My Testimony of Spiritual Warfare and Child Sexual Abuse
The past five years have simultaneously been the best and worst years of my life. On the one hand, I have experienced great happiness in my marriage, raising my children, living out my dreams of being a stay at home mom and homemaker, and traveling often.
On the other hand, trials have undergirded all of this. The heaviest and most life-altering of which came to light in August 2020 about two months before giving birth to my son. Before I tell you about that, I have to rewind a bit.
In the summer of 2019, I experienced personal revival. I had what I would describe as a “throne room moment” - even though my faith was steadily growing all the time and I was ready to serve the Lord, like the prophet in Isaiah 6, I stood in awe at the glory of God, overwhelmed by my own sinful state and humbly aware of my feeble dependence on Him. I began to regularly pray with faith and fervency like I had never seen before. It wasn’t of me - nothing in my flesh could have mustered up that kind of power. Holy Spirit often overwhelmed me to pray with a unique boldness and authority. It was loud and supernatural.
As I came to Ephesians 6 in my Bible study time, I realized how blind and numb I felt in regard to spiritual warfare. I believed God’s Word, but I wasn’t tangibly aware of the realities of principalities and powers, etc. in my personal life. Since I knew it wouldn’t be enough for the prince of the power of the air - or Satan, to only afflict other areas, in more “obvious” ways, I concluded he must be at work in my own life. I prayed for God to open my eyes to the reality of spiritual warfare around me, removing blinders, waking me up from any hint of numbness or apathetic stupor so that I could respond accordingly, engaging in the battle more readily through prayer. I prayed that He would bring hidden things to light, to expose darkness, to shake up His church.
I had no idea just how powerfully He would answer my pleas. God opened my eyes through dreams about various situations pertaining to spiritual warfare, sometimes for particular missionaries or old friends, sometimes about my former church, and once, about my younger brother. I know dreams can be controversial in the church today, but in the Bible they are not. God promised in the last days He would pour out His spirit on all flesh (even cessationists ;), and that believers would have visions, dreams and prophesy (Acts 2:17). I have always been an avid dreamer per my subconscious and imagination, but these dreams were different. With normal dreams, the longer you are awake the more unreal and nonsensical they seem. But with God-given dreams, the longer I was awake the more the fear of the Lord fell upon me. I would tremble and weep as the spiritual weight of the dreams dawned on me in the morning.
One night in February 2020, I had a dream about my younger brother. Now, in real time outside of the dream, he was in counseling with our elders regarding anger and lust (specifically pornography). His angry outbursts at home were causing chaos and strife, and his enslavement to pornography caused them to remove him from serving on the sound team at church. I don’t know all of the details of their meetings, but things had escalated to a point where they gave him an ultimatum: go spend 6-9+ months enrolled in a faith-based men’s treatment center or be put under the third step of church discipline, telling the whole church of his unrepentant sins and treated as unbeliever.
Back to the dream. In my dream, we were standing beside each other with a great chasm of spiritual oppression between us. It was the most powerful wind I had ever encountered, blowing hard between us and against my throat so as to prevent me from speaking. I was trying to reach out and pray for him, but it was grueling work to lift my arm against the forces seeking to keep it from happening. Nonetheless, I reached out my arm and said, “What was that? Pride? I rebuke that in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
I awoke from the dream with that same spiritual heaviness. I knew the dream was real and terrifying, but I couldn’t quite decipher what to make of it. Romans 8:26 flooded my mind: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” I opened my mouth and nothing but guttural groans came out, aware the Spirit himself interceded for me in that moment, taking over to pray in a way I couldn’t comprehend. I don’t know what He prayed, but peace washed over and I was able to go back to sleep until morning.
When I awoke at daylight, I shared the dream with my husband (he is always the first to hear when these come). Then I called my brother. I told him the dream and gave my interpretation. I told him I was surprised that in the dream the main stronghold on his life was pride when I knew he was being disciplined for anger and lust. I told him the enemy was waging war for his soul and that pride was essentially the ticket to keeping him forever bound by the kingdom of darkness. I told him that if he did not humble himself and submit to the authority of our elders, he was ultimately surrendering to the enemy of his soul. He heard me and thanked me and we got off the phone. It was a short call. Within a few weeks he moved to Indiana and enrolled in the program. While he was there, he had severely limited privileges - little to no phone access, intensive counseling, hard physical labor, etc. A couple of months in, we found out he was one of the only non-felons there. In a brief lapse of faith, I wondered if this was all a bit overblown.
That summer, we were dealing with a lot. Our parents’ separation, both grandmothers suffering from Alzheimers, our younger brother off at this seemingly strange faith rehab place, and personally, my pregnancy was more difficult than anticipated which stretched me in every way. The Lord gave me the song, “Lord, From Sorrows Deep I Call (Psalm 42)” by Matt Boswell and Matt Papa. It resonated deeply with my spirit yet I couldn’t pinpoint exactly why. I felt as if God was priming my heart for something heavier - more spiritually weighty. I was talking to my sister about this, expressing I felt there was a deeper reason why God led me to this song. “I know we’re going through some hard things, but it feels like there’s something else…I just don’t know what.”
In August, my husband and I were at the beach when my parents called and told me they had news and we needed to come home right away. I was riddled with anxiety during the 6-hour car ride home, wondering what it could be - perhaps our parents were divorcing, maybe someone had cancer, maybe…anything. My mind went over endless possibilities that I would have gladly traded for the horror I would hear that night. The true gravity of the situation never occurred to me. All my worst fears at that time seem like a walk in the park compared to what was brought to light.
And yet, a year prior I pleaded for God to bring hidden things to light, to expose darkness and evil, to purify His church and set captives free. That He did. Several family members who had already heard the news gathered in our tiny living room. I was told to brace myself because it was pretty dark stuff. I held my breath. They told me my younger brother called and confessed to raping and molesting multiple children under the age of 12 spanning a period of several years. I screamed. Cried. Wailed. We had questions. Some were answered, many more arose and were not answered.
The next months were a blur of grief and deep sorrow. I prayed harder than I ever have and God was nearer than He ever felt before. "The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all (Psalm 34:18-19)."
Remember, at this point I was heavily pregnant - due the first week of November. My husband and family expressed concern for my baby. I talked to my doctor. They wanted to medicate me. At the time, I didn’t believe in that so instead I spent hours upon hours pouring over the Word of God, in prayer, and listening to calming worship music. I went to church at every opportunity and resonated deeply with Jeremiah, the weeping prophet, forever worshipping with rivers of tears streaming down my face. The sweetness of the good news of Jesus Christ in such a dark, twisted world continually swept me away.
In light of the unveiled horrors of a human heart influenced by demonic entities, the power of Jesus to trample Hell shone brightly. The heinous crimes committed are unfathomably evil. The enemy wanted to keep it hidden, sealed, and ongoing. But God – He intervened. He answered. He brought hidden things to light in a miraculous way (statistically speaking, these crimes never come to light by way of confession). He set captive victims free from that grip. He is working to redeem and restore and rewrite a more glorious next chapter. But, the thing about this story is - justice is slow. The system is broken. No arrests have been made. There are real glimmers of hope and healing, but the story is also messy and undone. Everything in me wants to tie this story up with a neat, tidy bow and shout the praises of Jesus who fixed everything. But that would be dishonest. We live between the poles of the already and not yet. This side of Heaven, so much remains undone as we await justice on this earth, but more so we await a glorious future hope when Christ will put all his enemies under his feet.
