Navigating Anger after Trauma with Rev. Lenita Reeves | Ep 31

JemeseHost00:00

Have you ever experienced something so heinous that you didn’t talk about it? You couldn’t talk about it. It felt like, literally your voice was stolen, and if not your voice, perhaps your destiny. It felt like your destiny was stolen and maybe you’ve got this emotion of anger that you have heard people in spiritual circles tell you oh, just let it go, just forgive. What? If you don’t know how to do that? This episode is for you. You’re going to find freedom inside and you don’t want to miss it.

00:40

Welcome to a new creation podcast where we’re pointing women towards victory in Christ, one Jesus story at a time. My name is Jameis Lachelle Drury. I’m a licensed clinical social worker and Christian trauma therapist. I’m so excited that you’re here with us. Let’s dive right in to today’s episode. Okay, so I want to just welcome everybody back to the podcast. It is such an honor to introduce this woman of God to you. It is such an honor to introduce this woman of God to you. Her name is Reverend Lenita Williams. I’m sorry, lenita, let me start over Her name. Where did that come from?

Rev. Lenita ReevesGuest01:14

Her name is Reverend Lenita. But you know what’s funny is, my maiden name is Williamson.

JemeseHost01:17

Is it Okay?

Rev. Lenita ReevesGuest01:18

Yes, so that’s, interesting.

JemeseHost01:23

I know it’s so funny. So many people don’t know we’re even on my screen. That is so funny. We’re introducing the Reverend Lonita Reeves to you today. Thank you for being here. She’s an author, she’s a trained counselor, she’s a pastor and she would tell you that she’s also a rape survivor. She’s got a story to tell. She’s on a mission now to reach the nations and to communicate God’s redemptive voice. I want to welcome you. Thank you so much for being here.

Rev. Lenita ReevesGuest01:59

Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

JemeseHost02:01

I’m honored, I’m excited to see what you have to share and just your transparency about what you’ve been through. I just know that it’s going to help a lot of women. Tell us a little bit about yourself. I know that I shared a little bit of an introduction or a bio, but tell us a little bit about you.

Rev. Lenita ReevesGuest02:22

Well, I’m somebody that got used, as one of the foolish things, to confound the wisdom of the wise. When I look at my life and I look at my testimony, I’m reminded of the scripture that says not many noble, not many wise, you know, are really called to do some of the things that I’ve been privileged to do. What I’m doing now is a product of what God healed me from, what he delivered me, from what he took me from. I have the privilege to pastor, I have the privilege to counsel, you know, I have the privilege to speak into the lives of both men and women, but I have a heart for women because I I my background is is one that nobody would expect me to be doing what I’m doing.

03:07

I can remember my childhood. Really, my parents divorced when I was seven years old and I am the youngest of three siblings and I’m the darkest skin and I’m the chunky one. So I was the darkest and the biggest of three girls and I grew up in the South. So in the South, the lighter skin you had, the more beautiful you were considered to be, and so I was dealing with that. And then my parents divorced when I was seven years old and we were all three girls and I. When I look back over it, I see that all three of us dealt with that in different ways. For me, I was looking for love in all the wrong places. I felt like at the time. At the time I felt like, you know, my daddy didn’t fight for us, he didn’t want us.

03:58

Because at seven years old you don’t understand all the dynamics of divorce. You just you don’t get it. I mean, it just feels like you’ve lost something. And at seven years old you don’t know how to process loss. And a lot of times people don’t realize that the children of divorced parents, they go through grief. They don’t know how to, they may not be able to articulate it, but there is a grieving process because it’s definitely loss and grief doesn’t just have to do with someone passing away. Grief has to do with loss and sometimes the loss is traumatic and sometimes divorce can be traumatic.

04:35

And so you know that all impacted me at a very, very young age and we, you know we went through some struggles after that. You know my mother was very strong and the older I get, the more I appreciate my mother for what she did as a single parent, you know, having been married but then divorced and becoming a single parent, having to raise three girls on her own, it’s not easy and there are many things that can happen in the process of that, especially, you know, after the divorce. We were four, four girls, I’d like to say, even though my mother was a woman. We were all females, you know, and that dynamic is is really an interesting one, of having to rely on God to be the protector, to be the husband, man, uh, to be the, the person, the other person in the house, um and so, anyway, it was just uh that impacted me.

05:32

And so in high school, uh, I ended up dating a guy I never should have dated. Uh, I was at 15. Um, maybe I was 14. I was somewhere between 14 and 15 when I met him, but he was in his twenties and he would come to the high school and visit. So that tells you the kind of person that I was dealing with. But because I was struggling with, uh, you know, esteem and and body issues and not feeling as pretty as my uh, two older sisters, because he showed me some attention, I just I fell for it, hook line and sinker and ended up being date raped and wow, wow.

06:14

So it was a traumatic journey, to say the least, and one of the things that I appreciate so much about God is that he literally rescued me because I was made to go to church, we were made to go to church, but I did not receive Christ for myself until after that. And so he literally rescued me because I sat in church for years and no one was talking about what was my deepest hurt, because, you know, it was taboo to talk about raving church. That’s, you know, that’s not a Sunday morning message, at least not where I came from, at least not where I grew up. So, you know, you can. It’s I felt I found it amazing to sit in church for years and nobody be talking about what was really, really plaguing me.

07:03

And that’s why now, as a senior pastor, I’m very vocal about my testimony, because I believe that if we don’t talk about these things, we’re not transparent, then people are not going to get the healing that they need. And I also believe that if church is the place where my soul can be saved, then it ought to be the place where the broken pieces of my soul can be put back together and issues like abuse can be addressed. Now, today, there are more ministries that address it, like Tomorrow Ministries and Recovery Ministries, but when I was coming up those things were few and far between. So God literally rescued me. Nobody was talking about it and I had so much shame that it was difficult for me to open up about it and seek out help. So God I always say literally rescued me actually a package of things that will attack someone who has been abused or even molested, inappropriately touched or even severe betrayal. And he showed me that in the scriptures.

08:14

In the scriptures and that’s where the first book that I wrote, breaking the Silence, the Journey from Rape to Redemption. That’s how that book came about. It is literally the revelation that God gave me in my healing journey and in my healing daughter, and you’ll find the account of that in Genesis 34. And then, of course, the biblical account of the rape of Tamar, david’s daughter, by her half-brother, amnon. And so when you dive into those things, you can see healing. The first thing that we can see that God helped me to see in the life of Dinah, jacob’s only daughter, is that she was looking for female companionship. She didn’t go out for a hookup.

JemeseHost09:17

She didn’t get dressed inappropriately. She was going to the club.

Rev. Lenita ReevesGuest09:20

It was nothing like that it was nothing like that. Nothing like that, In fact. The scripture says she went out to see the daughters of the land. So Jacob had 12 sons and she was the only daughter. So you have to imagine that she was craving some female companionship.

JemeseHost09:39

Yeah.

Rev. Lenita ReevesGuest09:39

With 12 brothers.

JemeseHost09:40

Come on.

Rev. Lenita ReevesGuest09:41

Imagine. I mean, I know people with one or two brothers and their brothers get on their nerves. It’s like please get out of my face, oh my God. Of times there is blame attached to the victim and the blame is often misplaced. Well, if you look at Dinah, she was not to blame, she was looking for female companionship, and so that helps us a little bit when it comes to this issue of blame. It helped me to let go of blame and say well, if I hadn’t been with this guy, this wouldn’t happen to me. I mean, he had no right to violate me, whatever the situation or circumstance was. And then we also see this issue of anger in the biblical account of Dinah.

10:36

The issue of anger because Shechem, the prince of Shechem who violated her, came back to Jacob along with his father and said look, I wronged her, I want to marry her. And Jacob, having the wisdom and understanding the tradition of the day, was negotiating for that. He wanted his daughter to be married so that she could leave the stigma of having been violated and transition into being an honored wife. Now, what many people don’t know is that the Jewish tradition of that time was that if you violate a woman and you marry her, you can never put her away. You must care for her all the days of your life. That was the Jewish tradition. So Jacob understood that if this guy married her she would be set for life. That was the Jewish tradition. So Jacob understood that if this guy married her she would be set for life. He could never put her away. He would always have to provide for her and she would be treated like a princess because he was the prince of Shechem.

11:34

But her brothers held on to anger and when they agreed to be circumcised because Jacob said the only way you can, they said you know. They said to them the only way you can marry our sister, our daughter, is you must be circumcised. She cannot marry somebody who doesn’t have the sign of the covenant. So Shechem, all the men of Shechem, agreed to it. 12 sons of Jacob waited until Shechem was weak from being circumcised and attacked the city and killed the man that would have married their sister and restored her honor. So this is what anger did. It prevented her from moving on to honor. And God showed me that if I stayed in the anger that I had dealt with for years, I would never move on to honor. And so this is something that anybody who’s been assaulted, a victim of intimate partner violence or severely betrayed even betrayed in the context of a marriage relationship you know your spouse was unfaithful. You have to deal with the anger, and I’ve also found that there’s no sense in talking to me about forgiveness if I’m angry.

JemeseHost12:51

Amen, I mean, come on, it’s just not going to stick.

Rev. Lenita ReevesGuest12:53

It’s not going to stick. And the few times, you know, I said that I sat in church for years and nobody was addressing it. The few times that somebody attempted to mention it, it was from such a male-dominated perspective of just hurry up and forgive and get over it. Well, no, I don’t think so, because if I’m angry, there’s no way that forgiveness is going to really manifest. The Bible says be angry and sin not. So you have to help me get past the anger to the point where I’m not sinning anymore before I can embrace forgiveness, because unforgiveness is a sin. So if I’m supposed to be angry and sin not, then I have to deal with the anger before I can put away the sin of unforgiveness. And a lot of times in counseling we miss it, especially in Christian counseling, because we just focus on forgive, forgive, forgive, no. Help me process this anger. Help me to understand what I’m really angry about. What did I lose? What has got me so enraged? What is it, you know, that I’m so angry about? Help me to unpack it so I can know what I’m letting go and what I’m forgiving. And you see, I had to go through that process to understand that rape is to a woman what being castrated is to a man, that if you rob a man of his masculinity by castrating him, then rape robs a woman of her femininity. You see, and that is something that will make you boiling hot, angry and enraged, and you have to learn how to unpack that process, that anger, and work through it and be able to not let that anger, the emotion of anger, turn into the spirit of anger that lingers with you and manifest at the most unfortunate times and manifest at the most unfortunate times. So when we don’t help survivors unpack the anger and work through it, you see things like what we call personality begins to shift and they begin to become this other person, this sarcastic person, this angry person, this temperamental person, this person that will cut somebody down, this person who reacts.

15:13

You know, because when you can’t, when you’re violated and you you cannot defend yourself, it causes you to to, to boil, like how dare you, how could you do this to me, how could you take this from me? And I have no recourse, I can’t do anything to you. What you want to do is you want to last out and defend yourself. There are built in defense mechanisms in us. We have built in defense mechanisms. When we hear a loud noise, we run. When we hear a boom, we take shelter. If somebody swings at us, we duck. These are built-in defense mechanisms because we have an innate proclivity to defend ourselves.

16:00

So if you are violated and you can’t defend yourself, everything in you rises up in anger. And when you don’t deal with it, you see things like, for example, someone who’s been violated and hasn’t dealt with the anger. If they’re a person of color, maybe they go into a store and they feel like somebody’s following them because they’re a person of color and suspects them of stealing. Or maybe they get to the register and the cashier treats them with some kind of racism. You see them unleash in the store and they are loud. And have you ever experienced that? You know you’re in the store and it’s like what happened.

JemeseHost16:39

What is that about? It’s really going on.

Rev. Lenita ReevesGuest16:42

Yes, there is some undealt with anger, some undealt with anger, and if that resides in you for years, then you have the tendency for people to characterize you as this sort of jaded person. But the real issue is unresolved anger, and I lived that for years. I lived that for many, many years and it’s very, very dangerous. And so there’s a package, as I said. There’s the blame, there’s the anger, there’s also the shame, one of the things that Tamar, when she was violated by her half-brother, she said where can I go? Where can I hide my face for this thing that you’ve done for me? Where can I hide? So shame makes you want to hide. Right, you feel like everybody in the room knows your dirty little secret, but really and truly the only you know it. So you, you, you withdraw, you want to hide. That’s what shame does to a person. It causes you to withdraw, it causes you to want to hide. Even when you’re in, when you’re surrounded by people, you want to withdraw, you want to hide. Even when you’re surrounded by people, you want to withdraw, you want to hide. And I didn’t understand what was going on with me. But through the scriptures I gained insight. God helped me, you know, when I really looked at and unpacked and studied these two biblical accounts and the things that were happening to them.

18:04

The other thing that can impact someone who’s been violated is soul ties. In Genesis 34, when Shechem raped Dinah, the Bible says that after he violated her, his soul clave to Dinah. And that word clave is the same word for leave and cleave. In the context of marriage it literally means to stick like glue. So in the context of marriage, god uses sex to stick the two people together and the two become one flesh. But outside of the context of marriage, that same cleaving force becomes destructive because there’s no covenant, there’s no commitment. So when Shechem raped Dinah, his soul clave to her. And I understood through that scripture that when somebody is sexually assaulted there’s an attack of soul time, because what God intended to be joined together forever, it is ripped apart. Now, if you take two pieces of paper and you glue them together, two plain white pieces of paper, and you stick them together with Elmer’s glue and you try to separate them, both of them are going to be damaged.

JemeseHost19:23

Yes.

Rev. Lenita ReevesGuest19:24

No one piece of paper is going to come out unscathed, and that is what happens outside of the context of marriage. When people have intercourse and there’s no commitment and no covenant, it’s like two pieces of paper glued together that you pull apart. Both pieces of paper are affected. And so all of these things are things that God revealed and showed me through the scripture, that were plaguing, that were attacking, that I needed to deal with, that I needed to deal with, and a lot of times people don’t understand they can carry these things for years. Now, even from an occupational standpoint, we understand from the research that rape trauma can persist an average of four years, and that’s if someone gets help. That’s only if someone gets help. It can persist an average of four years. Rape trauma can persist an average of four years, and that’s if someone gets help. Now, if they don’t get help, it can persist a whole lot longer and a person can walk around really not being able to process and unpack what’s going on with them. And this is why I value trained Christian counselors.

20:42

I don’t know what your church background is, but there’s some groups of believers who don’t believe in counseling. They believe, you know, you pray, you cast out a devil or whatever. I don’t disagree with that. But at the same time, after you do those things and deal with those spiritual issues, you still need strategies to deal with yourself right. You still need to be able to process what is going on with you, and that’s where counseling can greatly help the believer. And I’m from the South, and there’s this whole thing with African-Americans. We don’t do that. We don’t get counseling where it used to be. It’s not so much prevalent now because people are changing their minds about it, but it used to be that. You know, if you were a person of color, you don’t go to counseling.

JemeseHost21:34

Right, that’s for those other people yeah, I actually even spoke with someone who, um, you know I consider young person in their 40s who just came to the awareness that mental health is a real thing. Mental health in the Black community is real. That’s how much that stigma in the African-American culture was so prevalent that we don’t do that. What do you mean? We don’t talk to people about our dirty laundry or what Grandpa Pookie and him did. We don’t talk about that. And this person is like it’s like god, um, reached them and said no, no, and they’re coming to themselves realizing wow, no, mental health is a real thing there’s physical health there’s emotional health.

22:26

Mental health is a real thing, even in the Black community and I agree with you we are coming to. The times are changing a little bit in the regard that it’s not as taboo anymore. But you know, it does still feel sometimes like we have to continue the dialogue to make it more acceptable and common and just kind of keep that moment them going, because all people need help.

Rev. Lenita ReevesGuest22:55

Come on now, we all need it and um yeah, yeah, the thing that the thing that a lot of people don’t realize is that they’re examples of of mental health issues all throughout the bible. I mean samara is one that I just said. She was dealing with shame. But even the strong people, the people we think of as patriarchs and the mighty men of the Bible, have mental health issues. Moses at one point said God, if this is how you’re going to deal with me, just kill me. He was suicidal. Moses was suicidal. He was asking God to kill him. This is a mental health issue.

23:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah, come on now, you know he was in a very bad mental state, yeah. And then Elijah, of course, when uh, uh, jezebel was after him uh, you know, he had the same, uh, mental health issue as well he was like, okay, lord, just take me out of here, just take me out of here. So the pressure of ministry is real. It’s very, very real, and we have to make sure that our mental health is as well as our spiritual health, and I appreciate that we need both, that we need both, because when you talk about psychology and psyche, it is the focus of the brain, the mind, and how that impacts our behavior and the rest of us.

24:21

But we are not just soul, we are spirit as well. Right, we are body, soul and spirit, and so we need both. We need to address the spirit and we need to address the mind, the psyche, which has to do with the soul, and we need to address the body. So I don’t think that we can go to either extreme. We can’t go to the extreme that we don’t need counseling, we just need some Jesus and we’ll be all right, we just going to pray it away. And I don’t think we can go to the other extreme, that dealing with the psyche is all that we need as well. We need all of it. We need spiritual healing, we need mental healing, we need physical health. We have to be a very balanced people, and if the church doesn’t speak about these things, then believers will go to those who don’t understand the spirit for help. Right, yeah, and to a large extent, this is what has been happening. But we need but we need to be a a balanced people yes, I agree and I think that there are.

25:28

There’s insight. There’s insight in the scriptures for both right. The scriptures are, for the believer, the basis of our lives. So there’s insight for the mental in the scriptures, there’s insight for the spiritual in the scriptures, there’s insight for the physical in the scriptures. We must be a people who grasp the counsel of God. He said the spirit of what Counsel is one of the manifestations of the Holy Spirit, according to Isaiah 60, 61. So we need to be a people who embrace that holistic counsel from the scriptures.

26:04

I was listening to something earlier today talking about healing from betrayal in marriage and about forgiving. Well, I talk about in my first book, breaking the Silence, the Journey from Rape to Redemption. That forgiveness is a process. And who can we look to for that? We can look to Joseph.

26:28

Joseph was favored by his father, had a coat of many colors. His brothers were mad. They, you know they didn’t like the fact that. No, this guy don’t have to do no work, we out here in the fields, and what does he do? Just in the house with daddy, just, you know, just pulling on his coat of in colors.

26:44

And so they conspired to kill him. And then one of the brothers spoke up and said we can’t kill him, this is our blood, so let’s sell him. So they put him in a pit and then the next day they sold him into slavery. Well, he was 17 years old when that happened. He didn’t see his brothers again for 13 years, and we know that because the scripture tells us how old he was when he began to rule in Egypt. So at least 13 years had passed, uh, from the time that he last saw them when they showed up in Egypt looking for food because of the famine.

27:19

And what did Joseph do? He stopped it to them. He said y’all spies, y’all didn’t come here looking for food. Y’all spies, y’all ain’t getting nothing from up and over here. And then the one who wanted to kill him, he said put him in jail, the rest of y’all. If y’all really not spies, go get the other brother, but this one he’s spending the night in jail. He’s going to stay in jail till y’all get back. He was hot, he was still angry. He had not yet forgiven them, and we know that because of what he did and the fact that the scripture says that he spoke very harshly to them. So Joseph was still processing that anger.

JemeseHost28:02

And you know what you bring up. It reminds me of how, oh man, the with a lot of women who will say I can’t believe that all this is coming up, because something has triggered them and it’s been many years. But it’s like all those same emotions come back up again and it’s, it’s a surprise. And so even in this testament and this account in the bible of joseph, it’s such a reminder of our very human experience. Those emotions, they have to go somewhere.

28:30

You can’t just, you know a lot of people say, well, time heals all wounds. No, it doesn’t. You have to deal with the emotion. You can’t just stuff it and expect that the passage of time is going to do for you what the touch of jesus, you know, hit you. You surrendering it to Jesus, that’s one thing. I’m actually going to pull up these emotions, I’m going to surrender it to you, lord, and I’m going to trust you to help me through the process of this anger, in all of this. But no, people say, well, I forgive, and they move on. Oh, I had never thought about it in that way, but absolutely all of those feelings were still there with Joseph. He said no, you’re going to stay right here in jail. Go get that other brother of mine.

Rev. Lenita ReevesGuest29:18

Exactly, he was hot, he was still angry, and this is this is the danger of trying to push people to forgiveness when they haven’t dealt with the anger yet, when they haven’t dealt with the anger yet. We have to deal with the anger for the forgiveness to stick, because part of the role of the Holy Spirit is to convince us of sin. And when you are angry, it is difficult for you to be convinced that you need to really that truly be convinced that you need to forgive someone, because when you are angry, you are still in that mode of justifying your anger. You’re not ready to forgive. You’re still in vengeance mode. You’re still in I can’t believe you did this to me mode. You’re still in where is the justice in this? I mean, you’re still in a different mode altogether. You’re not in the phase to forgive, and so we have to help people unpack their anger.

30:12

And the turnaround for Joseph is when he came to a conclusion and he was convinced. You see, the Holy Spirit convinces and you’re not convicted of sin until you’re convinced that you are sinning. And most people who are angry are not convinced that they’re sinning. Most people who are angry feel justified in their anger until the Holy Spirit convinces them that they need to let it go. And the turnaround point for Joseph was he was convinced that you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, to save many. That’s when he actually forgave his brothers and embraced it and wept. The scripture says he wept and embraced them. That’s when he actually forgave his brothers and embraced it and wept. The scripture says he wept and embraced them. That was the turning point for him when he could see God’s hand in his suffering and God’s hand and what his brothers did to him and violated. When he could see God’s hand in it, that’s when he was convinced that he could not hold on to the anger any longer powerful. That was the turning point. Yeah, so we have to be able to help people unpack the anger and we have to help survivors realize that god is not to blame.

31:21

It is the. It is the evil, demonically influenced will of your perpetrator. It is not god. And that is how the account of tamar helped me. If you read the account of tamar, it says that Amnon was so vexed he couldn’t eat. He grew lean. He was in a spiritual or evil spiritual state of obsession. He was obsessed with her. And that kind of influence on someone to bring them to the point of obsession is what drives someone to violate somebody. It’s an obsession, it’s an obsessive desire for self-grat them, and so it is not God and a lot of times, people who go through sexual assault.

32:21

The big question is why did God let this happen to me? It wasn’t God, it was the enemy working through that person’s will for self-gratitude and power will for self-gratitude and power and so we can’t blame God. I mean, do we blame God when other things we can’t blame him? So that is something that we have to work through. And so Joseph got to the point where he understood I can’t be mad with God for letting this happen to me.

32:53

You meant it for evil. God didn’t mean it for evil. You guys meant it for evil, not God. So he was able to separate the two things. But a lot of times, until we are able to separate the two things, we remain in anger Anger with either the perpetrator or anger with God. And a lot of times people don’t understand that it’s okay for them to admit that they’re angry with God and they have to process that, they have to deal with it until they can come to the point of separating the two things to understand that God didn’t mean this for evil. It was the evil influence or demonically influenced will of the person, of the perpetrator, and their desire for self-gratification and power. But until you can separate those two things, there will still be some underlying anger, even if you say, oh, I forgave them.

JemeseHost33:43

Yeah, because it’s more than just words. Right, I think we want to quickly put our words on it and say you want to speak life? And say because we, we know, logically, we know even by the word of god, that forgiveness is what we’re told to do. It’s the command he tells us we are to forgive and so we, wanting to be righteous in the lord, we want, we, we want to forgive. But I think a lot of times what that is?

34:10

It can be almost it’s kind of a funny way to say it but it can be almost like weaponized, the enemy will pervert that or even our own will will twist that up to just okay, well, I forgive, I forgive, but you’re really just, you’re really just stuffing it some more so that it can pop up again in six months or when you’re in that new relationship or you know. My question for you would be and and and the work that you’ve done with, with other other people and even in yourself. How do you get to the point where you can separate it, like you were discussing? How does a person actually get there where you can actually separate it and say, okay, that was not God, that was that wicked act, or even have the spiritual eyes to say I know, that was the devil, that was the devil, but this was not God. You know, how do you get there when you’re in the thick of that heavy emotion, how do you get there?

35:14

when you’re in the thick of that heavy emotion.

Rev. Lenita ReevesGuest35:15

Well, one of the things that I would say is that for me personally, it was not until I initiated I wouldn’t say initiated, but it wasn’t until I really started my formation and began to grow in God in my relationship with him, that I could separate those two things. So what usually happens is the enemy wants you to run away from God when you should be running to him. And fortunately, god was long suffering with me and very, very patient with me, and as I began to grow in my relationship and fellowship with him, he began to work some of those things out of me and he began to help me to see that I didn’t have to put pressure on myself, that forgiveness was a process. And the same way we go from faith to faith to glory to glory, we go from one level of forgiveness to another level of forgiveness. It’s not instant. It’s not instant. You know, we keep on confessing forgiveness, we keep on having a commitment to forgiveness, but what we have to do to help people is to remove the pressure for that to happen overnight. And that’s what God did for me. He removed the pressure for that when he showed me Joseph, and he also showed me that Joseph could not come to the place of separating that until he entered a certain level of his destiny. You see, he had to be in the palace to be able to do that, because his place in the palace helped him to see that this is where God intended me to be.

36:51

Sometimes, trauma in life is the stepping stone to take us to the palace, but it’s difficult for us to comprehend that in our minds, his ways are higher than our ways and his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. And so when I began to get to a certain level in my destiny, then I could understand that, oh, the enemy was trying to silence my voice. It’s not that I did anything wrong, it’s not that God was doing it. The enemy was trying to keep me silent in shame, in rejection, because God has called me to be a great voice. And until you get to a certain level in your destiny, you won’t be able to separate those two things.

37:33

For some people, they have an inkling. They have this inkling that they’re destined for something great, that there’s something greater on the inside of them, but because they are wrestling with shame, wrestling with rejection, they never embrace it fully. And this is what the enemy actually wants to accomplish by violating someone or by getting someone crippled, through being molested, fondled, raped or severe betrayal, divorce. You know all of those things the enemy. What he wants to do is to take a foothold in that and cripple you from embracing who God says that you are and the assignment that God has for your life.

38:11

And so, as I begin to see more and more inklings of my destiny, I was able to separate those things more and more and understand that that definitely wasn’t God, because God has called me to be a voice. And then, further down the timeline, I began to see that God could take that thing and turn it into a platform to heal others. It is only God who can take your pain and turn it into a platform to help others and heal others. God never puts more on us than we can bear if we can cling to him. But you see what the enemy tries to lock us down. And I say you know in that first book that the enemy puts the greatest effort into silencing the greatest voices. So if he has targeted someone to be attacked, to be assaulted, nine times out of 10, they are called to be a great voice.

39:09

But it’s difficult to separate that until, as I said, said you get to a certain point in your destiny yeah so what we have to do as counselors and pastors and and coaches, is to help people, uh to to move along and to identify the greatness in them, so that they understand that that is actually what the enemy is after. He’s after the greatness in you, and that’s what helped me to separate the two, because I was able to eventually, along the way, point to the things that God had put in me to be a great voice.

JemeseHost39:46

Yes, praise God. And it’s almost like knowing that you can look back at your past and say, oh, and it’s almost like, I think, when we approach it, just like you shared, it’s almost like it takes the power away from because, going all the way back to the beginning of your story, when you said the shame was you were, you were young and that shame was already trying to creep and that rejection was at the door knocking. You know, you can see the, you can see the plan and the purpose way back then you know it started when you were too small to even understand any of this.

40:23

That’s when it started, but the lord, just like joseph, the lord meant it for good.

40:31

That’s right the lord took that thing and he turned it for good, and that is just so powerful. It makes you want to shout, it makes you want to. You know Hallelujah. Yes, it does, because there’s just no power. And what I’m essentially hearing you say also is you have to put your focus on the right place. We’re not acting like it didn’t happen, we’re not denying it, we’re not shoving it under the rug, but we are locking eyes right on Jesus. He said don’t look to the right or to the left. You put your focus back on him. You have to spend time with him to know who he really is, to know his character, to know his nature, and when you do that, it helps you to take your eyes off from these evils.

Rev. Lenita ReevesGuest41:25

Yes.

JemeseHost41:26

And put them right on the Lord, who is love, who is good, and you know, it’s just so powerful yeah, yeah, yeah, but you, and it is so true.

Rev. Lenita ReevesGuest41:38

I will also say at at 20, I couldn’t see it. I mean, at 20 years old, I couldn’t see it. It took some time, it did. It took some time. But if you think about it, what? What happened, even to Jesus?

41:52

The Bible says that Herod was troubled over a little baby boy. Why? Because he saw the greatness. The Bible says that the wise men, they saw his star. You see, and sometimes there are things that the enemy can see about us that we can’t see about ourselves. There’s sometimes greatness in us that the enemy can see about us that we can’t see about ourselves. There’s sometimes greatness in us that the enemy sees and we don’t see it. So, at a baby, a whole king. Now Herod is king of a whole kingdom, but he’s intimidated by a little baby boy to the extent that he wants to kill all the boys under two years old. What intimidates a king to do that?

42:34

It is greatness, it is the God-given greatness. I’m not saying that in any prideful way, but God endows us with greatness, he crowns us with glory and honor. The scripture says it. And so, even for Jesus, he was targeted because of his future greatness and the potential that was on the inside of him. So I want women to know women that are listening that if you’ve gone through something that has sought or tried to cripple you, to cripple your confidence, to make you ashamed, to make you withdraw, to make you hide, don’t give in to it. There is greatness on the inside of you. God has placed in each of us his own piece of his own multifaceted grace, and you’ve been endowed with a piece of his multifaceted grace and that means that there’s greatness on the inside of you.

43:25

Whatever is trying to make you feel like you need to hide, like you can’t show your face, like you can’t shine, like you can’t be all that you’re called to be, it is not from God and you can overcome it. You can overcome it. The enemy meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, to help you to see that there’s something greater in you. You can rise above it. You can be healed. If God did it for me, he can do it for you. It’s a process. I’m not saying it’s going to be a cakewalk. It’s going to be easy, but it can be done. We are more than conquerors. There is an overcomer in you. There is a conqueror in you.

JemeseHost44:04

Glory to God. Thank you so much. First of all, I want to say thank you for your transparency. This is just so powerful. As we close out, would you pray for our listeners, however the Lord leads you, and then we’ll share where listeners can find you if they want to connect.

Rev. Lenita ReevesGuest44:21

Amen, father, we thank you so much. You are hallowed, you are holy, you are God, you are the King of all kings, ancient of days. We come to you in the name of Jesus. We pray for the listening audience today. The Father that you, oh God, you would make the difference. We thank you, father, that you are God that heals. You said you are the God that healeth thee, and so I pray for healing in the lives of every listener in the name of Jesus.

44:49

Healing from emotional wounds, healing from spiritual wounds, healing from blame, from shame, from rejection, from soul ties, from anything that wants to keep them in hiding and keep them, father, from being all that you have called them to be. We speak to that thing right now and we say let it be uprooted. In the name of Jesus, we speak into the lives of the listeners that we speak to that greatness, we speak to the destiny, we speak to the assignment, the plan and the purpose that you have for them and we declare let it come forth. In the name of Jesus. We thank you, lord, that you are God that binds up the wounds of the brokenhearted.

45:29

And right now, in the name of Jesus, we release that healing power, that balm of Gilead to bind up the wounds of any brokenhearted person that is listening, anybody that’s been betrayed, assaulted, violated. In the name of Jesus, thank you, lord. We release that healing now and we thank you, father, that there shall be testimonies. We thank you, lord, that they are being empowered now to get up, to try again, to seek out the help that they need and to become all that you have called them to be. We command destiny to awaken. We command purpose to awaken. We say rise from the ashes and run and be everything that God has called you to be. In the mighty name of Jesus, we agree and say amen.

JemeseHost46:15

Amen, amen, amen. Thank you so much. How can our listeners find you online and connect with you if they want to check out more of your books? Tell us where we could find that.

Rev. Lenita ReevesGuest46:28

Well, the fastest way is just to go to the website lenitarevesorg L-E-N-I-T-A-R-E-E-V-E-SO-R-G. That’s the fastest way. It’s my website and then all the social media handles are at Pastor Lenita. That’s all the social medias YouTube, facebook, instagram, tiktok is at Pastor Lenita.

JemeseHost46:51

Okay, and I will have all of those links in the show notes or in the description for this episode. This was just so awesome thank you so much.

Rev. Lenita ReevesGuest47:01

Yes, thank you thank you.

JemeseHost47:03

That’s a wrap for another episode. As always, I appreciate you so much for tuning in week after week. If you have a testimony for jesus that you know the world needs to hear, reach out to me at anewcreationpodcastcom or, better yet, go and find me on my socials. I’m on pretty much all social media platforms at Jameice Lachelle. That’s the best way to connect with me. All that information is in the show notes. I will see you in the next episode. May God bless you and keep you until we meet again.

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