“The whole ten years that I was sick I felt isolated, alone and abandoned, but the moment I wanted to die and end it all that’s when He (God) showed up.” Esther was referring to a year and a half ago when desperation overwhelmed her. “It was like desperation on a whole new level. I could not be here. He was going to come and save me, or I was going to die – that was it.”

We asked Jesus to come and be with Esther in that memory, but she couldn’t sense His presence. She just saw herself on the floor in ruins. We asked Jesus if there was any lie Esther was believing. Nothing came to mind. We continued getting nowhere until we realized that desperation was a spirit blocking Esther’s connection with God.

Esther broke every agreement, all communication and every connection she had made with the spirit of desperation and told it to go back where it came from in Jesus’ Name. “Jesus, what do you want to give me in exchange?” she asked. “I see myself as a sunbeam,” was the happy reply.

Esther again asked Jesus if He would come and be with her in that painful memory. “I can see Him wrapping His arms around me.”

Esther asked Jesus how He felt when it was so hard for her. “He was weeping and was feeling everything that I was feeling.” This answer was significant for Esther, because earlier in the week she was wondering if Jesus could feel what she was feeling. “I guess that answers my question.” Jesus not only felt what she felt, but He heard her thoughts and cared enough to answer her question.

Jesus also let Esther know that He didn’t want her to feel so desperate and hopeless. He told her again that He wanted her to be His sunbeam. She felt filled with light and hope – the opposite of desperation.

Esther asked Jesus if she ever had to feel desperate like that again. Nothing came to mind, and she sensed there was another lie blocking her.

“Jesus, where did I learn that I needed to beg for Your attention?”

Esther realized that she always had to beg for attention. Her mother had five children and was emotionally unavailable, and her father was totally out of the picture. “I always had to beg for attention. I had to get pregnant to get attention from my mom. I didn’t get pregnant on purpose, but that’s what happened—I got her attention. She bought me food which was not normal. We ate out of the garden. There were only a few things she bought at the store like powdered milk. But I was so sick throwing up from the pregnancy that I eventually couldn’t go to school and had to drop out. That was another part of the end of my life, because I was raped when I was 12. She didn’t know anything about that, but I got attention when I got pregnant for a little while until I wasn’t pregnant anymore. So it was a learned behavior. I had to beg for attention, but I normally just kept everything to myself and didn’t ask for anything.”

Esther severed the ungodly soul ties she had made with her parents and broke agreements with fear, desperation, hopelessness, abandonment, unworthiness and neglect as well as other spirits. She rejected the lies that controlled her thoughts and behavior throughout her life and asked Jesus for the truth instead. Esther did not hear an answer.

After listening for God’s direction, we went back to the memory of when Esther was pregnant and had to drop out of school. She had been getting straight Fs in school since the time she was raped and couldn’t concentrate on her work. It was the end of everything for her. She considered herself stupid. Nobody in school liked her. They all called her a whore since she had started wearing makeup. She felt intense hatred from others.

Esther invited Jesus to be with her at that painful time. She didn’t see Jesus right away, but she saw herself on a stage where people were throwing rotten tomatoes at her. That wasn’t an actual memory, but it described clearly how she felt. “They’re throwing rotten tomatoes and garbage at me. I’m garbage.”

Esther invited Jesus to be with her in that scene. This time she could see Jesus covering her with His big feathery wings.

“Jesus, how did you feel when it was so painful for me?”

“I got a sense that He was covering me and protecting me like I was His daughter. He also gave me a thought of Him being on the cross when people were spitting on Him and rejecting Him and denying Him. It was the same picture, and He loves me as Himself. He was there with me going through it with me again. He said I didn’t deserve it.”

Esther forgave her classmates for rejecting her. The desperation and hopelessness was gone.

Esther received the truth that Jesus wanted to protect her and asked Him what her life would look like if she let Him protect her. “Beautiful, radiant—a sunbeam basically!”

Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. Psalm 34:5 

He will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. Psalm 91:4

He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed. Isaiah 53:3-5