Jesus - My Deliverer
I was just a little girl of about five years old when I started to become conscious of my negative and positive emotions, and began to make decisions about who I believed loved me and who didn’t.
My childhood mind experienced certain things in a very negative way and looking back, I can see how the devil took whatever opportunity he could to plant wrong perceptions in my mind.
A BROKEN HEART
As a little girl, I remember running to my Dad and expecting him to pick me up and love me. My heart broke when he just pushed me aside. I was devastated and from that time forward, I never became close to my Dad. He was a wonderful father. He served God with all his heart and soul, and provided as best he could, in what were difficult times.
I was born just before the Second World War, and my childhood years were just after the Great Depression. My parents were forced, like many others, to stand in queues for bread and basic foods.
Emotional freedom and well-being were foreign concepts at that time in history, and it was more common than not that children were seen and not heard. It was unheard of that a child could express a valuable opinion.
The church I grew up in until I was sixteen was run by a pastor of questionable moral character, and it was known to us that he had had affairs with multiple women. My father, realizing that the church we were in was not helping his family, took a transfer to Durban.
We joined a church that was alive and run by a lovely pastor. The young people were very active, especially in outreaches. It was at this church that I met my wonderful husband, Dr Fred Roberts. We became friends and were very active in God’s work, teaching Sunday school and holding evangelistic services in the streets of Durban.
Both of us were trained in Bible School. He went to a Bible School in England for three years and I went for two years to a Bible School in South Africa. When we finished our training, we married and had our family.
This brief background is to help readers understand that being in the Church doesn’t exclude you from the terrible torture of a troubled mind with wrong perceptions.
THE ROOT OF REJECTION
Our emotions should never control our lives. I allowed my emotions to cause havoc because I was ignorant of what God’s Word said. The Bible makes it clear that if we are ignorant of the devil’s devices, he will take advantage of us (2 Cor 2:11).
Fred has been a wonderful husband all the years of our marriage. Sadly, when you don’t have a good relationship with your earthly father, it’s very difficult to have a good relationship with your heavenly Father. This results in problems in your marriage, because a deep root of rejection has set in, accompanied by depression. Rejection and depression are always “bed-fellows”. It is difficult to accept love, when deep down inside of yourself you believe the lie that you are unloved and unlovable.
I lived my life with a deep sense of rejection and feeling unwanted (even though in reality this was not true).
Damaged emotions are not a reliable filter to see your world through, they are a hindrance, because they taint everything you believe about yourself and others.
In your mind two idols control your thinking, and every thought you have is sifted through those wrong thinking patterns. It is not possible to have an accurate perception of life when you are reading everything through a mindset of rejection and depression.
A MARRED SELF-IMAGE
Our marriage and our family were suffering greatly, as I would have days of depression where I would sleep all day to try and ease the pain. I was a pastor’s wife and I had a lot of responsibility. I played the organ at services, taught Sunday school, trained the choir as well as weekly ladies’ meetings, all the while raising four children.
If Fred praised me, I would not be able to receive his kindness.
Things got so bad that there came a time when I said to him, “You’re a good man and God works for you, but not for me. I’m out of our marriage, you look after the children, I’m a bad mother.”
He begged me to stay as I packed my bags. He stood at the door to our bedroom and said, “If you go, I’m coming with you.”
I told him, “I don’t want you and I don’t love you”
He responded, “I love you and I want you”.
He decided to take us away to the USA. In his mind he felt I was tired and in need of a break, so our two eldest children went to Christ for the Nations Bible School in Dallas, while the two youngest attended day school.
GOD’S WORD IS LIKE MEDICINE
It was around this time that I started listening to the teaching tapes on Faith by Kenneth Hagin Snr. He taught that God’s Word will work for anybody who will believe. I knew the Scriptures but had never applied them to myself.
Until then, I had believed that if great preachers prayed, God would hear them, but who was I to ask God anything. I started to apply God’s Word to my mind and all the thoughts of unbelief and lies that had controlled me for so long. I always knew I was born-again, but that day I made Jesus Christ the Lord of my life, not only the Saviour who could get me out of trouble.
I applied God’s Word to myself, like a medicine. One day as I was kneeling, praying and reading God’s Word, the Holy Spirit asked me this question: “Do you love your neighbour as you love yourself?”
I replied, “Lord, You know I hate myself. I’m so critical of other people, so many people have said unkind things to us and about us that are not true. My pastor was so unfaithful to his wife and family, so how can I love myself?”
God showed me a rose in a vision and said, “Will you say to that rose: I hate you.”
I said, “No, because You created it Lord.”
“Then why do you say you hate yourself, when I created you?”
Then the vision changed and I saw the same rose, but insects were eating away at the stem of the rose. I said, “Wow, look what’s happening to the rose.
The Holy Spirit told me, “That’s what’s happening to you.”
I quickly replied, “But it’s other people…”
He told me, “But You choose to do those things.”
In His gentle way, God helped me to understand that we are all responsible for our own actions, no matter who has wronged us or how difficult life may have been.
I asked the Lord where all those wrong perceptions had come from and He showed me that it was from the day when my father had rejected me. The devil took an opportunity to deceive my young mind. I thank God that I studied the Word and applied it to my life, so I was able to break those wrong thoughts.
FINDING FORGIVENESS
I had believed that the Blood of Jesus could not cleanse and forgive me, but I read: 1 John 1:7 “But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” Then I read: 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.”
And the Holy Spirit asked me, “Now do you want Me to forgive you?
I said, “Altogether, never to hold it against me ever again.”
I felt Him saying to me, “That is how I want you to forgive others.”
So I began to forgive all those I could remember, and as I was praying sincerely in this way, I had a supernatural experience. The Holy Spirit told me that two spirits had left me: “lies and fear”.
It seemed like I had walked into a whole new life: The Holy Spirit healed me, I was made whole spirit, soul and body.
At that time we were living in an apartment at Christ for the Nations and my husband had been away from us for more than a month preaching all over America. I was so excited that all the depression had left and all the rejection was gone, because before that moment I can’t remember when I had laughed or even enjoyed my life.
SET FREE
I immediately made arrangements to meet Fred in Alabama where he was.
That night I couldn’t stop talking all night. I was so excited that I was free, free, free. Finally able to love my family and my husband, love God’s people and the Church.
From that day till today, depression and rejection are not part of my life. I let the mind of Christ and His Word replace all the lies of the devil.
By Pastor Nellie Roberts
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