming to see him. I only know this through my sister because my father does not speak much, but he told my father to let me in and not to be afraid of getting sick. So after some time I was allowed to have dinner in the dining room, but just sitting on the chair, right on the spot, don’t move, don’t touch, don’t go around!

  I was and am hurting a lot, more and more. I tried to bear it and brought it all to the Lord. I’ve tried to accept whole situation. But as I realized last Sunday when I burst into tears, pain and anger, I was in fact burying all my emotions and pain inside. Last Sunday I went for lunch with my father and sister (my brother was out that day). It had been two weeks since my last visit as I’ve seen them just a few times. At this visit I exploded.

  You should know that throughout all my life and to the present day, I have been “perfect,” ok, joyful, and without problems in front of my father. I’ve always pretended, wearing a full mask all my life. A tear has never come out of me at home, but I cry rivers and flood of tears in the street and at church. As my real I, my true self is growing, there are things I cannot hide or bear anymore. Last Sunday I burst into tears in front of him, something I think I never did before! I was full of pain, anger, and sadness. The little child, little girl inside me finally came out and poured out all her pain and expressed her anger! Sadly my feelings were and are “forbidden” at home. No wonder I have been in pieces all my life. I expressed my pain to him and said I was hurting, that I felt like a leper, excluded and not belonging. I felt their way of relating toward me was out of proportion (I could give more details about this) and I was hurting. I said I wondered whether to come back, or what I should do. My father despised my feelings and told me to “stop being dramatic.” He said that if I felt not to come back during this situation of social distance, “then don’t come!” It was painful.

  Afterwards, once I was at home and bringing all to the Lord in prayer, I felt strong shame. The Lord showed me how I was confusing the present situation with my deep wounds that this situation brought to the surface. The Lord brought light to what happened. I felt so ashamed, for I could see that little girl crying, demanding to belong, to have a right to exist, to be, to be accepted. I saw my immaturity in dealing with the present situation. I believe a mature way to act and speak would be to express my thoughts and feelings in dialog with them, to listen to their fear and feelings, and try to reach a place of agreement where their fears are taken into account, but my feelings have also a place. Instead I repressed it all inside myself and related to them in the immature way I had usually done. I sense the Lord wants me to grow, to mature, to not react to present situations and difficulties, but live from my true center instead of from the hurting child. I still do not know how to do this, but I believe growth and blessing will come. I ask for prayer for this.

  I also realized that when I was child in my home there was no place for feelings, I had no right to be, and couldn’t be vulnerable. On Sunday I really was despised and ridiculed for expressing my pain and feelings. I expressed them correctly, not in a way that was extreme or out of order. But I believe most importantly that the Lord revealed to me what is still in my heart, blocking my becoming: the deep sense of rejection. I began to put into words and to write concretely and bluntly what I felt and thought: “I have no place; I don’t belong; in my father’s house I am rejected; there is no place for me; I am an outcast.” It was painful, but a grace. For at the same time that I felt strong shame as I tried to digest it all and pray over it, in me there also was, and is, a small, soft song of victory, shy but real. For for the first time, I dared to speak out and express my feeling, and in the midst of the pain something in me had been released.

  In prayer, trying to receive from the Lord, I see He is not asking me to change my family, though I can speak my opinion and act accordingly. Rather, He is building my sense of being and well being, my identity and belonging in Him, in the Father, who affirms me and has a place for me in His heart. He asks me to bring all my pain, hurting, and the lies that are still in my heart about who I am to Christ on the Cross, and to receive from Him. Secondly, I am also learning to communicate, to be, to relate to others from my true center, my real self, so that circumstances and the attitudes of others, whatever may happen, do not break or crush me.

  I am in this process right now. I do not know how to do it and I have fear about when I will go to my father’s house, but I turn to God. I can testify how many blessings He is giving me through this difficult time we are all in. I can’t thank God enough for the grace of knowing at a heart level that He truly is my Father, and is daily present in my life. I thank Him for the grace of practicing God’s Presence more and more. The Spirit really does remind me that Another is in me!  At the same time, He really is breaking all my schemas, at all levels. And often, almost always, I feel so weak, so needy, so blind. It is so hard to let go, so hard to let Him “undragon” me. My heart feels the need to share this, and as I share and give testimony more grace and light comes upon me, it becomes more solid.

   

  Paintings:  J Rossakiewicz, 1989, The Last Supper; William Holman Hunt, 1827-1910, Light of the World [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

   

• News from the Fresno Retreat:  Our Master Gardener

  by Cat Young

  Over a hundred people gathered from as far away as Ontario, Canada and New York State to attend the two-day MPC Spiritual Retreat in Fresno, California at the end of March.  For many of those present, it was the first time they had ever been introduced to Leanne Payne’s writings and teaching.  It was water to a thirsty church.

  I felt a deep stillness come over the room as Sarah opened the retreat with the teaching on the Holiness of God, and it seemed to me everyone was leaning forward, drinking it in with parched souls. After decades of confused teaching it was a relief to be reminded who God truly is, and He himself confirmed the message with a palpable sense of His presence.

  The power of what He was doing became apparent by the first break.  Three separate women ran up to me, hugging me, sharing stories of how God was already opening their ears, speaking to their hearts.  Each of them had received messages having something to do with rocks.

  The first lady saw a triangle made of stones, representing the Trinity.  One particular stone at the top of the triangle stood out very clearly to her in her imagination.  Later she found a stone exactly like the one in her vision in the courtyard.  She joyfully picked it up and now keeps it at home.

  Another one received a word from the Lord about her hobby of rock collecting, which her psychiatrist had labeled as a symptom of bipolar disorder.  The Lord affirmed the hobby as a practice of His presence and told her it’s one more place “where dirt meets grace”, a theme he had begun speaking to her in the days leading up to the retreat.

  The third was given an image of a doorway which represented the way to her heart, and it was completely blocked with stones. She was told that together, she and the Lord would name each stone and then remove it.

  The three of them shared their “rock” stories with one another and found a unity of fellowship in them.  All this happened in the first two hours of the retreat.

  Despite the many challenges we faced surrounding our worship team, we were blessed with an amazing fullness of sound thanks to the combined skills of John Cannon with local musicians Tony Manjarrez on guitar and Brenda Myers on percussion.  Tony later said of John, “There’s a touch on that man’s life.  I’m not an organ man—I walk out of churches when I hear an organ—but when he touched that instrument I felt like I was being lifted heavenward!” Both he and Brenda truly enjoyed John’s joy-filled presence and hearty laugh.

  We had around twenty attending who are involved in the fields of mental health and counseling, and each of these were deeply encouraged as they began to see an integration between their faith and their training and calling.  One young woman asked if the team would pray for all the counselors, and Sarah, Anjie and Sill graciously led them in prayers for wisdom, discernment and equipping for their ministries, as well as for their own personal growth.  These will soon be regularly gathering via Zoom to continue reading Leanne’s works and begin applying the truths in them to their counseling work.

  Bishop Eric Menees was at first impressed, and then profoundly moved by what he experienced at the retreat.  He gave a glowing endorsement to his clergy, testifying to the sound theology of the teachings and the testimonies of Sarah, Tommy, Sill, Anjie and Melanie, naming them a blessing to all in attendance. Later, at the Chrism Mass during Holy Week, he made an appeal to the clergy to join him in attending the Wheaton school this July, saying, “it will truly change your life.”

  In the aftermath of the retreat, I’ve had the privilege of seeing some of the seeds planted begin to bear fruit.  Some of the most colorful fruit has come about in one of the women I referred to above.  The teaching on forgiveness gave her a bit of drama as the Lord apparently cemented her bottom to the floor of the sanctuary until she was ready to forgive the birth mother who had twice rejected her.  Days later, the Spirit led her to write four pages of people and actions to forgive, to weep over them, and then to burn them.  Then he led her to create some wonderful paintings with the ashes.  The change in her countenance has brought strangers to her, asking her what “that glow” about her is.  She answers, with great passion, it’s the power of God in forgiveness!  As an added bonus, she has enjoyed a remission of her dystonia since the retreat.

  One thing I’ve noticed at each MPC event I’ve attended:  there’s something about the renunciation and forgiveness of sin which opens us all to the unifying work of the Holy Spirit.  By the end of the retreat Saturday evening, it seemed everyone was a little in love with each other, and it was simply an outcome of people releasing their stuff to the Lord.  Once God has a straight path to each heart, he brings us all together.  I’ve also noticed after each MPC event that sometimes fruit springs up right away, and other times weeds start surfacing that those who attended never knew were there, allowing the disciple to present those weeds to the Lord for redemption.  Please pray for all these tender shoots, that the Spirit will continue to water what he’s planted.  Pray especially that the latter people will be granted the will to face into what the Lord is showing them, and will continue on the path of healing.

   

   

   

• A mighty Cross: a testimony of freedom from terror

  An MPC attendee graciously shared this testimony of His healing work in her soul.  She hopes that others may also receive healing by hearing her story, particularly given the recent violence that has devastated our brothers and sisters in New Zealand.

  Thank you very much for preparing a retreat in the Lent season. It really helped me focus on God and search my heart. The experience I would like to share is about my last few minutes in the last session (healing of the memories) and Eucharistic service.

  When I was about to leave the last session, all of a sudden, it pop up the memory of the June 4th massacre (Tiananmen Square Massacre) in Beijing in 1989. I was born and raised in Hong Kong. By that time, Hong Kong had been arranged to return back to mainland China. The people in Hong Kong were very worried and so followed the student movement closely which started in mid-April, 1989. We hoped that it was a chance for mainland China to be more democratic.

  I was 18, a college student, and quickly identified myself into this student movement. I read the news every day. It was very likely that I would have joined the movement if I had lived in China. After enforcing martial law in Beijing, the news in Hong Kong was almost about the movement all the time. We were soaked into the worry. Since June 4^th, we were shocked by how a government could send troops to kill the innocent students and by how they cleaned up the evidence professionally. It was a collective painful memory to the people in Hong Kong, especially to that generation.

  I came to the US in the following year and accepted Christ in three months. The people in Hong Kong still keep annual memorial events. My tears still dropped when I saw the news about the memorial events. This year is the 30^th anniversary of the massacre. I am very proud of the people in Hong Kong who have the courage to stand the ground for justice even after returning back to mainland China.

  During the Eucharistic service, it mentioned,

  “The Lamb who was offered for us has taken away the sin of the world.”

  My tears just came out. I have never associated the quote with the sin done by the Chinese government to its people before. It will take some time for me to unpack my pain to God about this.

  What a gracious God, who touched this place so wounded by evil with His healing power!  The words of the liturgy came to life for this dear one, and now she desires the same for her brothers and sisters. We know that the Lord will tend to her soul intimately and tenderly, as she takes time to share her sorrow with Him and receive full cleansing and healing.  Truly, no act of evil is too great, no human grasp of power too mighty, that the blood of Christ cannot free us from terror and restore the supernatural gift of hope.  Let us look and see such a mighty Cross!  Praise God, praise His name now and forever!

  Painting: Fra Carnevale, 1450, Crucifixion, [Public domain] via Wikimedia Commons

   

   

• God’s perfect healing after harmful counseling

  I have the privilege of sharing here a beautiful testimony that came through email correspondence.  This dear woman had sought out prayer ministry and counseling for early childhood abuse, and wrote in asking for guidance in how to deal with the disturbing effects of some sorely misguided   interventions. She graciously granted me permission to share these excerpts from our correspondence.  I believe many will gain important wisdom from the cautionary tale of the dangerous counseling method she suffered through.  Even more, I am eager to share the beautiful encouragement of how the Lord led her through as she listened for His voice and acted on the words He spoke for her healing.

  After introducing some of her background, she described this current difficulty:

  …  I went to see a professional counselor to pray for me… She did a specific counseling technique and in this, I had a ritual abuse memory.  This shocked me to the core.  It did not feel like this was my memory, and I left the counseling utterly confused and deeply troubled.  In prayer I sought more wisdom from the Lord and I sensed this was indeed a repressed memory but at this point my senses and my discernment were already defective and infected.

  I worked through this terror of a memory, and did all the forgiveness I could think of.  And then my body started going crazy.  I had what Leanne describes as “the wall coming down” and all these repressed emotions came to the surface.  I struggled with this for almost a week.  Nausea and vomiting, convulsions, insomnia, diarrhea. I booked 3 days with the counselor to resolve this, and the approach they used made me extremely uncomfortable. They ask the demons to manifest and then speak through you to give details on the ritual abuse.  This is their deliverance technique.  Then they do normal dissociative counseling, where they map the alter systems and then integrate them, after they let you experience a specific ritual abuse memory.

  I had terrible body memories during this time, and the counseling did not leave me feeling more free or healed. In fact, I felt horrified (but at the time I thought it was due to the content of the memories).  I then attended a training school with this counseling group on dissociation and deliverance and found myself terrified afterwards.  In their teaching the power of the Cross seemed diminished to me, and the way they speak and command demons to reveal legal rights, unraveled me.  …  After the school, I still had terrible problems with insomnia, panic attacks etc. They said it was partly body memories, partly demonic.  And that I need to keep on addressing the demonic and take authority.

  This did not work very successfully and I was starting to get very confused with the healing process. I booked another 2 full days of counseling with the main head counselor, and he did more dissociative work, mapping alters, letting me work through memories (in the memories, they make you abreact to ensure you do not deny that it is real).  After two days of this I felt like death.  It was so hard to discern if my abreaction was voluntary or just as a result of what I saw in the memories.  …

  They said now that all the parts are removed, I just need to work through the memories (the parts are away and will no longer repress or block the memory, and as I go through the memories, I will abreact through them and then healing will come as Jesus enters every scene.  Except my body kept going bezerk, and I could no longer see any memories.

  They then asked me to return for more counseling, to check the demonic legal rights, and I just couldn’t face another round.  I felt like drowning, and kept on seeing demonic images and kept on wondering if I was having body memories or if it is a spiritual attack.

  It is then that I went back to Leanne’s books and I asked the Lord to guide me according to His truth. That somehow I do not trust to continue any more healing or counseling with this group.  It is here where I sensed the Lord was telling me that they were practicing the presence of demons when they take authority over them, and say they are our servants.  Leanne’s chapter on doing spiritual warfare the wrong way, was a BIG confirmation on this. So I immediately stopped speaking to the demons and rebuking them and instead I started practicing the Presence. I also worked through all the prayers in both the books of Healing Presence and Restoring the Christian soul.

  It is in the Restoring of the Christian soul book that I found two insightful things and this is really my question.  Leanne talks here about the wall of repressed memories breaking and describes all the symptoms I have been feeling.  She also says that this is a natural part of the healing, and it can take months.  I started doing the sample prayer she has there, about standing at the cross and hurting, and giving it all to Jesus.

  She also has a story in there about a woman who came to a PCM conference who was a ritual abuse victim and who was petrified as Leanne prayed for her.  From my understanding in Leanne’s writing, this women did not have to mentally and emotionally “see” and relive every single memory of what happened to her in the ritual abuse.  Is my interpretation of this correct?  In your MPC conferences and experience, does a ritual abuse victim have to relive every single memory to be healed?

  In the meanwhile I am still having body memories, they normally last from 2 to 4 days.  I now do the prayer, stand at the cross and hurt and try to endure.  I do not have any memory at this time, just the body pain that bleeds out, and I do the forgive anyone who caused this to me as part of the prayer.  My next question is, is it normal to have such intense body memories (it is now 7 months).  Is it ok, to release to Jesus and the Cross, and stand and hurt in Him, or must every memory be seen and “relived”?

  My response to this dear sister:

  Thank you for this heartfelt letter, and for giving us the privilege of being involved in your journey! My heart goes out to you for your incredible perseverance in seeking wholeness, and in compassion for what you’ve suffered along the way.  I am glad that you have had Leanne’s books to bolster your discernment about the counseling techniques that have been offered to you.  I agree with your caution about the deliverance techniques and focus on demonic that was being used, and am so glad to hear that you have stepped back from that treatment.  Yes, you have understood Leanne’s writings correctly:  it is not a necessary element of healing to bring memories into consciousness or re-live them emotionally or physically.  As you have so unfortunately experienced, that is a nightmarish misconception that comes from focusing on the darkness rather than practicing God’s presence.  We never direct someone to relieve painful memories, or to strive after discovering memories that are not spontaneously brought forward by the Spirit.

  It sounds to me like your present strategy of yielding your pain to the Cross, when it emerges, is right. You asked if it is normal to be having the level of intense sensations, and I understand that you’re wondering if, in our experience, that is a normal path of healing.  I suspect that the somatic experiences you are having are at least partially related to the negative focus of your previous counseling, to which your body responded as a trauma, inadvertently adding to the suffering (rather than being a normal part of a spontaneous healing process).  I believe this is good reason not to turn inward and focus on these sensations, trying to discover where they come from or to try to relive memories.

  I encourage you to keep your eyes on Jesus, as the healer of that pain, the One who bore it on your behalf and is even now radiating His healing power in your body to restore holy order, health, and well-being — whether the pain comes from earlier life experiences, or is the confusion your body is expressing as a result of the misguided counseling, Jesus is the bearer and healer of it all.  In your times of standing in the Cross, yielding to Him, ask the Holy Spirit to draw your attention to His goodness and up and away from the pain you are feeling.  Additionally, when the time seems right, you might also consider acknowledging before Him the error of that counseling, choosing to forgive those who led you astray, and renouncing any word or belief from that counsel that is remaining with you.

  But most of all, I encourage you to fill your heart and mind with HIs goodness, to set your eyes on His beauty.  I am praying for you even now, knowing the Holy Spirit is eager to pour into you images of glory, even new sensations of peace and well-being in your body.  You may like to look at chapter 12 in The Healing Presence, in the second half which begins with the heading “Being and Creation.” Let me be clear, I am not suggesting that your suffering is related to introspection.  But I do suspect that the remedy Leanne shares here will likely be tremendously helpful for you.  Where she speaks of introspection, you could substitute “a focus on the specifics of the past or seeking after memories and painful details”.  As Leanne so beautifully writes, “We come to know even ourselves… by turning outward to love all that is real and other than ourselves.” I believe you will find it wonderfully healing to focus on becoming incarnate of, to participate in, the good, the beautiful, the just, the true, even God Himself.

  I have the impression that over this last year your attention and experience became increasingly focused on what might be wrong within you.  I want to encourage you to consider that even in moving you to write to us, the Lord may be inviting you to pivot into a new season.  This new season may be focused on His wholeness already present for you, His love which has always been and will always be over and around you, and the goodness that is present to you right now, even as simple as noticing your beating heart, the sound of HIs divine energy alive in you, His word to you, “Live!”  It is clear from your letter that He has been with you through this storm, whispering guidance even in the darkest moments.

  Her reply:

  Please accept my deepest gratitude for your carefully crafted response.  It came into my spirit like a gentle rain, and I carefully soaked each particle in. … I downloaded the Wheaton teaching on the “Disease of Introspection,” and then I did the repentance prayer that complimented it so beautifully.  I also listened to the True Imagination teaching and did the prayer that accompanied that teaching.  I found both teachings incredibly insightful and powerful.

  The Lord did a beautiful “cleansing” work in the True Imagination teaching, and I felt in my spirit, when one of the team members were asking for the Gift of Divine Objectivity, that what transpired in my counseling sessions were not from God’s heart, and that it was simply not true.  I truly sensed once my True Imagination was cleansed, that what I “saw and experienced” in the sessions were not my own memories, but projected there by the demonic.  This is a relief but I do not feel fully delivered from all of the effects of this. My body will still go into spontaneous anxiety or panic attacks, in the middle of the night, and I still have trouble sleeping well.  For the first 4 days after doing the True Imagination teaching and prayer, I slept wonderfully.  But then as this weekend approached, the insomnia and the anxiety returned.  I have been very deliberate about not practicing the Disease of Introspection, but looking upward and outwards.

  I also listened to your teaching on the Healing of Memories and in this session, I forgave these counselors and their practice and I renounced what transpired in our sessions. I wept before the Lord, for all the physical and emotional damage this has caused.

  Her further thoughts:

  When I asked this sister her permission to share some of our correspondence, she realized that some reading this might wonder how she could have been so deceived.  She shared one more important piece of background that gives good insight and another valuable word of caution. One of the ministries she sought help from recommended a book that chronicled the work of counselors with a ritual abuse survivor, which she read.  In hindsight, she recognized that much of the raw material that the enemy used during her torment was gathered from her reading of this book.  She believes the contents of this book helped feed the deception and her readiness to believe what transpired in her own counseling.  This is a good reminder that we need to seek the Lord’s counsel about whether a book that may be popular is His best for us.

  Conclusion:

  I am deeply grateful to this dear sister for sharing her story, for we need the wisdom it offers. In the pursuit of healing and wholeness, both counselor and counselee face a temptation to what Leanne Payne called the ‘carnal striving to make things happen.’ Methodological approaches to soul healing, however well-intentioned, are a dangerous way of taking matters into our own hands, and because they displace dependence in our triune God, open the door to the demonic.  The gospel alternative is wonderfully simple, yet takes great courage and faith:  we must await God’s timing and His divine direction.

  There is more to this dear one’s story, and our correspondence continued in wonderful ways from here.  It’s been an utter joy to hear of God’s perfect faithfulness to her.  He has attentively and wisely answered each one of her questions and met every one of her needs.  He has brought healing to each place where she’d been harmed in her pursuit of wholeness.  He has even helped her repent where she’d made an idol of healing and come into a deeper trust in Him and acceptance of herself as she is today in Him.  Our Father is a wonder-working God, and He is already bringing much good out of this dear one’s trial, including blessing us with this edification and encouragement.  All honor, praise, and glory be unto Him, now and evermore!

  Photograph:  Gero Crucifix, late 10th century, Cologne Cathedral, Germany, photographed by Elke Wetzig.

• A testimony of choosing life

  We were delighted to receive this testimony from an MPC school attendee. In this prayer is expressed the wonder of how God descends to each one of us, reaching us right in our place of greatest need. Encounters like this change everything and we praise our gracious God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for His perfect faithfulness!

  Thank you, God,

  for not rejecting me in my anger,

  for showing me the state of my heart and the choice I had. Read more…

• Washing Away Shame

  I feel like there is a stirring starting to happen of sediment that has been allowed to settle. There was such a clear picture that I got when we had the time with the Holy Water and the water touched my face. I realised that I had a lot of shame attached to my face because of teenage acne. But on a deeper level, He showed me that my face is what the world sees, it’s the representation of my identity and it wasn’t only my physical face that I had wanted to conceal (make up and any other means of hiding) but also my identity. I did not want to be inspected, scrutinised and observed in case all of my “spots” would stand out and be on display for the world to see. As the Holy Water touched my face, the water of the Word cleansed my skin and my spots were cleared. I felt the tingling of the salt and it was very significant. Read more…

• The Hope of Glory

  The Hope of Glory
  Testimony by a 2016 Wheaton MPCS Attendee

  I wanted to share my experience at the Wheaton School with your team. It starts off negative and ends with glory. I have attached a picture I took Thursday at sunset that reflects “The Hope of Glory” that I discover by the end of the Friday prayer for healing of memories.

  

  Read more…

• Healing from Fear and Releasing Her Voice

  Hello Blessed MPC Ministry Team:

  I have been meaning to write you for two months now. When I returned home from MPC this summer, I had to move and then return to work. I wanted to share with you all that God did in me this summer in Wheaton at MPC, but also what he has been doing in all of us [hometown] folks since returning from our time with you. I am so grateful; words cannot express all that is in my heart. To say God is good doesn’t begin to articulate his saving acts of grace in our lives. Read more…

• Stories of Healing: Encouragement from Leanne’s Archives

  By Leanne Payne
  from her newsletter archives, June 1987

  A fine looking young Christian father and husband, suffering with the homosexual neurosis, came to a PCM with little or no hope. His expectation, since he had so long sought help, was exceedingly low. With his lovely wife’s encouragement, and for the sake of his family, he came. Here’s the letter we got shortly after the conference, followed several weeks later by one from his wife:

  Leanne,

  Bless the Lord! My life (and my family’s) will never be the same! My walk with the Lord has quickened considerably. I am loving the Lord more, being His son from the deepest parts of my being, listening to His beautiful words and obeying Him.

  Read more…

• Perseverance in Marriage

  A testimony from the desert: the blessed fruit of perseverance in marriage

  My marriage of over 40 years has been my “place” of stabilitas. I came to Christ in a little plywood stable that my dad built for my pony, a gift on my sixth birthday. For some mystical reason I felt God calling me that day, and I was awestruck by the subtle experience of the Lord with me there. I was seven years old, and from that point on HE has dominated my life, calling me over and over again to love, obey and worship Him.

  Read more…

• Resurrection and new life

   

  

  The first night after the conference I had a wonderful time visiting with some old Wheaton College friends. We spoke a lot about the conference. It was such a joy to share the hope that had been given to me. Later, when I put my children, ages 11 and 8, to bed, we had a wonderful time reconnecting and cuddling. We were staying in a hotel room so they were sharing the sleeper sofa and I was lying there between them. My son asked something like, “Tell me words, Mom, like how you love me. Say those words.” Read more…

• Pondering Great Things in my Heart

  A testimony from an attendee at the 2014 Wheaton MPCS:

  I am writing to say thank you for things that are too great for words – things too holy and sacred. Like Mary, I have been pondering great things in my heart.

  I am not sure I will be able to communicate fully to you what all has happened. In fact, I know that is actually impossible, as I am well aware that there are hidden things I have yet to see and understand. How could I possibly communicate them?

  June 2014 was my first experience of an MPC school. I will forever be thankful to my therapist for sending me Leanne Payne’s book Restoring the Christian Soul last November. I was at a very critical point in life – actually a life and death point. I had exited a same-sex relationship a few months prior and had hit rock bottom, as the saying goes. Read more…

• The Healing Love of God

  A testimony from an attendee at a Wheaton MPC school:

  I was that kid from an alcoholic home. My father did not want me and attempted to abort me when my mother was pregnant. Then when I was three, he committed suicide. My mom truly was unable to experience grief, pain, and other feelings. She didn’t know how to show anyone else how to do it either. I remember when I was about six, I went to her with a whole lot of anger and pain, and she told me I was just selfish and only thought of myself. At that time I remember thinking, This woman is crazy, and what she told me is so wrong. Nevertheless, later on I began to internalize my feelings and to experience shame and guilt when I had a genuine emotion. I went cold and stuffed all my emotions.

  I was aware of the anger, rage, and unforgiveness I harbored toward my parents and was actually able to heal a lot by going through an inventory with my AA sponsor before I came to my first MPC conference in 2010. Both of my parents had passed; so making amends and granting forgiveness was not possible. But a lot of healing had taken place just through writing letters to them and reading these to trusted friends.

  I took the train to your 2010 conference in Wheaton. On the way I was reading Leanne Payne’s book The Healing Presence. A profound thing happened on that train while I was praying. My father appeared to me, sat next to me, and asked me to forgive him. It felt completely real–as a matter a fact, I know it was real. So I extended more forgiveness toward my parents going into the conference. I cried that whole week. I know I received a lot of healing. Read more…