Debbie was just twelve when a man in his twenties groomed her. Like many girls who are sexually abused, she couldn’t recognise the relationship as harmful and even defended her ‘boyfriend’. Her Christian parents labelled her as a ‘rebellious’ teen, especially when she started taking drugs and self-harming. Desperate, her older sister Arianna got Debbie a place at a residential discipleship programme, Mercy Multiplied International. Seven months later Debbie returned with new life and hope.
Now Arianna and Debbie run Mercy UK, where they help other young women struggling with addiction or mental illness. It’s not about focusing on behaviour but dealing with the core problem. Where, following abuse, the women have absorbed strong internal messages like “I’m a failure” or “I’m worth nothing”, Arianna helps them replace that negative self-talk with biblical truths about how Jesus sees them. When they believe they are worthy of true love, transformation follows.
Arianna sees this as fulfilling Paul’s instruction to “take captive every thought” (2 Corinthians 10:5). This includes false teaching: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God” (v. 5), but also our own misplaced shame. Wonderfully, through prayer, we have spiritual “weapons” that have “divine power to demolish strongholds” (v. 4), so even lifelong destructive patterns can be changed. Today consider your own internal messages. What might God say over you instead?
By Tanya Marlow
REFLECT & PRAY
Bring to mind anyone struggling with addiction or behavioural issues: how might you use this passage to pray for them? Which of God’s promises can you claim for yourself today?
Loving Jesus, thank You that You came to save the world, not condemn it. Please help me believe Your love for me today.
SCRIPTURE INSIGHT
In 2 Corinthians 10:4 Paul writes, “The weapons [Christians] fight with are not the weapons of the world. . . . They have divine power to demolish strongholds” (the obstacles of sin and evil opposed to the truth of God). These spiritual weapons include truth, righteousness, faith, the Spirit, the Word of God, love, and the hope of salvation (Ephesians 6:11–17; 1 Thessalonians 5:8). We stand against evil through our relationship with the Son and the power of prayer and God’s Word.
Alyson Kieda
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