Carol emailed me this testimony she wrote and asked me to put it on my
website. I haven't done so as of yet but am working on formatting it for my
site. For now, I thought echurch people would be encouraged by reading her
testimony. There is way more coming from Carol that you may find difficult
to believe. This story is one that some will have trouble believing but I
know all the details behind this story and everything you read is true.
Carol will likely be sharing more as time goes by. She needs to write an
auto biography because she could certainly fill a book with all the many
things the Lord has done, and is continuing to do, in her life. Some of you
old timers to echurch may remember a discussion Carol brought up many years
back about her love for chocolate and how concerned she was and didn't know
why. In prayer sessions we had together, the Lord showed her what the
chocolate was all about. Even recently, the Lord revealed even more to her
as you will see.
THE CONSOLATION PRIZE
By Carol Pearson
One day recently I reached for a chocolate bar. It was far too
hot to bother to get anything else to eat and, anyway, I felt
pressured by others and a bit down. . . .. Things weren't going
too well; that sinking feeling down into "depression" was
crowding in on me. . As I reached for the chocolate, I realized
again how many times I had done this before. It had become a
well-worn path over more than fifty years of my life! . Yes, I
wanted it somehow to be a consolation to me at that very moment!
I knew, Even if I'd done something wrong or just hadn't quite
achieved . . . the chocolate WOULD help me to feel "Just a bit
better about myself and my situation! Again (as I had many times
before) I reminded the Lord that I had been concerned about my
"habit" (to eat this wonderful tasting "stuff" for a while now
but I was powerless to do anything about it. I told Him again
that I wanted Him to reveal any root cause and show me if I
should leave it alone completely. Again, I found myself thinking
that perhaps I could just cut it down. . . .. At that point
"discipline" came to the fore and I ate just a third of the bar
and put the rest away until another time!
Later that day my mind flashed back to the thoughts I had had
when taking the chocolate and then, as if a light had been turned
on, I found myself thinking about an occasion much earlier in my
life when I was a junior at boarding school. I recalled much
detail of this memory, although this has not always been the case
when the Lord has healed me from past wounds and wrong thinking.
At that time we had a visit from a researcher who was most
interested to learn how blind people "tick", what sort of things
we could do, how imaginative we were and whether we could learn a
complicated little route. His tests were quite numerous and
varied and I quite enjoyed them. We listened to a series of
noises and had to tell a story around them, adding to the story
as each noise was given to us. We had a maize through which we
had to walk and most of us got horribly lost. We had yet another
test which involved working out exactly where a sound came from.
There were others also, but I don't remember them now. I do
however remember that after each test we were rewarded with small
bars of chocolate. It seemed to me that some friends got more
than others, and perhaps this was because they were better at the
tests but it may have been because they were "the favourites",
and of course I didn't like that very much . . .. However, we
all got some chocolate each time a test was given and that was
the best part of taking the tests and made it all worthwhile!
Truly, when we had done badly, the chocolate was a consolation!
As I had seen that flashback to that memory so clearly, I then
saw His truth as He revealed it to me! "That's right, Lord," I
said: "The chocolate was 'my consolation' - it was given to me
whether I did well or badly. I reflected, "It was given at other
times in my childhood also. It was the way to say "Thank you
very much, little girl, for your services" as, on a number of
occasions, I was forced to please relations and friends of the
family as they allowed their sexual desires to have full pleasure
as they did what they wished with a small, frightened child. The
chocolate bars were the presents for "being a good little girl
and saying nothing to anyone about these terrifying experiences!"
Again, the bars of chocolate were given as a consolation from
Daddy when there was nothing else he could give to me when he had
been away working and I had not been able to understand where he
was and why he had left me! Yes, they were my "consolations" and
"my comforts" and I enjoyed them!
I understood a long time ago that people often took comfort in
their eating and even knew that I did it myself, but now, as He
spoke into my situation and thinking, this became personal to me.
I was able to understand where this root had its beginnings and
to face the lies which emerged every time I ate the chocolate! I
knew how Dad had felt so much better when he gave me the
chocolate on his return from another work trip, but the gift he
bore each time soon became a "must" for his little girl who
needed the comfort she thought it afforded! The chocolate had
also served to help those who took me to their beds to feel
better about what they had done to me and be reasonably sure that
I would keep quiet. I had to face it though, that it only
satisfied for a little while, then I needed some more to be "my
fix" for depression, loneliness, bereavement, disappointments and
so many other problems in my life. I needed that chocolate time
and again! What a ghastly state. I knew without a doubt that I
was certainly no better than those who abuse their bodies with
drugs and alcohol and all I could do was to cry out to the Lord
for His victory for me!
I acknowledged before my Heavenly Father that I had substituted
all that He had to give to me and all that He would do for me
with "my temporary fix" of chocolate. For years, I had said time
and again that I wanted to know the riches of God and His
abundance in my life, but over and over again I had chosen my own
comfort! I knew I had treated my Heavenly Father very badly in
taking the chocolate instead of asking for His mercy and great
riches. I poured out my heart to Him and asked His forgiveness.
Then I waited quietly to see what He would say to me. I knew He
would speak because otherwise I would be left with a problem far
too big for me to address! I knew well enough that He would not
leave me comfortless but He would come to me! (See John 14:18.)
He had spoken those words to me, as He did to His disciples, on
a number of occasions during my walk with Him, so they were very
precious!
He showed me a picture. A tiny baby lay in His arms. (Yes, that
baby was me.) There was a large comfort blanket tucked under my
chin. I had been sucking it, because it was my comforter. As I
fell asleep, He gently removed it. Then, something else
happened. He spread me out in front of Him and began to breathe
into my nostrils. I was receiving the very life of God Himself!
I could no longer use that blanket to meet my needs because now
they were being met by the very breath of God as He continued to
fill me! I had nothing to do except just to lie there and take
in the pure sustaining Spirit of God!
Now that He has spoken clearly to me and answered my prayers, I
know my need can no more be met with a bar of chocolate! When I
find, for any reason, that I am not coping with pain and grief,
fear and frustration, or anything at all that separates me from
Jesus Christ and causes me to move from my place of rest, I have
to go directly to the One Who Satisfies. Taking the chocolate
first and then going to My Father in Heaven is no longer an
option for me. He requires that I go straight to Him and find He
has more than enough to supply all my need! I have thanked Him
that, by His grace alone, He will work this in me to His glory!
It has been very important here that God has come to me in answer
to my prayers and spoken with me about this problem I had in my
life. Hearing from others about the hold of a habit in a life
and even agreeing with them is not enough! We have to invite the
King of Kings and Lord of Lords to come in and take His rightful
place. He is gracious and heals and restores. He does not
condemn us for our weakness. He understands it and makes us
strong as He deals with everything that we have placed before
Him in our lives. There are some who believe that they do live
completely without sin in their lives now that they are
Christians. Well, I long for that day to be true in my life, but
I choose right now to acknowledge the truth and confess God's
Word, as the Apostle John wrote in his first letter:
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the
truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and
just to forgive us [our] sins, and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make
him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:8-10 AV)
One day I will know the joy of the power of Jesus living always
and forever in my life. Meantime, I do still reach for that
chocolate occasionally, but now have a far greater understanding
of what I'm doing (yes, committing sin) if I take it to pacify
some need in my life which God wants to meet! Then I have to
confess it, get up again and go on giving all to Him and asking
Him to show His power in me!
I don't know what things you find yourself reaching for when the
going gets tough, but He knows and, if you will only ask Him, He
will work a miracle in your life that will free you from any
bondage however long you have been bound by it! We cannot free
ourselves but we can want Him to free us! He is our God and He
has the right to say to us, "You shall have no other god but Me"!
That simply means having nothing to depend upon (trust or rely
upon) or give our affections to that takes His rightful place!
We can be in bondage to many things or people. We have wrong
relationships where we seek to serve another person, (sometimes
allowing our flesh to be gratified. We go on doing what pleases
others and not what pleases God! We get into such messes and
cannot help ourselves out of them. Praise God! He waits to be
gracious to us and to free us from everything that does not
glorify Him!
God doesn't give Himself as "a consolation". He gave Himself
fully when He sent His son to die on a cross for each one of us,
taking with Him all the sin of a fallen, depraved world! He
doesn't offer a consolation prize for being good because none of
us are good in His eyes, but He does offer us His grace in
abundance which brings us from darkness into His wonderful light
and sets us on course to gain that prize of eternal life with Him
which He has for every one of us if we will live according to
His rules! Put very simply, we win only as we put Him first in
all things and love Him with all our mind and soul and strength
and that means putting nothing before Him and allowing Him daily
to satisfy all the longings of our grieving, hurting, wounded,
sin-sick souls. Will you go there with me and offer up to Him
whatever it is that you reach for to satisfy every pain that you
bear today? If you will do this, He will give to you much, much
more than you could ever dare to imagine.
If you want to do this but need help to share your pain and
suffering with Him, Safe Place Fellowship offers you help and
security as you find your way through whatever troubles you to
that place of wholeness in God as we find His provision to be
sufficient for all our needs!
--
Copyright: Carol Pearson - July 2005.
Safe Place Fellowship
Phil Scovell
Denver, Colorado USA
Phone: 303-507-5175
WWW.SafePlaceFellowship.com
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