From Bondage to Freedom: A Journey Into the Light
by Gail Bedell

From Bondage to Freedom: A Journey Into the Light
By Gail Bedell

"Thanks be to God for His unspeakable gift." That phrase echoes in my head often. How could I have come so far in two years if there wasn’t Another living my life, and Who, as I added my "yes," reclaimed whole areas of my life that were "dead in trespasses and sins"? Who but Jesus Christ could restore my estranged children to me and me to them?

A little over two years ago God began a work of cleansing and restoration in my life that continues today. That’s when I was given an opportunity by God to walk out of the darkness I had been living in. I had divorced my husband of 16 years and left with him my two young children to go after an idol-an elusive dream of living "my way." My way was leaving behind family and friends to search for a "better life." In other words, I bought Satan’s lie that happiness was somewhere "out there" instead of Someone in me. And when I aligned myself with that lie, I was engulfed in the darkness of Satan’s self-for-self living.

For the next seven years I lived under the illusion that I was happy-happy living apart from my children and growing ever more distant from them, happy living in sin with a man who openly resented Jesus Christ, happy living in a fantasy that excluded intimacy with any people outside that one self-for-self relationship.

A Wake Up Call

Although I had abandoned everything but the profession of being a Christian during those years, God did not abandon me. One August day two years ago when I felt insecure, I called an old friend-the woman who had told me many years before that as a Christian I was Jesus Christ re-expressed in human form. Now she told me I had more to worry about than my finances or my relationship. She said if I continued living as I was, God might have to take me off this Earth. While doing her Bible study the night before she had been moved to tears as she read Revelation 3:1-3:

"I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. Therefore if you will not watch, I will come upon you as a thief, and you will not know that hour I will come upon you."

She said that although she didn’t realize it at the time, those verses were about ME.

I heard the concern in her voice and saw the implications of those verses. I was faced with my secret fear that one day I would wake up and be told by God that I was totally wrong to divorce Jim and leave my family. I also knew instinctively what it would mean to agree with her: I would lose all the "happiness" of the past seven years, lose Terry, and have to deal with all the fears I had been running from. I was surprised that I didn’t feel fear. And that frightened me even more than the possibility that God might take me in death. I felt dead already!

Agreeing with God and Seeking Help

I knew I had a choice-I could admit the truth or I could ignore what I was hearing and go on as usual. I asked what I should do. She quoted 1 John 1:9 and said Christ’s blood would cleanse me from ALL sin. I don’t remember exactly what I said as I prayed with her on the phone. But I agreed with God about my life and thanked Him for His forgiveness. Then I asked Dottie what I should do: this changed everything. Now I was truly frightened. She asked me who the author of fear was, and I said "Satan." She asked who I was, and I remembered something that I had forgotten for years: "I am Jesus Christ in Gail form."

I told Terry that night that I had forgotten my true identity-that I wasn’t just Gail but Jesus Christ in Gail form. He recognized that we were suddenly on different ground-as if a canyon had opened up and we were on opposite sides. When he asked what would become of "us," I told him I didn’t know. All I knew was that there was a Christian conference in Minnesota in two weeks and I was going. And I wanted him to go, too. We talked about Jesus Christ and things he already knew about Him. He even prayed to ask Jesus into his heart, but he recanted the next morning. But he did agree to go to the conference.

Things were different after that. I felt scared every moment of the day. I could not conceive of giving up my relationship with Terry-over the years I had sacrificed my family and former friendships to cling to my fantasy. But I also faced the fact that I was living in sin. I postponed any decisions until I went to the conference. I knew that big changes were coming and that I did not feel strong enough to make them. I needed the clarification and support of other Christians.

I called the name Dottie gave me to make reservations, Scott Breckenridge, and told him what had happened. He said that if I was as open at the conference as I had been with him, I would receive a lot of help. I had no idea what the conference was about. I only knew that Dottie was going and that the people involved were those I met years ago when I went to Hixton, Wisconsin, to see Norman Grubb. Although I felt shaky and tearful most of the time, I repeated Bible verses Dottie had given me and kept believing that because Christ was in me I could do whatever I needed to. All I felt I could do about my life at that point was to "hold on" until Labor Day weekend and the Zerubbabel Minnesota Conference. Somehow I knew I would get my answers there.

Exposing the Myth of "Love"

Terry dreaded going to the conference. He was going because he knew he might lose me. He went to bed early on Friday night, missing the evening session, attended the Saturday morning session, and stayed out of sight the rest of the day. Meanwhile, God lovingly showed me the enormous delusion I was in. The only person I knew at the conference, besides Dottie, was Brian Coatney. When I told him that I didn’t know how my relationship with Terry could be wrong when we loved each other so much, he asked me what love is. I responded, "God is love." Then Brian showed me the contradiction between believing my feelings and believing what God, whose name is Love, said in the Bible about sexual relationships such as mine with Terry. "Well, if what Terry and I have isn’t love, what is it?" I asked. Brian suggested, "Sexual attraction? Codependency?" Something about the latter made sense.

I was later to realize that what I had taken as a "perfect relationship" was Satan’s counterfeit-a perfect self-for-self co-dependent match-up. Terry and I each got our needs met by the other, sacrificing whatever might jeopardize the relationship. But God, who is love, is self-for-others love. In our relationship the only people who mattered were us. We ran through friendships like water and totally fed on the approval that came from each other: It would be another six months before I would face the tremendous damage to myself and those around me caused by living that kind of "love."

Sunday morning at the conference I told Terry I wanted to break off our relationship. He had sensed it coming. He drove off for the day, coming back just to take me home. I felt very afraid. I didn’t know how to move out-I had nowhere to go. I was afraid that Terry in his pain might become angry or violent. I felt I was leaving the safety of clear, supportive Christians and walking into darkness. Before I left, however, several people I talked to helped me realize that I only needed to take one step at a time and that I was now "hooked up" with Jesus Christ within and in the form of these people. I would not be alone.

The High Price of Sin

The changes that I knew were coming began to take place. The day after we returned home, Terry asked me to marry him and I declined. I told him that I had messed up in two relationships and had to get myself straightened out before I could ever consider marrying. But most importantly, he had heard the Gospel (on Saturday morning at the conference) and didn’t want Jesus Christ. He got the point-we were no longer living from the same spirit and married life would be a constant struggle between opposing forces.

I moved out of the bedroom into the living room of our mobile home. Because we were already in debt from overspending and poor money management, Terry and I lost everything. We sold most of what we owned, returned the lease car, let our home go back to the bank, and each filed bankruptcy. Within three months of that phone call with Dottie, everything of value that I had accumulated during the seven years after I left my family was gone. I had no credit and no goods of any value other than those I had from earlier years. As I think back on it now, it looked and felt a lot like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah-not much left, but thank God I escaped.

A Fierce Battle Between Soul and Spirit

The following months felt like the aftermath of a catastrophe. But it was the beginning of my "recovery" from sin. Looking back now, what I learned to do during that time, with the help of the Minneapolis group and people at the conferences I attended, was to constantly re-affirm the truth that my life was not "just Gail" but the will and power of Jesus Christ Himself living each moment expressed in Gail form. Most of the time, that truth stood in direct opposition to my feelings. After years of believing Satan’s lies that only some person or ideal situation could "complete" me, I had to affirm the truth that I was "whole and complete, lacking nothing" to reclaim the areas of my life Satan had overrun.

Most days I felt abandoned, unworthy, insecure and depressed. For a time my life looked and felt bleak: I was living alone-totally alone for the first time in my life. Although I had confessed my sins to my former church, ex-husband, and children, I did not know what part I was to have in their lives. I still had a job and a vehicle, but little else of material value and was barely making ends meet. However, I clung to the truth that I was not, nor ever had been an incomplete or fatally flawed person. I learned in the face of feelings to the contrary, to answer back with the truth-that I was wholly restored to fellowship with God, fully complete through my union with God, and therefore able to do whatever each day’s situation required. With the help of many who had walked the same path, I learned how to live one day at a time in a totally new light.

Denial Breaks- Shocked By Reality

I had just begun to face the giants in my promised land, however. Under the "searchlight" of fellowship with others who were living in God’s truth, two areas of my life appeared inconsistent with the One who is self-for-others love. People noticed that every time I spoke in the group, I went on and on about my own experiences, shifting the focus to myself, impervious to others and the issue at hand. They also noticed that even with my own daughter in attendance at our fellowship meetings, I was emotionally out-of-touch with how my actions had affected her. Although I had repented of my past sins, I totally lacked the emotional sense of genuine remorse for how my actions had affected others, particularly my daughter. Meanwhile, Vikki had confided in Scott her disgust with my self-preoccupation and insensitivity and was struggling with her own resentments against me which had built up over the years. She was also dealing with her own sin issues and needed encouragement and clarity from people she could trust.

Realizing that I was still in denial about the consequences of my years of Satan misuse, Scott and Vikki confronted me with her recollection of some of the things I had done and said to her while I was living in sin. I was totally shocked and humiliated by what I heard. Not only was it hard to believe I could have said and done such blatantly cruel things, I didn’t even remember some of the incidents! I sat in numbed silence. Vikki couldn’t have made up those details. I must have done those things; the details were too concrete. Not only had I neglected Vikki and her brother-never even wondering what their days and nights without a mother were like-I had verbally and emotionally attacked and abused them over a period of years! How could I have done those things to my own children?

I was frightened by the enormity of my participation in those acts. I thought I was a loving mother, underneath all the sin and deception. Now I could not believe in my own fundamental goodness. I was not a good person; a good person could not have done that to her children. For the first time I began to see the implications of the phrase "no independent self."

Three Weeks of Unbelief

Scott suggested that I write down all the details of the incidents Vikki revealed and try to recall all the memories I had repressed. He said that would bring me to Step 1, recognizing my powerlessness over my self-absorption. He also promised that after admitting my participation in Satan’s cruelty, incident by incident, I would finally know that I was not a bad person, but a vessel operated by either Satan (in those areas of my life where I believed his lies) or Jesus Christ (when I operated from the truth of my spirit-union with Him).

For a period of three weeks, however, I took a "softer, easier way" offered to me. When a trusted friend suggested I look first at childhood issues and that Scott had been "too hard on me," I started to buy into Satan’s lies again. Instead of taking ownership for the acts Vikki had revealed, I began doubting Scott and spreading my doubts about our fellowship-the very people who had helped me walk in truth. Taking Satan’s lie, I was again taking his view of things and stumbling around in darkness.

Finally, unable to bear the tension of not knowing what to believe, I returned by faith alone to the truth that if I was Christ in Gail form, the others were Christ coming to me. All they had asked me to do was face into the truth-do the hard thing and look at the facts of those years of misuse. That was all I was being asked by them-therefore by God-to do. Admitting I was off-base, I stepped again into light. My three weeks in unbelief had still hurt others-Satan had used me to shake Vikki’s confidence in myself, Scott, and the fellowship. But she came through that temptation, too.

After that, I began owning my part in the Satan misuse of my past. Every day I re-read what I had written the day before and wrote for a half-hour. At first I just felt numb as I wrote the details, but after a while I began to be aware of other physical and emotional stirrings that I had no name for. One day I realized what "shame" felt like and what a constant companion it had been. Then grief. Meanwhile, my memory began to return. Vikki told me about more painful incidents, not wanting to hurt me but unable to hold the memories inside.

That summer, I took my "First Step" with Tom Prewitt. With his guidance, I finally fully realized that I could not control my own seeing-could not use my own perceptions to know the truth. I did not have the capacity to recognize or live a good life. But I did have the human capacity to do two things: recognize by faith alone that the Righteous One, Jesus Christ, is living His self-for-others life out as Gail, and live one day at a time by the truth He reveals to me (by whatever means He chooses), admitting and confessing whatever Satan lies I find still operating in my life.

At first I felt totally off-balance by the truth of what it was to be a vessel and not a self-sufficient "god." But the challenges of the next year showed me beyond doubt that this truth is far more liberating than the myth that I’m a good (or bad) person. No longer trying to justify my existence with lies or good deeds, all everyday living required was for me to stay alert to the opportunities of the moment and know that as I respond, it is Christ-as-Gail living.

I continued to work 12-Steps on my behavioral addiction-self-absorption. At first I had to rely solely on the honest reactions of others to my behaviors to identify self-absorbed behaviors. As I took their view as Christ’s, I would agree with God about the behavior, confess it, and expect God to reveal what underlying lie I had temporarily believed. Often it was some feeling of inadequacy, self-doubt, or opportunity to look "good" that would serve as the temptation to see myself as "just-Gail" and thus allow Satan to act out. That, of course, meant I simply needed to replace the lie with the truth of Who really lives my life and move on.

God Restores Relationship

Little by little the self-focused talk dropped off. I became more in touch with my thoughts and feelings so that I could recognize temptation to unbelief and "bottom line" it before I believed into it. Patterns of unbelief from early childhood were revealed as I continued to walk and talk in all the truth I received.

Slowly fellowship was restored between my daughter as promised in 1 John 1:7. I was seeing and admitting the cruel acts Satan performed through me. Vikki was pressed from within and encouraged by others to be completely honest about her feelings towards me. She began working the steps on her own life and dealing with her resentments. We both learned how to talk about whatever feelings and thoughts we are having, and those talks have lead to surprising and wonderful light. Some days we laugh in relief about the clear solutions we find to problems between us because we talked about uncomfortable feelings. After so many years of hurt and mistrust, we have founded our relationship on the understanding that we are each expressions of Jesus Christ, Who is Truth and self-for-others love.

A New View of Myself

As I attended conferences, I began to realize that if Jesus Christ was living my life, His life in human form would naturally be visibly attractive. I found myself resistant to the idea of changing the way I viewed myself. I had a dozen excuses for why I looked the way I did. I confessed this to friends and took their advice on caring for my complexion and buying more stylish clothes. I found this very uncomfortable at first. But as I acted on what I knew was Christ’s desire for me, I discovered hidden pockets of rebelliousness hidden under feelings of inferiority. Satan had hidden behind excuses about not wanting to conform to others and not needing to "waste time" on my appearance. It seemed like work, at first, to start from scratch learning about makeup, color, appropriate clothing, and improving personal cleanliness. But as the results showed, I began to enjoy seeing the outward manifestation of Christ’s inner beauty reflected hack in the mirror!

Tackling Satan’s Compulsions

One day as Vikki was sharing her faith stand to improve her eating habits and lose some excess weight, I was asked about my weight problem. It didn’t take long to see that under my excuses lay a lifelong problem-compulsive overeating. At first I felt overwhelmed by the enormity of the challenge ahead: I remembered all my past failures to control my eating and knew I could no longer excuse myself from facing the truth. I recognized my complete powerlessness over compulsive eating. No longer able to ignore the issue, my only way out was to begin to affirm that I could live without eating compulsively because Another was living His perfect life as me. I had to learn step-by-step to live His healthy non-compulsive life.

As enormous as the task first seemed, it was surprisingly easy to do. I felt almost thankful to be dealing with a tangible addiction with visible effects after dealing with the more elusive aspects of self-absorption. By working the twelve steps on compulsive eating, I discovered the specific behaviors that had dominated my eating and turned them over to God, taking a strong stand not to make excuses, but to call sin by its name. Friends recommended an eating program that taught me to be responsible for what and how I ate and to totally change my thinking about nutrition and self-care.

I began to enjoy taking responsibility for eating healthy and attractively. I also checked in regularly with others walking out the same addiction. This time the outcome of faith was visible: over a period of months forty pounds of excess weight dropped off! The attractiveness I once wanted to boost my ego was finally apparent as the fruit of Another’s life being lived out in my form.

Once I began to address compulsive eating, I discovered other areas of my life that had been ruled by compulsiveness. For example, I jumped from task to task, often interrupting myself unnecessarily and feeling distracted. Every time I identified a compulsive behavior, I reminded myself who I was and that I could choose sanity over confusion. Just as the self-absorbed behaviors fell away, so did the compulsive ones. Of course, occasionally I still find myself starting to think and act out an old Satan pattern. But without spending time taking condemnation, I thank God for showing me the truth and re-affirm who I am.

Parenting Jimmy

Even as Christ was reclaiming Satan-dominated areas of my life, He was also pouring Himself out for my son. Now in his late teens, Jimmy was angry, rebellious, and self-destructive. My ex-husband, unable to stop Jimmy’s destructive behaviors, welcomed any help I would give. When it became apparent that I needed to be more involved in Jimmy’s life, I moved back to town. Miraculously, an apartment across the alley from my ex-husband’s house became available. After work each day, I went to my ex-husband’s house and waited for my son to come home from school so that he would have someone to be accountable to while his father was at work. It felt very uncomfortable to be back inside the house I had left eight years before. But I knew this was where I needed to be to be Christ to my son.

At seventeen, Jimmy was truant from school, involved in fantasy role-playing that bordered on the occult, and hanging out with amoral counter-culture dropouts. My sudden intrusion into his life after years of neglect brought to the surface Jimmy’s deep anger against me. He resented me for coming back into his life and said so. He also hated being held accountable for his behavior. I never knew what to expect when I went over to the house. Many times Jimmy would break into wild, angry outbursts that sometimes grew frighteningly close to physical abuse. I could actually see the rage take him over when he chose to vent it. Other times he was quiet, and offered me small opportunities to listen and be present for him.

Although there had always been house rules, now Jimmy’s father and I worked together to insist that he follow them. Even though he sometimes reacted violently, I told Jimmy when I disapproved of what he was doing. When he would sneak out after being grounded, we called around and showed up at his friends’ houses looking for him. This "tough love" was entirely new to him.

We learned we could not "control" Jimmy’s behavior. But we actively opposed his lying and rebellion in every way we could. As Jimmy continued to rebel, God demonstrated clearly what it meant to be under "law." He eventually was charged with truancy, and we worked with his probation officer to keep him accountable for his house arrest. When he returned to court for contempt (not following court orders), we petitioned the judge to impose strong sanctions. What we couldn’t control, God took care of in other ways. Jimmy’s sexual activity, which seemed the hardest area to address, became public when Jimmy was charged with having sex with a minor. Although those charges were dropped, God pointed a finger that Jimmy couldn’t ignore at that area of sin.

Two weeks before his eighteenth birthday, Jimmy came over to my house in a rage and overturned my furniture, broke an ashtray and swore at me. I called the police and they took him to the station. I knew he could not be allowed to get away with violence or he would get worse. They released him to his father under the condition he have no contact with me for the next two weeks. A week before his birthday, Jimmy was sent to jail for three days for continuous violations of court orders-the only juvenile in the area to receive so strict a sentence.

Jimmy’s eighteenth birthday was a heartbreaker. Because we insisted he sign a contract agreeing to abide by the house rules, Jimmy decided to move out of his father’s house. Jimmy did not see that he was walking away from God’s loving provision and into the Satan’s lie of "freedom" on the day we all could have been celebrating his entrance into adulthood. This was particularly painful for me because Jimmy’s actions so paralleled my own when I walked away from my marriage and family. And I knew how destructive that lie was.

Eventually Jimmy quit school. We saw very little of him that spring and summer. Only when Vikki came home would he come by. That time was the hardest for me because I had to continually trust that even when he was beyond my reach, Jimmy was not beyond God’s and that this was all God’s way of answering the prayer Vikki and I shared: "Whatever it takes to bring Jimmy all the way through to knowing who he is".

During that time, Jimmy snuck into his father’s house and stole his credit card. With much pressure from Vikki and me, his father pressed charges on Jimmy for theft and credit card fraud. The consequences of that came later.

Change of Heart in Jimmy

At the end of the summer, however, Jimmy had a change of heart. Like the prodigal son, he grew tired of living like a homeless person moving from friend to friend until he was asked to leave or the living conditions were too miserable to remain. His job loading mail bags eight hours a day helped him decide he wanted to graduate high school and go to college rather than spend his life doing the same task over and over.

He decided to move back home with his father and finish up his high school education. That involved going to the alternate high school, where I was one of four teachers. I could tell that those decisions felt good to Jimmy. On his first day of school, however, Jimmy was arrested for his earlier credit card theft.

What led up to the arrest was a series of "coincidences" that even Jimmy recognized as God’s hand: his father had been assured that before the DA acted on the charges, he would be contacted and could drop them. But he was never notified. Jimmy was sent a letter telling him the court date, but he never got the letter. Because he did not appear in court, a warrant was issued and Jimmy was arrested for contempt of court.

Jimmy called me at school the next day, after he was released into his father’s custody. Instead of being angry, he was very humble. He asked me to interpret the reason for such a strange coincidence and why he would be arrested on the day he was trying to change. He wanted me to give him the "spiritual perspective." I told him that God was trying to get his attention. He had begun to make choices to change the direction of his life and he had just gotten a taste where he could end up if he did not change his thinking. I told him that no one could make him go one way or the other-it was his choice-but until he wholly surrendered his life to God, he could always return to that old pattern that got him arrested.

Over the past few months, I have seen signs of a growing desire in Jimmy to be a "right" person. He is opening up much more to Vikki and she tells him the unvarnished truth. Since Jimmy and I see each other every day, there are many opportunities for me to respond to the spirit he expresses. There has still been some rebellion and its inevitable consequences. But more and more I am seeing God surround Jimmy with love and truth, confronting him with the necessity to change his believing. And Vikki and I stand together desiring that whatever is takes, Jimmy will come all the way through to discover his true identity as a re-expression of Jesus Christ.

The past two years have been a miracle. The way God could take me from the depths of slavery to sin to being a beautiful vessel of His love has proven to me beyond any doubt that it is not just me "but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20). His power. His righteousness. His life manifested in my form. Having restored me to fellowship with Himself, He is living out through me to restore others to Himself.