Destination: Heart Freedom

by Ruthie Szenasi

Several years ago, not long after the birth of one of my children, I became concerned about blood I was seeing when I went to the bathroom. Even though it was embarrassing to do so, I mentioned it to my OBGYN during a follow-up visit. He seemed mostly unconcerned about the symptoms I described, but upon looking at my family history, replete with colon cancer, colon polyps, etc. he thought he’d do the wise thing and refer me to a gastroenterologist. At that visit, that doctor also seemed unconcerned with the symptoms that prompted my question. He assured me that the bleeding was very likely a result of childbirth and would eventually take care of itself. But because of my family history he recommended we go ahead and do a colonoscopy to get a baseline on me.

During that “baseline” colonoscopy, he found a polyp that he later told me he would have never believed he’d find in a 32-year-old woman. He told me that the symptoms I came asking about – the bleeding – had nothing to do with the silent killer growing in my colon. Had I ignored these symptoms, however, and just followed the recommendation of the American Cancer Society and started with a colonoscopy screening at age 50, I would probably have had full-blown colon cancer.

“You were smart to come,” he told me.

“What do I do now?” I asked, shocked at this news.

“Come back in one year for another colonoscopy. And expect this to be a regular thing for you.”

While I did not like the idea of regular colonoscopies, the alternative makes it a no-brainer. I thanked him for the phone call and dropped to my knees in gratitude for God’s sovereign hand, guiding me to ask my doctor about what turned out to be harmless symptoms, and for giving wisdom to two separate doctors in exercising an abundance of caution.

I must admit, I have not always been so forthcoming as I have seen spiritual bad health show up. When I have seen patterns of anger, bitterness, control or self-righteousness show up in my life, I honestly have often preferred to stay ignorant about the roots of those symptoms. Poking around too much might uncover more than I felt equipped to deal with. On my better days, I’d confess my known sin to the Father, thank Him for His grace, and vow to turn from my sin. But the thought of rooting through some of these behaviors to consider the root of them was more than I was comfortable with.

Until about 5 years ago, I thought it was working for me. I did the religious thing pretty well, honestly.  I have always been actively involved in ministries, in leadership since high school and in campus ministries in college, leading Bible Studies and actively discipling women. I’ve also been a Missional Community Group leader at Summit Crossing Church and previous churches before we moved here. I had a head FULL of knowledge about God, the gospel, and my role in spreading it. Chances are no one ever suspected there was brokenness inside my heart that allowed the enemy to continue stealing joy from me,  killing true faith and destroying relationships, including my relationship with God.

Serious marital strife led my sister, Rhonda, to seek out a counselor who was instrumental in a true transformation in her life. This counselor taught my sister who she REALLY was – a beloved daughter of God. Only she was able to take the identity message Rhonda had heard and known in her head most of her life and translate it to her HEART. Now she no longer just “believed” it, she KNEW IT. In the deepest parts of who she was. This counselor used something called inner healing prayer to show Rhonda how to invite Jesus into the hurting places in her heart and watch Him do what He said He came to do – bind up the broken-hearted and proclaim freedom for the captives. This approach included times of prayer with her, where they would together ask Jesus to speak to what was going on when Rhonda was triggered with negative thoughts, feelings or behaviors. And then? They would LISTEN. Believing He wants to speak to us more than we want Him to speak, and He wants connection with us more than we want it with Him, they would sit and wait in anticipation of hearing from Him. Through pictures and impressions that played out on the screen of her mind when deep in prayer, He would INDEED speak…and say things no counselor had ever had the insight to say.

From my religious and doctrinal high horse, this approach looked a little weird to me. I will admit, I was a big ol’ skeptic. It looked too much like something New Age-y for me to be comfortable with it for a while. I wasn’t completely sure I believed God still spoke personally to people. Didn’t that end when the Bible was canonized? If He had something to say, wouldn’t it be in His written word, and couldn’t I trust that if spent enough time mining for silver and gold there, that I would find the answers I sought?

Frankly, this worked for me. For quite a while. Until 2012, when the bottom dropped out of my life. Happily married with 3 healthy boys, I was somehow plunged into the depths of despair. For six months, I was thrown about in a torrential storm of depression and anxiety that I had no category for. I was more educated than the average person about depression and anxiety, having come from a family that dealt with it on many levels. But my knowledge of it did nothing to protect me from it. Nor did my faith as I had known it up to that point.

I cried out to God with everything I had. I pulled out everything I’d ever learned on spiritual warfare and gave it all I had. I felt like I was in the midst of a storm on a sea, in the black of midnight, being thrown around by the waves, gasping for air anytime a wave tossed me up, but having nothing to hold on to and no reference for where I was and what was causing what was happening to me. With no idea how long it was going to last and what would make it stop, I became so desperate. There were many days I thought I might need to be hospitalized. I feared what it was doing to my children, and what it would do to them if I was put in the hospital.

I read the Bible. I wrote scriptures out on note cards. I filled my home with praise and worship. I asked people to pray for me. Through it all, I felt utterly and completely abandoned by God. I realized that the sense that He was there was something I had always just taken for granted. In this season, there was not the least sense that He was with me. I felt forsaken. For the first time in my life.

After six months of that hell, the depression lifted. I started to feel more like myself. I begged God to never let it happen again. I actually told Him I would rather have cancer than ever have to live through that again.

Within a month, my sister, who was also my closest friend, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer at 42 years old. She had 4 kids, ages 9, 8, 6 and 4. Many of you followed her journey from Fall of 2012 through April of 2014, from diagnosis to death. But even those who followed every post and every update on her condition did not have the privilege to see what I saw, walking through treatments, acute illness, hospital stays and hospice with her. It was like nothing I had ever seen. The faith she found through learning her true identity and getting her heart healed by Jesus sustained her and proved to be the real deal through the most intense storm I had ever seen with my own eyes.

When I watched my beautiful sister waste away from this horrific disease, I saw the spirit within her continue to be renewed day after day. At 5’11” and less than 80 pounds, she never wavered. She would say to me, “Ruthie, you don’t have to agree with me. This healing and restoration for your heart that I’m inviting you to explore – you don’t have to say yes to me. But will you say yes to Jesus?” Ya’ll? What do you say to THAT?! I knew God was stirring my heart and offering me an invitation to trust Him in doing a “colonoscopy” on my heart!

I did say yes to Jesus. And I keep saying yes every day. Because guess what? He continues to invite me to open more and more of my heart to Him. That verse we probably all know from Revelation about Him standing at the door and knocking? Yeah, that was written to Christians. Even now, some of you are recognizing the knock. You know He is inviting you to do something about that pain you can’t quite define. That tendency you have to jump to conclusions and end up in a fight with your spouse again and again– you are sensing that there is more behind that than you have wanted to admit. The unexplained pain in your heart that seems to haunt you, the habitual sins you’ve tried to overcome so many times with little success, the times you beat yourself up for not “believing the gospel…” It’s time to start preaching the gospel to the parts of our hearts that haven’t believed it. The broken, hurting parts that fear the risk of mentioning anything to the doctor because what will he uncover??

So you’ll understand a little better what I mean when I say Jesus will speak, often in pictures or scenarios played out on the screen of our minds, when we ask Him to.   I’d like to share how He answered my question “Where were You?” during those horrific months of depression and anxiety in 2012. He reminded me of what seemed like a completely random scenario from my childhood. The scene flashed in my mind. I was in my bedroom playing, and I saw where the sun was shining through the window and making a square of light on the carpet. Then it suddenly disappeared. As I was wondering what had happened to it, it came back again. Then disappeared. As a child, I remembered thinking “What happened to the sun? Where did it go?”

As an adult, I was able to interpret what was happening. Clouds were moving across the sky and would move in front of the sun and then blow past it. Without words, I KNEW what He was saying. He was speaking in the language of the heart. If I could put it into English, it would have been something like this: “Ruthie, baby girl. I have always been with you. I have never taken one step away from you. I watch you sleep at night. I sing over you. But just like in your bedroom so long ago, when the sun seemed to have left, the truth is that IT NEVER MOVED. But a cloud had come in and masked YOUR EXPERIENCE OF IT. That’s what depression does, sweet girl. I hate it. It’s part of the broken world you live in. But don’t let the deceiver take advantage of that cloud by lying to you and leading you to believe I had abandoned you. I couldn’t do that. Ever. My word is true when it says I will never leave you nor forsake you. I really am with you always. There really is no place you can go to escape my presence.”

Y’all? I had known all the scriptures for years. My problem was not a doctrinal one. But head knowledge fell woefully short in those days. When Jesus REVEALED this truth TO MY HEART, it MEANT SOMETHING. It spoke to me in the broken places where language doesn’t quite matter. It healed those places. And it restored me. And it is continuing to do so.

The gospel reveals. It heals. AND IT RESTORES.   Jesus died to pay for your sins. He rose again so that you would no longer have to be enslaved to sin. And He ascended to the right hand of the Father and SEATED YOU THERE WITH HIMSELF so that you could have authority over the enemy who is seeking to destroy you. We REALLY CAN walk in newness of life.  Are you willing to say “yes” to what He wants to do to restore your heart?

About the Author~

Ruthanne Szenasi is a stranger in a strange land. Born and raised in Tennessee, she moved to Alabama 11 years ago and fell in love with the Rocket City. And although the Lord is moving her family to Texas next summer, she wonders if she will always call Huntsville home. She enjoys her roles as wife to Scott, mommy to three boys: Lincoln (12), Carter (9) and Reagan (5) and a professional sign language interpreter. But mostly, she loves growing into her identity as a dearly loved daughter of God.

Tags: depression, Freedom, grace, healing, heart freedom, jesus, Our City On A Hill, Ruthie Szenasi, testimony