Linked Memories Unlinked
God's Order Of Healing Woundedness
By Phil Scovell
I was only about 10 years of age. Danny and I, my best friend as
a child, were walking down the street together. There was no sidewalk
but the street wasn't a busy one anyway, and we were always careful to
watch and listen for oncoming traffic.
Then we saw it. A green piece of paper, which looked
suspiciously like a dollar bill, or maybe something even more
valuable, although a dollar bill was monetarily enormous to a couple
of boys in 1962, and the race was on. Danny wasn't athletic in any
way, shape or form. We never played baseball, as I did with other
kids in the neighborhood, because Danny couldn't hit the ball no
matter how slowly it was thrown to him. We never played football
because Danny couldn't throw, or catch, to save his life. He always
missed the basket when playing basketball so we never did that either,
and He couldn't run, and when he did, he ran like a girl. (Forgive me
ladies but that's how we thought and talked back then. I know better
now). Since I was on the school track team and the second fastest in
the elementary school we attended, I beat Danny by a country mile. It
was a 5 dollar bill! I was rich! Danny was, as always, broke.
This memory, for my entire life, has flashed into my mind,
hundreds and hundreds of times, and for no particular reason which I
could determine until recently.
Shortly after spinal stenosis surgery on my neck, no little thing
in and of itself, I was replying to an email of a friend who was
describing to me how he had been praying and the Lord not only healed
him but the first memory led him to a second that he hadn't even
realized was linked to the first. Upon relating this memory that you
have just read to my friend, I admitted to him that I had not yet
discerned where healing was needed in the memory of Danny and the
money. I did admit that I felt sad that I had never shared the money
with my best friend; thinking that was the problem. After all, that
feeling alone would generate guilt and guilt is a wonderful, not to
mention extremely fertile ground for a demon to generate a solid
foothold in the life of a Christian. "Oh, it doesn't work that way,"
you say? "Demons can't influence Born Again Believers in such a
manner?" With that sort of thinking, I wouldn't want to be in your
Christian shoes but let me continue and see if I might change your
mind; at least to the point you might think about it a little.
Since I felt sadness, and more specifically, mild guilt
concerning not sharing with my friend when I should have, I did the
simple thing required; I prayed 1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins,
He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness." Thank God for the simplicity of the Gospel and
the application of Biblical truth to everyday life experiences. So, I
was clear and clean. Right? Wrong. Something still felt wrong in
this reoccurring memory. So, as I told my friend the story, as an
illustration, and pressed the send keys, I stopped and just sat in my
office chair behind my desk and focused on the memory event once
again. This time, I did something different.
Considering the thought that guilt was present in the memory
event, regardless of how low level it may have been, there was likely
a demonic presence behind it. It certainly wasn't Jesus, and since I
had cleared things up by confessing it as sin, it couldn't have been
the Lord or the Holy Spirit, there was only one possibility left. So
I prayed a very specific prayer, which I won't repeat here at this
time since it can be found elsewhere on my website, and sent the demon
away who was behind the diabolical plot. Yes, we have such authority,
(See Colossians 2:10). Knowing he was now gone, I knew I would be
able to hear the voice of the Lord clearly so I asked Him what I now
needed to see as He saw it. In short, I was asking the Lord the
nature of the lie that remained which the demon was keeping hidden by
distracting me with the guilt I felt about Danny. I clearly heard the
Lord in my thoughts saying, "The lie is related to your father. The
demon lied and said your father should have suggested you share with
Danny. The demon was saying it was your dad's fault." I almost
laughed when I felt the voice of the Lord. I rarely hear words in my
mind but feel impressions which I in turn put it into my own words. I
knew this was the truth and I know the demon had lied and tried
covering up the truth with guilt. I was free. Now I understood. I
still wish, of course, that I had been smart enough to have willingly
shared with my best friend but that is a commonly felt emotion. A
normal person would feel such concern for his friend under similar
circumstances. Thus, the sadness was a normal human response due to
my friendship with Danny.
"Why is this so important?" I can hear someone asking about this
time. That's the easiest aspect of all of this to overlook. You see,
this whole thing had nothing to do with Danny, the 5 dollar bill, me,
or my dad; it was about God. "God?" You heard me the first time; it
is about God; God the Father. If a lying spirit can confuse us into
thinking God isn't really our Father, that he acts and thinks like an
earthly father, then we will have a distorted picture of the true
nature and identity of our Heavenly Father. Quick on the heals of
this concept of God, comes the true nature and identity of the True
Lord Jesus Christ. Most of you reading this testimony have, at the
least, an indistinct, and at the worst, obscure picture of God as your
Father. The rest of us have a spiritually cracked and fractured idea
of who the True Lord Jesus Christ really is. Most want to believe God
the Father, and God the Son, are the meanest, harshest, cruelest
father figures, who love to beat their children just to hear them cry.
If you don't think so, just listen to the average sermon preached on
Hebrews 12:5-11 on the chastisement of the Believer and then tell me
I'm wrong. By the way, I've written on this passage of Scripture and
explained the true meaning so if you need to, read it before you call
to tell me how wrong I am. Then come and sit with me in prayer
sessions and listen to how most people speak about their father and
why they confess they are afraid of God.
I was sitting out on my deck swing one summer afternoon, and
thinking of nothing in particular, when a voice, very close to my
face, said, "Are you afraid of me?" A few years ago, I would have
started shaking, my chest would have flushed as if having a heart
attack, and I would have been confessing the name of Jesus over and
over again in order to drive the demon I thought was whispering into
my ear off the planet. This time, however, I recognized it as the
voice of the Lord. It wasn't, by the way, His voice speaking to me in
my thoughts, not my ear, that surprised me; it was my own answer which
came immediately and without hesitation. I said, "No. I'm not afraid
of you," and I knew it was true. God didn't and doesn't, frighten me
any longer. Oh, don't misunderstand me. I know God's greatness and I
know the power and authority of His son; Jesus Christ. It no longer,
however, scares me. In fact, we are buddies now because I have
experienced their power and authority hundreds of times in my life
just as a simple Christian without a degree, not even an honorary
degree, although I've been tempted to spend $29.95 for a PhD off the
internet just for fun, to my name. I wonder what you think about God
the Father and the True Lord Jesus Christ? The Friendliest and
kindness person I know is Jesus Christ. The most loving and caring
person I know is God the Father. How would you identify them?
Through love and freedom of spirit and humor or through your
unresolved woundedness and pain? I already know the answer but let me
relate to you the second memory event which is directly linked to the
first.
A memory which has, for some reason, bothered me for most of my
life occurred when I was about 8 or 10 years of age. This would have
been in the early sixties.
We attended a large, 1,000 member, independent Baptist church in
Des Moines, Iowa where I was born and raised. Once a year, or so, an
all black downtown black church, came to the white suburbs and used
our baptistery since they had none of their own. The black pastor was
a wonderful preacher but the first time he baptize some of his people,
he almost drowned them due to lack of experience. I didn't think he
was doing all that poorly but I heard a few snickers around the large
auditorium as we watched him baptize. I must admit, he got much
better as time went on and his church grew and he brought more and
more to be water baptized. There was little doubt he was a great man
of God in my book.
In my later ears as a student, I attended a Baptist college about
10 miles from the church I used to attend. The black pastor was a
frequent guest speaker in our daily chapel services and we all loved
and enjoyed his fiery delivery, theological wisdom, doctrinal
knowledge, and spiritual insight.
As a boy attending the large Baptist church, it was no surprise
to me when my father invited the black pastor and his wife, along with
several other white people, from the church, to come to our house for
fellowship following an evening service. This was often the case
around our house. In some respect, I was a little puzzled. I had
been taught to be careful what you said around "colored people," that
was the ()PC) politically correct term used back then when referring
to half way respected blacks, because if they happened to be mean, or
criminal in nature, they might pull out a knife and stab you. So, I
grew up thinking all black people carried knives and might be a little
dangerous. I didn't have these same feelings about the black pastor.
After all, he was a Born Again Christian, my dad liked him, and was
even inviting him over to our house. Cool! I sort of felt proud
about the whole thing. Don't get me wrong. My dad and the black
preacher never did pal around together, playing golf or going fishing
together, but my dad admired the man, his Christian testimony, and he
thought nothing about his color when it came to having him over to our
house for after evening service fellowship. As I said, several white
people were also invited so our long driveway, and out in front on the
street, had several cars parked around the house that night.
In my day, children were seen and not heard. An extension to
this rule was children were not seen at all and especially when
company was around. I wasn't told such but I figured it out on my
own. So, knowing our little one bedroom house, and finished off
addict with two additional bedrooms, no heat, and no air conditioning,
I lived a rough life as you can see, I figured, since I enjoyed being
outdoors at night, seeing lights, watching the moon and stars, and
just the enjoyment of doing something different, that this time I
would spend my time outside while company was at the house.
As I stood watching the people coming to our home, I saw the
black preacher, and his wife, as well as other whites my father had
invited for the evening fellowship at our home, going into the house.
This particular memory was frozen in my thoughts for decades. I
examined it many times to see if something was wrong, that is, was
there some type of lie associated with this innocent event because
something always felt slightly wrong but what? Nothing ever came to
mind until a few months ago.
As the memory once again flashed into my mind, I examined it and
as I watched the scene unfold, realizing it was dark already and the
only light was coming from the porch, I felt, as much as hearing the
voice in my thoughts, saying, "Your dad didn't want the neighbors to
know that he was allowing blacks to come to his house. That's why he
waited till nightfall." I was somewhat shocked by this revelation.
Yes, my dad occasionally told jokes relating to blacks. It was
commonly done at that time in my white neighborhood. Yes, as I afore
mentioned, I was literally taught to watch what I said around
"colored" people because they might stab me with their knife if I said
something wrong in their presence. Yes, that is racism. I never,
even as a child, felt comfortable with all this for some reason. So,
when I felt the impression in my mind that my father deliberately
invited this black preacher to our home after it was dark outside, it
didn't feel exactly right. Based upon my upbringing, on the other
hand, it had a fragment of truth to the suggestion. That should have
tipped me off immediately but it didn't. It didn't until I was healed
in the memory concerning the event with my friend Danny and the 5
dollar bill.
If you will go back and read the story about Danny and the 5
dollar bill again, you will clearly see that guilt, as faint as it
might have been, was masked by personal sorrow that I didn't share
with my friend when I should have done so. You will also notice that
the true lie was not revealed until the guilt was confessed as sin to
the Lord and the demon behind the lie was removed. No, I saw no
demon, but when there is a lie, there is a demonic presence always
associated with it. So, from practical experience, I knew the lying
spirit had to be in that memory event. That's why I prayed and sent
him away. Once he was gone, the Lord's voice impressed upon me the
part the demon was hiding from my understanding when the Lord said:
""The lie is related to your father. The demon lied and said your
father should have suggested you share with Danny. The demon was
saying it was your dad's fault."
This lie had a direct link to the second memory, which made no
more sense to me than the first, nonetheless, I felt something was
wrong in both memories. The lie in the second memory event was
similar to the first. "It is your dad's fault. He doesn't like black
people. It is dark so that is why he invited these people over."
Oddly enough, at first, as this memory flashed into my mind, it truly
felt as if those words were being spoken outside of my mind but it
seemed as if those words had always been there, thus it had to be
true, but it wasn't. The lie was perpetrated by being implanted at a
later time in order for the enemy to gain a handhold, and hence, the
opportunity to advance his devious plan to disstablize my relationship
with the Lord.
My point is this. The key, in both memories, was a lying
accusation relating to my father. If I had believe these two,
seemingly true identifications relating to my father, the Enemy could
have used the feelings it gave me about my father to advance his lies
by making them a stronghold against my spiritual concept of the nature
of God as my father. He, the Enemy, cannot do that now because he has
been exposed.
Furthermore, I want to make it clear that the two memories were
linked. I tried, literally for years, to figure out what was wrong
with the second memory. Until, that is, one day, the thought entered
my mind that indeed my father only invited a black man to our house
under the cover of darkness so neighbors could not see we were
inviting blacks into our white neighborhood. Of course, that idea is
utterly stupid because the porch light illuminated the entire front
yard and the black man and his wife, parked on the street, walked
across the length of the entire yard as they made their way to the
front door and were entirely in the light the whole time. You'd have
to be blind not to have noticed they were black. The second memory
could not be properly exposed until the first memory, about the 5
dollar bill, was cleared of the woundedness, (guilt), and ultimately
of the lie it contained. Then the second memory instantly came to
mind and when I saw it, I immediately realized the similarity between
the two and could pray accordingly.
Someone might point out about this time that these two memories,
even if what I have reported about them is true, are not really all
that important. Perhaps you might say that but you'll never find me
minimizing the healing power of God. He wanted these memories healed
for some reason and that reason, in my opinion, was directly related
to the Fatherhood of God. If that isn't mighty important to you,
someone will have to explain what is. When Jesus is that close and
that real that He wants to heal childhood memories which contain
destructive demonic lies, I'm more than willing to receive his truth.
Besides, Jesus isn't even remotely interested in your assessment of
His eternal work.
I have no doubt that those reading this testimony have
experienced, just by reading this, memory events that have popped into
your thinking. You may even have experienced the wounded emotions
related to the memory event itself. I pray with people for the lies
to be exposed. I'm not a one-time, do it all in one single session,
type of person. I am an intercessor and if you are serious about
scheduling prayer session until the lies that are hindering you are
exposed, and until you can learn the simple, but automatic, techniques
I used to pray continuously without ever moving your lips, give me a
call.
Safe Place Fellowship
Phil Scovell
Denver, Colorado
Mountain Time Zone
Phone: 303-507-5175
WWW.SafePlaceFellowship.COM
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