Strongholds. Vanessa Davis Griggs
attention span, and even become psychotic. She said a lot of folks try to self-medicate with alcohol or drugs, but I thank God that was never a problem for me.
“People are frequently misdiagnosed as being solely bipolar or severely depressed,” Dr. Holden said. “It’s not an uncommon thing for years to pass before a correct assessment of DID is properly made in order for a patient to be treated appropriately.”
For years, especially in my church upbringing, people were frowned upon if they had to seek out a head doctor.
“All you need to do is pray about it,” people at church would say. “God can work it out. He will heal you. You just need enough faith.”
And I agree that God can work it out and that He can heal me. That’s why I’m standing here at the altar and being up-front about my stronghold. But I’m also aware that God can send various people to help us through our healing process. That’s where Sapphire and Dr. Holden come in. Sapphire stresses to all of her patients the importance of seeking the Lord and praying, and she prays and asks God to help her bless His people with the knowledge and skills He has endowed her with.
My faith in God is strong, which is ironic because my personality named Faith is also strong. She knows her time is short as an independent persona. She’s also aware that we don’t want her to leave until I face what happened to split my personality in the first place. I think I was around seven or eight, but it’s important that I remember the details clearly so I can heal.
Faith remembers. But she’s not talking.
I don’t know. Maybe it’s just as well that I don’t remember. Maybe the best thing for me to do is to get this dissociative stronghold out of my life and move on, whether I know what happened or not. That’s why Faith won’t tell us anything. She knows once I recall everything, I’ll get better. She’ll have to go, or what the doctors say, “assimilate,” no, “integrate” with me. Hope knows something, but only Faith knows everything—the whole truth. I am getting stronger mostly because I’m learning to stand in the power and might of God Almighty. And yes, I believe I’m delivered now. Now.
“‘For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal,’” Pastor Landris said as he continued his sermon on strongholds, quoting Second Corinthians 10:4–5. “‘…but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds. Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.’”
I’ve got to do this. I must cast down images and every high thing that exalts itself against what I know of God. I must bring my thoughts into captivity.
“Captivity has the Greek word conqueror with the word sword attached to it,” Pastor Landris said. “We have the Sword of the Spirit—the Word of God. Use your sword to conquer your stronghold. Use your sword to bring down wrong images and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. God knows, but we must look our stronghold in the eye and let it know that I believe what the Word of God says, and the Word of God says…then you speak the Word that applies to your situation. Speak the Word that you’re standing on. Whose report are you going to believe? You have to take a stand and let the devil know you’re going to believe the report…the Word of the Lord. Say it like Jesus said: ‘It is written…’”
So I stand here at this altar on this Sunday in March, believing that God is a mind regulator. That Jesus has given me His peace, perfect peace…a peace that surpasses all understanding.
I believe it today and I speak it: I have the mind of Christ.
Bentley
When you have a last name like Strong and a first name like Bentley, you know you’re being set up for some great things in your life. Of course children made fun of me. Most of them had heard of a car called Bentley, so that just made their teasing that much easier. Now that I’m twenty-five and doing very well, those same people who picked on me years ago are flocking to wherever I happen to be, asking for financial handouts.
It turns out that being a computer geek at the age of eight (even though we were dirt poor and didn’t even get a computer in our home until I was eleven) was an additional blessing unto itself. But my mother always told me as long as I owned a library card, I had the whole world—along with some of the most brilliant minds and teachers ever to live—forever at my fingertips.
“Just reach out and take hold of all you can get,” she said.
My mother was the brilliant one. The library was full of books and access to computers. The librarians were so impressed with my diligence; they allowed me more time on the computer back then than they were supposed to. I, in turn, taught them some things they didn’t know how to do. When it was time to upgrade to newer, more powerful models, the main librarian, Ms. Kemp, did something that ended up literally changing the course of my life.
“Bentley, you’re a bright young man,” Ms. Kemp said one cloudy afternoon. “I’ve arranged for you to have something, if you would like it.” She led me to a storage room. “We were required to wipe all of the information off the hard drive other than DOS, but if you can get someone to come pick this up for you”—she pointed at the lifeless, monstrosity of a machine, an IBM computer—“then it’s all yours.” She then handed me a bag filled with various types of software.
“For real, Ms. Kemp! I can have it? Flat out own it and take it home with me?”
She smiled. “Yes, flat out own it and take it home with you.”
My mother came and got the computer. She couldn’t thank Ms. Kemp enough. Some five years and a brand new computer later, I learned how Ms. Kemp had actually purchased the old and the new computer for me with money from her own pocket.
What most folks in my neighborhood and school didn’t know was that I could take a computer apart and put it back together again. And there wasn’t software out there I couldn’t master. My mother was right: at the library I found all the answers at my fingertips. Books upon books contained answers to any questions I even thought about having.
True: books can be a blessing. However, I also discovered, some things in print can be dangerous. My uncle on my mother’s side came to live in our home shortly after I turned eleven. If my mother hadn’t taken him in, I believe he’d still be homeless today. For certain, none of the other family members wanted to put up with his drinking and womanizing ways. But my mother didn’t have the heart to turn anyone away, especially someone with nowhere else to go. And particularly not her own blood. He didn’t like the fact that I had my head inside of a book 24/7 or that I was forever on the computer.
Uncle Tank had been a promising musician. From what the family says, there wasn’t an instrument Uncle Tank couldn’t play. The way they talk, the artist originally known then formerly known now known again as Prince, had nothing on him. I’m told Uncle Tank learned to play instruments by ear, and he started playing the piano for the church. They say he could practically raise any roof off any building with a saxophone. But they claim he had a little too much sass laced in his playing for a church or gospel career.
“There wasn’t much money to be made in gospel music back when I came along, Bentley,” he said during one of our little talks. “For some reason, church folks don’t seem to believe in paying folks like the world will. ’Course now, things done changed a whole lot since folks like that Kirk Franklin fella and the rest of ’em done come on the scene. I guess I was just born ahead of my time. You know that song he sang called ‘Stomp’?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, do you know he took the music track of a classic from back in the day by the Parliament-Funkadelics and put Christian words to it? Made it into a Christian song. See, that’s something I would have done if the church folk had’a left me alone.”
I looked at Uncle Tank with a deliberate smirk to let him know I knew he wasn’t telling the truth. Saying something like that had to be the result of those spirits everybody said he carried around in his pocket and sipped regularly.
“Don’t