"True Self" Commentary

Discovering My True Self

by Carolyn

I came to Generational Crossroads by divine appointment. In the spring of 2003, I ran into my friends Stan and Millie Wong. They told me about a study they were going through. I had never heard Stan as animated about anything as he was that evening. Millie was on her sixth round of the study. She knew it was her ministry and so had become the head coach for her church. I saw the change in Stan. I wanted that, too.

The ministry was Generational Crossroads. Problem was, the next session didn't start soon enough for me. I thought I might perish first.

Since June 2000, my husband and I had gone through some really tough stuff—large and multiple losses, the life-threatening illness of one of our grandchildren, responsibilities for two elderly parents, and deaths in the family.

In June 2002, we moved back to Fresno, Calif. That move, too, was fraught with unexpected challenges and I thought we would never recover. I gave myself a month to adjust but some days I could hardly function or even get dressed.

One day I went to a women's conference, but as I sat there I felt detached. The other women all seemed to be enjoying the conference, but I couldn't concentrate. I felt guilty, as though I were somehow at fault. I did something I had never done: I gave up trying and simply walked out. I remember thinking somehow I would have to pull myself up by my “bootstraps.” Truth was, I was struggling with depression but I didn't recognize it.

My walk with the Lord was floundering. I had very little energy. Numbness and dread filled my days. My doctor ordered me to take some medication. Taking the pills was disastrous; I felt even worse. When I called his office they simply prescribed something else; but I knew I didn’t want to go down that road and so I stopped the pills.

That was my condition when I started GC—I felt like I was dying. Yet, as I worked through the lessons something started to change: I was being ministered to. One day I realized that my health had improved.

In GC, I learned that beginning in my childhood home I had accepted false beliefs to keep from hurting. Now, in this stage of my life I was functioning from those self-protective, false beliefs. I believed I needed to try harder. The truth is that for all my trying life was just getting worse.

My first moment of relief came at group when Gail Levin, GC’s executive director, said she saw me as in quicksand. The quicksand represented my issues. If I kept struggling I would just sink deeper. I needed to stop struggling so Jesus could lift me out. Armed with that breakthrough, another "aha!" moment came in the fifth lesson as Pastor Roger Halvorson identified fear as a stronghold during what GC calls “The Father’s Blessing.”

Another truth: I did not recognize fear in my life, just as I did not recognize depression. I acknowledged the physical symptoms but not the emotional responses. Instead, I believed there was something wrong with me because food supplements, special diets, medical treatment, hormone replacement therapy; all that stuff that I hoped would bring me some energy and vitality wasn't working—or worked for a little while and then stopped.

When Pastor Roger identified fear it was like an awakening—a prompting. What began as a breakthrough initiated a process that became the first thing in many years that has given me long-term relief. First came the awareness that fear had become a stronghold, and that I needed to tear it down. As I identified fear as my emotional response to difficulties, I began to mentally process more freely. Soon, I became aware that I was feeling much better physically.

The GC study prompted what Romans 12:2 identifies as "renewing our minds." I believe that's essentially what makes GC so effective and valuable: It works on our thoughts as well as our emotions. As our minds change we get set free to recognize who we really are.

The questions in the study made me think about my feelings. I realized that my feelings were out of whack. I always discounted them. Long ago, I had realized that my feelings were lying to me and I didn’t want to live by them. But instead of dealing with them, I stuffed so much that I became zombie-like. I thought that Christians shouldn’t have those kinds of feelings, so I denied them.

It was those stopped-up feelings (Millie, now my head coach, calls them emotional constipation) that were causing me all kinds of physical and emotional ailments. So through GC, I finally found a key to the restoration of my health—start honestly processing my feelings!

If I wanted to serve God, what I was learning in GC was critical. This study was not only about my health; it was teaching me to discover my identity in Christ. GC encourages us to connect to other Christian resources. In the devotional book Forty Days of Purpose, I read that insecure people “fear exposure of their weaknesses.” As a result, they “hide beneath layers of protective pride and pretensions.” The greater our insecurity the more we need approval. I immediately realized that what I was reading described me! Like a bolt of lightning, I realized that in GC I was learning how to recognize and throw off my many layers of self-protection—how to be the “me” that God intended.

After just one session I had decidedly improved health, more vigor, and clearer thinking. While life still presents many challenges, I'm not falling apart—I'm learning to fall into Jesus. I am truly excited about how God's going to use me.

I recommend this study for anyone of any age who wants to be set free—from fears, perfectionism, anger issues, destructive habit patterns, denial, addictions, enabling behaviors—those self-protective patterns that hinder us from being what God created us for. We are never too old for God to use, as he continuously restores us.

As a mother of four grown children, and grandmother of eleven, my heart's desire is that my family will experience a new, freed-up me. My legacy to them will be to live in such a way that they will want to shed their own areas of self-protection (generational sins—yes, I've taught them too), so they can become all they were created to be. They will in turn pass that on to their families and truly serve God.

So, when does Generational Crossroads start up again? I'm raring to go!†

I was learning how to recognize and throw off my many layers of self-protection—how to be the “me” that God intended.

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