I have a word for someone(s).  Just know the details are going to look different for yourself but the essence of the word is the same [for someone(s)].  I can only tell it with my details because that’s how it came to me, but the Spirit will elucidate for your own details.  He told me to share it (otherwise I wouldn’t; it’s too personal), so I pray He is glorified and His Kingdom advances through this word of knowledge He has released.

The background is I have four amazing children, seriously amazing, each in their own ways.  They are my great reward.  That said, the past several years have been quite possibly some of my hardest, at least my hardest in recent memory.  Most of my children have been consistently walking out rejection of me in varying degrees.  Some of the manifestations have been quite painful.  While none have outright rejected the faith, some are teetering on that edge.  This has been a personal crucible for me.  Anyone who knows me well knows my greatest love is my God and my Savior.  I echo John’s words when he said he has no greater joy than to know his children are walking in the truth.  I’m not going to lie, it’s going to suck if when I get to the other side all of my family is not with me.

Somewhere along my life path, I finally learned that if you lack understanding you don’t speak.  So I don’t speak when I don’t understand.  It gives the devil license and room to move when you speak in ignorance.  It gives the Spirit room to move when you speak in faith.  If you can’t figure out where that line is, it’s best to keep quiet, to watch and wait and learn.  Observation is half the process of study.

It started with one child, and dominoed eventually to almost all of them.  I had no idea where it was coming from.  We went from a tightknit family that laughed, wept and experienced life together, to schisms and fragments.  It was a far cry from who we were, and it changed somewhat abruptly (to me).  Along the way there were times God’s peace would take over to quell the raging grief and turmoil in me.  But there were long, dark seasons in the valley where I could not find the light.  Either way, I held to His hand as well as I could.

In the meantime, I wrote.  (for my blog, for NewsWithViews, for my email correspondence, on social media)  I’m a writer and was called to write, and so write I did.  But sometimes I felt like a fraud.  Sometimes I thought, if they knew what my children said to me last week, they’d…..   And the accusations my children had against me were heartbreaking.  Some deserved, but many were misunderstandings, almost flat out deceptions.

Sometimes I implored the Lord to just take me Home. 

I’ve been so long in this valley that I’ve gotten used to it.  I’ve been misunderstood all my life, so it shouldn’t surprise me that my adult children have joined that club.  (They didn’t use to.)  There were times the Spirit of God would give me a word that kept me from complete shutdown.  He gave me many songs.  He spoke through various people.  He is and has always been faithful, even in the dark and the silence. 

I finally resolved this was my new lot in life, my children’s rejection and criticism.  I resolved I was going to walk it out day by day as best I could, in silence, and love them as best I could.  Then one day He gave me these specific words:  “Sometimes you leave the ones you love but if it’s love they won’t give up cause they know the war is raging and you’ve gotta choose. These days are tough, these days are long, sometimes it’s hard to carry on. But I hear a voice singing, and I know it’s true.”  And I knew God was saying I had to go on in some respects and leave my children to sort out their belief systems.  I couldn’t stay in this valley of grief, because there was a war raging and I was called to fulfill my role.  I had to choose:  stay in my grief and withdraw (my continual temptation), or release it (them) and move forward even though I knew they weren’t coming with me. 

So I made my choice and I hung up my grieving, deliberated to love my children exactly where they were, not defend myself to their accusations, and press on in my life calling.

Don’t misunderstand.  My children love me.  They have not outright rejected me as their mom; it’s been a different battle.  They each have made extensions to me to express their love for me, and the accusations have slowly stopped.  But the schism is still there in subtle ways.

After a particularly difficult confrontation two years ago with one, the Spirit gave me the song “Take Heart” and told me that was the anthem for our family, and while I can sing it now, we will ALL be able to sing it eventually.  So I took heart.  I have let His love lead me through the night.  (and it’s been a long night)  I have held on to hope, and I have taken courage once again.  I’m walking this out the whole way.  [song:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MfBQ30Ta9w]

So here is the word, and I’m sorry it has taken me this long to tell it.

Last week I was speaking with God, and maybe I phrased some questions differently or maybe I was just in a better place to hear the answer, but what He said to me He has since asked me to post so that others may receive where applicable.

He said this:  “Michelle, when the devil saw he couldn’t destroy you, (and I was given a download – like a download in the matrix – of a flurry of my history), he set out to destroy you through your children.”  (and I received another download of a flurry of our history)

What I saw when He spoke, was the decade plus of spiritual warfare and deliverance I was engaged in when the children were young.  I came from a place of brokenness because of childhood trauma, and I had strongholds of mind, I had generational curses, I had demonic oppressions, etc.  And I warred for literally over a decade to break free from these things. 

While I love, admire and appreciate those Christian families who have the beautiful and shining example of tender love and compassion in a setting of acceptance and faith, our family was not that family.  We literally spent years in warfare prayers, in the heat of ugly battles with ugly demons and hideous flesh.  While I was in the (several year) process of being delivered the kids saw me angry and broken.  They saw me inconsistent.  And we ached and groaned through the whole long, sordid process, until we emerged on the other side free of the curses, free of the uncontrollable emotions, free of the bondage.

The Spirit showed me at this point, the devil knew he had been defeated in his attempt to destroy me, and he turned to destroy me through my children.  My Achilles heel has always been rejection.  I was rejected by my birth mother, rejected by my adopted parents, and rejected by other significant care-givers along the way.  I never in a million years anticipated being rejected by my own children.  I love them fiercely, and they are beautiful people.  But the devil is cunning and crafty, so what the Lord showed me next was I saw what looked like Lone Ranger masks put over the eyes of my children, only there were no slits for the eyes.  The masks were solid.  And these masks became filters of how they would see me, my faith, and their circumstances.  Only I would not realize these masks were filtering their views.  He would filter their views and whisper his accusations, steadily building doubts in them.  They would remain silent about them when younger because they loved me, but as time wore on the internal conflict would begin to mount in different ways, and each having a different personality would handle it slightly differently.

Oh I saw the scenario play out before me.  I finally understood the root of the issue.  The gig is up.  It’s just a matter of time before the breakthrough for us, and if that matter of time is years, months or weeks, I will see it through.  Sunday I watched the antichrist spirit speak through one of my children.  I’m getting wiser to the enemy’s scheme. 

I have prayed that I could be a John Wick in the spirit world.  I care not at all what this world thinks of me, but I care a great deal what the spirit world in the heavenly realm does.   I’ve cast demons out of myself, others, animals, houses and land.  I’ve changed the weather, decreed and declared healings, brought changes to circumstances, etc.  It’s our mantle as ambassadors of Christ to represent His superior Kingdom to this inferior kingdom of earth. 

So the word is, some of you the enemy has set out to destroy through your children when he failed destroying you directly.  Once you see the assignment, you can restore your battered armor and go to the battle.  You’re not fighting blindly anymore.  The details will be different for each of us, but the word of understanding is our key to success. 

And the word is, it may not be your children – that’s what it is for me (right now), but it may not be that for you.  It may be an adversary, an affliction, a continual persecution, an obstacle you haven’t been able to get around, any number of things.  But the word is still that when the enemy of God (who becomes your enemy by default) realized he couldn’t destroy you by his original plans against you, he sought another way.  The adversary is cunning and shrewd.  He has studied our lives and knows our bloodlines.  He knows our strengths and weaknesses and calculates where he can do the most damage.  He may wait years before he strikes again after his initial blow of defeat by your allegiance to God.   Once we realize it’s just the devil using people, circumstances, etc. to bring about our defeat and destruction, the thing he has been using begins to lose its power as we rise up to walk out our destiny regardless of the opposition to it. 

Godspeed to the sons and daughters of YHWH.