One giant step. . .

Yesterday, God released our granddaughter from emotional bondage. It was a very powerful experience. After church, Bob and I met with our youth pastor and a friend who wrote his thesis on the powers of evil. They prayed for us and for our family. Their prayers were powerful and on target. One of them suggested we say to our grandchild that she needs Jesus.

When our daughter brought her home (she stays with her mom most weekends), our daughter started the conversation but put all the onus on our her child; she had to pull up her socks, change her ways, fix her attitude, and so on. The more I listened, the more I realized that she is not able to do that, that she had lost all hope in everything, most of all in herself. I can’t recall every word, but I remember saying to her, “You need Jesus.”

She said, “I don’t believe that,” but it was more a statement than a rebellion.

We talked more. Finally I said what I’ve wanted to say for months. I wanted to tell her my take on what was happening to her. I told her she had experienced some bad things as a little child, was too young to deal with them then, and still not able when she grew up. The pain of all that was too much for her so she turned it off. She also refused to get angry, and because she could not reconcile the hurt, she became numb. She shut down all the negative emotions, but by doing that, she inadvertently shut down the positive ones too. She had lost all ability to be happy. At that point, she totally fell apart and clung to me, sobbing and sobbing and sobbing. Her chains fell off.

She is not there yet. She still needs to know Jesus, but the sense of evil oppression has gone. We explained to her that there is a spiritual enemy who wants to destroy her, and in her numbness, has filled her head with lies and thoughts of suicide. She cannot fight that alone. She needs truth and she needs light in her life. Again, she needs Jesus.

We didn’t push. We know that Jesus has to make the first move. We told her she cannot believe on her own, that it is a gift from God. All she can do is cooperate when she senses He is calling her to Himself.

For most of that time, our daughter was pushing self-effort. At one point I wanted to silence her, but just kept praying. When our grandchild’s tears started to flow, our daughter was quiet. After things settled a bit, she asked for a minute alone with her child. We don’t know what was said, but we could hear them crying and laughing together. We hoped it was good, had a twinge of fear that they were laughing at us (yikes), and felt like we’d been hit by a train, but the train was smiling.

After our daughter left, our granddaughter talked to us, watched TV with us, and was obviously changed from that person who had been silent, sullen, and mean-spirited. We know this is only the beginning, but it is a beginning. God hears and answers prayer.

My reading today is from Ephesians 1, “And He (God) put all things under His (Jesus) feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”

Jesus is the boss. All thing includes “all principality (rule, authority) and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named . . .” Our granddaughter and her mother don’t need pills, psychobabble, therapy, self-effort, or a hard kick in the pants; they need Jesus. They need to submit to Him as their head, because only Jesus, as the head of all things, can give both of them victory over all things. Jesus is the fullness of God, the One who can fill in all those places in our lives that are dark, blank, without meaning and without hope.

We keep praying. She can now cry and laugh, but she still needs Jesus.