Dear Mothers,
I just feel it's important to write more on faith, as many of you are on the way to getting your prayers answered. For me to stop writing on faith at this point could stop the Spirit's flow too quick, I think. I want to tell you some faith stories in my own life that used the principals of faith that we have discussed.
See, many years ago, before Jim was saved, this is what would happen. I would think all was well with us and, out of the blue, he would leave the family. See, when some of you all's husbands have left, you may get some idea of where they went. Like maybe they went to a bar or a friend's house or to a relative's house. Jim didn't do this and I knew better than to look for him, as I knew he was gone and wouldn't be back until God Himself brought him back. So I could be living a normal life and, all of a sudden, Jim was missing as if UFOs came and took him right off the earth.
You know how ya feel if a family member is late getting home, how you worry? Well, this was a nightmare with Jim and it happened many times. And he would be gone about 3 months. My life would just stop and I would have to begin again alone. The first weeks or so, I would grieve so hard, it just about killed me. Then bitterness set in and it went for about a month. I was gonna divorce that sorry S.O.B. etc. I would beg God to give me His blessings for a divorce. And when He told me that marriage was until death, I would curse the Lord. And then do a lot of repenting. Talk about a soul in turmoil. Then, finally, as I could see that I wasn't gettin' out of this thing without leaving the Lord, I got back up and onto my faith.
Now, here I am, a very broken woman. I felt like I was standing in midair to start believing God. I didn't have the slightest notion of where Jim was or if he was even dead. But just out of the blue, the Lord told me to believe Him for Jim to come back home. So I would start cleaning the house and getting stuff ready for Jim to come home.
I listened to faith tapes constantly, as fear would try to fight me. I did the things that I talked about in my earlier writings on faith. But, see, I had a lot of fear. So I used faith tapes like an iron lung. I had to have faith bein' pumped into me like a dying woman. I was the key here. See, God had to have a faith filled woman to do what needed to be done. I was not it, and I needed a supernatural faith that could move a mountain. So I got ahold of Kenneth Hagin tapes and books by Smith Wigglesworth. And in the 1970s Ken Copeland was very anointed to preach on faith. So I got a bunch of these tapes and I fed my fearful soul with faith. At night before I went to bed, I turned my tape on and let it play and let it shut itself off. But I listened to the Word of Faith at night until I fell asleep and the next morning when I was barely awake I would turn the tape player on and listen to it until I got out of bed. Then I would travel about the house with the tape player and would listen to tapes as much as I could. I had a tape player in the kitchen and I had to finally throw it away, as it had so much brown sugar in it. I had it right beside me on a counter in the kitchen when I was cooking. And notice I didn't say I had tapes on the whole Bible. I needed faith and I just had tapes on faith that told me scriptures to meditate on.
OK, so Jim would be gone for about 3 months. This was because it took me about that long to get back up on my faith. That was my cycle and not Jim's. And then Jim would be home about 3 months. About the first month or so, I would be able to hold my faith on the line. Then as the time went on, I would begin getting more fearful because I wouldn't be able to hold onto my faith. I spent more time with Jim and less time with meditation in the Word and one day, sure enough, he was gone again. Jim told me he felt like a yo-yo. He would be gone 3 months and then back 3 months.
Fear Is the Enemy
When my faith was up, Jim would be home and doing well. And when the fear came to me, the fear sent Jim back to the highway, hitchhikin' out of town. No suitcase, no nothing -- just Wild Man on the highway with his thumb in the air. Once someone asked him where he lived before we were married. He leans back in this chair and says, "Oh, anywhere I hung my hat." I was like, "No, you didn't just say that." But it was the truth. Jim would look for a mission in some town and listen to their song and dance to get something to eat. You had to listen to a sermon and then you got a free hot meal. Then Papa would travel on. And, no kidding, we went through this 30 times -- yes, I counted them. Sometimes it wasn't 3 months; it was a shorter time.
But, see, in all of this, I was the key player. Jim was an unbeliever so he was just out there doing what he had been doing for years before I came along. My Baptist preacher gave me some good advice. He said, "Connie, you aren't Jim's problem but you can be his answer." Jim was one accident goin' some place and the Lord had called me to stop Jim. Now don't I wish that some of these nutty, crazed criminals in our world all had wives who would stop them! But, no, everyone runs out and gets a divorce. Usually, most husbands who are weak in faith have wives who really have gifts of faith. God won't put a husband and wife together who both have no faith.
So, anyway, I was a key player here. God dealt with me and my faith because I was the one listening. I couldn't do anything on my own to help Jim, but God could! What was my part to play? It was keeping myself loaded up with faith power. In myself, I couldn't make Jim stop running. He had been running away since he was 14 and I met him at 25. He ran out of the army -- even jumped through a plate glass window to get loose. Jim looked like a trapeze artist and he couldn't be tamed. He ran over me like I wasn't there. I am tellin' you, that man was over the top. There was no way in hell I was gonna do anything to stop this guy. And if we went to counselors, he just told them what he thought he was supposed to say and that was it, then he would run away. But God wanted to stop Jim and save him.
I felt it was a crap shoot from the beginning but learned to follow God as a helpmate to Jim. I felt that if I left Jim, then Satan had won the battle in Jim's life and in mine. I didn't believe in remarriage and I figured I would be alone and I didn't want that.
I had loved Jim with all of my heart. But slowly, as the years went on, I began to hate him. I would get so discouraged. Yet in prayer, God would help me back up and get me on the faith road again. I had to walk with God and depend on His power. Just like a car ain't goin' anywhere without gas, we won't see any miracles until God alone fills us with gas or the Power of the Holy Spirit.
We must be empty vessels waiting to be filled with Spiritual power from on High. You must know that you can't get a powerful miracle without the in filling of the Holy Spirit. We are vessels that must be filled with power. And God will fill us with the Power we need for the problem at hand. No weapon formed against us can prosper, once we get our faith built up to the point God can use us as a spiritual weapon.
And, ya know, when Dixie came along in my life and added her faith to mine, BINGO, Jim's career of running was over. It stopped right now! I had seen some small miracles before that, and many prayed. My friend Barb, who just joined our group, fasted and prayed with MaryL right at the same time and Jim was healed. He never left again. Of course, Jill always stood with me and comforted me, too. But in the beginning, I had to walk alone in my faith and then God sent helpers. For Dixie to tell me that Jim was healed was like her talking to a beehive. I was so hurt that I just plain resented her saying that. But she kept telling me, "Connie, Jim is healed."
Miracles
See, God had that healing for Jim many years before it happened. I just never could maintain enough faith and hold it out there long enough for God to work. I would bang away at my snake until I was tired. God would give me enough faith to bring Jim home. Jim even traveled to Mexico. He would come home with foreign money. I wondered, at times, if God didn't just pick Jim up and transport him to me. So I knew some of my faith was working. But I didn't have enough faith. I could bang into the moon with my faith but couldn't maintain it.
The key, as with everything, is maintaining your faith. It's like when you take herbs. If you just take them one day, it isn't going to help you. You have to take them every day for them to be effective and make a change. And faith is like that. You can't take pot shots at it. You have to pray until you believe God and then add faith to faith until Satan lets loose of your family. Just like a snake in your house. You hit it with a broom and that don't work so you hit him with a knife. He is wounded but he is still alive. Well, you don't, at that point, say, "Well, I guess ya never know what God is gonna do and that snake needs a home, I guess." No, you are right back at him. You go get a gun and shoot the dang thing. And if he is still alive, you shoot him again. How many times do ya shoot him? Until he is dead. And this is how we have to come after these demons that get ahold of family members.
And everyone fails in their faith at times. That's why it took me 12 years to get the demons off Wild Man. See, in the Bible, when families brought their demon possessed to Jesus, Jesus healed them. He didn't tell the demon possessed to straighten up and knock it off. He knew they were bound by demons. Normal family members brought the demon oppressed to Jesus and He healed them.
But the mate who is of sound mind is the key player. The Christian holds the key to victory for the demon oppressed. The problem is that the believer takes everything personally that the demon oppressed family member is doing. And Satan takes them off on a Trail of Tears and they go get a divorce. Good Night! God has called us believers to cast out devils and to set the captive free through the mighty anointing of the Holy Spirit. Many in our world today are casting out devils and they aren't even Christians. And in the end Jesus will say I never knew you. But the believer's job is to cast demons out and raise the dead and heal the sick through Jesus.
We live in troubled times. With wars and rumors of wars. We need to understand the power of Jesus. The whole thing in a nut shell is this. If we have a family member who is demon oppressed, then you need to rebuke Satan from her or him. But you can't do that in yourself. Here is the key -- you must be filled up with God's power. Jesus is the key. If you have to get faith tapes or whatever you need, get it. And then after you get the faith, maintain it and keep using it daily until the manifestation of the miracle comes into the physical. You keep killin' that snake until it stays dead.
And you don't need to go through 12 years of hell like I did. Good grief, Girlfriend -- you have my testimony. I didn't have any testimony to count on. When Jim first left me, I went to the Christian bookstore and I said to the lady clerk, "Do yo have any books on husbands running away?" This was about 1969. The lady is like "NO." Well, I had read Cross and the Switchblade with Nicki Cruz and I could relate to that. But none of us believers had heard of anyone like Jim. Most families back then were doing half way OK. Most folks married and stayed that way. Rarely was there even one divorced person in church. And there I sat in the pew, deserted every 3 months. I was a fish outta water and most Christians wondered what I had done to deserve Jim. Of course, in the midst of it all, I was winning folks to Christ.
Prayers
So right now, I just hold the families before you, Lord Jesus, who have children or husbands that are just causing much heartache in the families represented here.
Father God, please fill us with the mighty power of Jesus Christ. Fill us with your powerful Holy Spirit. Please give us the mind of Christ.
Satan, we come against you in the mighty name of Jesus, not in our name. We show you Christ's power and not ours. You must bow to the Power of Jesus.
Satan, we are Covenant Women. We have made a covenant with Jesus Christ and His Word says All of our children are taught of the Lord and great is their peace. Also the scripture says What God has joined together let no man or woman separate. God's Word says that if we obey God that He will reward us. He rewards those who diligently seek Him. You cannot cross over the blood line and the Victories Christ won at the cross. God has called His covenant Mothers and wives to cast out demons in His name. And we cast you out in Jesus' name.
You filthy spirits of hell, get out and go back to the fiery pits of Hell, in Jesus' name. And we bind you away from these families in Jesus' name. We don't attempt to cast you out in our name. But in the name that is above every name that is named upon the earth, Jesus Christ. He is our King in heaven and on earth.
Lord Jesus, we expect many miracles today. Thank you, Jesus, for your power. I loose angels as ministering spirits to come and minister to the women of God. Show us what we need to know to stay clean from these demon spirits.
Love,
Connie
