A Testimony From a Family Scapegoat:
How Abuse Blinds Us From Hearing Truth
A little over a month ago, I had a virtual meeting with Kevin Beasley and some folks on his team. I believe he saw in my posts all the ways I was being attacked even though I was desperately trying to break free from them. My pain and suffering was even being silenced in the church, over and over again. The place meant for refuge for the brokenhearted was the very place I felt I was being shunned from for being honest. I’m still unsure if it was true or my perception, or actual spiritual attacks trying to prevent me from being free from bondage.
Anyway, we walked through a list of different spirits that might have rights, and at the end we each shared if one “pinged true” for us that might apply to my story. When they read through the list and got to “deaf and dumb,” I actually had to ask for it to be repeated. Even then, I didn’t hear or understand what was said, so we moved on (kinda funny and ironic later on).
At the end, we all agreed on the same spirits connected to my story—except they all agreed on “deaf and dumb.” I didn’t take it as me being dumb, because I trusted these people were genuinely trying to help me. But I was extremely confused. Something in me felt too silenced to ask questions, so I didn’t (hello mute part!). I just couldn’t understand how they all agreed on something I didn’t even comprehend. However, following that meeting, they all continued to pray over me and reach out to me.
Fast forward to this week— I suddenly had it pressed on my heart to look deeper into this “deaf and dumb” spirit. I opened my Bible to Mark 9:14–25 and read about the boy with a mute and deaf spirit. The disciples couldn’t cast it out, and when they asked Jesus why, He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.”
As I studied and listened to a podcast, it hit me! The chronic abuse and lies spoken over me my entire life had actually made me deaf and dumb to hearing truth. Every time I was gaslit, told I was “too much,” or labeled as mentally ill for reacting to sin and abuse, I was pushed further away from the truth of God’s goodness. And if I tried to ask questions or gently show the hypocrisy, I was silenced. I was conditioned by abuse to be deaf to truth and silenced to speaking it. It wasn’t that I was willfully blind—it was the enemy. I hadn’t ever been armed with the Word of God, so I took on the false identity of the family scapegoat. I didn’t know who I was in Christ, or even that such an identity was possible.
And then, just a few minutes after reading that passage and listening to the teaching, Kevin messaged me out of the blue saying he had prayed for me that morning.
That is no coincidence. It is evidence that prayer works, that the Word of God is alive, and that Jesus still sets the captives free.
And now I pray not only for those who have been abused and silenced by lies, but also for the abusers…for many of them have also been tormented and deceived by this same spirit. May the Lord break every chain, heal every wound, and reveal the truth of Jesus Christ to both the wounded and the wounding, so that His redemption and freedom may cover all.
Anyway, we walked through a list of different spirits that might have rights, and at the end we each shared if one “pinged true” for us that might apply to my story. When they read through the list and got to “deaf and dumb,” I actually had to ask for it to be repeated. Even then, I didn’t hear or understand what was said, so we moved on (kinda funny and ironic later on).
At the end, we all agreed on the same spirits connected to my story—except they all agreed on “deaf and dumb.” I didn’t take it as me being dumb, because I trusted these people were genuinely trying to help me. But I was extremely confused. Something in me felt too silenced to ask questions, so I didn’t (hello mute part!). I just couldn’t understand how they all agreed on something I didn’t even comprehend. However, following that meeting, they all continued to pray over me and reach out to me.
Fast forward to this week— I suddenly had it pressed on my heart to look deeper into this “deaf and dumb” spirit. I opened my Bible to Mark 9:14–25 and read about the boy with a mute and deaf spirit. The disciples couldn’t cast it out, and when they asked Jesus why, He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.”
As I studied and listened to a podcast, it hit me! The chronic abuse and lies spoken over me my entire life had actually made me deaf and dumb to hearing truth. Every time I was gaslit, told I was “too much,” or labeled as mentally ill for reacting to sin and abuse, I was pushed further away from the truth of God’s goodness. And if I tried to ask questions or gently show the hypocrisy, I was silenced. I was conditioned by abuse to be deaf to truth and silenced to speaking it. It wasn’t that I was willfully blind—it was the enemy. I hadn’t ever been armed with the Word of God, so I took on the false identity of the family scapegoat. I didn’t know who I was in Christ, or even that such an identity was possible.
And then, just a few minutes after reading that passage and listening to the teaching, Kevin messaged me out of the blue saying he had prayed for me that morning.
That is no coincidence. It is evidence that prayer works, that the Word of God is alive, and that Jesus still sets the captives free.
And now I pray not only for those who have been abused and silenced by lies, but also for the abusers…for many of them have also been tormented and deceived by this same spirit. May the Lord break every chain, heal every wound, and reveal the truth of Jesus Christ to both the wounded and the wounding, so that His redemption and freedom may cover all.