God Stories
What lies are you believing?
Perfectionism is the bully that tried to take Molly Ackerman down.
“For most of my life I had this belief, and I’d gotten used to it, where I couldn’t say I was proud of anything I did. If I did something cool, I could tell you half a dozen reasons why I had messed it up,” Molly says. “Nothing I did was ever good enough.”
Where did that come from? Much of it was the influence of a loved one who inadvertently wounded Molly's confidence again and again. But things spiraled out of control after a difficult time with a friend who was going through a painful season in her own life.
“I broke right after she left. I started gasping; I couldn’t stop. I could see pictures of things I had done that caused me shame. I struggled over and over with missing the mark, thinking I was letting everybody down or seeing how I could possibly let them down. It was constant during my waking hours. Sometimes I couldn’t even go out in public.
“We were supposed to go to dinner at someone’s house but I missed it, and I was sobbing and sobbing. I had no linear thinking. Matt was handling everything; he worked from home to keep an eye on the kids. I learned to control it in public, and then I would get alone in the car and start gasping. Sometimes it would be wrapped so tight that it was like a seizure, with me shaking.”
The Ackerman family stumbled along, barely holding it together for about a year while Molly was ill. Finally, breakthrough came in March 2022, when she was a student at Elgin Vineyard’s School of Kingdom Ministry. Watching a Brian Blount healing video at church, Molly suddenly felt a strange sensation of cool water rushing through her body. When she went home and watched more of the video, she experienced the same thing again.
She watched more healing videos, especially about deliverance, and came to believe her problem was demonic, not psychological. Molly asked some of the church leaders to pray for her, and Jesus moved powerfully.
“What lies are you believing?” the prayer team asked her. “They wanted to get rid of the lie,” Molly says. “That’s the only way to find freedom.”
“It turns out there were a lot of things that I had agreed with the enemy about that I hadn’t realized. I didn’t know demons get a foothold when we agree with lies. If Jesus is our King, then what He says is true about us is true. But if it feels natural to think less of ourselves, then we’re letting the lie rise above our King. I didn’t know how affected I was going to be by comfortably not going along with what Jesus says about me. If we start twisting the truth, then we start opening up something else.”
The prayer ministry was successful. Perfectionism and shame were ousted, and Molly began to see real change.
“Every morning for a month, up to that point, I had had sleep paralysis. I was awake but couldn’t move. I would start seizing while I was waking up. But the next morning — I didn’t have it. I still had doubts in myself, but it wasn’t over the top or causing panic.”
The Lord delivered Molly that day, but the enemy does keep trying to worm his way in again.
“This week the bully got loud. So I talked with the Lord about what I had agreed with him about. Then I talked with the enemy. I said, ‘Because I agree with the King, you don’t have any ground here!’”
“The truth will set you free," Molly says. "I really do believe that now, where before I didn’t even know what that meant.”
“For most of my life I had this belief, and I’d gotten used to it, where I couldn’t say I was proud of anything I did. If I did something cool, I could tell you half a dozen reasons why I had messed it up,” Molly says. “Nothing I did was ever good enough.”
Where did that come from? Much of it was the influence of a loved one who inadvertently wounded Molly's confidence again and again. But things spiraled out of control after a difficult time with a friend who was going through a painful season in her own life.
“I broke right after she left. I started gasping; I couldn’t stop. I could see pictures of things I had done that caused me shame. I struggled over and over with missing the mark, thinking I was letting everybody down or seeing how I could possibly let them down. It was constant during my waking hours. Sometimes I couldn’t even go out in public.
“We were supposed to go to dinner at someone’s house but I missed it, and I was sobbing and sobbing. I had no linear thinking. Matt was handling everything; he worked from home to keep an eye on the kids. I learned to control it in public, and then I would get alone in the car and start gasping. Sometimes it would be wrapped so tight that it was like a seizure, with me shaking.”
The Ackerman family stumbled along, barely holding it together for about a year while Molly was ill. Finally, breakthrough came in March 2022, when she was a student at Elgin Vineyard’s School of Kingdom Ministry. Watching a Brian Blount healing video at church, Molly suddenly felt a strange sensation of cool water rushing through her body. When she went home and watched more of the video, she experienced the same thing again.
She watched more healing videos, especially about deliverance, and came to believe her problem was demonic, not psychological. Molly asked some of the church leaders to pray for her, and Jesus moved powerfully.
“What lies are you believing?” the prayer team asked her. “They wanted to get rid of the lie,” Molly says. “That’s the only way to find freedom.”
“It turns out there were a lot of things that I had agreed with the enemy about that I hadn’t realized. I didn’t know demons get a foothold when we agree with lies. If Jesus is our King, then what He says is true about us is true. But if it feels natural to think less of ourselves, then we’re letting the lie rise above our King. I didn’t know how affected I was going to be by comfortably not going along with what Jesus says about me. If we start twisting the truth, then we start opening up something else.”
The prayer ministry was successful. Perfectionism and shame were ousted, and Molly began to see real change.
“Every morning for a month, up to that point, I had had sleep paralysis. I was awake but couldn’t move. I would start seizing while I was waking up. But the next morning — I didn’t have it. I still had doubts in myself, but it wasn’t over the top or causing panic.”
The Lord delivered Molly that day, but the enemy does keep trying to worm his way in again.
“This week the bully got loud. So I talked with the Lord about what I had agreed with him about. Then I talked with the enemy. I said, ‘Because I agree with the King, you don’t have any ground here!’”
“The truth will set you free," Molly says. "I really do believe that now, where before I didn’t even know what that meant.”
Putting shame in the past
Raised in a home where kids were made to be seen and not heard, Claire Kruse told God she would marry the first man who asked her.
“I just knew I had to get out of my parents’ house,” she says. “Leonard was so sweet and affirming and helpful,” and they married when she was 20, both unaware of the dark emotional baggage she was carrying.
“It started showing up early in our marriage, and I would call it shame,” she says. “It only got worse, and it colored every cell of me. I hated myself so much. I wanted my husband to have a better wife; I wanted my kids to have a better mom. My dad had spoken words to me that life would be so much better if I wasn’t in it, and twice I tried to take my life.
“I told Len that I felt like such a disappointment to the world.”
Claire wasn't looking forward to the Vineyard Regional Women’s Retreat she had signed up for in Duluth but went anyway. That event was a game changer. One of the speakers said, “There’s somebody in this room who feels like her name is Disappointment, and I want her to stand up.” Claire stood, along with a couple of others. The speaker went to each woman with the same message: “God’s got a new name for you today.” God’s name for Claire, she was told, is Beautiful One.
“That could not be from God,” she immediately thought, but since then she has come to believe it. Claire even shared this experience on Moody Radio when Karl Clauson asked people to call if God had spoken something to them that changed their life. She told her story on air with Karl for 4 or 5 minutes.
But then God spoke again.
“I was standing in the kitchen, and I was going to berate myself. I had always put myself down; Satan had me convinced that I should hate myself. I was going to say it again, but I heard the Lord say in my heart, strongly, I don’t want you to say that anymore.”
“Okay, I heard that,” she thought. “Did You say that or did I imagine it? It sounds like something You would say -- so I will never again say negative things about myself.”
“Boy, did that ever change my life. I can now receive words of affirmation. I can take a compliment.”
When Claire worked through the Emotionally Focused course recommended by Pastor Tom, she began to understand how the enemy was continuing to use the trauma from her childhood against her. “Satan wants to kill you, and he almost did,” she says. “Now when I’m tempted to go into self-condemnation, I see it coming. I don’t struggle with anything anymore. I don’t get mad anymore. I don’t hate myself.
“I feel so healthy and so happy. I praise the Lord for the victory.”
“I just knew I had to get out of my parents’ house,” she says. “Leonard was so sweet and affirming and helpful,” and they married when she was 20, both unaware of the dark emotional baggage she was carrying.
“It started showing up early in our marriage, and I would call it shame,” she says. “It only got worse, and it colored every cell of me. I hated myself so much. I wanted my husband to have a better wife; I wanted my kids to have a better mom. My dad had spoken words to me that life would be so much better if I wasn’t in it, and twice I tried to take my life.
“I told Len that I felt like such a disappointment to the world.”
Claire wasn't looking forward to the Vineyard Regional Women’s Retreat she had signed up for in Duluth but went anyway. That event was a game changer. One of the speakers said, “There’s somebody in this room who feels like her name is Disappointment, and I want her to stand up.” Claire stood, along with a couple of others. The speaker went to each woman with the same message: “God’s got a new name for you today.” God’s name for Claire, she was told, is Beautiful One.
“That could not be from God,” she immediately thought, but since then she has come to believe it. Claire even shared this experience on Moody Radio when Karl Clauson asked people to call if God had spoken something to them that changed their life. She told her story on air with Karl for 4 or 5 minutes.
But then God spoke again.
“I was standing in the kitchen, and I was going to berate myself. I had always put myself down; Satan had me convinced that I should hate myself. I was going to say it again, but I heard the Lord say in my heart, strongly, I don’t want you to say that anymore.”
“Okay, I heard that,” she thought. “Did You say that or did I imagine it? It sounds like something You would say -- so I will never again say negative things about myself.”
“Boy, did that ever change my life. I can now receive words of affirmation. I can take a compliment.”
When Claire worked through the Emotionally Focused course recommended by Pastor Tom, she began to understand how the enemy was continuing to use the trauma from her childhood against her. “Satan wants to kill you, and he almost did,” she says. “Now when I’m tempted to go into self-condemnation, I see it coming. I don’t struggle with anything anymore. I don’t get mad anymore. I don’t hate myself.
“I feel so healthy and so happy. I praise the Lord for the victory.”
Healing from a stroke
Claire also loves to tell what the Lord has done for Len, when he suffered a stroke as a result of a stent insertion. Things weren’t looking good, but “I was trusting the Lord,” she says. “I had complete peace, even though I didn’t know if he would live.” When Pastor Tom and Jill came to the hospital, they told the Kruses about a prayer meeting for Len. That night, Len fell asleep still feeling completely unwell, but when he woke up in the morning, he was fine. The occupational therapist said she’d never seen anyone respond so quickly from the same situation, and she cleared him to go home.