Heart Visions

Demons and the dark side sound so weird to 21st century Western ears. Do I believe there is some dark being out there called the devil? Well, the problem with that idea is that it conjures up images of some bloke in a red leather catsuit with a pitchfork and a tail. But yes, I suppose I do believe there is some sort of dark force out there.

I haven't been too much focussed on it over the past several years. As my relationship with God has grown, my ideas of the dark side of life have assumed much less importance, have become something I barely think about. There have been a few strange experiences but the whole idea of the devil as has been experienced in the past just doesn't bear relevance for me. A lot of what we claim to be the work of the devil is the work of ourselves. The less likely we are to acknowledge the dark sides of our own personalities, the more we wll manifest that out somewhere into the atmosphere, methinks.

And yet, for all of that, I can't deny that I am feeling something akin to spiritual oppression lately. I feel like there is a time coming for me of real growth, of groaning forward into life, and for the first time in ages I am thinking that maybe there is something malevolent out there which is not happy about this. I don't know what to call it. I just don't know.

I asked for people to pray here last week, and in return T and K went ahead and had a few visions. How cool is that? I have this urge to post them here. I'm not sure what my motivations are. I have been questioning whether I am just posting them because it's kinda cool having people having visions, and I'm the centre of the sideshow. Maybe - who knows? Having elements of your personality reveal themselves that have remained largely submerged for years release my hold somewhat on any idea that I always know my own motivations. Mainly I am posting it because I feel like I need to, for some indefinable reason. I am feeling a sense of dark oppression which is the worst it's been for years and I really can't get through this one by myself. Much of the content of these visions ring true for me. I feel a bit strange about posting, a bit shy, but what the hell.

I love the way they got to share this together, and I love the community feel of others entering into my healing in some way. It feels really nice and lovely, somehow. I have a renewed sense of how much we all need each other this week. Anyway, here is what they saw.

T said:

As I was praying for you I saw a root, not a root system but a deep, deep taproot and it went all the way down through your abdomen and to your reproductive area. Whether this is because of the sexual abuse or not I do not know, but these were the words I heard, betrayal, violation, poison, anger. So I started coming against it, praying against it (and Kim is good at this too), speaking death and poison to it that it would dissolve.

Then I started praying about your heart and strangely I heard the word "squeeze" and saw that you have a heart like a sponge, something I have never seen before. I believe the reason you are feeling so awful is that your heart is pumped full of poison and bad stuff because of the violations you have endured, and the taproot from that area was feeding your heart full of bad stuff, which absorbed it like a sponge. So I started praying that God would squeeze out the poison, which I saw in the spirit, but there is a problem, once it was empty (which may be future) I couldn't see it absorbing anything but air. Now this may be good or bad but my praying would not affect it which is why I am submitting it to you and you may want to ask Kim what she sees because we all see in part.

And you might want to ask he why having a heart like a sponge is a good thing, because it must be or the enemy wouldn't have attacked it. Or maybe it needs to alter from a sponge. I don't know, but there is that. I will continue to pray but I will be gone all day tomorrow so I wanted to check in, tell you how much I love you and that I am ALWAYS here if you need me. I would face hell in prayers for you and I believe K will too. But I won't breach your privacy by going to her, I just know she would feel blessed to be able to do this for you.

K said:

The root is bitterness. It is a thick and hideous thing that runs deep - so deep that it can only be broken through prayer and by the will of the one in whom it runs so deep.

The heart is a sponge that absorbs that bitterness and spreads it throughout the body, poisoning everything it touches. This is the cause of much of the malaise in the body.

I see the sponge - the heart - as dark, absorbing darkness, the darkness battling the light.

It is fed by the root.

The root must be dug up and the sponge replaced in the same way an old kitchen sponge would be replaced with a new one. No, your heart is not stone. Not even stony ground. You absorb everything...sometimes, you absorb too much. You must learn what to absorb and what to guard yourself against. I look and I see this "new" sponge, but with a shield, gleaming golden and red, as if it knows what to allow to pass unhindered and what to protect itself from.

What T sees as empty, absorbing only air, I see as purified and absorbing the Holy Spirit: "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit." At this time, the root chokes the heart. When the root is cut off, dug up and destroyed, then the heart can breathe the pure air and discard the poison.

I wish I had something more encouraging and uplifting for you, my friend. :( I will keep you in prayer. Much love and many hugs.

T said:

I saw your heart, as the sponge, alongside a seashore. The waters were washing gently over the sand and I saw the sponge in (your? I dunno) hand trying to soak up the waters, and getting sand all over it, and then the sponge would squeeze out the water and the sand would stay on and this happened over and over again. I felt as though this salt water was your tears that God had stored up, but that you kept soaking them back in but by doing so you were getting a lot of dirt on you.

Oh dang, gosh just figured it out. That is how bitterness works, instead of crying the tears and then filling with new tears and crying them out, bitterness soaks back in the old grief instead of simply experiencing a new level. Soaking back the old tears, to me, may speak of picking things back up again in unforgiveness, as we do when we want to be angry. But then you squeeze them back out (which seems like forgiveness) but you have this sand left on your heart and it happens over and over again. Whether the sand is good or not I do not know. It's something for you to explore or toss, your choice.

And i don't think the sponge is a bad thing, otherwise the enemy would not be attacking it. For some reason, having a sponge heart is important. I am clueless about why that could be.

WHOA -- It's about EMPATHY. DUDE, you have a heart like a sponge because of empathy. No wonder he is working so hard to fill it with crap.

Oh, as long as he can fill it with crap you will be crippled by being unable to separate the pain of others completely from your pain. You will always get triggered if there is something similar and be driven into a funk, even if it is just a little one.

ooohhh, this is a good thing.

K said:

I began to pull on the root and it moved, ever so slightly. It is a large and deep root indeed, because even in pulling with all my strength, I could barely budge it. So I took a break.

Later, as I lay down to sleep, I looked and I saw the thing from a side view, and I saw the conditions that would be necessary for the root's removal: the earth that holds it in place must become parched, dry. A root that is not being fed or watered easily loosens its grip, mostly because it shrinks and shrivels up and can then be easily pulled out. I looked and I saw the earth around the root become dry and cracked and the the root just dried up and was pulled out as easily as a sword is pulled from its sheath.

As I saw this, I was reminded that though it was only a three day trip through the desert from Egypt to the Promised Land, the trip took forty years because of the Israelintes' disobedience and complaining...Tell Sue that because she is being obedient (unlike the Israelites), because she is letting God into those places, my feeling (though this is not "thus saith the Lord," hehe, it's just my gut feeling) is that she is a lot closer to being through this shit than she thinks she is. :)