“We Thought It Was a Ghost… It Was Something Else" (Tania's Deliverance Story)

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Welcome to Episode 2 of the Intentional Breakthrough Podcast! Tania continues her story—sharing the moment when what seemed harmless revealed itself as something much darker. What followed was fear, confusion, and ultimately… a journey toward freedom.

If you’ve ever wondered:
- Is spiritual warfare real?
- Can something “harmless” actually open a door?
- What does true freedom in Christ actually look like?

This episode dives into the reality of spiritual oppression, deception, and how Jesus brings lasting freedom. This isn’t just a story—it’s a wake-up call.

For more on Intentional Breakthrough, see below!

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Intentional Breakthrough Resources:

THE BOOK: Intentional Breakthrough by Charity Gurtler
https://a.co/d/08wOsvMY
Intentional breakthrough is possible when we align ourselves with God’s love and truth. You don’t have to sit and wait for your breakthrough to happen. Healing and restoration are attainable. Begin your journey today.

Go Deeper with us:
https://intentionalbreakthrough.com/
https://www.anchoredbiblicalcounseling.org/
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WHO ARE WE?

Charity Gurtler (Co-Host) -

Charity is dedicated to helping others experience freedom and breakthrough through the grace, love and truth of Jesus Christ. Over the past twenty years, she has pursued her own journey of healing, learning to rest in the promises of God’s Word and the forgiveness found in Christ alone. For the last decade, she has walked alongside others, developing practical, gospel-centered approaches that guide individuals toward healing and breakthrough.

She is the author of Intentional Breakthrough and Pray and serves as the Director and lead mentor of the GPS Certification Program through Anchored Biblical Counseling, where she develops training and equips others to minister with integrity, clarity, and care.

Tania Hilton (Co-Host) - 

Tania is a wife, mother, counselor, and leader rooted in Lutheran theology. She holds a Master of Divinity, is Certified Biblical Counselor with the Association of Biblical Counselors and holds a SYMBIS certification. She is currently pursuing her Doctorate of Ministry with a concentration in Christ-centered counseling. 

She serves at Christ Greenfield as the Director of Leadership Development and co-leads the church's Spiritual Care Ministry. Tania offers biblical counseling to individuals, families and couples who feel spiritually or emotionally stuck, helping them experience healing and renewal through God's Word and promises. 

Her approach is shaped by a Law & Gospel framework that brings truth, grace, and hope to life's most difficult moments. Tania's passion is to walk with people as they grow in faith, rediscover joy, and live into the calling God has placed on their lives.

⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️
Intentional Breakthrough Resources:

THE BOOK: Intentional Breakthrough by Charity Gurtler
https://a.co/d/08wOsvMY

Intentional breakthrough is possible when we align ourselves with God’s love and truth. You don’t have to sit and wait for your breakthrough to happen. Healing and restoration are attainable. Begin your journey today.

Go Deeper with us:
https://intentionalbreakthrough.com/
https://www.anchoredbiblicalcounseling.org/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

And I'm like, this is really weird. And I pull out my phone because I'm like, I'm gonna record it because the balloon is just really oddly at the doorway. And then my husband says, Come on in. He's like, Oh, it's the ghost of the child. Come on in. And the balloon, I kid you not, starts just coming towards us. Goodness.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

Welcome back to the Intentional Breakthrough Podcast. My name is Charity, and I'll be co-hosting with Tanya. And this is episode two. It's gonna be a continuation of Tanya's story that she started in the first episode. So if you haven't listened to that one, I would recommend doing that one first. Um, because she kind of left us hanging. She left us hanging at the end. She started talking about all this very real, very real spiritual warfare oppression that she started to come up against, but ended it there. Like there's no where's what happened next is kind of what I want to know. But yeah, before we dig into that, I want to know all the details. I want to know what freedom looked like, how it came, like what you walked through, um, what you learned through that. But before that, can you just give a little bit of your background? How long have you been a Christian? Were you a Christian before this even happened? Um, what was your grid for spiritual warfare when this started happening in your own life? Like, did you have a grid or what what did it look like? So can you share more about that?

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Yeah. Um, so kind of like growing up, uh, we didn't go to we weren't church goingers or anything like that. My mom is from Spain, my dad's from Colombia. Um, my parents moved here. My dad moved here very young. I'm not gonna go too too far back in the story, but it it it's relevant. My mom grew up in a Catholic boarding school in Spain. Okay, so she had a very bad experience growing up, which played a part in our spirituality because um she was very anti-religion, like anti-anything. We didn't go, I think I remember going to church twice because my dad, like I said before, it's military. Uh, he was in desert storm, and I remember we went to church while he was in desert storm to pray for him because they were in the middle of the war. And that was it. Um, so growing up, I didn't have great experiences at church. Um, I didn't have many experiences, and I was very like like my mom. I didn't like Christianity was a bad name and all that. So I didn't want to get involved in a lot of Christian circles. Um, and I was like, oh, if we could just, you know, all religions are good. Like, we, you know, just love people and be a good person, and then you're good. So we moved out here, my husband and I moved out here to Arizona in 2012, and I got connected to a mops group. It's moms of preschoolers. And our I was part of their group for about two years, and they got so small that we ended up merging with another one at the church that I'm at now. Um, so when I started coming to this mops group, which was August of 2014, I almost didn't even go because it was such a big group, and I was like, too many people. I don't want to, I don't want to, it was intimidating for me at the time, but something kept me there. And I say something, and now I know it's the Holy Spirit. And then I'm I'm here at this mops group, um, and these ladies are just wonderful people. And one of them invited me to church, and I said no, because I was like, it makes me uncomfortable. I didn't know when to stand up or sit down. And so the church that I was at is uh they have a Lutheran, their Lutheran background. Um and so I was it it was and at the time it was very traditional. So, you know, people wore robes, it just was very intimidating for me, a lot of rituals, and I wasn't comfortable. But she asked me to go and I said yes. And the Holy Spirit truly found me in that space. Like he brought me to that space and found me that space. And something in my heart changed, and I was like, I just want to know more. Um, so I brought my husband the next time and he grew up Baptist. So again, it's a whole different denomination from Lutheran. And then that first day we ran into a pastor and he was like, Look, we just want to walk alongside you wherever, whatever, whatever that journey looks like, we just want to walk. And I said, Great, because I don't even know if I believe in Jesus. So those so this is good. Pressure's off. And then seriously, the Holy Spirit just revealed himself to me, transformed me. Uh, that was August, November 2014. And by 2015, February, we had all three of our children baptized. So all three of our kids, uh, February 22nd, 2015, my husband and I were became members of the church. Like it happened so fast. It was a transformation that it was just like once I I sometimes it's like the road to Damascus. Like once Jesus revealed himself to me, it was like boom, like you are Lord, right? So yeah, it was just a very fast process. So again, I didn't know what it meant to be a Christian. It took me two years to even call myself a Christian because it was still a bad word growing up. Um, but but and so I shared in the first episode too, I had always been kind of tormented throughout my lifetime, right? And so it's like the enemy marks you and he knows what God has in store for you. Well, I don't believe he knows what God has in store for you because he doesn't, he's an omni on omnipresent, right? He doesn't know omniscient, yeah. Right, exactly, yes. But he has an idea of I gotta make sure I get to you before God does type thing. Um so it always been kind of tormented in my life, but then it it kind of ramped up once we became a Christian, I became a Christian and I started coming to church and things like that. And and so I was baptized as a baby also, because that's what Catholics do. So I wasn't I wasn't rebaptized or anything like that. The Lutheran belief also um believes that you know one baptism for the remission of sins.

SPEAKER_02 5:38

So after you said it ramped up when you after started becoming coming to church. You would think it would be the opposite.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Exactly. And no, and yes, you would think that okay, now I'm a Christian, I'm protected, I shouldn't be tormented by the enemy, but no, this is when the enemy is like, okay, game on, let's start, let's just throw all the darts that we can. And so I was having nightmares at night, I was being tormented in my sleep, I was like just weird things, supernatural things were happening around the house. Um but right I feel like some people are gonna say, Okay, so how did you know you were saved? What does that mean? Okay, so uh the believing in Jesus Christ, like and it he revealed himself to me in that moment, and then that's that's where the belief. And so we as Lutherans, we also believe that um baptism is will graft you into the family. And so I was I was marked from childhood through the baptism, and then the Holy Spirit revealed himself to me in that time. And so that's I know that I'm saved because I lean on the promise that Christ has for me, not something that I have to do for myself. And so we could go down this whole like baptism rabbit hole too, or like saved.

SPEAKER_02 6:48

Right, right. I don't want to go down that hole this time, but I just know that some people are gonna be thinking that and asking that question. Okay, so you know that you're saved, like you you know that you are gratching the family tree, but you are feeling all of this oppression, which you talked more detail about the first episode. Okay, so let's pick up your story.

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Yeah, so it it is um we Nathan reached out to the pastor, actually, that that original pastor who had said, just walk alongside us for the journey. And I said to him, you know, Tanya's having a lot of bad dreams. Like, come bless our home. We want to have a Christian blessing over the home. He said, No, you need to call this lady. She's gonna come over and pray with you. Uh her name is Michelle. I won't say her last name, but she is definitely touched by God. Um, this woman is just absolutely amazing. And she came to her home. First time I ever met this woman, came to my home with another lady and was like, We're gonna pray over all the rooms in the house. Oh, and you know, it's so hard to explain because this is where I say it is a supernatural experience because it it goes beyond the logic of what we understand the the world to she didn't know me at all. And she's saying to me something like, There is this is gonna start sounding a little weird, but I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna share the story and how I remember it. She said, uh, because I was telling her about the dreams, and she's like, if you could see the monster in your hallway, what it actually looks like, it's not a little child, because we thought it was a spirit of some little child in our home, and we were we were talking to it, and uh there was an experience. I'll I'll share the the the balloon experience that happened before Michelle came. And we had a balloon tied to my son's room at the end of the hallway, like at the very other opposite end of the hallway is our bedroom. There's like a door that could go from our bedroom all the way to the end of the hallway. And we had gone out to dinner somewhere and he got a balloon, a helium balloon. So we had it tied to his bedroom door, like the knob. My husband and I are are in our bedroom, and all of a sudden at the doorway, we look and there's the balloon at the doorway, but it's not crossing the threshold of the doorway. But it is it's almost like the helium had worn off because it's only like halfway, you know. If you think your doorway's like 10 feet, 11 feet, it's like halfway, so it's like five feet floating, just kind of like bobbing right there at the at the doorway. And it's there for a long time. And my husband and I are looking at it, we're watching, we had been watching TV and we're looking at the balloon now, and I'm like, this is really weird. And I pull out my phone because I'm like, I'm gonna record it because the balloon is just really oddly at the doorway. And then my husband says, Come on in. He's like, Oh, it's the ghost of the child, come on in. And the balloon, I kid you not, starts just coming towards us. Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

And I'm again, if you remember my first episode, I'm very sensitive to these things. So I start freaking out and I start screaming, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop. It comes to about the halfway point of our bedroom. It comes, go ahead, you're gonna ask me a question. Why did you say make it stop?

SPEAKER_02 9:52

Because you're you're you're both of your um kind of got re our first reaction was like, Oh, it's just a little boy, like, come on in. Like, what's the big deal, right? Why did you say make it stop? He thought it was the little boy.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

He's always said it was the little kid because he saw a little kid in the hallway. He saw a boy, a little ch child in the hallway. I don't like this stuff because it makes me scared. Okay, right. This is and this is all prior prior to knowing what I know now. Um, and so I knew that this is not some whatever's happening here is not, we can't justify like he was like, Well, maybe it was the air ducts in the hallway and the AC turned on. I'm like, no, this is all so you had like some sort of sense, like feeling like this isn't right. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

Yeah, okay. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Uh terror. I could feel like I said, okay, there you go. Again, yeah, terror. So I'm screaming, make it stop, make it stop, make it stop. And it still comes to about halfway in the it to it, because it's coming towards him. Um he's sitting at the end of the bed. I was sitting it at the head of the bed. Uh and so it's coming towards him. And then I don't remember if he said stop or something, but but all of a sudden it gets halfway in the in the bedroom, and then it's like something had been holding it because it's like you let go of the string, and the balloon shot up to the fan and then shot up to our ceiling. So we have like nine to 12 foot, you know, like we have bolted ceilings, so it shot all the way up to the top. So the balloon wasn't like low on helium. There's no explanation why the balloon was bobbing halfway.

SPEAKER_02 11:22

So you felt that tear. One of you says, Stop, stop, like, don't don't come in anymore, or something like that. And it shoots up. So what did you sense or feel at that point?

SPEAKER_01 11:32

I was, I was, I was terrified. I'm like, great, now whatever it was, you let it in. You invited, I was mad at Nathan. I was like, You invited this into our room. Now it's in our bedroom. And so I can't remember if that happened before like the dreams were already coming because they'd been tormenting me for a few years, but but it it was ramping up. Everything was ramping up. And then the balloon. And I think at that point, once the balloon situation happened, Nathan was pretty freaked out too. And Nathan is uh he'd always liked to watch um like ghost hunters and like those shows where they would go into homes that were haunted and like recording and trying to find evidence. So he'd always liked to watch that kind of stuff, was fascinated by it, but now he's scared too. So he's like, okay, I don't know what just happened. We need help. We're calling the pastor, we're calling the pastor. We're calling the pastor, yeah. So he calls the pastor and the pastor sends Michelle. So Michelle comes over and she's like, the thing that's in your hallway is not a little kid. It's like if you could see this grotesque thing, demon. I don't think she used the word demon at the time because I would I didn't I I was very immature in my spirituality, so I wouldn't have understood. But she's like, It's not a little kid. Like this thing is a monster and it wants to kill you and your children.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

And which that's what your dreams were about, right? Like tormenting you about your children dying and things like that. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 12:47

Yeah. Yeah. So she was like, You guys need to leave the home. And and she's like, You guys are gonna leave the home and we're gonna stay and pray. And then before I left, so she asked Nathan, Nathan walks out, and I'm walking behind him, and she grabs me and pulls me back, and she says, she says a prayer over me, and all I remember her saying is, and I sever it with the sword of the spirit, and then she literally shoved me out of the home and slammed the door shut. Okay. Oh, I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it because it was it was like I was like, Whoa, that's intense. So we left.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

You have not seen or come up against any of that type of language or anything before, correct? No, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

Okay, it was all new. So long, it is a long story. So I'm gonna shorten it up. Some we're out of the house for like maybe an hour, and we're and and then we get into this just bizarre argument in the car. We had driven around, we did some errands, we're driving, so we're driving. We get into a bizarre argument in the car, and then I felt like vertigo, like my world was flipping upside down. I'm crying hysterically. Nathan is like, I don't know what's happening, something physically was happening to him, and and I'm sobbing, and I'm like, I feel like I'm gonna get sick. I was like, pull over. So he ends up pulling over, and it was just the the most bizarre experience, the feeling of just like being underwater and being flipped, and then vertigo, and he's experiencing something too. And then all of a sudden it just stopped. And I was like, whoa, okay, and then everything starts clearing up. Uh, and then my phone rings and it's Michelle, and she's like, it's done. You guys can come home. I was like, what is happening? And that works. What is happening here? Oh my gosh. And it was like, that was like the beginning of just being ex exposed to the spirit realm and it's real, and there's no way, and again, it's like I call it a supernatural experience because there's no way that this can be explained logically. So, anyways, we come home and and Michelle, you know, says something along the lines of like there was there was something attached to you, you know, we severed it. It's like through the umbilical cord. Some of the words she says, like, I I remember it vaguely, and it's hard to say out loud because sometimes like people look at you sideways, right? Oh yeah. Sounds like unless exactly unless you're familiar with spiritual warfare. So it is uh what I can say now in hindsight with my knowledge, my experience, my research. How many years ago? Oh gosh, this had to have been six or seven years ago. Okay, six, five years, six years ago. Yeah, so somewhere around like the seven to five years. Um, it was what we would call a familiar spirit, okay, that has been passed down through generations. Right. Um, and so it would make sense being attached through like a spiritual umbilical cord. And I remember, Charity, this is the crazy thing. Uh, just being tro fully transparent and vulnerable. I remember feeling a separation, like a disconnect, a loss. Like the way that I explained it to Nathan once, it was like, it feels like I lost my best friend that was attached to me my entire life. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

Oh, wow. Okay. Like you felt like something was missing then that had always been there.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

And you actually were a little bit sad about it. I was sad about it. There was a longing. It was almost like it wanted to come back. And it was like, but I'm your best friend. I've been a part of you your whole life. I know you. So, so again, it's like the spiritual warfare. I know now that it was trying to come back. And I had this two-week period of of mourning the loss, okay, of this, let's just call it what it is, a demon that was attached to me since birth.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

What did you lose? Because what was the the good part? And it wasn't good, but what was the comfort? What was the comforting part? Was it comfort? Was it feeling known and heard? Not feeling alone. Like what was it that you missed?

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Okay. I remember it like it was yesterday because it was so real. Um, there was always in my lifetime, there's been discernment. I've always had discernment. Like I would say, I would say or think things, and then some things would happen and be like, oh, I just I was just thinking about. I would think about my mom and then she would call, you know, things like that. I was like, oh, I wonder how my mom's doing. And then the phone would ring, literally. Which is a crazy story too. My mom actually, my mom tried calling during this whole experience with Michelle. But again, it's like this thing was attached to me through her. Okay. That I'm gonna have to save that one. Too. We could go into some details. Yeah. Yeah. It was a discernment. And honest, honestly, so let me be vulnerable. Like I said, um, there was a sense of loss of power, which I know now, because we know that the enemy, the spirit realm, there is power there. Um sometimes you like psychics. I do believe that psychics are tapped in and reveal, get rid of the city. Some are con men and some are tapped in, yeah. Right. Okay. But I know that it's from the devil. Like it is it is from Satan. It's not good. And so I had this moment at the two two week point because I knew that what was trying to come back was not good. And I was like, you know what, Lord, I started praying and I was and I remember I was netting the pool. Okay. So I'm I'm netting the pool and the sun is shining on my face. Like netting, I'm out back.

SPEAKER_02 17:50

Oh, like actually, I'm thinking you're doing an analogy. Okay, got it.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

No, I'm cleaning on your cleaning the pool, the sun is shining on my face, and I remember feeling the sun, and I remember just feeling such sorrow. And I was like, you know what, Lord, if I never, I said, if I never have any of this experience again of this discernment, any of it, I was like, I never, I I I'm okay if I never have that as long as I have you. I was like, I just want to feel you. I was like, I just want to feel you, like the Holy Spirit. I was like, I just want to know that you're and then I got just washed over with a peace that surpasses all understanding. And it was like the Holy Spirit was like, I'm with you always till the end of the ages. And I got this peace, and it was like, I don't need this false sense of power or connection, deception from the devil. You know, I've got the Holy Spirit, and it was just the beginning of like freedom of true freedom is submitting to him and saying, Whatever, whatever you have for me, I just want to know you and be a part of you. And it was so beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 18:52

That is beautiful. Yeah, and that's such a good picture because that we we mentioned in the last episode, enemy does not have authority because Jesus said, I have all authority has been given to me. But he's able to weasel his way in. He has to be crafty. He's become very crafty to get little inroads and ways to affect us because he doesn't have that authority, right? And so one of the things he does is he promises us something. Like in your case, he promised what a sense of power, control, maybe. Yes. Yeah. Uh-huh. Like getting to use, you have a maybe a natural gift in that area of discernment or whatever it might be, but he was like tapping into that and saying, Hey, you know, come over here and I'll like let you explore and give you this and do this. And that gave you a sense of what purpose and yeah, fulfillment or whatever. So all those things that we really are supposed to get through Jesus Christ, right? We're really supposed to find all those things in him. He was promising you that if you went his way, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 19:50

And like the Garden of Eden, all over again. Yes. The knowledge of the world.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

I truly believe, I just believe that this is how people are seduced into like the occult and divination and things like that. Because, you know, my past is like I got into tarot card readings, I do astrology readings for people, I would do all these things, you know. And so there was a there was this sense of power, of a power that didn't belong to me that I that I had and that I liked. Like I would read do tarot card readings with people and they'd be like, Oh my gosh, like that's so true. Like that really happened in my life. And I'm like, oh yeah, you know, and I'm like, oh, look at you know, it's so fancy. Yeah, but it is deception. It's deception. It's probably the wrong side. Exactly. Um, so I think about too uh when Jesus was in the wilderness and and the devil was like, look at all this. I'll give all this to you and more. All you have to do is bow your knee to me. And it's like, that's us every single day.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:41

Every day.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

I love the moment though, where you get laid it all down. Because it was trying to come back. It was trying to like promise you those things again. And you missed it. You missed that feeling, you missed that sense. It probably brought a sense of, you know, value to you, maybe, you know, something that I don't know if it was with your attached to your identity or anything like that, but just you decided in that moment, you know what, if I never have this again, and all I have is you, Jesus, like that's enough. That is such a beautiful moment. And that's really who he is. Like, and that that's the way of the kingdom. The way of the kingdom of God is love, it's surrender, it's humility, it's trusting him. And it's almost like that um, the analogy of like uh the camel going through the eye of a needle, you know, where it has to like get down on all fours and fit through this tiny hole and let go of all of the burdens and all everything it's carrying so it can fit through this eye of the needle. And that's sort of a little bit of what happened is like you laid this stuff down and you just came and found Jesus that way though. Yeah. And so what does that look like? What has that looked like the last however many years to say, Jesus, if all I have is you, that's enough.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Yeah. He is so faithful. You know, there's times when I get overwhelmed with how faithful he is. And it's like we know because we can read scripture, we know God's character, we know that he's love and mercy. And grace and faithful to his word. And we know this, but when we experience it in real time, we're like, oh gosh, you blow me away every single day. And that has been the last six or seven years, has been him just blowing me away. And this is began. So it's the beginning of a journey that I'm still on of uh spiritual discernment, uh, researching a lot of spiritual oppression and warfare. Um, and so I think what it was the beginning, once that experience happened, it opened a door of like, I want to know more about the schemes of the enemy because it pisses me off. Excuse my language if that's a bad word for you, but it makes me so angry that the devil will pimp us and use us and distort our, you know, God-given abilities for his his good. And so I that was just the start of like researching what is spiritual warfare, what is deliverance, what does it look like? Um, and that's the beginning of my story. But there has been a long process of going through so now, so so just since that thing was severed for me, you know, let's just say since it was severed, it was now I have the ability to to walk a little bit in freedom. And then you say all the time that God only reveals what he wants to heal. That healing process isn't overnight, it is an ongoing to the day we die type process, right? Yeah. And so there was still this spirit of fear that it had me very deeply. Um, so that had to be delivered. And then there's different ways that it's come. Yeah. When I work with people, I say I give the analogy of like we're archaeologists and there's there's a fossil buried deep under the ground. We don't know if it's five feet down, we don't know if it's 15 feet down. But what we're doing is we're we're we're revealing one layer at a at a time because you have to be gentle. So you know, when you know anything about fossils, you can't just dig with a backhoe like you've got to, you know, sometimes just brush it away with little brush, right? So it's that's the process, and and that's the way I like to envision it, is you just remove one layer at a time and see what's underneath, and then keep going and keep going and keep going. Um, but uh all of it has to do with surrendering and trusting the Holy Spirit. And we've said it before, following his lead. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

So what is living in freedom? Because now you are actually learning about the spiritual world and all of those things that go with it. And so there's that's similar to to pre-experience, Tanya, right? Like diving into that, wanting to learn about it. But now you're learning about it through the lens of Christ and through submission to the Holy Spirit and with freedom. So, what is that process like? How is that different? Like what does freedom look like versus what you had before?

SPEAKER_01 24:45

Well, I can just say for anybody who is in this process, it's very slow. Okay. This again, it's not something that happens overnight. In fact, that the first couple of months, maybe even the first couple of years, were very um disorienting. You know, it was now I have to discern is this the Holy Spirit or is this coming from the enemy? There's so many lies that get attached also when you're being deceived by the enemy that you've come into agreement with. So the first couple of years were, I don't want to say chaotic, it was um a process. And there was times during that process that I was like, you had to relearn. Yes. Yeah. So there's times where it was like, I don't know, but have the endurance for this. And the truth of it is that I don't, but he does. The Christ does, the Holy Spirit does, right? And so there's a lot of submitting more than anything else. There was a lot of learning how to submit. And so I saw over the years, and so we could like fast forward the story of where where I am now, just over the years, a little bit, we you gain a little bit of ground at a time. I got freedom through unhealthy relationships in my family home, freedom through unhealthy habits of my husband and I, freedom from being afraid by the enemy, you know. So that so freedom is it looks different, and the process and the pace is different for each individual. I'm sure your story is gonna look a lot different than mine. Yeah. It is, but each story is very tailored. Yeah. Yes, yeah. And so there is a lot of for me over the last couple of years, has been uh just a lot of research that I I wanted to learn from different perspectives, what it looks like to walk in freedom, what authority we actually had. Um, and then like you see situations where God puts people into your life for a season at a time, and you're like, oh, I see what you're doing there, you know. And so back in in October, this will be the last story I'll share, but back in October of 2020, I think what really catalyzed where I am today. So October of 2020, and again, it's one of those situations that I remember it. It's like imprinted in my core memory. Um, I had an experience with God, and I call it an experience because it's a supernatural experience that I can't explain. I don't typically like hear, like I don't hear this burning voice, you know, like booming voice of God or like the burning bush or anything. But I had an experience where I felt God strongly put it on my heart that He wanted me to get into counseling, um, that it would have an element of spiritual oppression, a big element of that. I knew freedom from spiritual oppression. Yes, yes, yes, yes, freedom from spiritual oppression.

SPEAKER_02 27:18

That would be part of the focus. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

Uh-huh. And like I think you might have said it before, like uh you can't counsel out demons, right? You count you counsel the individual.

SPEAKER_02 27:29

I heard you say that first, actually.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

I know. Yeah.

unknown 27:31

I know.

SPEAKER_01 27:31

I told I was like, you can't counsel demons. Like you can't. So I knew that for people to be fully free, it would be an element of counseling, uh, like biblical Christian counseling, biblical counseling. So it's all scripture-based of the trauma that the individual experienced. So even me, I wish I had some type of counseling as I was going through this like more traumatic experience. Um, and then there's a part where you reach a level of rocks where you're like, no, I can't just dig this away. That's where the Holy Spirit needs to come in and heal. And that's where the spiritual oppression and freedom from spiritual oppression align. And so the last five years has been God just revealing one step at a time, this this is what's next in your life, you know, for your own spiritual freedom, but also to help other people walk through it as well.

SPEAKER_02 28:20

And then that's how we met. That is part of the story. That'll be next episode. So we got to close up, but it is so God gave you this picture of what exactly of just starting to help other people through counseling, but also integrating that with freedom from spiritual oppression as well. Cause they're kind of kind of have two different focuses, but same goal. And so putting that together. So that's kind of been your journey the land than the last five years, it sounds like.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

Yeah, that's it. Yeah. And there's different layers to that too. And it's all, and again, it's it's God has just revealed every step of the way. He's like, okay, here's your first step. And then once I've gone through that, it's like, here's your next. And I am a give me the whole plan type person. And he's like, no, just trust the submitting.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

He's, you know, he's giving you a uh journey of submission. Okay, so close up, let's close up with this. If you could just say one thing to Christians that were like you, they're, I mean, we're saved. You're you're saved, you believe God, you're coming up against something that can't fully be explained and you don't really know how to navigate it. What would be what's the takeaway you want to give?

SPEAKER_01 29:19

You know, there's a lot of prayer involved, but I would say one of the takeaways is just find somebody who is experienced with spiritual oppression and warfare because this is something where it's like we're not meant to walk alone and it's very hard to walk alone. And and so for me, just being aligned with somebody who was able to help me and walk me through that was so helpful and beneficial. Um, and then it's just a lot of research. That's why this podcast has come out because we want to equip people and give the knowledge of what could be happening so that they're better equipped. Right. And trust the whole spirit. Navigate it. Yeah, trust the spirit. That's a big part.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

That's good. Okay, well, thanks for joining us on this episode of Intentional Breakthrough. Next time we're gonna go through more of my story and you know, the reality of spiritual warfare and how that played a part too. So thanks for joining us.