ROOTED RENEGADE

It took me a long time to decide to write about this topic, for many reasons. One was that I didn’t understand what parental authority was for years because mine was legally stripped from me. I will never forget sitting in the courtroom and feeling the weight of my existence hanging in the air like a thick fog, surrounding me like a darkness that I could not escape. Everything in my life hung in the balance over decisions and mistakes, some of which weren’t even mine, some that I had made as a child myself, and some were legitly mine to own. I sat on that stand and no one to help me. I sat there nonetheless and felt destroyed. Destroyed by people who were supposed to love and care for me, a man who said he loved me at one point, and a mother in law who kept telling me this was for their good. I still didn’t understand how stripping me bare and taking my kids was for everyone’s good when the truth wasn’t being told. There was truth that was being omitted that day and I had no voice. Nothing. That day, I lost what was rightfully mine, parental authority in the natural realm and it was in a sense demonically exchanged in the spiritual realm. Something I had yet to figure out.

You see, I had my own wrongs to atone for. I was an addict and alcoholic and my kids were growing in a home prior to them going to live with their paternal grandparents that had domestic violence. I didn’t have help getting out of it either. Often times I would be told to “stop making him mad and he will quit”, “well you know you don’t make it better”, and so forth. There was a lot of blame shifting that would occur. Narcissistic people tend to shift blame when they don’t want to accept responsibility for what is happening, they don’t want to see it, or they don’t wan to admit their own faults in situations that are occurring. Further, when they want ownership or control of something, they will do whatever they can to get it, even if that means creating further turmoil in a situation. Often people will force you to break so that when you do break, they look like the heroes and you look like the mental patient. Unfortunately for me, I couldn’t see that. I was desperately trying to hold onto to my mental and figure out why everything was happening in the first place. Why was my husband cheating? Why didn’t my husband love me anymore? Wasn’t he supposed to be my knight in shining armor? We had a house now, two beautiful amazing kids, we lived near his mom like he wanted, etc. Now I was not afraid to be a smart mouth or argue, I will definitely admit my faults. I didn’t back down from being a jerk. After close to twenty years of being told to loose weight, look like some of his friends (who were barbie doll types), stop being crazy, etc., I did not have a problem being a jerk when I felt like I needed to be. I eventually started hitting back. You can only be hit so long until you start doing the same thing. So I am not trying to paint a picture of perfection on my end. Two wrongs never make a right, and I think sometimes we get it twisted when we act like that is the case. What we do discount is the amount of pressure most people are under when they suffer emotional and physical abuse. It causes, generally women, to finally either loose their voice altogether, or become extremely bitter and angry. I did a mixture of both.

Why am I telling you all this? Because someone needs to hear how the enemy comes into a family to steal it from the inside and cause bitterness, contention and strife early on so that there is no peace in the home. When peace is removed from the home, then all sorts of other demons begin to enter and take hold of the household. You may not realize how many doors you open for yourself and your children when you and your spouse don’t get along or argue in front of them or when you start drinking, smoking, and doing drugs in the home or even front of your children. You are causing breaks in your authority and allowing demons to usurp that authority freely. Often parents wonder why their children follow in their footsteps or end up like a family member when they get older. Maybe not even the exact footsteps, but something generationally, it is because the parental authority has been broken somewhere and needs repair. The word of God says we are the “Repairers of the Breach” Isaiah 58:12, in which we are to be the ones to repair the broken foundations and paths in our family and generational lines. Collins dictionary defines it this way: “breach of a law, an agreement, or promise, is an act of breaking it”. So when the Word of God tells us to be “Repairers of the Breach” that means we are to restore the broken laws and promises that have been made. This starts within our families.

I say this knowing how incredibly difficult this can be. When my children walked out two days earlier than they were supposed to, I was crushed. I couldn’t function properly for two weeks. My world stopped turning and I didn’t know what to do. I was a master’s degree student at the time and I flunked out of my classes. DFCS was involved and I kept going to see them because I knew I had to try and fight, but I was fighting an uphill battle and I had everyone and the world against me. I knew my kids loved me but they didn’t understand either. There was so much that was hidden and covered up that I always knew one day the veil would be removed. One thing I didn’t know was that in those weeks and months that were about to pass me by, I would be alone and my story was only going to get harder. You see I didn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus or the Holy Spirit. So I didn’t know how to really fight for my parental authority. I didn’t know I was a “Repairer of the Breach” and I certainly didn’t know that I had inadvertently allowed demonic influence in my life, but I did nonetheless.

I would love to tell you that it got easier for me, but it didn’t. I am still learning. Some of you will find it easier than I did, and that is my prayer. I lost visits by doing nothing, and I lost visits by being a jerk because I couldn’t control my emotions over not seeing my kids every day. Who knows how to handle being a mom every day of your children’s lives to a every other weekend parent??? With no one guiding you in that either? I was dumped off a cliff and expected to learn how to fly. I didn’t have wings. I wasn’t a bird. I was a human being that needed help and help didn’t come. So I fought and wrestled with flesh and blood, and people for almost ten years. I was banned from visiting while my ex-husband got visits and violated the order we had. My daughter’s first birthday party after the custody order I was told I couldn’t attend because my ex-husband was going to be there, so I had to see the pictures on Facebook. It was devastating blow to miss the first birthday of my daughter’s life. My son’s I was allowed to attend, although as time passed many of the things they did it got to where I was told less and less about them.

Even when I wasn’t high, I had to visit at the park or at ball games, whenever it was a “convenience” but not according to the court order. There was a great amount of tension and bitterness that built up for me. As the first couple of years went by the visits got less and I only knew how to handle what I was experiencing one way, alcohol and drugs and anger. I was angry at myself, their grandmother, my ex-husband and I was angry at God for not stopping everything that was happening and that had occurred my whole life. I was angry at everything and that anger stayed with me for a very long time. It became seated within me which opened doors for the enemy to walk right in with freedom to wreck havoc in my life and I handed him the keys.

I kept giving up my parental authority because no one taught me how not too. This is very important for someone to really get and grab a hold of. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO RESORT TO DRUGS AND ALCOHOL. Your heart may be hurting, you may be confused, you may not know what to do, but I promise you, there is another way! In your head you may be wondering but how? You start with the salvation of the Lord and finding a place to get healthy. You can’t fight this battle unhealthy and with words. You have to fight it in the arms of the Lord. You see I was trying to fight in the strength of my own might with people who I thought had my best interest at heart too and they didn’t. I had a jaded perspective on life because of my childhood and I was seeing through a broken lens that did not involve Christ. My perception of Christ was yes, a man who died on the cross for me, but I didn’t know anything about love and God. So I couldn’t take back my parental authority in a loving way. I didn’t know how. I was trying to do all things in my flesh and very broken. My mind was like Marta that just had all their rail cars colliding into one another in the worst collision in history. My heart was hard and torn and broken. My soul was angry and despondent. That mixture alone is disastrous. And the enemy threw other men into my life that were very physically and emotionally abusive so I couldn’t see the sand from the water. You cannot function in a state of abuse and expect to take your authority back. You can try, you can plead, you can fight all you want, but it is not going to happen. Now I didn’t bring this around my kids again. As a matter of fact, I didn’t bring that mess around my kids at all after their dad. Even when I was being trafficked and engaged in survival prostitution, my children didn’t know until last year. I wanted to tell them but was not permitted to until my story was going public.. God has a way of restoring you and your relationships – you have to let Him and back off. You can’t always hold the reigns friend. Doing so puts you on the throne and removes Him and that doesn’t work. Prayer however, moves mountains and changes atmospheres. It is our direct line to the Father and though our circumstances may be hard, prayer can shift anything if we just remember to align with Heaven.

Exodus 14:14 says this: “The Lord shall fight for you, while you hold your peace.” Powerful and profound verse. He will fight for you! Another translation says “be still” in place of “peace”. Being still requires not acting on what we feel or think but instead getting in the quiet place with our Creator and giving it to Him. He knows. He knew absolutely everything I was going through and that they were going through. He knew every thought. He was in the courtroom with me. He was at every DFCS appointment I had. He knew that DFCS was not in court with me. He knew that I did not know anything about parental authority because the trust I had in the people who were hurting me confused me. He knew I had messed up too and I didn’t know how to fix it. He knew that I was angry, hurt, tired, and I during that time I wanted to go home to Him and just be done. And guess what? He knows that about you too. If you are reading this and you are saying this is me, “I know how this feels”, and “I can relate”….YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN DEAR ONE! You are seen and so very loved. I know it does not feel like it right now, but you are so so loved by a loving Father in Heaven who is sitting right beside you and is catching every tear you are crying, just hold on!.

Now I have to admit that it was really towards the end of 2020 when I started understanding that a piece of paper didn’t take my parental authority away. Actually, no person or devil in hell can take away what God has ordained, no matter how hard they try!!!! Remember that! We all make mistakes in life, again, some are out of our control. But when God ordains you as a parent, that is the authority you have over the children you give birth too. If you choose to not invoke that authority over your child(ren), then that is a choice you make to give up that authority. I didn’t choose that, I was told I had to give up that right, more than once. I was forced too. I had been asked once to give it up freely and I said NO, help me and the kids and I was told no back. So when I refused to give up my kids, they found another way to make me do it. When you are forced to do something against your will, you are not freely making a choice to give up your authority. Remember that too, because that is important. When God ordains you as something, such as a parent, and you are forced to not be in the role anymore, you will experience tension not being in the role that God has ordained you to be in. It is really hard not walking in your parental authority when it has been forced from you. It would be the same if you were called to be a pastor and you preached for twenty years then were forced out of the church. If you didn’t go to another church to preach the Word of God and you just sat at home, you would feel tension building up in you because you were called to be a pastor shepherding a church as a man or woman of God. God’s Word and calling burns on the inside of you and cannot be quenched. There is tension when a diamond is being cleaned up. Same with us. We are called and chosen for a high calling in Christ Jesus (Philippians 3:14 paraphrased).

What I had learned by walking with the Holy Spirit was that I was still a mom and had been living under the lies of the enemy. I had believed the lie that because my rights had been taken from me, that I was no longer my kids mom. Not true. The enemy comes to steal – identity. My identity was also stolen when I lost the parental authority over my children years ago. I now had to come into agreement with who God ordained me to be, who He says I am, and who I knew to be true according to His Word. I had to stop believing the lies of the enemy and the labels people put on me and stop living in the past mistakes, hurts, wounds, pains, etc. I was carrying those ungodly soul ties as well. I had a weight on me that was 100 pounds and it didn’t belong on my shoulders! Jesus said that His “yoke was easy and burden light” (Matthew 11:28-30) and here I have been carrying this around thinking that I was this horrible person, no authority, no nothing, and completely unworthy of having anything in life. That couldn’t be further from the truth because my DAD IN HEAVEN says so! Genesis 1:26 (AMP) says that I am “made in the image and likeness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” (paraphrased) which means I am not a mistake, failure, unworthy, useless, junkie, addict, alcoholic, mental health, etc. I am not all those things I was labeled in the courtroom that day by the judge, their grandmother, or their father and their attorney. I am however an image bearer of the Most High King who carries His authority and power because I have the Holy Spirit living inside of me. I “fearfully and wonderfully made” according to Psalm 139:14 and I do not have to fear the future because “ALL my days are written in the books before one of them come to pass” (Psalm 139:16).

Why is that important? Because you have to understand who you are in order to heal from what you have been through. You have to understand who you are and what the Word of God says about you in order to move past what you have experienced. You need to know your authority as ordained by the God of Heaven and Earth in order to use that authority in the right way. You don’t use it to hurt others or get revenge. You use it to be free from the chains of bondage that have been gripping your life for years and you release and let go! You don’t have to continue to live in the past where you have seen or experienced hell. Now you can storm the gates of hell and revoke the permission you once gave those demonic spirits and get back what rightfully belongs to you!

You can heal. You can forgive. You can move forward. You may have read this and thought, but how? I don’t have custody of my child(ren). I can’t see them anymore. I can’t this or that. Or maybe your story is different than mine and you fought like crazy and you got yours back, but you are having to live in turmoil because of circumstances and decisions and you carry a lot of self-blame. Friend can I tell you, you still aren’t alone. God sees (El Rio). He knows. He knows what you have to go through every day with your children, your ex, your family, your visitations or lack thereof, and so much more. He knows how your heart bleeds and the wounds that it endures. He knows and He is right there in the room with you every time. Maybe you pushed it all down inside and hid it like I did. I stuffed the emotions of it after I went through a program and started working at the program so I could help other women heal and get help for addiction and trafficking. I hid me so I could help others. Now that I am not hiding me anymore and I am healing, it is so freeing to know that I can feel and fall at the feet of Jesus and know He bends down and holds me. He has held me the whole time, I just wasn’t looking.

Fall at His feet today. He is waiting and wanting you to know just what He has for you. The Word of God says: “Ask and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you”. With the right motives, right intentions, right reasons, do this and you will find the answers you are looking for. They may not come as you want them too, but they will come. God can work better with transparency and honesty than He can when we try to hide. I have to admit it was hard to start writing this. I have shared a lot of my story before and it seemed easier to write about my trafficking and part of my addiction than this. But what I have come to know is that because Jesus did it for me, He will do it for another. It won’t look the same, but it will happen for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose. His will shall be fulfilled on the earth. His will includes our healing and our ability to fulfill what He has called us to do. Giving testimony to His goodness and faithfulness is part of that. Who am I to hold testimony inside of me and not release it to allow another person to find their freedom? I am not.

Ask the Holy Spirit to show you how to regain your parental authority. Ask Him to show you what you need to release and forgive in order for that to happen. What do you need to cut off in your generational line? What ungodly soul ties do you need to sever? What do you need to repent for on your side of the street so that you can be free? What needs to be released from your heart so that your heart can heal? I heard an evangelist / pastor say that the devil is afraid of your scars! Well hallelujah!!! What scars need to form in your life? Your scars may not come with full reconciliation but they will come with freedom! Allow the Holy Spirit to show you about each relationship so that you know how to proceed according to the Spirit of the Lord and not your flesh. “For our fight is not against flesh and blood but against spiritual principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, and against spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 6:12). Remember not to let your flesh rule you in the moments where your heart is hurting. May be easier said than done and definitely takes practice so show yourself some grace as you learn to grow in this area.

My prayer for each person who reads this and can relate is that the Spirit of the Living God comes into your heart and you allow the healing process to begin. May each would that has been buried deep start to form a scar by the power of the Blood of Jesus Christ that was shed on the cross for you. May you begin to see yourself made in in the image and likeness of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit according to the living, breathing Word of God that pierces even down to the marrow (Hebrews 4:12). I pray that the trauma you have experienced losing your child(ren) be released and bound off of you in the Name of Jesus including the binding of lying and manipulative spirits and tormenting spirits which have caused you to disconnect from your parental authority by the power of Jesus shed blood. I pray a loosing of the Spirit of Truth and the Resurrection Spirit over your lives so that you can begin to operate in the correct authority that was ordained for your lives the day that your name was spoken in Heaven before you were ever placed in your mother’s womb (Jeremiah 1:5). I pray you fall to your knees in humility and on your face at the feet of Jesus, releasing all the emotion you have pent up inside over the pain you have experienced and that you have caused others through bitterness, rejection, strife, and contention. May you heal in the Name of Jesus and may you be willing to allow the healing balm to be released over your life. I pray that as you read this, as you really take to heart your own life experiences, that you see yourself as Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit see you. If you are not baptized in the Holy Spirit I pray the fire of the Spirit fall on you no matter where you are and that you are infilled with the Holy Spirit this day. May you walk according to Scripture and may the breath of Yahweh fill your lungs and move past you as you find Him in all things. I pray you forgive as you have been forgiven remembering that forgiveness sets you free from a yoke of slavery that you were never meant to carry or be under. Finally, I pray that you take back your parental authority according to the ordination of God and that you train your child(ren) up in the ways of the Lord so they never depart from them (Proverbs 22:6). In the name above all names Jesus Christ, Amen.

Faythe

P.S. Don’t forget to worship in the midst of your storms! Praise breaks chains and makes the devil mad! You are a chain and bondage breaker my friend! You just need to see that about yourself! Let’s get to breaking those chains and destroying the yokes of bondage! Don’t be afraid of your story! I lived in that for way too long and now that I have found my voice – My Story is God’s Story! His Story is freedom, repairing the breach, and restoring those broken paths! Hallelujah!!!! Praise be to KING JESUS!!!