Lost in Lodebar "The Mephibosheth Syndrome": Lord, Heal My Cripple Feet

By Dr. Gwendolyn W. Crumbly

In this easy-to-read, biblically based book, Gwendolyn Crumbly takes you on a journey through her struggle to identify, accept, and seek healing from personal struggles. Desperately seeking inner peace, she faced adversity, criticism, and multiple emotional challenges. If you are faced with recurring problems that seem to keep you stuck in the maze of repetitive destructive behaviors, hobbling along yet going nowhere, you just may be suffering from the Mephibosheth Syndrome. The Word of God will lead you to the Kings table and return you to your place of divine inheritance.

You are about to embark on a true spiritual journey. This book is for anyone who is ready to be healed from their brokenness and start a new life fully restored.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jun 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9781449795948

Dr. Gwendolyn W. Crumbly

Gwendolyn W. Crumbly is co-pastor of Streams in the Desert International Church, Tampa, Florida, and founder of Gwendolyn Crumbly Ministries. She is presently enrolled in Tabernacle Bible College and Seminary in doctorial studies. Gwen and her husband, Donald, have three children and eleven grandchildren.

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Copyright © 2013 Dr. Gwendolyn W. Crumbly.

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Scripture taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture taken from the Amplified Bible, Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

ISBN: 978-1-4497-9593-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-9595-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-9594-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013909579

WestBow Press rev. date: 6/24/2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments and Special Thanks

Foreword

Introduction

Chapter 1     Who Is Mephibosheth?

Chapter 2     This Is Your Life

Chapter 3     Anointed and Hiding

Chapter 4     Forgive: It Is What It Is

Chapter 5     Dead Dog

Chapter 6     So You Think It’s Over

Chapter 7     The Second Time Around

Chapter 8     Are We There Yet?

Chapter 9     Sin Management

Chapter 10   From the Pit to the Palace Is a Process

Chapter 11   Where Do We Go From Here?

Chapter 12   Dancing on Crippled Feet

To my mother and father,

Cora Lee and James Walker,

who, through their coming together in the timing of God, imparted to me, by His grace, many gifts and talents and the ability to love unconditionally.

To my sisters and brothers,

Gloria, Jackie, Celestine, James, William, and Sandra:

love you guys, for real.

Walker Family Song

The road has not been easy;

There are things we don’t understand.

But one thing we know, and it’s for sure,

We’ve been kept by the Master’s hand.

We’ve been kept by the Master’s hand.

We’re coming together with love in our hearts.

We’re coming together in love.

We forget the past, for a joy that will last.

We’re coming together in love.

We found a new beginning,

In Jesus Christ the Son.

Mother, Father, Sister, Brother—

We are all God’s children,

And in Christ we are one.

We’re coming together with love in our hearts.

We’re coming together in love.

We forget the past, for a joy that will last.

We’re coming together in love.

Written By Gwendolyn W.Crumbly

To my daughters, Marquita, Leah, and Tashara:

On September 26, 1992, God brought us together in a way that would impact each of our lives differently. Each course has been different, but we are woven together with a cord that is unbreakable and a love that is unchangeable. You are loved more than you will ever know.

To RaeDon and Emmanuel:

Through your unconditional love, God continues to show me His unique ways of revealing His will. Through you, God has taught the barren how to sing.

T he identities of many people included in this book have been changed to protect their privacy, but the people and situations are real. Any similarity to your life or someone you know is real. Why? Because we are dealing with real issues that affect real people. If it sounds as if I am telling your story, I probably am. It’s the story you wish you could tell but don’t know how or are afraid to tell.

It is my prayer and the will of the Father that by the end of this book, you will be empowered to take a stand, face your fears, and embrace the liberty given to us freely by the love of our heavenly Father and the obedience of His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, who saw me and you as He faced Calvary and refused to come down until it was finished.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

AND

SPECIAL THANKS

T o my Father God, who has imparted to me such wonderful gifts and revelation of His Word. Without Him, I am nothing. Because of Him, I live, move, and have my very being. Thank you for entrusting this awesome task to me and having faith in me to speak to the captives a word of freedom!

To my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave His all that I might experience walking in the garden in constant communication with the Father.

To the precious Holy Spirit, who comforts me, protects me, and enables me to see, hear, and know the will of the Father.

To my husband, Donald—my buddy, my friend—who has remained in the background, cheering me on and speaking encouragement when this task seemed insurmountable; who tirelessly listened to every chapter, cried with me when some of the memories caused hidden and suppressed pain to surface, corrected my spelling, and gave input and advice, but most of all prayed for the will of God to be done.

To Apostle Warren Martin, whose love, oversight, guidance, and prayers helped me come to a place of rest in my identity in Christ and my purpose for the kingdom.

FOREWORD

S ince the beginning of time, with the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden, man has been faced with the challenge of trying to escape or be set free from bondage or captivity.

Throughout the Old Testatment, God’s people were continually in and out of this bondage. Prophets prophesied and Priests offered Sacrifices, but still no real freedom came until the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world was presented as the eternal Sacrifice which paid the price for freedom and deliverance from the darkness that engulfed the earth and its atmosphere.

In this book Dr. Crumbly leaves no stone unturned as it were, to show how to break out of the Lodebar’s of this world. She takes the reader through the stops necessary to break this Syndrome once and for all. This is a Finished Work message for the season that the Body of Christ is in. As you read, allow the Holy Spirit to show you the areas of your life that are or have been in conflict with your spirit. Real freedom comes in allowing the Lord to open your eyes to the Finished Work of the cross and break out of the dark places of bondage.

Dr. Crumbly, I salute you for such an in depth look into a syndrome, that if allowed, plagues even the greatest of those in Christ. Healing will surely come to those who will read this book and apply the principles here.

Sis, this is a Home Run!

Blessings

ArchBishop Dr. Lawrence Langston

President Tabernacle Bible College & Seminary

INTRODUCTION

A s I began to mature in the things of God, I started to evaluate myself and my responses when confronted with certain situations. I found I wanted to do the right things but was often misunderstood and accused of either trying to usurp authority or trying to take over. This is not and never has been my true nature. In my attempts to please others, including those in authority over me, to complete an assigned task, or just to be accepted, I would often end up being cast aside or rejected. I did not understand, but soon I realized this was something that I had experienced most of my life and had just accepted as being my lot in life. I even tried to make it sound like my feeling this way or being treated this way was the price I would pay for the kingdom, and if someone was helped, then the pain I suffered was worth it.

Looking back through the annals of my life, I can identify many times and many situations when this feeling was so overwhelming that I would succumb to periods of withdrawal and depression. Most of the time, people never knew how I really felt, because I had learned how to mask my true feelings, pretending to be happy, when on the inside I was lonely and hurting. I often allowed myself to get into unhealthy relationships, leading to many wasted years of my life.

In my experience, most people, when confronted with the types of situations I faced, find fault in the other person, but I developed this feeling that something was going on with me. Learning about the grace of God, I desperately began to cry out to the Lord and to inquire of Him, Why am I repeatedly in the same situations, and what is wrong with me?

According to 1 John 5:14–15, Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him" (NKJV). I believed this and set myself to seek God for answers. I also knew that I had to be prepared for the truth and be willing to accept it. This is an area where many people have difficulty and interfere with God’s desire to set them free. There has to be a desire to be free and a willingness to accept what God says about your situation in order for the power of God to work in you, according to the will of God for you.

It did not take long for God to answer and for my journey of deliverance and restoration to begin. As God began to play my life out before me, it became clear that things that gravely affected my behavior, my character, and my reactions were a direct result of rejection and abandonment. I had no knowledge of the spirit of rejection or abandonment; therefore, I was clueless as to the effect of being oppressed by these spirits, which caused me to operate under the influence of the spirit of fear and intimidation. Nonetheless, I stayed the course. I continued to allow God to speak, and I purposed in my heart to be set free. I wanted to feel good about myself and to know that the things that people had said about me were not true. My desire to do a job well was because of my respect for authority—not a desire to usurp authority, as I’d been told—and to be accepted.

God spoke, and I listened. He took me back and reminded me of my separation from my natural mother and father and my siblings for a period of eight years. I never knew why and I did not know who to blame. Though many years I held resentment in my heart. I just know I ended up away from them. I knew where they were and would visit them, but I did not live with them. It was during one of these visits that I was raped by a man living in the house with them. I remember waking up with this man on top of me, with his hand over my mouth. He was very strong and easily took advantage of me. I remember pain that I had never felt before, and I remember crying. He told me if I said anything, he would deny it, and no one would believe me. He also promised to give me a quarter. As I think about it now, that was really a cheap price to pay for my virginity and what would contribute to a life of struggles, fear, and insecurities as I lived and learned to keep many secrets buried deep within. When I saw him the next morning, he looked at me, placing a finger over his lips, reinforcing his instruction not to tell. I remained quiet and returned to my aunt’s house. This is the first time I have publically revealed what happened, and I often wonder if any of my sisters were subject to this abuse.

When I was four years old, my mother and father separated. My life away from my mother and my brothers and sisters was mixed with the good and the not-so-good. It was during this time that I was influenced by rejection and abandonment. When there is a break in the natural course of God’s structure, it creates the opportunity to get lost in Lodebar.; a place of loneliness, hiding within yourself and trying to find peace with your identity. During this time, a void may develop inside you that subconsciously drives you to desire acceptance. This break is not necessarily because parents separate; many different factors can cause it. However, a traumatic event or a disruption in the family structure causes you to suffer, even though the event was not your fault. The full effect is not seen immediately, but over time, the result of things unseen will manifest themselves openly—in behaviors and actions; spiritually, emotionally, and physically.

I believe that God has instructed me to write this book to give insight to those who are caught in the web of the Mephibosheth syndrome. Mephibosheth found himself in a place totally opposite from that which his genealogy and natural inheritance would have dictated. As the son of Jonathan, who was the son of Saul, the first king of Israel, Mephibosheth was in a place that circumstances beyond his control caused him to be as stated in 2 Samuel 4:4. He did not asked to be picked up; he did not asked to be dropped, yet as a child, he was vulnerable to someone else’s decision, which drastically changed and affected his life.

I did not ask to be raped, yet as a child, I was also vulnerable to someone else’s actions. Some of you may have been exposed to similar situations, without understanding why. These situations have molded and shaped your lives yet have remained a mystery. You had no control over these circumstances; if you had, your story could be totally different. You may have found yourself lost in Lodebar with crippled feet—alone, separated from one or both parents, and desiring to know why. You may have low self-esteem and exhibit destructive behavior or feelings of failure, fear, or anger. You may have a failed marriage or feel that life has no purpose. You might be a people pleaser or someone who is depressed, oppressed, with no hope. You might struggle with gender identity; be addicted to drugs; be greedy,