God Delivered me From an Invisible Prison
Have you ever suffered from feelings of shame and humiliation?
Have you ever felt rejected and alone? Most people have felt this way from time to time. Please allow me to share my testimony with you of how God delivered me of a long-term physical condition and the emotional scars that were attached to it.
For many long years, I was held captive in a prison of shame without even realizing it. I want to share with you how God delivered me from the invisible prison that I suffered in for so much of my life. I am sharing my story with you for two reasons: because I want to give glory to God, and because I believe it will help you realize that, through Jesus’ powerful work on the Cross, you can also be delivered from shame.
I grew up in a Christian home in Miami, Oklahoma, and went to church every Sunday and Wednesday. But when I was about twelve years old, I developed a serious case of cystic acne on my face and neck. I’m not talking about a normal case of teenage acne with a blemish here or there. Cystic acne is a very painful condition that penetrates through all five layers of the skin. The sores were often so deep and big that, when pressed upon, they would bruise.
For the next thirteen years, I would suffer in many ways from this terrible skin condition. I was made fun of in school. My peers accepted me for my singing voice and my personality, but not my looks. As I grew older, I was even turned down for desirable jobs because of my face.
Then in 1977 when I was twenty-four years old, I moved from Norman, Oklahoma (where I had studied at the University of Oklahoma and obtained a Music Education degree), to Houston, Texas. There I began to sing with the Houston Opera, working in the day and singing at night. It was in Houston as I drove to and from work that I first heard both Kenneth E. Hagin and Kenneth Copeland teach on First Peter 2:24: “…by whose [Jesus’] stripes, ye were healed.”
Although I had been filled with the Holy Spirit since I was in college, I had never heard this teaching before — and it came just in time. After being sick for so long, my mind had begun to adjust to the sickness. In fact, something in my personality had changed, causing me to believe that I wasn’t as good as other people.
Instead of renewing my mind with what the Word of God said about my skin condition and my right to healing, I had begun to think that the condition was simply a part of life that I was meant to live with. The invisible curtain of shame had begun its work to bring its dominating presence over my soul.
After hearing this wonderful message, I decided to take hold of this wonderful truth about divine healing, and that truth began the process of setting me free. As Jesus said in John 8:32, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
My journey to healing started with my own confession of faith. Out of my mouth, out loud, morning, noon, and night, I’d confess that by the stripes of Jesus, I was healed. I’d look in the mirror at my face and boldly declare, “By His stripes, I am healed!” Over and over, I’d even sing, “By His stripes, I am healed.” Those words of faith were on my lips all the time!
‘Do You Really Want To Be Healed?’
After confessing the Word of God for about a month — every day, many times a day — I still couldn’t see any change in my condition. Nevertheless, although I could not see God’s hand at work, He was moving on my behalf. One day I was driving my car in Houston and listening to a radio preacher when suddenly it was as if the Holy Ghost spoke right through her to me. (Has this ever happened to you? Well, it happened to me!) She asked, “Do you really want to be healed?”
I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Holy Ghost was asking me that question through this woman radio preacher. As I quietly sat there in my car, the Holy Spirit brought out His powerful searchlight and began exposing what was in my heart.
You see, throughout all those years of trying to treat this skin condition, I went from doctor to doctor and tried antibiotic after antibiotic and treatment after treatment without seeing any change. After a while, I began to feel sorry for myself. As I sat there in my car, the Holy Spirit showed me that my own self-pity had been keeping me in bondage to this disease. Can you imagine? I had been living with a “poor me” attitude for a very long time. At that moment, I repented.
I asked God to forgive me and cleanse me of such selfishness, and I told Him that I definitely wanted to be healed.
I didn’t know it then, but I know it now: You cannot enjoy your self-pity and believe for your healing at the same time. You must give that “poor me” attitude to God and then repent of it, turn from it, and resist it with all your strength. Only then will you be able to receive power and anointing to stand strong in your faith and believe God for your healing.
Soon after that moment I experienced with the radio preacher and the Holy Spirit, I moved from Houston back to Oklahoma, still standing in faith for the manifestation of my healing. I was dating my future husband Rick at this time. It was wonderful to have such a loving boyfriend who accepted me just as I was. (I just wanted to add this note about Rick because it is true and because I love him so much after many years of marriage.)
My fight of faith against cystic acne was almost over. At this time, I was twenty-five years old and again living in Oklahoma. I went to bed one night, confessing once again that by Jesus’ stripes, I was healed. It seemed like a normal night, but it was anything but that. This was to be the night of my miracle.
After thirteen years of pain, embarrassment, and one doctor after another, I was about to be free forever from this horrible condition. I had often felt like the woman with the issue of blood in Luke 8:43, who had spent “...all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed of any.” But on this night I, like her, would receive a life-changing touch from Jesus.
I don’t know if Jesus took two seconds, two minutes, four hours, or the entire night to perform my miracle. I just know that when I went to bed, I had cystic acne on my face and neck as had been the case for thirteen years — and when I awoke the next morning and looked in the mirror, my face and neck were completely clear. In fact, so much infection had left my face that my friends thought I had lost weight!
I slapped my blemish-free face in utter amazement and joy; then I called my mother on the phone and exclaimed, “Mom, the Lord healed me! Jesus totally healed me and delivered me during the night!”
From that moment on, I never suffered from that terrible skin condition again. I also cursed that sickness and commanded it to never come near my future children. Today I have three sons. And I can tell you with certainty that they will never suffer from that condition!
New Light on Hidden Shame
The day that God healed me, I didn’t know about believing for scars to be removed.
I didn’t even think about it! As a result, the scars on my face from thirteen years of suffering from cystic acne remained — scars so deep that they went through all five layers of the skin.
As the years passed by and I reached my 40s, I also noticed that my face was beginning to fall years before most women deal with such problems. For years, I’d been forced to constantly pull on my face as I treated those terrible blemishes, and that had stolen from my youth.
Then in 2002, my husband Rick said to me, “Denise, let’s just see what laser surgery can do to help eliminate the scars.” We looked into the matter and discovered that lifting my face would also help make my scars less visible. Rick and I discussed the possibility of going further, and he said, “Honey, let’s allow the surgeon to do all he can do to help you look your best.” So in the summer of 2002, I took the big leap and underwent facial surgery that included both a laser peel and a facelift.
Afterward, my recovery was going great. Of course, my face was red and swollen, and I had to keep a greasy ointment on my face at all times to aid in the healing process. Nevertheless, in my mind’s eye, I could see a more beautiful me on the other side of my recovery!
Then while recovering from my surgery, I experienced a setback. One day soon after the surgery, bumps began to break out all over my face. After being without blemishes on my face for twenty-five years, suddenly I had a red, swollen, greasy face that was also covered with bumps! It was as if the devil had slapped me. After taking this big step toward trying to do something about those scars, I looked worse than ever.
Before I go further, let me back up to explain something that had been happening throughout the previous year before my facial surgery. Jesus had been opening my eyes to what was in my soul. (The doctors can change your face, but they cannot change your soul!)
The Lord took me back to a day when I was an eleven-year-old girl living in Oklahoma. I was walking around the house with my head held high and my voice booming through every room. I was singing as if I owned the whole world! I remember it so well.
Over the years, I had watched the way my husband and my sons carry themselves as they walk up to the platform to speak. It’s as if they are taking the whole stage as their territory for Jesus! Their freedom had exposed my own bondage. I would think to myself, If only I could be as free as Rick, Paul, Philip, and Joel!
But when the Lord brought back that memory of me as a young girl, singing with such complete abandonment, I realized something: Back then, I’d possessed the same kind of boldness that I saw in Rick and the boys! Through my years of suffering with that horrific skin condition, including all the ridicule I’d endured and my feelings of being less than other people, the enemy had stolen my boldness from me. But now I knew there was a time when I had been truly free, and I wanted this freedom back.
Then one day, the Lord gave me further revelation about myself. I realize now that He was setting me up for a miracle — leading me toward freedom from a type of bondage that I hadn’t even known was hindering me all those years!
Sometimes when Jesus is delivering us from something deep in our souls, He does it line upon line and precept upon precept. His work in me was like this. First, He healed me. Second, when I was twenty-eight years old, He gave me a loving husband who wanted the best for me. Third, He revealed to me what I didn’t know about myself — that there had been a time when I was free. Fourth, He continued to give me more revelation from His Word.
Someone had given me some tapes by Derek Prince, and I began listening to them. Brother Prince said that when Jesus died on the Cross, He took our shame and gave us His glory. As I listened, I thought to myself, There is a lot of difference between shame and glory. I want to experience that glory.
Suddenly I remembered that I always covered my face when I prayed. I would often think to myself, Why do I always do that? Why do I always cover my face? Could the reason be that I carried a hidden sense of shame that I hadn’t even realized was there?
Psalm 119:105 says, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” The light was beginning to shine brighter and brighter in my heart. God was setting the stage for another miracle.
Delivered From Shame!
Now let’s go back to several days after the operation when I was looking at all those bumps on my face and the devil was laughing at me because he thought he had won the victory. But he hadn’t! Before the surgery, I had taken Communion twice a day for two weeks and prayed that God would do exceedingly abundantly above all I could ask or think. Although I looked worse than ever, I knew that my faith was not in vain.
In the middle of this spiritual battle, I was invited for dinner to the house of a couple who are dear friends of mine. Now, in the natural, a person does not go out in public looking the way I looked! But although I was ashamed of how I looked, I just apologized to my friends for my appearance, put aside my reluctance to step outside my door, and accepted the invitation.
The gourmet meal was wonderful, as was the fellowship I enjoyed with the hosts. After the dinner, I asked this couple to pray for me. I desperately wanted those bumps to go away so I could get past the ordeal. Besides, I was scheduled to sing for the Joyce Meyer women’s conference in two weeks!
When the husband laid hands on me and prayed, I fell to the floor under the power of the Holy Spirit. This had never happened to me before. The anointing was so strong that I couldn’t even get up for a solid hour. I had heard of this happening to others, but this was the first time for me.
During that hour, Jesus took me back in my mind to the years before I’d ever had blemishes on my face. Then He let me see myself as if I had never had a skin problem all the way through junior high school, through high school, and through college. I saw myself live through those years with a clear, unblemished face. I saw myself with my head held high and with a confidence that I was just as good as those around me. During that hour, Jesus completely delivered me from shame.
Only Jesus can go down into someone’s soul and take out the poisonous root of a problem that the person doesn’t even know is there! It was as if He came up to the prison of shame that had held my soul for so long; put His key of love and power in the keyhole; turned the key; opened the door; and said, “Denise, come out from there — you are free.”
As I lay on that floor, engulfed in the Presence of the Holy Spirit, Jesus told me, “I am restoring you. I am reestablishing you. I am replenishing you.” And when I got up from that floor, I was a new person — healed, delivered, and free to walk in a boldness that I hadn’t known for more than three decades. Not only that, but from that moment on, the bumps began to disappear. And by the time of the Joyce Meyer conference, my face was clear!
I am happy with the results of my surgery, but what God did on the inside of me was the real surgery. That was the real transformation. His Spirit came over me in such a way that I was changed forever on the inside.
Jesus bore our shame so He could give us His glory; therefore, no one but He can touch and deliver us to this degree. Only He has the authority and power to bring about this kind of change. And it is only the Holy Spirit who can take what Jesus did on the Cross and cause His deliverance to become a manifested reality in our lives!
