“I grew up in a Christian home and received Jesus as my Savior when I was five.  But for all my adult life there were areas that I could never find victory over. Fear, anxiety and depression seemed to permeate every area of my life. 

Many times I would ask for forgiveness for these sin patterns and pray for deliverance but nothing ever produced lasting change.  One of my core fears was the fear of failure and not being able to meet others or God’s expectations of me.

I was bound up in people pleasing and trying to earn God’s approval. Other fears that held me captive were fear of witnessing, fear of not getting things right (a perfectionist, especially in relation to being a good Christian), fears of making boundaries, fear of rejection, fear of flying and the list goes on and on!

These fears came from wrong beliefs that I had about God and myself.  I believed that God was a stern taskmaster and would be angry with me when I didn’t perform how He wanted me to. So I tried to please him out of fear; deep down I believed that He was disappointed in me when I messed up.

In my mind I knew the truth that scripture tells us about God’s unconditional love, but in my heart I believed that I had to earn his approval and love.  Many of my wrong beliefs about God came from my relationship with my dad growing up. 

Not only was my dad a pastor, but he was also emotionally and relationally distant from me as a child.  So I believed that I had to be good enough in order for him to love me.  My family life also had the added trauma of mental illness with my brother and sister.

All of this also helped to form my ideas about my identity: I believed that I was not good enough and that I didn’t matter. In January 2023 God began the process of inner healing through the Value Exchange workbook that my counselor had recommended. 

Over the course of many months, the Holy Spirit walked me through each area of fear, anxiety, identity issues and God issues.  He revealed wounds from my past that were at the root of my wrong thinking. 

He also revealed the ways in which I had coped to protect myself from my fears.  As I took all the lies I believed, and the sinful coping mechanisms to Jesus in prayer and confession, I released them to Him and asked Him to exchange them for what He wanted me to have.  He gave me so many beautiful words and truths in exchange for the lies. 

He healed my past wounds and I received victory from these fears. I still get tempted in these areas, but overall I’m not enslaved to them anymore.

So much of my healing is of the invisible nature because it is in the inner being, but I do have one example that is very tangible. I have had a phobia of flying on a plane ever since I experienced one bad flight when I was in my twenties. 
 
I would get anxious the day before the flight and even more anxious the day of the flight.  I got specific counseling to help with my fear and although it helped some, I ended up relying on anxiety meds to get me through a flight day. 

I had a lot of shame and self-condemnation related to this phobia, feeling like I should be able to trust the Lord more than I did.  In the summer of 2023, I knew that I needed to do a Value Exchange about flying because I was going to visit my daughter who had just moved to Colorado and I would need to fly.

As I broke agreement with anxiety and handed over my fears to Jesus He gave me an image in exchange.  I saw the inside of a plane that was in the air and all the seats were empty.  But Jesus was walking down the aisle!  So I knew that He would be with me on the plane. When the day before the flight came, I was amazed at how calm I felt. 

Then the day of the flight I was also experiencing peace – and rejoicing!  God had healed and delivered me!  I had brought along my medications (just in case) but I didn’t need them.  When I got home, I immediately planned my next flight to visit my daughter!”