How Books, Games, Daydreaming and Meditation Can Be Negative To Your Spirit: Romance Porn and Pokemon Go Are NOT Innocent Pleasures

This is another very long blog, but I hope you will stick with it to the end!  To fully understand how this all came about, you have to know where it started, how it evolved and how, after decades, I finally figured out the iniquity and demonic influences at work in this area of my life.  The devil doesn’t have any ‘new’ tricks.  They are the same exact ones that have worked for thousands of years and undoubtedly, he’s using these against people even now.  I hope to get my story out to those who need to hear this TRUTH.

I recently read an article entitled “Augmented Reality” of Pokémon GO Signals Need for Redemption, Says Expert.”  A great article about virtual reality games and what’s really behind them.  Then I ready another article entitled “Romance Porn: More Women are Addicted Than You Think” which is about how romance novels are basically porn for women.  I immediately realized that these two things are actually connected.  And I have known this for YEARS and have never told anyone… until now.

 

From as far back as I can remember, I saw my mother and my grandmother (on my mother’s side) reading Harlequin romance books.  This was during the 1970s and 1980s and they had tons of them.  And when my grandmother would come and visit us during summer break, my mom always gave her books and took her to used bookstores where they would exchange and buy more and more books.  At any one time, I suspect my mother had about 100 of these books in her possession.  When I became a teenager, I became bored one summer and picked up one of my mother’s romance books and read it.  It wasn’t a good story by any stretch of the imagination, but I then understood the appeal these books had; the book made me FEEL GOOD.  Like really, really good.  It made me feel like I was the heroine/ love interest in the story and was desired by a manly-man who could have any woman he wanted, but he wanted ME.  It most definitely had an intoxication about it and I needed more and more.  I quickly found that with Harlequin books the stories were basically identical and I grew bored of them quickly.

I went to bookstores and found “historical” romance novels which quickly became my favorites.   These books started me down a path that was negative on my spirit, but I wouldn’t see it or understand why until decades later.

Now, like any normal young adult who wasn’t a Christian at that time in my life, I watched lots of television and movies as well.  I succumbed to the indoctrination that Hollywood pushes on the young.  By the time I was in high school, I thought maybe the Bible wasn’t all true… maybe Jesus *might* just have been a guy… maybe the devil had gotten a bad rap all these years.  I saw this theme played out in countless movies and television shows.  I believed in God and Jesus and my family considered ourselves Christian, but we were anything but that.   I watched many paranormal ghost shows and movies, aliens, horror… they all appealed to me because everyone watched them.  And why not?  I was “normal”, just like everybody else, right?

 

I have included this information to show that if kids are not receiving SPIRITUAL guidance at home from their parents, they WILL get it from somewhere else, just like I got it from books, movies and television.  My parents taught me common sense and good values, but almost none of it was related to God.

I was having a very difficult life as a young person, well before high school.  I was bullied at home by my mother and sister and then starting in the 5^th or 6^th grade I was bulled by the other kids, and even by some teachers.  Bullies at school was not unusual for the late 70s.  I was odd, a social outcast, and never had many friends.  Without Jesus in my life, obstacles were numerous and getting over them was impossible.  (At age 40, I discovered I had Asperger’s syndrome and you can read more about that on my blog post “Iniquities, Forgiveness and Punishment”.)  But as young as maybe 12 years old, I began fantasizing or daydreaming about a better life that I couldn’t manage to find in reality.  In my fantasies, I had many friends and was popular.  Often, the fantasies had me finding a boyfriend, someone just like in the romance novels I read at the time.  Sometimes I would see a movie and become infatuated with the characters, who then became the source of my fantasy daydreams.

I could watch a movie like hypothetically, Star Wars the Empire Strikes Back, and then I would insert myself as the damsel in distress (like, Princess Leia) and then make up fantasies, new stories that in my mind was a continuation of the movie.  I could lay in bed for hours, with eyes open or closed, and just daydream the story as if I was actually reading a book about it… or even LIVING IT.  When I got up again, I would become depressed because that “life” was over for now and it was back to unhappiness of reality.  In my adult years, I began treating the characters as if they were ‘real’.  I would speak to them in the car while driving, and continue the fantasy when I took a break at work and went into the restroom.  It really was like a drug-addict stopping for a quick fix.  But my real life was unhappy at best.  There’s no reason to write all about what was wrong at the time… you can find it in some of my other blogs.  Suffice it to say, that I was “spiritually lost” and very unhappy.

 

Sometime after I was married at age 30, I started another ‘Spiritual Quest’ where I was seeking TRUTH.  Without the Lord to guide me, I was instead guided by evil forces to New Age beliefs.  I began reading books that said ‘we make our own destinies’ and whatever you THINK, you can make happen.  Something I read said that you must ACT like what you want is coming, to think about it every step of the way.  Furthermore, if you really –create– your own future in your mind, it will become reality.  So with that knowledge in mind, I started fantasizing again about how I wanted my life to be down to every minute detail.  But I still thought I was a Christian and since Age 6 at least, I had ALWAYS prayed to God.  So I would pray and then have these fantasies.  During this process, I started to feel in my Spirit that God did NOT want me to fantasize at all.  I began to feel it was WRONG…. very, very wrong.  I didn’t understand why at the time, but the Holy Spirit was urging me so strongly against it that I stopped.

What I then began to realize is that every time I had a great stress in my life, whether at work or home, I would always go back to the fantasy as a relief from the stress.  Again, it was like an alcoholic, shopaholic, drug-addict, sex-addict, etc. looking for a quick fix against whatever stresses they were trying to get away from.   The deception was so perfect, I didn’t SEE this truth until well into my 30s.

THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART I’VE BEEN LEADING UP TO….

After I became a true Christian and got away from New Age beliefs, repented and began actually studying the BIBLE, I began to notice that MORE bad things would happen when I fantasized during stressful times.  Specifically, STRIFE… great strife would happen with me and others.  So I tried and tried to stop fantasizing altogether.  When I did that, the object of my fantasy began –looking for me- instead of the other way around.  I noticed that he would enter my mind at odd times, and try and engage me… anything to get my attention on him.  That’s when I finally figured out it was DEMONIC, and had been all these years!  A specific demon or demons was responsible for the fantasizing, or more appropriately, behind the encouragement of me doing it.  I also saw the TRUTH that this was an INIQUITY passed down to me from my mother and grandmother, and who knows how many generations before them.

Fiction Books and Movies CAN lead to some people fantasizing/daydreaming and it CAN bring about SIN in your life.  That doesn’t mean it does it to ALL people.  But for me, I no longer read fiction books as they allow for your mind to interpret what it’s reading, that is… it brings about pictures in your mind that could lead me back to fantasizing.  I can still watch fiction movies but they no longer have the hold over me they once did.

And now, when those demons knock on the door trying to get me to just stop a minute and fantasize (give them my attention) as a means of stress-control, I instead turn to the LORD and send the demons packing.

I also believe that as “virtual reality” games get closer and closer to real life, people will start to experience demonic activity associated with them.  Case in point; Pokemon Go.  You take your smartphone out in the world and attempt to find –creatures- not of this Earth, and they can only be seen with the phone.  ???  How does that not = demonic?

I hope this story will serve as a warning to all women and men who choose to fantasize, daydream or worse….. MEDITATE, in the way I did.  And virtual reality is just an extension of that.

KNOW THIS:  You are opening the door of your mind to every kind and type of demon and they WILL ENTER and WILL try to control you.  They WILL wreak havoc in your life in more ways than one.  It’s NOT INNOCENT, NOT PRETEND, and certainly NOT GODLY.  My experiences are not just unique to me.  I’m not that special, I promise.  Books, movies, television and games can open doors you don’t want open, trust me on that.

This Christian Fat Girl is Using the Lord’s Help to Overcome Obesity…

Well friends, it’s been a crazy couple of months. I can’t even begin to tell you how the Lord is moving in my life. We live in very interesting times, with a lot of people saying that the “end times” are here, and I don’t disagree with them. But with all the new information that the Lord has shown me lately, He actually has put it on my heart to write about something else… being overweight and battling obesity.

All my life I have struggled with my weight. As a kid, I seemed to be hungry ALL the time, and us kids played outside DAILY back then! With all the activity, I still wonder why I struggled with my weight. I remember always telling my mother how hungry I was and she let us kids eat whatever we wanted from the kitchen, not really supervising or proportioning things for us. I’m sure that had some impact on my chubbiness. But, I know now that it is a demon causing me this trouble for all these years.

As an adult, these ‘hunger’ and ‘craving’ problems just got worse and worse. When I starved myself, I didn’t gain one ounce. But as soon as I even tried to eat normally, even if I watched what I ate and tried to eat right, I would start rapidly gaining weight. No diet ever worked long-term except the one where I was a slave for many years to counting calories, exercising vigorously and never eating out… ever. And for those that think this is a medical issue, it isn’t. I have had blood work done off and on over the past 20 years and there is absolutely nothing wrong with my thyroid or whatever else might be a cause of weight gain. Every time a new doctor would say that I might have this condition or that condition, my blood work never showed it and therefore I’m told, nothing is wrong with me. And when I look at what I eat, and how much I eat, in a single day, most days I don’t come close to what I see others eat!

In the last 25+ years, I’ve done everything from weight loss clinics, diet pills, limiting what foods I could eat, counting calories every day for years and even brainwashing myself to believe that certain things would or wouldn’t happen if I was overweight… just to keep myself from eating, to keep myself thin. In this area of my life, it has been a miserable existence. I would end up sacrificing one unhealthy thing for another so no true happiness or accomplishment was ever made. Another tell-tale sign I was dealing with something demonic. But to be fair, I was not Born-Again at this time, so I had no idea that the true cause of my troubles was satan.

ALL my life, from every possible source, I have been told that I am fat and I should lose weight, and if I can’t, it’s ALL my own fault for not having willpower. Even in a society as medically advanced, and supposedly TOLERANT of people’s problems, food addiction/obesity is still looked down upon as something YOU did to yourself and you’re supposed to starve yourself and be skinny like the rest of us. And what hypocrisy it is! In today’s society so many believe that drug addiction, gambling addiction, alcohol addiction, etc. are DISEASES, but somehow my obesity… considered by most to be a FOOD ADDICTION… is NOT a disease? If you are addicted to alcohol, you are sick but if you’re addicted to food you lack willpower and are looked down upon? Excuse me but that has got to be the most hypocritical thing I ever heard!

Now that I’m finished ranting, I’ll get to the meat of this post. No pun intended. If you follow my blogs, you know that I am a huge follower of Christian teacher Andrew Wommack. I really needed some guidance about what I should be doing at this point in my life concerning my life-long weight problems. I wasn’t sure if I needed deliverance from a food demon or I should be laying hands on my body and healing it of obesity, or what about iniquities inherent in my family? So I wrote to Andrew’s ministry and got back a very eye-opening response! It was a very long and detailed message, including scriptures to back up the message. Due to it’s length, I won’t post the entire thing here but instead I will highlight a few key points. The first one being that Andrew does not believe we should impose a ‘law’ on ourselves concerning our diet and what foods we eat. Just like what happened to me, the ‘law’ then makes us a slave to it. While Andrew does say that we need to have common sense and eat as wisely as we are able to, he also recommends “eating by faith.”

It says in part… “If our faith for healing is in food, then we are submitting to natural sources for our health and we will live or die according to those natural things. If we eat by faith (true faith), blessing each thing that we eat and receiving it with gladness, knowing that God is our healer and the Word is medicine to our flesh, then we are free from a new dietary religious bondage. We can easily see if our eating is by faith or not by the results. Health and weight problems would indicate that we aren’t eating by faith.”

So the end result is that my husband and I have started praising God and thanking him for everything we put into our bodies, even water, and asking that the food be a blessing to our bodies, in Jesus’ name. In the short amount of time we have been doing that, we have seen a great difference in how the food makes us feel. I didn’t say anything to my husband at first, but some of the foods we ate tasted different to me, and they even FELT different once inside my stomach! When I finally mentioned this in passing to my husband, he stopped me and said, “Wow I was feeling that way too but thought it was just me!” So we have discovered that “eating by true faith” is all that was needed all along. I feel set free from my obesity and hope to update everyone in the coming months to the numerous, positive changes that occur in my body!

SICKNESS, DEMONS, PRIDE AND *GASP* HOMOSEXUALITY

Let’s start off this blog by talking about SICKNESS.   What if I told you that ALL sickness is of the devil?  What if I also said that God does NOT give us illnesses or make bad things happen to teach us a lesson, or to somehow give glory to him?  Before I was born again, even I was guilty of believing that God gives us sickness to teach us lessons.  But the veil has been lifted from my eyes, now that I have found Jesus Christ, and I am no longer deceived.  The devil is solely responsible for all sickness and every other evil thing that happens.  God does not want you to be sick; God does not want terrible things to happen to you at all.  However, God will use a bad situation and turn it around so that something good comes from it.  A hypothetical example might be a mother whose son is killed by a drunk driver, and she later starts advocating for tougher drunk driving laws.  In that example, God didn’t cause the death of the son; it was all the devil’s doing.  But God will use it so that some positive outcome unfolds.

Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10 NIV)  This makes it crystal clear that the thief, meaning the devil, is the source of all woes and sickness but Jesus blesses us.

And let me hit you with another one;  DEMONS.  How many of you think that demons only exist in ‘other’ places?  I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to who believe that demons only exist in places like Haiti (because of voodoo practices there) or that demons are only around true devil-worshippers.  But the truth is that nowhere in the Bible does it say demons are only in ‘certain places.’  In chapters 1 and 2 of JOB, Satan says specifically that he has been “roaming through the earth and going back and forth in it.”  That sure sounds to me like he was all over the entire planet!  But there is zero scripture to back up an argument that demons are only in ‘certain’ places on earth.

There are many references in the Bible to people having a ‘demon’ or ‘unclean spirit’ inside of them.  Jesus and his disciples cast many demons out of people!  A few examples are in Matthew 8:16 and 8:28-33 and Mark 1:23-27.  Jesus and his disciples also healed people of their illnesses.  If God had given them the illnesses, why would Jesus have removed them?  And if you believe that God gave you an illness, why would you go to the doctor for a cure, when you believe God wanted you to have it?!  Put in those perspectives, saying that God is responsible for illnesses doesn’t make any logical sense!

So now that we know that ALL sickness is caused by satan and his demons, why would anyone want to ‘glorify’ their illnesses?  You would, in effect, be glorifying the devil!  And yet, that is exactly what people are doing.

And that leads me to hit you with a really difficult one now;  HOMOSEXUALITY.  There are many places in the Bible where it talks specifically about men being with men and women being with women.  Some examples can be found in Leviticus 18 and 20, Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6 and all make it clear that it is sinful and immoral.  But let me be specific on this:  I have had many homosexual friends in my lifetime and would never condemn them, or turn my back on them.  I know many won’t agree with what I’m about to say, but here goes;  You can be HEALED of homosexuality the same as being healed of cancer or alcohol addiction or any illness.  Therefore, I do put homosexuality in the same category as addiction or disease and it CAN be overcome through Jesus Christ.

I can give you a couple examples to back this up.  First, in Andrew Wommack’s book “The Believer’s Authority: What You Didn’t Learn in Church”, he speaks about casting demons out of a homosexual man who requested this deliverance.  And second, there is Sy Rogers.  In his ministry, he speaks often of being a former homosexual, who was very active in the gay lifestyle.  But Sy has now been healed of his homosexuality and has been born again, and married for over 20 years.

                  

I know many homosexuals, including a close friend who confirmed to me, believe they were born gay.  I don’t doubt that at all.  But again, you can be born addicted to alcohol (if your mother drank while pregnant) and you can be born with cancer or other illnesses, so it stands to reason that you could be born ‘gay’.  So the ‘being born like this’ argument doesn’t really apply.  And that doesn’t even take into account INIQUITIES talked about in the Bible that could also be responsible for ‘being born’ gay.

The problem I see is this; You cannot GLORIFY sin or illnesses because if you do, you give glory to the devil instead of glorifying the Lord!  That is the main reason why I am not an advocate for gay marriage.  In my opinion, being for gay marriage is like being for alcoholism or being for cancer.  These are all things you need to overcome and be healed from, so going along with it as though nothing is wrong is giving glory to the wrong person!

This leads me to a new tactic that the devil started using against us a couple decades ago; PRIDE.  The Bible says many things about pride such as, “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.” (Proverbs 11:2) and “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18).  The Bible is clear that pride is a sin.  So the devil started his ‘pride campaign’ on people and of course, used their own sins and illnesses as a form of pride.   There is of course ‘Gay Pride’ and recently I saw an advertisement that told me to ‘Own my ADHD’ as if you should have pride over having the illness of ADHD!  If that’s not straight up demonic deception, I don’t know what is.

In conclusion, I will say that the Lord wants you healed!  He wants you to be well.  But you cannot get well while you are glorifying the devil by having pride over your illnesses and sins.  You MUST resist the devil to be healed!  I cannot say that loud enough or enough times.  You MUST resist the devil to be healed.  Seek out the Lord, lay hands on and heal the sick, but stop glorifying the devil by ‘accepting’ your illnesses and sins!

“Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7 NIV)

Blame, Aspergers, Bullying and Being a Messenger…

Another blog recently talked about blame and it inspired me to write about it too. I understand always being the one accused and the one blamed. This was a common theme during my childhood. But I knew in my spirit I was not to blame, or at the very least, not ALL the blame. The first defense mechanism MOST people employ when faced with trouble is ‘it’s not my fault’. The second defense is to look for a scapegoat, someone they can force blame on. My mother laid ALL blame for everything on me, and still does to this day. She treated me bad as a child because she said “I made her angry, and I made her act like that” so it was my fault. She accepts NO blame whatsoever, and after four decades of strife with her, I am finally happy with her gone from my life. And if you’ve read my previous blogs, you know that I’ve tried many times to talk with her, but then she employs defense mechanism number three… continue to deny, while playing the victim. But I digress…

I found out when I was 40 years old that I have Asperger Syndrome. When I realized it to be true, I cried like a baby. It explained EVERYTHING about my childhood… all my awkwardness, why I was bullied and socially inept. My husband and one of his children both have it too. I think another Asperger is the only one that could really live with me the rest of my life. During my first marriage, I didn’t know about it so I’m sure my x-husband thought me insane. He used to call me ‘weird’ (not in a nice way, one reason we are divorced) and that about sums me up… weird. When I was bullied as a kid, I had no one to talk to. I was afraid to tell my mom for fear that she would blame me for the bullying. So at age 12, I started standing up to the bullies and they backed down. I was prepared for a fight to the death! I was so afraid and truly believed these kids wanted me dead. When I saw them all run away and just stop all of it, as soon as I stood up for myself, it opened my eyes to the truth. They were bluffing! I was the strong one, I was the smart one and they were weak and pathetic. No one ever bullied me again after that.

This experience did other things for me. For example: it gave me profound COURAGE. I literally could do anything I set my mind to after that, and still can to this day. I can say anything to anyone, without any care how they will react. As an adult, my bosses have always hated this about me. LOL I will, respectfully and professionally, ask questions no one else dare ask. Some find it refreshing and others have hated it. Another thing the bullying experience did was leave me not caring what people think of me. The bullies said all kinds of things about me that weren’t true and hated me for ridiculous reasons. Some things they said were out and out lies. I tried to reason with them by attempting to prove what they said was wrong. I soon realized they didn’t care… they were going to bully me regardless. They simply HATED me and that was that. It was then that I grew to not care what others thought of me. They could say anything to me and I would dismiss them. When they saw they couldn’t get to me with words anymore, they tried hitting me. When I started hitting back, they gave up altogether.

The point is that to this very day, I could care less what anyone thinks of me. No ones approval is desired nor required of me. I find it wonderfully refreshing when someone likes me for me. When I cannot be myself with them, or have to ‘keep up appearances’ by acting one way, while actually feeling another, I have no respect for them and they won’t last long in my life. If I cannot be truly 100% honest with someone, I can’t have them in my life. One note here… I’m not talking about being MEAN to people. I’m talking about telling the truth ALL the time. I’m talking about standing up for injustices, standing up for those who cannot defend themselves, and if a friend is out of line, be able to tell them that without them acting all offended, and saying I’m mean, I’m wrong and must apologize. If you need me to be someone who keeps your dirty, ungodly secrets.. someone who acts like your ungodly behavior is okay and/or participate in it with you, that’s NOT a true friend and I won’t have you in my life. My husband often says that my words are mean. The truth is hurtful to MOST people, so I don’t doubt that. And YES, MOST people are not used to anyone being truthful with them, so they feel like they’ve been slapped in the face. The important thing to point out here is that ‘keeping up appearances’, not being truthful with people, being phony… these are ALL lies and manipulations… EVIL behavior. BLAMING others for your own shortcomings is EVIL behavior as well. The devil would have you believe that everyone is supposed to be ‘nice’ to you. That is a lie and deceit of the devil to keep you in the dark to the TRUTH. The sooner people start seeing that, the sooner they will accept truth above all else.

That all brings me to another reason how the bullying experience changed me for the better: confidence and self-esteem. People have told me OFTEN all my adult life, that I am intimidating. Now the definition of intimidating would lead one to believe that it is intentional. But my intimidation is not. They are intimidated by my strong self-esteem and confidence. I didn’t know anyone felt this way about me, until a friend pointed it out in my 30s! Some people won’t question a doctor or lawyer because of their knowledge or power or wealth.. whatever the reason, they are intimidated by them. But I see all people on the same level. I look at a lawyer as being just like me, so I can be comfortable and ask questions without feeling intimidated. As I write this, I realize that I can’t think of one person that intimidates ME. Wow! Because I have ZERO FEAR about what people will think of my words and actions, I am actually FREE to say the things others won’t say and do the things no one else will do.

The title of this blog appears as though each thing is unrelated, however, they are all connected. Aspergers doesn’t go away. It is the base of my personality. Through having Aspergers, I have grown into the woman I am today. Without Aspergers, I may never have been bullied. And that would be a shame since the bullies actually got me to emerge from my shell to grow further into the person I am today. My loved ones and bullies blaming me all my life for THEIR bad behavior taught me that MOST people commit evil acts every day and blame others for it. All of these things have had a profound effect on me and brings me to my next point: being a ‘messenger’.

When I finally got fed up with people acting bad, doing bad things, I learned to stand up for myself. Now at age 43, I’m known as the ‘bitch’ because I don’t let people get away with anything. They make a nasty remark, I call them on it… they try to blame others for their own shortcomings, I call them on it. A friend said this to me recently, and I actually agreed with him… “you’re not A bitch.. you’re THE bitch.” I say the things that nobody else will say, and I am enemy No. 1 when I do. People do not like to be told that their bad behavior is WRONG or EVIL. They also turn that around on me. I’m a nag or bitch, they say, or they play the victim, again putting blame on me for ‘saying something hurtful to them’. I feel that God’s destiny for me involves being a messenger. He has chosen me because I don’t care what people think. God knows I can say anything and get the job done regardless of their response.

Just in case I lost anyone, let’s put that in perspective first. In the Old Testament of the Bible, God used Angels as messengers. When God needed to send a message and help someone, he sent an angel. After Jesus’ death, a new covenant began and it doesn’t work that way any longer. God uses people now. If you pray for money to pay bills, an angel doesn’t appear and point you to the help or drop money in your lap. Instead, God sends a person to help you. And if God wanted to get a message to you, he would send a person to do that too. I feel in my spirit that all these events in my life have come together to teach me to be a good messenger. I’m still working on it. I still, sometimes, don’t use words that people like or my tone will be wrong (especially when I see something appalling.. my tone can be quite bad lol). That’s when people tend to ‘shoot the messenger’. But, other things are happening too. I’m starting to discern more than I ever have. I can actually feel God preparing me for what’s next. The changes inside me are so profound that it’s really that clear what is happening. I’ve always been ‘intuitive’ and just knew things about people from just shaking their hand or even just standing next to them. But God is taking this to a whole new level. The things I’m feeling are beyond words… wonderful. I can’t wait to see where God takes me now.

When I call someone on their bad behavior, they can dismiss me all they want. Because, there is one thing I know in my heart to be true; In the still moments of the day, the Holy Spirit will reach out to them and put what I said on their hearts, in the hopes that they will SEE the truth and want to do better. They can continue to dismiss and turn that away, or they will SEE and reach out to God for help. But someone had to first deliver the message to get that ball rolling. It just might have been me.

Iniquities, Forgiveness and Punishment…

I’ve wanted to blog about iniquities for some time. I’ve seen them in my family members and, unfortunately, I recognize them in myself having been handed down from my parents. The Bible is very clear that iniquities (sins) are passed down to your children, going even in the third and fourth generations.

“Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.” (EXODUS 34:7)

My mother’s father was a very mean man, according to her and her siblings. It was as though he blamed the children for the reason he had to go off to work every morning. He didn’t act as though he wanted the children around. My mother says that he came home from the war a changed man. He was in Normandy on D-Day, although the beach was firmly secured by the time he arrived, I’m certain he witnessed enough to impact him greatly. However, I don’t agree that his treatment of family was related to being ‘changed by the war’. I believe that was an iniquity my grandfather received from his parents. Your views of children come DIRECTLY from your parents and how they treated you.

Both my parents are prone to quick anger, and I strive to keep that in check in myself. It is clear I have that iniquity from them. My mother never bonded with me. I was an Asperger child and didn’t like to be held much. My mother took that as an insult, as if a 1 or 2 year could insult anyone! And of course, Asperger’s was not officially accepted until the 1990s so no one knew when I was kid. The doctors told my mother I was healthy and just had a discipline problem. She then proceeded to treat me just like her father had treated her… as if I were a bad kid. Everything I did, whether good or bad, I got yelled at or worse, ignored. She still denies that to this day. She has never apologized once for anything she’s done wrong.. ever. Not to anyone in the family. My sister has even said that before. And I have tried to talk with my mother on several occasions about it. Instead of listening to what I say, she turns the entire conversation around so that she is the victim. She says, ‘how dare you say these things to me!’ and how I ‘hurt her by saying those things.’ She never actually addresses what I said, she just avoids, plays the victim, and then I am the bad guy. She then pulls my father into it and looks at him and says, ‘did you hear what she said to me?!’ Now Dad is caught between us and ends up backing up my mother, who should have never pulled him into it to begin with. I am sad to say that I have had to eliminate both of them from my life altogether. I cannot get past the hurt and the fact that they refuse to listen. I have forgiven them as the Lord wants me to. I still miss my father a lot, but I can no longer let them into my life to continue to hurt me over and over again. I have forgiven them, but I will never forget.

So the subject of iniquities now brings me to punishment. Even if you ask for forgiveness from God, you will still be punished. You are still guilty as stated in Exodus 34:7. Much like how children screw up and whether intentional or not, we still punish them. God works in that way too! This is even a common theme in the Bible. Let’s take Jonah as an example. He defied God by not going to Ninevah and then later found himself stuck in the stomach of a huge fish! He finally realizes the error of his ways but still had to spend 3 days in that fish, until he was turned white from the stomach acid and very, extremely fishy-stinky! Then that nasty fish vomited him up on shore. Now, God forgave him as soon as he realized he was wrong, but He did not rescue him from the fish! Jonah’s punishment, I believe, was to be stuck in that nasty fish and then vomited up later. A pretty bad punishment, in my opinion, for disobeying God! But the point is very clear. God forgives but the punishment still stands.

I am having some trouble on finishing up this blog! But I will end by saying that you CAN ask God for forgiveness of your sins, bear in mind that you will still have to pay for them. But repentance is important! Be sure to pray that the iniquities you inherited from family also be forgiven! Pray to have your children forgiven from them as well. I believe that God can remove the iniquities from your heart, but you do have to look to him to do it!