Saving Souls

Just being a teenager can be a challenge, but when I was 13, I developed a severe case of cystic acne that covered my entire face and even went down my neck. These weren’t tiny breakouts; I had huge sores that bruised. My family spent so much money on doctors and medicine that I felt like the woman with the issue of blood!

The acne on my face wasn’t just ugly; it was also painful. It actually hurt to touch my face. And the pain of the acne wasn’t just physical, either. Teenagers can be cruel, and kids at school made fun of me and rejected me because of my face. I was even rejected from being a part of musical groups in school, even though I was a talented singer.

Unfortunately, rejection seemed to follow me through my early adult life when I was turned down for jobs that I was fully qualified for. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was developing a spirit of shame that would grow like a ceiling over my life and keep me from reaching the heights God had for me, and it stopped me from giving out of my heart to people and from being free and bold with my faith.

Hope for Healing Over 13 long years, I lived with disfiguring acne. But at 25, my miracle finally came. That’s when I grabbed hold of I Peter 2:24 and learned that by the stripes of Jesus Christ, I could be healed.I started confessing that Word over my life. At first, there was no change at all, but the more I confessed that Scripture, the more it penetrated my heart. And one day I heard the Holy Spirit say to me.

Soon afterward, I went to bed one night with cystic acne all over my face just like I had for the past 13 years, but when I woke up the next morning, it was completely gone! I was supernaturally delivered that day, and I’ve been healed of acne ever since.

Total Deliverance Praise the Lord, I was healed of acne! But it would be 25 more years before I would be healed of a much bigger problem than the bumps on my face—the embarrassment and self-pity I had carried with me for so long. I had lived with shame for so long that I hadn’t realized I had actually become comfortable with it. But when I started to be honest with myself, I realized I craved the attention my condition gained me from the people who loved me. I was saying with my mouth, “By the stripes of Jesus I’m healed,” but on the inside I was still embracing and nursing my pain. When I admitted this to God—and to myself I was finally able to repent and to let it go.

The day I was healed from shame was the day I heard a preacher speak about what Jesus had already done for me. Christ took my shame on the Cross and gave me His glory. What a trade! That day, God gave me a vision of myself—as He saw me—in junior high, high school, college, and my young adult years. He showed me walking around with the attitude that I was as good as everyone else, with no cloud of shame over my life. Then He delivered me completely!

Freedom Shame had been like a prison, keeping me from other people. It also kept me from doing what I was called to do and from fully experiencing joy and freedom. Now that I’m free from the bondage of shame, I can minister like I never could before.

If you’re dealing with shame, I want to encourage you right now to find your identity in God—not in what other people think of you or even what you think about yourself. Even if you feel like nobody else in the world cares for you, you can take hold of the Word of God and realize that the Lord truly loves and accepts you.

I proclaim freedom for you, just as freedom has been proclaimed for me, because God is no respecter of persons. Your shame was nailed to the Cross many, many years ago. You, too, can be free and live a glorious, abundant life without shame.