God Sees Your Affliction

“I will be glad and rejoice in Your mercy and steadfast love, because You have seen my affliction. You have taken note of my life’s distresses” (Psalm 31:7 AMP).

Little four-year-old Barbara Jean was standing alone on the street corner beside a neighborhood park in Ridgewood, New Jersey. The park was situated about a half mile down the street from the apartment building where she and her family lived. Tears streaming, Barbara Jean looked up and down the street again and again, but her dad was nowhere in sight.

Surely, he did not expect her to cross the street alone! Mother would be furious at them both! Yet her keen sense, even at such an early age, told her that he would not return any time soon. He had gotten so angry with her earlier that he had smacked her across the face, leaving her on the corner all alone. Now she was in a state of panic and fear that would follow her for many years to come.

Barbara Jean and I met about six years ago. She was in a group I led, where we read and studied my book, Finding the Secret Place. When I told Barbara Jean about how I was delving into the memory healing aspect of experiencing God and living in union with Him, coupled with learning to “exchange” wrong things for right things (that is, allowing God to “redeem our losses”) she was intrigued and wanted to meet privately about it.

Later when we got together on the back patio of her home, Barbara Jean, now a ministry coordinator at a large Assemblies of God church, confessed she had dealt with fear her whole life.

“When did you first remember having such intense fear?” I asked.

“I was about four. I was in the park with my father,” she began.

So little Barbara Jean rewrote the memory in the park—by asking Jesus to come and stand with her on the corner, down the street from her apartment building. It was a very sweet encounter. Later, her dad actually showed up. He saw Jesus standing there and broke down in shame. Jesus, who towered over them both like a giant, said to him, “You are forgiven.”

Then Jesus extended His arms, and Barbara Jean’s dad fell into His embrace. She was able to see her dad for the first time as a man who had no tools. He had been powerless over his ways.

There on the patio with Barbara Jean, there were more tears, grown-up tears. Finally, she had forgiven her dad for the many losses she had experienced in childhood due to his violent anger and all the fear that had been induced from it.  After the encounter, she didn’t view him any more as “a dad who’d failed.”

The Fear of Losing Control

Childhood fears can manifest into things you might not expect.

In Barbara Jean’s case, her early fear of being terrorized and abandoned by her father became a “fear of losing control.” Perhaps it was this fear that drove her to become a top sales agent for a large life insurance company, in her mid-twenties.

At that time in Barbara Jean’s life, all seemed well to outsiders looking in. She was happily married and successful beyond her years. But her inner world, unseen by even those closest to her, was crashing in: She was unexpectently pregnant, and terrified to face the possibly of jeopardizing her thriving career.

Immediately, Barbara Jean planned an abortion to avert this fear. (This was to be her second abortion, her first at age 16.)

Thankfully a neighbor and a Christian friend at work convinced Barbara Jean to cancel the abortion—an hour before the scheduled appointment!

Blocking the Voices

Three years later, with two small children in tow, Barbara Jean had found herself in yet another panic mode. This time her father was dying in a NYC hospital a few hours away. Recklessly speeding down the interstate, she was fearful that she would not arrive on time. To make matters worse, she was having “homicidal and suicidal visions.” Basically, she was terrified that she would harm her own children.

“God, don’t let me crash the car!” Barbara Jean sobbed, as she continued weaving down the highway. The voices in her head didn’t make things any easier. They were saying, “You are not worthy to be a mother! You have got to go—or you will kill them both!”

The panic was really setting in now. Amid the sobs, Barbara Jean screamed at her three-year-old daughter to sing.

Barbara Jean: “Gerilyn! Sing! A song! Any song!”

Gerilyn: “I don’t know a song.”

Barbara Jean, emphatically: “Yes, you do! Sing!” This was an attempt to block the voices and stay grounded in reality, while driving, Barbara Jean relates.

Gerilyn, feebly: “Mary had a little lamb.”

Barbara Jean: “Louder!”

Gerilyn: “Little lamb, little lamb.”

Barbara Jean: “Louder!”

Gerilyn, screaming: “Mary had! a little! lamb! his fleece! was! White! as snow!”

Finally, they made it to the hospital. Barbara Jean’s dad had rebounded. And the kids were hyper. And she needed a cigarette. So she said to her sister, “I’m taking the kids to the park.”

More Panic in the Park

Thank God for the park! It was a big park with a duck pond, trails, and swings. It was winter and cold, but the kids didn’t mind. They could feed the ducks and swing, while Barbara Jean smoked.

She looked around. There was only one lady there with her little son. He and Gerilyn quickly made friends over by the swings, while Barbara Jean managed her 18-month-old a short distance away.

“My fafa was sick, and we were driving,” Gerilyn said to the lady and boy. “My mom was crying, and she told me to sing Mary Had a Little Lamb. My fafa is dying.”

It didn’t take long for the lady to come near Barbara Jean. “Your dad is sick. Does he know Jesus as His Lord and Savior?”

“This day couldn’t get any worse!” Barbara Jean mumbled under her breath. “A Jesus freak!”

“I don’t know what my dad believes,” she snapped, then turned away.

“My dad died twelve years ago from bone cancer,” the young woman said.

Gerilyn and the woman’s little son were on the horseys. She followed Barbara Jean.

At that moment, Barbara Jean mysteriously heard another voice saying, “You were crying and screaming all the way here, asking for help. Just listen!”

To which the lady declared, “The devil is after you!”

Then she grabbed Barbara Jean by the arm and spoke with an authoritative voice, “But he can’t touch you, in Jesus’s name!”

Suddenly, tears began streaming down Barbara Jean’s face. What this gal was saying was true! The voices, the fears, the horrid visions, the chaos and no good. She had everything—a successful career, a wonderful husband, beautiful children—yet she had nothing. And it was all a big dark secret. No one knew about her misery. She had such an ability to cover things up—so nothing odd could be seen or detected.

No one had known but God—and now this woman, a missionary on furlough, who had appeared from out of nowhere at just the right time. Barbara Jean flung herself into the woman’s embrace—a flood of peace coming over her like never before.

Connecting the Dots   

There was more revelation to come. When Barbara Jean and I were finished with the memory healing, I said to her, “Wow, what’s with all the parks? It seems like two of the most significant moves of God in your life occurred in parks!”

Barbara Jean looked at me with surprise. I had no idea what would come next.

“Oh my gosh, it was the same park!” Her eyes were brimming with tears of joy at the thought. God had been there all along. He had heard her four-year-old cries. Then He had drawn her back to the very place, where she had made her first conscious cry out to Him.

In the end, that same neighborhood park symbolized her losses and her redemption! God would use it as a visual illustration to show Barbara Jean how He had taken her full circle—how He had connected all the dots in her life. He had also restored her traumatic memory and set her on a new path, one filled with renewed joy and fresh revelation, along with an ability to overcome lingering fears!

But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. (Psalm 13:5 NAS).