I was taking an evening stroll around my neighborhood one summer in 2019 as I tried not to think about the trauma of the previous relationship I had just escaped from, which was full of fear, deception, and chaos. A seemingly innocent, charismatic man I had met at my Bible study several months prior had been at the epicenter of a string of Jezebelic attacks aimed for my life, and even though I escaped, and I was relieved, I was feeling drained in every way. I had survived one of the worst spiritual attacks in my life. The Lord healed me, but yet another test in discernment was awaiting me which far exceeded the difficulty of the previous test, and if it weren’t for the Lord, I’m convinced I would not have survived to tell you this story. Several years later, and coming up on Valentine’s Day, I want to share the story of how Jesus the Messiah is still fulfilling the prophecy about Himself in Isaiah 61, which says that He was sent to “bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim release to the captives and freedom to prisoners.”
Queue the Fright in Shining Armor
I had just left a relationship where, admittedly, I should have known better given his tumultuous past (and present), but I was confused by the fact that this man knew how to prophesy, pray, speak in tongues, and there wasn’t a blank space left for notes in the margins of his Bible pages. I thought, “If the next man can operate in the gift of the Spirit and NOT have a questionable background, then I should be set. I should be safe.” There were also some recent prophetic words and dreams coming from others that were still floating around in my head about getting married. It may sound like I was obsessed with being in a relationship and eventually getting married, but I want to emphasize that this was not the case. It was the fact that I didn’t want to “miss the will of God for my life” and the fact that I’m a classic people-pleaser that left me vulnerable to being exploited by the enemy in this way. Therefore, when the next man came around that really seemed to “check all the boxes,” who didn’t have a tumultuous life, who was attractive, and who seemed to be loved by many, I was completely blindsided. The perfect storm came hurling toward me from the opposite side of the country and nearly had me shipwrecked.
During that night stroll in 2019, he sent me a message. He eventually flew down to Texas to meet with me and the church group he met with several times before in the past. He was already known in my group. He was the “new guy” that all the women secretly admired. We spent time together. We eventually met each other’s families. He planned to propose and even bought a ring, but I wouldn’t let him propose. Even though he knew how to prophesy, pray, and speak in tongues, he didn’t know what love was. In his pride and insecurity, he had tried to break me down and rebuild me into his concept of perfection, which was someone that would never need a doctor because we’d rely only on the power of God or die in our sickness, because if you used a doctor, you don’t really believe the gospel. He wanted someone that never questioned his theology, even though he hated reading and thus never read the Bible. Dancing, no matter how innocent, was prohibited. If we got married and I had kids, I couldn’t get an epidural. Listening to your own emotions, or having emotions, was off limits because it could skew your view of “truth.” Lastly, as a woman, my opinion mattered less, because the Bible says that women need to “submit to men” (that’s a whole different teaching I will address one day).
On the outside, our relationship looked like the picture of perfection. Well-meaning friends and leaders even reached out to me saying that they thought he was “the one” and initially offered to give us marriage counseling. People loved him so readily because they didn’t get as close as I did to see a different side of him. In my desperation and will to survive, I wanted to see him the way everyone else did. My love for him turned into Stockholm syndrome as I deceived myself into believing that, because all my friends and family were on board, then any issues I had been experiencing weren’t actually happening. I was the one that was out of line. I thought, “Maybe I’m not ‘Christian’ enough, and I’m being too negative. I should be grateful that someone with such an amazing testimony who is that attractive and has a great family is interested in me. There must be something wrong with me.” Meanwhile, my emotional sickness turned into physical sickness. I walked around with a smile on my face, but knots in my stomach. I completely lost my appetite, and if I did eat something, it led to terrible stomach aches. I was the skinniest I had ever been. Crying was almost an everyday occurrence, which was something that wasn’t normal for me. During these events, I couldn’t tell anyone what was going on, at least not in full. He was always looking over my shoulder, and I couldn’t bring myself to say anything bad about him. After all, he did a lot of nice things for me and told me nice things, which added more feelings of self-doubt and confusion.
Where was God?
While I was going through the most difficult time of my life, and I felt like I couldn’t tell anyone what was going on, I can confidently say that I was not alone. The Lord didn’t tell me what to do, or which way to go. He just gave me the truth, and made His presence known. In my distress, He was more near than ever before.
The first time we had broken up, I had a dream. In the dream, me and my then-boyfriend were standing in a parking lot with 3 kids that were probably ours. There was what looked like a hiking trail off to the side near the lot. He was telling me and the kids that we all needed to go down this path with him, and he explained that it would be a good idea. Deep down, I knew it wasn’t a good idea, and that it would have irreversible consequences. I told to him to go on ahead. Even though I wasn’t sure if this was true, I told him we’d be waiting for him when he returned. I watched him disappear down the path while me and these 3 kids waited for him. Eventually, I saw him come back and walking towards me. I thought “Maybe I was paranoid. Maybe it’ll be fine after all.” Then, I heard what sounded like a giant breaker switch flip. My stomach sunk. What I feared had indeed occurred. Suddenly, he yelled out “Sierra, where are you?” “We’re here!” I yelled back. He couldn’t hear us, and he couldn’t see us. While he was still yelling out and looking around, I approached him to try and touch him, hoping that would work. He then walked right through my body. It’s as if I was a ghost, and we were now living in separate dimensions. Exasperated, I grabbed the kids and headed toward a nearby town, hoping to find a solution to what had happened.
I asked the Lord what the path was and what it represented in the dream. Why did it change everything? What He told me next was a lesson I will never forget. “He took the path of condemnation, and condemnation means separation.” My heart almost stopped. Bible verses began racing through my head. Satan was condemned, and therefore separated from God forever. Paul even says “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” in Romans 8:1. I quickly looked at my Bible app to look up the Greek word for condemnation. I had to see if it was true. Sure enough, I found that according to Strong’s Concordance, the Greek word for condemnation—krísis—means “a separating, sundering, separation.” My mind was blown to bits. He showed me that even though this man was saved, he was actively walking on a path of condemnation, and doing so would separate me from any future with him. A week later, the Lord also showed me that there was a chance that he could repent, because I had another dream where I was in a house with these same kids, and he “came home” and was so happy he could see us again. I held out hope for the latter result, even though I never saw it come to pass. There were times where it appeared that he was repenting, but then he would always default to his original state, which broke my heart even more.
Another experience I had was when I had flown to his house to visit him. We were walking around his neighborhood when I heard the Lord say “The Spirit of God is coming to his house.” I thought “Hmm. That sounds cool. Maybe he’s going to lead a Bible study or something.” However, the next day, I quickly realized what the Lord meant. We had just watched a movie about revival in a different nation and it moved me to the core. Then, out of nowhere, the love of God encompassed me like a weighty blanket. His love was so strong that I thought I might die. I thought it would actually kill me, but in the best way possible. The Lord came to visit ME in one of the hardest times of my life. At the time, I thought that experience was confirmation that we were supposed to be together, but later, I realized it was just the Lord wanting to demonstrate how zealous His love is for me. He knew I’d need to know that in the coming days when the fires of testing burned that much hotter.
The last experience I remember during this time was when the enemy had taken all of my boyfriends harsh words of rebuke and was repeating them back to me. I sat in my room and cried. The last thing I heard this demon say was “See? You really are less-than!” He mocked me in my misery and took great pleasure in it. Then, I heard the Lord, as if a roaring lion, say “NO YOU’RE NOT!” His words were thundering in me and were louder than enemy, until it was completely drowned out by Him. I’ll never forget how He defended me in that moment alone when no one knew how broken I felt.
Wise Counsel Saved Me
I had pastors (a married couple) that were initially just as excited as I was and had offered to provide marriage counseling, that is, until they had a phone conversation with him about how God can use both miracles and doctors to heal people. They themselves are people that have seen numerous physical healings throughout their lifetime, but also knew the value of doctors and hospitals—their lives having been saved multiple times at the hands of medical professionals.
During the phone call, the “straw that broke the camel’s back” was when my pastor asked my boyfriend what he would do in the case that I got into a near-fatal car accident that required immediate medical attention. Though I can’t remember what his exact response was, it was something along the lines of “I’d pray for her, then I might take her to the doctor.” That was enough to send my pastor over the edge. He called me after the phone conversation and said “Run. This man is a future cult leader who only has his own self-interest in mind. I don’t like what I heard. It was very concerning.” Though harsh, I knew he was speaking the truth, but I felt that much more inner turmoil. The people-pleaser in me was thrown for a loop, knowing it was impossible to appease all parties in this situation. I asked myself “Should I trust my pastor, who I’ve known much longer than this boyfriend, or should I still stand in allegiance to this person that I’m supposed to marry?” In retrospect, the answer was extremely obvious, but in the moment, my mind was reeling, so much so that I could barely determine which way was up anymore.
Several more months passed, and I decided to stay, still under the impression that if I was doing something wrong, that I could fix it. I was hypnotized by twisted Bible verses and the fact that I needed to be a “better Jesus-follower,” and if I could do that, then everything would be ok.
Christmas came along, and I knew that he came with a ring, however, I never gave him a chance to propose, and part of it was due to a new discovery I made. My pastor sent me a message, not telling me what to do or not to do, but he mentioned that my boyfriend was suffering from narcissism. “Narcissism?” I thought. I wasn’t even sure what that meant. What I found startled me.
Dealing with the Effects of Narcissism
I did some research and found that Narcissistic Personality Disorder, or NPD, is a term dubbed by psychologists to define a grouping of behaviors that exist on a spectrum of severity, and as I studied these behaviors, I found that my now ex-boyfriend had checked all of the boxes for someone with this disorder. I also discovered later that I checked all of the boxes for someone who was a victim of narcissistic abuse. On one hand, I was glad to find an explanation that so accurately described what happened and how I was feeling, but on the other hand, I didn’t know what to do with this information now that my life felt like it was in shambles. Even though he never raised his voice and never laid a hand on me, his words and his mental, emotional, and spiritual conditioning left me feeling like an empty shell of a person in the aftermath. I was made to feel that I couldn’t truly succeed without him, because “he knew best,” therefore, after the breakup, I couldn’t help but feel hopeless. For someone who has experienced this kind of abuse, I learned that the relationship itself is only half the battle. It’s the rediscovering your true identity after the abuse is over that constitutes the other, more intense half of the battle. My soul felt like an unraveled piece of cloth for at least a year after the fact. The grief lasted twice as long as the actual relationship. Everything that I loved about myself had been picked apart, and now, I had to figure out how to put myself back together. I wouldn’t say I was suicidal, but at the time, death seemed sweeter than life. Despite this, however, the Lord was still there rallying me on to keep going. He spoke through dreams, through visions, through people, and through worship songs that spoke directly into everything I was going through.
“He Restores My Soul”
I decided to go to church the next weekend after the third and final breakup. I desperately didn’t want anyone to see me, for the simple fact that I couldn’t cease crying, despite my best efforts. I intentionally sat in the “overflow” room at the church because I just wanted it to be me and Jesus. I was there to do business with God, and no one was going to stop me.
Before the service started, I started scouring my Bible, saying to myself “I just want to hurry up and get better. I want this pain to disappear!” I heard the Lord respond “Just rest in me.” So I stopped my frantic searching for relief. The service finally started, and we worshipped, then there was a message about the love of God. I thought “That’s nice. I believe God loves me, but I feel like the message isn’t hitting home. Oh well. At least I showed up to church. Then I heard the Lord speak to me and say something that brought a tremendous amount of healing to me in an instant. He said:
“I’m sorry you weren’t loved correctly. I’m sorry for the men that have misrepresented My love for you.”
I broke. “How is it that the God of the universe is apologizing to ME? If anything, I need to apologize!” I thought. I felt like Peter in that moment when He told Jesus, “Why are you washing my feet? I should be washing Yours!” The Lord hasn’t done any wrong, yet, He apologized on behalf of those who had wronged me. I didn’t ask for an apology, but when He apologized, I didn’t realize how much I needed to hear it.
After service, the Lord told me to go up and get prayed for. I wanted to leave, but did as He said. A friend on the prayer team who knew what had been happening was the one who prayed for me. She started taking my purse off my shoulder and taking my jacket off. She said “The Lord says you need to rest!” confirming what I had heard from Him earlier. She proceeded to prophesy over me and declared “I see the Lord slamming His gavel down and saying ‘NOT GUILTY. TELL HER SHE’S NOT GUILTY! You made the right decision for your life!’” Those words rang out through my soul like holy gunfire. I had been feeling guilty. I was still pondering if I’d had made the right decision, yet here was the Lord telling me the opposite. I went home that night feeling encouraged, but still weary. Then, I went to sleep and had a dream that same night. The Lord visited me.
In this dream, Jesus was standing between me and my ex-boyfriend. My ex was fading into the background until I could see was Jesus. I had my hands out in front of Him, like I was waiting to receive a gift. He placed something in my hands (I don’t know what it was) but as I was starting to wake up, He said “I AM BRINGING YOU RECTIFICATION,” meaning that He was going to make every wrong thing right again, and whatever He placed in my hands would help carry out His words.
I would continue hearing Him speak to me at random times during the grieving process. At one point, He told me “I’m about to breathe on your God-given passions again.” I thought “Wow. I wonder what that means?” A week later, my mom ran into an old friend from work that she hasn’t seen in a year. She briefly mentioned what happened to me, and her friend invited me over to her house to ride her horses, which was something I loved doing in high school, and funny enough, the horse that I rode she called her “break-up” horse, because it was one that she bought to help her move past her own break up at one point. I thanked the Lord for this experience, because it brought me a piece of myself back—the piece that loves to be completely free in His presence.
Another passion that He breathed on was my love for painting. After the break up, I was that much more determined to paint. In a time when I was wallowing in a pit named “depression,” I desperately wanted to paint the beauty and hope back into my life when it felt like there was none. Little did I know that the Lord would use that painting to not only help me climb out of depression, but to also kickstart a business where people would seek me out to buy this painting, which was completely unexpected.
Later, I had another dream. It was one of the best dreams I ever had, because not only did Jesus visit me again, but He literally revived me. When He told me He was going to “breathe” on my God-given passions, He wasn’t just speaking figuratively. I had a dream where I was lying comatose in a room in a house full of demons. He walked into the room, and I felt bad that I didn’t have enough physical strength to properly acknowledge Him. He walked over to me, picked me up by the shoulders, and held me out in front of Him. My feet were dangling above the floor. Suddenly, I felt his breath like a jet-stream come from his mouth, and filled my nostrils, then my whole body with such violence. It felt like every breath I had taken before, and every breath I would take after, would pale in comparison to His breath filling my body. If every cell in my body could speak, they would’ve said “HE REALLY IS THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE! This is the same breath that created mankind in the beginning!” I knew this before, but now I understood it on a level that I didn’t know existed. I had experienced His word, and even though I would still have many weary months, I held this experience close to my heart. I’ll never forget that when I though I was dying, He visited me and restored me back to life.
Several months later, I was blow-drying my hair in my bathroom, going about my normal morning routine, and not thinking about anything in particular. Suddenly, I was bombarded with His voice. His voice wasn’t audible (I’ve never heard it audibly), but it sounded like He was SHOUTING declarations over my life, and I began to weep uncontrollably. He said:
“YOUR HUSBAND WILL LOVE YOU THE WAY I INTENDED.”
“HE WILL CHERISH YOU.”
“HE WILL PROVIDE FOR YOU AND YOUR CHILDREN IN ABUNDANCE.”
“I MADE YOU AS A MATCH FOR HIM.”
“YOU WILL BE PARTNERS.”
I had to stop blow drying my hair and sit for a minute to soak it all in. His words came out of nowhere. It was an assault of His kindness toward me, and I could barely take it.
Months later, again, I would have another dream. I had a dream of me going to church and the Lord imparting something to me. I saw a hand—the hand of God—reaching through the ceiling and extended toward me. It wasn’t extended to the crowd, it was extended to me. Based on the dream, I had a sense that God was going to give me something and that something was going to happen during the services so I came expectant. I sat on the 3rd row in the very middle as I waited for the guest speaker to give a word. He started talking about the love of God and his journey of saying yes to Jesus, and how that ‘yes’ has taken him all over the world. He also talked about identity and how the Lord sees us, even saying “He sees you in a crowded room” just like my dream.
At some point during the message, I had what I’ll call an inner vision. My heart was in my hands, and it felt heavy to hold and wasn’t beating very strongly. I sensed the Lord sitting in front of me and I asked “Lord, why doesn’t it work anymore? Why does it look like this?” as I held it out in front of Him. He said “Don’t let disappointment keep you from coming to Me.” I just began weeping. I realized He was the one who could heal my heart from disappointment, and I had been keeping it from Him. Even after everything He had told me and shown me in prior months, I had forgotten His great love and had to repent and come back to my senses. It was one of those moments of clarity where I again realized “He loves me. He REALLY loves me!” Repentance is such a beautiful thing that often gets taken for granted.
Restoration to Be Continued
The last story comes from the Fall of 2022, nearly 3 years after the relationship ended. At this point, I would have considered myself fully healed. I had started selling my art work, the Lord led me to a new church that I was thriving in, I was doing well at my job, and I had cleaned up my social circle. A friend and I decided to go to a tent gathering where a revival meeting was being hosted. Worship started, and it was good, but I wouldn’t say I was feeling the presence of God yet. Suddenly, the Lord put His finger on ANOTHER area of my heart that still needed healing. At one moment, I was fine. The very next moment, I was again reduced to a puddle of tears because of something He told me. With such authority, He said “YOU WILL NOT BE ALONE.” I began to weep, and I was confused. I thought to myself, “Why am I crying about this? I thought I convinced myself that marriage for me isn’t that important and that I don’t need it.” Apparently, that’s not His plan. He said “I’m giving you permission to hope for that kind of future, and I’m healing your past so that you can begin to hope for the future again. I want to multiply righteousness in the earth, and one way I do that is through raising up families after My own heart—husbands, wives, and children—to raise up a legacy of righteousness through My people.”
He emphasized that if I don’t marry the one He has for me, I would be doing the world a disservice by rejecting the Lord’s gift for me, because the gift isn’t just for me. It’s for the people around me, so that they may see the works of God and rejoice. I told my friend about this and she said that it was confirmation because when she saw me that day, she thought to herself “Wow. She looks beautiful. She looks like a bride!” And she started prophesying over my future marriage. Also, at the end of this event, an older man proposed to his future wife. That felt like even more confirmation. Needless to say, that event was full of repentance for me, leading to more healing that I didn’t realize I still needed.
There were so many other life-changing moments from the Lord through this grieving process. Rightly did John say at the end of his gospel that “there are many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written” (John 21:25). I can’t imagine how many books could be produced from all the things the Lord has done in my little life, and I’m just one person!
One thing I learned is that His perfect love is continually casting out all my fears (1 John 4:18), and this, I know by experience. He has shown me how near He is to the broken-hearted, and those who are crushed in spirit (Psalm 34:18). Truly, if I make my bed in hell, He is there (Psalm 139:8), continually guiding me out of the valley of the shadow of death, and bringing near green pastures and still waters (Psalm 23).
Despite what I’ve endured, I can say with that much more fervor that He is GOOD, His mercy endures FOREVER, and His truth endures to ALL GENERATIONS. I would pray that no one would have to go through what I went through, but I can’t pray that, because I wouldn’t want you to miss the opportunity to worship the Lord all the more in the midst of fiery tribulations and trials, which refine us like gold. What I can pray is that you would see a side of Him that you didn’t know existed—one that can only be seen in the valley of the shadow of death. I’ve been in that valley, and His face is just as beautiful in the valley as it is from mountaintops.
Truly, Jesus is the Messiah that heals the broken-hearted, and I pray you get to meet Him.