Jesus heals prayer counsellor of hidden anger
A often withdrew from people whenever she felt unfairly treated and harboured angry resentments afterward, without realising that she could go to God for His healing and deliverance. As she sought the Holy Spirit’s counsel, God showed her that she was stuck in hidden anger from childhood and healed her broken heart. Praise God!
(See Chinese versions: 简体中文 > 耶稣医治祷告导师的隐藏愤怒 | 繁體中文 > 耶穌醫治禱告導師的隱藏憤怒)
In the past, before I got started on my healing journey, I used to blow up like a volcano.
I thought I was okay because I stopped blowing up at others. But other prayer counsellors noticed that my anger was still simmering under the surface. I had difficulty speaking up when I feel that I have been treated unfairly. Instead, I kept things to myself and boiled with anger to the point that I start avoiding the person who offended me.
I have been through many renewal prayers because my family has a deep occult background and a lot of brokenness. When I was asked to go through another renewal prayer, I was extremely reluctant.
I finally scheduled it after God spoke to me when I was asleep and confirmed that even though I could control my actions, deep down in my heart, I was rebellious.
I was still resentful, angry, and full of hate because my mother used to forbid me from crying, getting angry, or even looking upset. I was never allowed to talk about how I felt. Even though I knew it was a problem, nothing happened when I prayed on my own for God to help me release the anger. I also knew that because I had given a foothold to rebellion, eventually, the enemy would be given grounds to cause even greater trouble in my life.
During the renewal prayer, I was invited to talk about how my mother had made me upset by her unpredictable moods and strict rules that revolved around her own needs and wants.
My family went through a lot of traumatic events, and my mother was under a lot of stress during my childhood.
So, I always thought that it was my job to be good so that things would not get worse.
She was also very harsh with me and my younger sister. As an adult, I realised that we received extreme punishments for very small infractions, like leaving a book on the floor, when we were only young children.
Because I was the eldest, I was punished when my siblings made any mistakes and I was blamed when my parents had arguments. Everything was somehow my fault.
When I tried to speak up, my mother would get even angrier and more violent. Eventually, I decided my revenge was to say the minimum to my mother and keep the details of my life hidden from her.
I thought that things would change once the distressing events of my childhood had passed and our family survived. I thought that if I took my mother on holidays, treated her to good food, and bought her gifts, things would change. But her temper was just as bad and she would blow up at me even when nothing was wrong.
I became extremely frustrated and told myself that I should just give up.
When we prayed in the renewal prayer, we returned to an old memory that I had already received healing for and at first, I was confused. But when the prayer counsellor asked me if the room in that memory was still dark, I said yes. I knew Jesus was there with me, but it was still dark. She asked me to ask Jesus to hold me and comfort me.
To my own surprise, I did not want to ask.
In that event from my childhood, I had been so scared and tormented that I did not want to live anymore, and some of those emotions resurfaced. I was also afraid that receiving comfort meant that I was allowing myself to be hurt again. My mother always tried to be nice to me after every episode, but she kept blowing up over and over again all my life.
I was very tired of the cycle and had come to believe that God would be the same.
We had to talk for a while before I was finally ready to pray again. I fought with myself for a few minutes and I realised that to let Jesus hold me required me to put down my defenses. I was happy to let Jesus comfort me if it meant He sat close by and drew beautiful butterflies in the air for me because He was still at arm’s length. But to allow Him to hold me meant that I had to allow Him to come closer than He had before. That was scary for me and at first, my heart started to hurt even more.
When I could finally let go and invited Jesus to hold me, my head and body felt extremely tired and I had to lean on the chair next to me for a while. We paused for lunch and I rested before we started praying again in the afternoon.
After lunch, we took a careful look at my judgments of the relatives on both sides of my family.
I realised recently that my uncles contributed to my father’s failures and that they were blind to how he suffered, and how we suffered. Instead, they were proud of themselves for escaping and probably looked down on my father. Because my relatives were so steeped in occult practices, I had to be careful that I did not give Satan a right to come against me because of my judgments of them.
Both sides of my family practice ancestor worship, going to mediums, and pray to gods of the earth, sea, sky, and many others. They submitted themselves to witchcraft for healing and knelt before gravestones to ask for help. One even invited lion dancers to our family home every Chinese New Year.
To them, this was normal, but their worship of other spirits is an abomination to God, and invited in even more destruction.
Exodus 20:4-6 You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.
Many in my family tree experienced early deaths, serious illnesses, poverty, financial ruin, abandonment, divorce, bitterness, and estranged relationships.
And many times, I felt like my mother was controlled by a demon when she flew into one of her unpredictable rages.
I was given an opportunity to talk about how my parents made me feel sad, scared, angry, or disappointed. I realised that in my eyes, my father never seemed to learn from his mistakes and I came to believe that if we do not learn, life would fall apart. I have always enjoyed learning new things, but I did not see that I was also partly driven by fear and judgment.
God has used my desire to learn in many good ways, but my desire was also leading me to judge others. I could not understand why others did not want to learn, why they seemed so slow to me, and why I hated making mistakes myself.
My urgency was due to my fear that life would turn horribly bad again.
“Hurry up! If you don’t learn, things will fall apart! Don’t you know that Hosea 4:6 says that people perish for the lack of knowledge??”
And it is true, when we are ignorant of God’s ways, we do suffer. But Jesus is the One who saves us, not the fact that we gain new knowledge, even if it is knowledge about the things of God. I need to trust that Jesus is protecting me and guiding me even when I have messed up because Jesus makes me righteous, and I do earnestly ask Him for help.
Psalm 34:19-20 The righteous person may have many troubles but the Lord delivers him from them all; he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken.
Because of the severe punishments I received as a child, I learned many bad habits and beliefs that do not belong in God’s kingdom.
I learned to bottle things up, to try to be good all the time, to be afraid of making mistakes, and to shut people out to protect myself. I judged my mother for being blind and deaf to others – even when people genuinely wanted to be nice to her – but I had also became blind and deaf myself and had trouble believing that people genuinely care about me.
When my prayer counsellors told me repeatedly that they wanted me to speak up when others disrespected me because they saw that I was hurting myself, I literally could not register what they said in my brain. To me, they were like my mother, just waiting for the chance to throw false accusations at me and beat me over the head even when I had done nothing wrong.
My instinct was to retreat into my own castle and disengage.
After the renewal prayer, I could finally accept that they were genuinely concerned about me, and that I need to learn to grow up and speak up when people are unfair to me. God knows that we will sin against one another even in the church, and has already set out instructions for what to do, not if it happens, but when it happens.
Matthew 16:15-17 “If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over. But if they will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church; and if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector.
I had learned the lesson of Proverbs 21:23, “Those who guard their mouths and their tongues keep themselves from calamity.” But if I am to grow into spiritual maturity, I need to learn the lesson of Proverbs 31:26, “She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue,” as well.
Ironically, in the last few years, I had been experiencing stomach aches off and on.
I had never made the connection to how much stress I was under because I felt – wrongly – that no one would listen to me and take my side.
Proverbs 18:20-21 From the fruit of their mouth a person’s stomach is filled; with the harvest of their lips they are satisfied. The tongue has the power of life and death, and those who love it will eat its fruit.
Because I was starving my tongue, my stomach thought it was empty and I was experiencing gastric pain even though I eat regular meals. At the end of the renewal prayer, my stomach ache disappeared, and I can laugh at myself for resisting the renewal prayer in the first place.
The journey to learn how to speak with wisdom, freedom, and trust may not be easy or quick, but I am joyfully inviting God to teach me these new things.
I also see now that I have many things I want God to comfort me for, and many needs that I want to ask Him to meet.
A couple of days after the renewal prayer, my mother started telling my sister and me about how she was treated unfairly in the past. The old me would have tried to get my mother to stop talking as quickly as possible out of fear that somehow her temper would get out of hand again. But this time, I prayed, took a deep breath, and acknowledged my mother’s pain. She talked more about the circumstances – which were very serious – and about her bitterness and inability to speak up for herself.
I was struck by how my mother was held captive by the same patterns that had held me captive for so long.
By God’s grace, I had the opportunity and courage to praise my mother for her kindness even though she felt cornered, and pointed out that because of her kindness a long time ago, God has brought many kind people into my life to bless me in return. My sister, who is also a believer, jumped in and continued the conversation to bring comfort to my mother.
These kinds of conversations have never happened in my family before, and I am thankful for how God brings blessings when we turn to Him and release our own unforgiveness, fears, and pain.
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