Years ago I realized that the voices in my head were not all mine; however, what I didn’t know was who they belonged to.
I’ve already written a blog about how I struggled with depression from a young age, and during that time I had heard a lot of not so nice things in my head—I had thoughts of many things, but the worst were always the direct phrases that I would not only hear, but also believe.
Phrases like:
No one likes you.
They only tolerate you because they like your sister and you’re her tag-along.
You suck at that, why are you even trying?
No one cares about you unless you can give them something.
Just to name a few, plus some that were far worse that I don’t want to put words to.
And if I’m being real honest with you, those voices escalated and consumed my thoughts to the point where all I wanted was for them to end—and so I contemplated taking my own life, not necessarily because I wanted to die, but rather I just wanted to chaos in my head to stop. Thankfully, and obviously (otherwise I wouldn’t be here to write this), that didn’t happen.
I wish I could say that the voices went away, but they didn’t—they would come and go seemingly at random when I was having “bad days.” And although I had a perspective change and no longer allowed the voices to take as large of a hold of my mind as they used to when I was younger, I have still heard those voices even as near as this past month.
However, week one of the Race my squad leader, Madie, began to describe to me something that completely changed my perspective of my own mind and it is something that I will never forget. As a bonus, my squad mentor Teresa, delved into further detail about it during a teaching last month for all-squad month. It was the realization that there are three distinct voices in our heads—our own, Satan’s, and God’s.
I learned that my own voice is selfish and all about me. To an extent I knew this, I mean I knew that truth-be-told I want everything my way; but I also know that that is not reality. What I didn’t know was that it was not my own thoughts—my voice in my head—that hated me and tormented my thoughts for all those years. It was literally a light-bulb moment for me when I learned about the second voice in my head—Satan’s.
Satan’s voice—the voice of the enemy—is there to destroy you and confuse you so much that it clouds out your ability to not only see and recognize, but truly understand the third voice—God’s voice. However, we have to be careful with discerning Satan’s voice. You see, Satan knows the Bible and can twist scripture in order to try to deceive us into thinking that his lying voice is God’s voice—something that he almost succeeded with during my time at training camp (which I talked about in my blog about training camp). Another, biblical, example of this is in Matthew 4 when he tempts Jesus with scripture after He has been fasting and was led out to the desert.
Lastly, the third voice in our heads is God’s voice—a voice of truth and righteousness. A voice that is always uplifting, even when it is correcting. A beautiful thing about God is that he can read your thoughts—something that Satan cannot do. And so, when Satan is trying to get into your head to screw with you, God can come in and literally stop Satan’s words mid-sentence. An example of that would be my own story from last month.
Last month I went through something called an inner healing, which is a time to listen to God and allow him to speak truth into your life in whatever area he knows you need it in the most. However, my story that I’m about to tell you isn’t about my inner healing, but rather what happened before as well as after it. The night before I was not in a very good place mentally. Truth be told, I was in a spot where I was hearing Satan’s voice, the same voices that I gave a glimpse of at the beginning of this post, as loud as I was hearing them years ago—something that hadn’t happened in a very long time. However, fast forwarding to after my inner healing, something changed. No, the voices did not suddenly stop. But rather, God’s voice was cutting in and changed the phrases—similar to how “cutsie” couples finish each other sentences (cue gaging noises). Nonetheless, this was God changing the phrases that Satan was trying to tell me into something that He would use to remind me of how much he loves me and is guiding my every step. The dialog went something along the lines of this, with what Satan was going to finish the sentence with in parentheses but didn’t get a chance to say:
Satan: You’re so —(weak)—
God: strong, because my strength is inside of you.
Satan: Everyone —(hates)—you.
God: loves!
Satan: Everyone —(thinks you’re fake)—
God: knows you’re human and my daughter.
Satan: You don’t deserve —(to be here)—
God: to feel this way.
Satan: You are —(worthless)—
God: my daughter.
Satan: You don’t deserve —(to be here) —
God: I have placed you exactly where I want you to be.
And so on and so on.
What I learned through this is that God will meet you exactly where you are; however, you have to be willing to listen to what he is saying and also believe him. That night last month, I had the choice to listen to either what God or Satan was telling me and whoever I chose to listen to, would’ve had control of my mind for those moments—there was literally a spiritual war raging in my head that night. However, I chose to listen to God and it has made a world of a difference in how I interact with people as well as how I view myself.
If I had listened to Satan and believed all he was telling me, I would have been ready to give up on the World Race and pretty much on people all together because NOTHING that comes out of Satan’s mouth is good or uplifting. However, I chose to listen to God and not only has he proved himself faithful he has won each and every battle that has waged in my head since then—some of them easier than others, but there has been a significant decrease in Satan’s hold of my mind since that day for I know that God will provide and win every battle for me.
Contemporary Christianity likes to say that God won’t give us more than we can handle, but that is so far from the truth; rather, God won’t give us more than we can handle with Him. We are not supposed to try to do life without God, but when we say enough-is-enough and this is too hard for me, that is where God comes in and starts to win the battles for us—for some people it is physically, for other’s it is mentally, and still for others the battles are ones that I can’t even begin to fathom, but I know that with God on our side the battle has already been won.
