Rotten Fruit
One day on the school bus, sometime in my kindergarten year, I sat in the coveted front seat. A fellow classmate tried to sit next to me but I wouldn’t let her, sticking out my tongue and angrily scooting to the edge so she couldn’t get by me.
Another day, my great-grandmother tried to change the sheets on my bed. In an uncontrollable angry fit, I got on the bed and began kicking at her to stop.
I had moments like this when I was younger.
Moments of anger. Sadness. Confusion.
I was hurting and didn’t know how to express it appropriately.
But I was hurting others in the process.
Because hurt people, hurt people.
We tend to have more grace for children because we know their brains are still developing and most of us, as we become older and more mature, understand that hurting people is not healthy, nor acceptable.
Yet, why do we continue to hurt others?
In my blog, Tinted Lenses, I talked about the lies Satan plants into our minds during hurtful and vulnerable moments in our lives. As I sat on a huge boulder in a backyard when I was young, I began believing in the lie that I didn’t matter. As a result, I set out trying to prove that I did in fact matter by performing and achieving my way there.
Also, lying just below the surface, my sub-conscious made a vow that if someone did not think I mattered, well then, they were not going to matter to me. I began putting up walls and learning to rely on myself.
“…the pattern is very consistent. Wounds lead to lies that lead to vows. Wounds are like plowed soil. Lies are like seeds. Vows are like vines. Strongholds are the fruit that grows on the vines.” Marcus Warner, Understanding the Wounded Heart
My childhood wounding turned into the lie that I didn’t matter, which turned into the vow that others wouldn’t matter to me (I would no longer have any expectations of them supporting me), which then turned into a stronghold of independence and a protective wall around my heart.
Jonice Webb in her book Running on Empty calls this counter-dependence. “Counter-dependent people go to great lengths to avoid asking for help, to not appear, or feel, needy.”
This became my stronghold. My protective barrier.
“Satan has taken a natural desire in us and supercharged it to create something beyond our control. He has twisted a weakness we have into a binding knot where he is holding the ropes.” Kenton Beshore, et al, Rooted
Independence in and of itself is not bad, but when married it can have a negative effect on intimacy . There was a time in our marriage, when my husband began to disengage from our family. I figured it was stress of his new job or pain from a motorcycle accident and just let him be. So my counter-dependence kicked in because I felt like I didn’t matter. My stronghold got stronger, and I went about life raising my children. Meanwhile, we grew apart.
If I was at a healthy place at that time in my life, I would have leaned in to the situation and asked questions. I would have pursued answers and tried to work on what was going on in our marriage. Instead, I sub-consciously said, “I don’t need him.” Not the best thing to think in a marriage.
“A stronghold is a spiritual battle Satan is waging for our souls.” Kenton Beshore, et al, Rooted
Strongholds are spiritually sneaky.
According to Marcus Warner, “a stronghold is an area of bondage in which we are not free to live with joy and peace. It is characterized by compulsion, restlessness, hopelessness, addiction, and self-deception.”
Strongholds hide in our blind spots, or we purposefully keep them in the dark. And they are hard to get rid of, unless we are willing to go to battle.
In the book Rooted, three steps are given to help combat our strongholds:
Honesty and Confession: We start by asking the Holy Spirit to make us aware of areas in our lives that have held us in bondage. Just being aware of it will not get rid of it. We have to bring it in to the light by giving it words. Confession, honesty and vulnerability with another safe person begins to break down the power Satan has over it. James 5:16 says “Confess to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.”
Surrender and Repentance: We actively pursue obedience in doing the right thing, but not on our own. Daily surrender to God, who gives us the strength to turn away from sliding back into our old habits, addictions, and beliefs is the only way we can break down the strongholds in our lives. And repentance is like saying, “I was walking in one direction but now I deliberately turn and walk in the opposite direction.”
Accountability: This is where the importance of your tribe comes in. We can’t break down strongholds without support and accountability. “God puts people in our lives whom we can lean on and walk with through this turning from sin.” The more we talk about our strongholds, vows and lies, the more they lose their power over our lives. Because strongholds like to stay in the dark where “they weigh on our souls and become burdens onto which Satan continues to pile embarrassment, fear, judgment, despair, and more.”
In my own journey of healing and restoration, I have found diving in to God’s Word so important because it is helping me to remember truth…God’s TRUTH. The truth that I do matter.
Inner healing prayer has also been productive in lessening the hurt feelings from childhood wounds in my life. Breaking strongholds is ultimately a spiritual battle and prayer is our greatest weapon.
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Ephesians 6:12
Strongholds, if left alone, will begin to bear fruit on our vow vine.
Rotten fruit.
Poisonous fruit.
Whoa to the person who must eat of our fruit or near enough to smell it rotting.
Lord, may we bring to the cross daily our strongholds. Make us aware of the rotten fruit in our lives so that we may surrender it to you. And cultivate in us seeds of TRUTH so that we may bear YOUR fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Galatians 5: 22-23).
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