Creflo Dollar - Destiny
Creflo Dollar: Our guest today has tried to commit suicide many, many times and again most recently. This thing keeps happening. Please help me welcome Destiny to "Your World" today. Look at you. You wore the right color.
Destiny Ward: Oh, you did, too.
Creflo: God bless you.
Destiny: God bless you, as well.
Creflo: Thank you for coming. You can be seated.
Destiny: Thank you.
Creflo: You know, thank you for your courage to come and to share with us. You and I are gonna come together, and we're gonna create an instrument from this show, and we're gonna blast this around this country and some other countries, and it's gonna bring healing to people. So, take us into your world. Why are you here? What are you going through? And take us in that journey.
Destiny: Well, I tried to commit suicide so many times, and I don't have enough fingers and toes to even put it on and most recently, I think, like, nine days ago, I tried to end my life and even the doctors and the nurses and everyone, they was like if the ambulance so happened to have a flat tire I would have been dead.
Creflo: Wow. Let's then go back and let's start when you were younger. You suffered a lot with depression.
Destiny: I will say my depression started when my dad died when I was ten. He was so sick and then after that, at 11, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
Creflo: Wow. Okay, so we're talking about the death of your father, being diagnosed with MS, which is a disease where the immunity turns on you and now you were paralyzed.
Destiny: And then, in addition to that, I was raped at ten.
Creflo: Raped at ten years old.
Destiny: Yes, and then I was raped again at 12, so it was like I felt like I was getting attacked from so many different avenues, and it was like, "Why? Why is this happening to me? Why is this going on"? So, I just really wanted to just give up. I was like, "No, I don't need to be here anymore.' Like, I just gave up, and then 13, 14 come. I was blind. I couldn't see. Oh, yeah, I tried to kill myself multiple times then, too, but I failed. And then, all of a sudden, slowly but surely, I started to be able to walk, and I'm like, "Okay, I'm likin' this. This healing thing is working out on me. It's looking good on me, right"? That's what I was saying. I was like, "Okay".
Creflo: But during those times when you start seeing results in your life, I'm sure that was encouraging, and you felt differently.
Destiny: Yeah, it was encouraging, but at the same time I still suffered from depression. It was just like, "Okay, yeah, I see where this is going, but I was like how long is this gonna last? How long is that gonna last"? And even through that whole positive part, I still was still trying to commit suicide, and I was like, "Oh, I don't wanna be here anymore. I'm not needed here anymore," you know, feeling like that.
Creflo: So, even while you were seeing results and you were getting healed and you were getting better, the depression was still there, and the depression that was still there was leading you to still wanna get outta here.
Destiny: Yeah, it was like I was attacked at every time. It was like every time I'm moving forward, like here we go, I'm running, running, pow. I got hit with a big, huge rock.
Creflo: There was some stuff I wanted people to hear about within the testimony. If you could take a few minutes and just fill us in on that.
Destiny: I had a miscarriage. Jesus. I had a miscarriage, and it was just, like, that brought me to, like, a really dark place because I felt like, "God, why can't I have this child? Why everybody else getting to have a kid, but not me"? But it didn't happen one time. It just happened two times, and it's just like...
Creflo: Yeah, so you can see how these circumstances that keep coming at you are trying to trigger those negative emotions, so those negative emotions can take you to a place of suicide.
Destiny: And then, yeah, I tried to commit suicide after that time.
Creflo: Yeah, let me bring it into some other terms, because I think people need to understand it. You have to understand the anatomy of life, and I've talked about it on this show a lot, and the anatomy of life is just understanding how things work or why things are the way they are. And it starts off with what you're exposing yourself to, you know? What's going through my eye gate, my ear gate? What am I talking? What am I around? So, my exposure now will determine the way I think, and the way I think will determine the way I feel, and the way I feel will determine the decisions I make. Those decisions I make will determine the actions I take. Those actions I take will determine the habits I create, and then those habits will determine my character, and then my character now will determine my destination, where I end up in life.
And so, the first three steps of that, it's really the key to defeating depression forever, and it is this. What I expose myself to determines the way I think, so if I wanna change how I feel I gotta deal with how I'm thinking. Now, I didn't know that when I was going through my bout of depression. I'm like you. I just feel like I'm in a dark place. I feel like the darker it gets, the closer I get to Satan, and I felt like it was hell, and it hurt, and I just could not see how this was happening to me, and yet today I now understand that if I don't change the way I think I cannot change the way I feel. And so, once I examined what I was thinking about, then I had to go and say, "Well, what am I exposed to? What am I watching? What am I spending time? What is it I believe, you know"? 'Cause if you believe wrong, you live wrong. What is it I believe? Where did I get that belief from? And I had to just really sit back and think, "I need to change what I'm exposing myself to," and so I made my mind up. I said, "Now, here is what I'm gonna do. As a Christian I'm gonna expose myself to the Word".
For the first time the Bible became something more than just a book that you read. It became, "Al right, this is what I'm gonna expose myself to". I would put it in my mouth. I would say confessions three, four times a day. I would really get serious about my relationship with the Word, and I realized that that Word began to govern my thinking. And as my thinking began to line up, I got Word-of-God thinking, and then I got Word-of-God feelings, and then I started making Word-of-God decisions, and then I started knowing Word-of-God actions. Word-of-God habits were being created. I had a Word-of-God character, and I was in a destination now that came from the Word.
And so, one of the things I'm wanting you to hear, because nine times, nine times you tried to commit suicide and then recently. It's like this little shadow that keeps talking to you and keeps telling you that "you don't need to be here. You need to get out. You don't need to be here," and yet are you kidding me? Everything that she's gone through, everything she's experienced, if this is not a picture of God's grace I don't even know what is. She got her sight back. Do you understand what I'm saying? If none of these things occurred, none of this stuff happened, depression is not haunting you. That's what it feels like, doesn't it? It feels like something is haunting you.
Destiny: Yeah, it feels like it's haunting me, like...
Creflo: Yeah, but it's because of the call and the anointing that you have on your life to be a blessing to the world. I've gotta shut you down, so your attitude is gonna have to get a little bit more aggressive, like, "I'm getting ready to open up a can of whup on the devil and there is no way I'm gonna let you do this". And I think every now and then, every now and then you have to have a flashback. "You took my mobility away, but I got it back. You made me blind, but I got it back. You tried to destroy me by me being raped, but I got it back. You tried to damage me emotionally when my father died, but I got it back". Now, I could preach on that, like, right now. I could tear a church up on your testimony, because what? And yet the grace of God has pulled you out of every ditch, out of every situation, out of every circumstance, and until you actively resist that suicide spirit that just wants to lurk around... it is now time for you to serve an eviction notice. He gotta go. Now, I do wanna get to the part where recently you put that post up and in light of what we've talked about thus far talk about why you put that post up and then tell me what you have come to realize as a result of it.
Destiny: It was like in the middle of the night. I was like in another dark place, but this was a darker, darker place, and I posted like, "Oh, I'm gonna end my life". And I put another photo that says, "Oh, if I say I was gonna die, the girl that said she was gonna die, people didn't believe her until she died, until it comes". And then another one said, "Don't cry for me unless you come to my funeral, 'cause I'm about to die". And then I put on the note, like, "Bye everyone". And then, you know, my friends calling, like, "Hey, you okay"? And I was like, "Yeah, I'm okay". Then the next day that's when I overdosed on pills. Just going back to that same day when I was posting the notes, and then my mom called me, and I was like, "Ma, I just don't wanna be here no more". I'm just crying really hard. I was like, "Ma, I don't wanna be here anymore". And my mom was like, "No, no, that's the enemy". I was like, "No, that's just how I feel". And my mom was like, "No, no, no, Destiny. That's not how you feel". And I was like, "Ma, I'm about to leave. I don't wanna be here anymore". And my husband was like, "Destiny, you gotta snap out of it. You gotta snap out of it". And I was like, "No, babe, I don't wanna be here no more. I don't wanna be here". And I just kept saying, I was like, "I don't wanna be here anymore," and I overdosed on so many pills. I told my dog, that's my best friend. I was like, "Bentley, I am so", I told my dog, I was like... oh, I'm sorry.
Creflo: You know, thank you for your courage to share this.
Destiny: Yeah, I told my dog, I was like, "Bentley, I'm so sorry. I'm not gonna do this," and soon as I told that to my dog, I was like, like, I had so many pills in my hand, and I just did just like that, and I just swallowed all of them. And it was just like...
Creflo: Listen to me. I want you to hear this. This thing about "once I kill myself, that's the end," that's a lie. It's not the end, so that's the first thing to realize. It's not the end. You are a spirit being. You have a soul. You live in a physical body. At the point of death, your spirit and soul will be separated from your body. Your body stays here. They put it in a box, they burn it, they do whatever they need to do with it, but the real you is a spirit being. You possess a soul. That's where your mind, your will, your emotions are. You live in a body, so this thing about "once I kill myself, that's the end," it's not, and I'll never forget when God ministered to me, and I'm thinking, "Well, you know, we're gonna end this". He says, "This isn't the end".
He says when people die, that is the commencement of life, and that's whatever they chose while they were alive, and that got my attention. And he says, "I want you to picture this. All your life you heard that you were gonna die, go before the throne of God and hear him say, 'My good and faithful servant, well done.'" He said, "But if you do this, here is what you're gonna hear," and it marked me. "You're gonna hear, 'My good and faithful servant, job incomplete,'" and you're gonna see the picture of everything that was supposed to be completed, but you aborted the process. And that got my attention. I was like, "That's not what I wanna happen," and nobody thinks about the fact that this life is just a dressing-up room.
When somebody dies, that's commencement based on the decision you made to make Jesus the Lord of your life. If you make him Lord of your life, then you commence your life present with the Lord, and you find out what real life is. If you never make the decision to receive Jesus, then you commence your life, and you find out what it is to be away from the Lord. I had to come to the reality that this is not ending when I do this. This is only me copping out on what God want me to do, so at that point I said, "So, I need to figure out what's going on," because while I now had that vision, I'm thinking, "I still feel bad". And my whole life was being based on how I felt, so my emotions were now mastering my life, and it wasn't supposed to be like that. I'm supposed to be mastering emotion.
The emotion is a part of your soul. Your soul is your thinker, your feeler, your chooser and emotions are feelings on the inside caused by pain or pleasure to move you in a direction, so negative emotions are gonna move you in a direction away from the planned purpose that God has for your life. Negative emotions will move you that way. Satan will ride those negative emotions like a surfer rides a wave and just move you away from the will of God. But then, godly emotions will take you to a place where you'll get closer and closer to the will of God for your life, and so I needed to choose. The emotions are not supposed to be mastering me. My emotions are not supposed to be dominating my life, but nobody ever taught me that I had authority over my emotions. Nobody ever said that.
I thought and most people today think you have feelings, that's a response, and there is nothing you can do about it. You can't help the way you feel, and that is the biggest lie that has come from the pit of hell, and the day you find out that "wait a minute. I can control my emotions. If I feel a certain way, I can control that. I am a free moral agent. I can make a decision how I'm gonna react to a certain thing," so what happens is circumstances go down. Those circumstances will trigger negative emotions.
Now, how you deal with those negative emotions will determine whether or not you're dealing with those negative emotions or they're dealing with you. So, a bad thing happens, it triggers a negative emotion, and at that point I have to decide, "You know what? I'm gonna do what the Word says to do, and I'm just gonna just cast it over to the Lord and do what needs to be done". I had to just shut down that negative emotion that wants to try to rule and govern my life. Now, I want us to just let that simmer just for a moment, and I wanna take a break. And when I come back, Destiny and I are gonna go to a place to get you guys to understand that negative emotions are not supposed to rule your life. You're supposed to rule those emotions and the day you recognize that is the day that depression will no longer have authority over your life. We'll be right back.
Creflo: Welcome back. You know, one of the things Destiny and I were talking about before the break is the fact that you have to be accountable for how you feel, and you have to break this deception that simply says, "You know, I can't help how I feel. I can't help that I feel this way," when, in fact, you have authority over your feelings. You have to be accountable for how you feel. Emotional stability is the will of God. It is not God's will that, you know, you don't or cannot achieve emotional stability, because you can. It is God's will for you to take authority over your emotions. You know, God gave us emotions. We all have emotions, but sometimes those emotions have us, and when those emotions have us then they take us away from the will of God for our life and even try to take us away to the point where we don't wanna live anymore or we don't live anymore.
Now, if you're that person I'm talking to and you've allowed your life to be ruled by your emotions, you're now gonna have to actively resist it and say, "No, this is not God's will for the emotions to rule my life. It's God's will for me to rule my emotions, for me to take charge over my feelings". And just because you feel a certain way doesn't mean you have to allow those emotions to take you down that road. I often use this illustration. A person buys a new car. He has a fender bender. He jumps out of the car. He gets in an argument with the person who hit him. Then he pushes the guy. The police just came up. As soon as he pushed the guy, the police arrest him for assault. On the job that week the boss said, "You can't miss one more day. I'm gonna fire you". Previous to that day, his wife said, "If you get fired from another job, I'm gonna leave you". It's Friday evening. Nobody is there. The judge won't be back till Tuesday. They lock him up. They put him in jail. He sits in jail. He's gonna lose his job because he's not gonna be able to see the judge until Tuesday, and he's gonna lose his wife.
And in jail, behind the bars, he ask himself, "How did I get here"? The answer: his emotions put him there. It's the same thing true. How did I get to the place where I'm taking all these pills? My emotions took me there. How did I get to the place where, you know, I blew up your emotions took you there and what people don't realize is that where you are in life is based on you allowing your emotions to govern your life and that was never God's intent. The intent was, "I gave you emotions for you to have authority, but they were never supposed to have you," and too many people, I allowed my emotions to have me. You allowed your emotions to have you, and so now you gotta make that shift. "I've got to decide to respond differently," but if you only react the way you've always reacted, then you're gonna get the same emotional response you've already gotten and 9 suicide attempts will turn into 19 suicide attempts until 1 of them you don't walk out of.
So, I am saying to you today why is it that you get to still be here when everybody else who would have tried nine times would probably be gone? And I will say it's because of the unmerited, unearned, and undeserved favor of God for a purpose, and I'm thankful that none of those attempts worked. Thank you, Jesus, none of them worked, none of them, and now I believe not only do you have a testimony to share with the world, but I believe that as you even learn more about it you can instruct people. "I am taking charge of my emotions. I'm not gonna let this happen. I feel bad. I just wanna stay home". No, I'm gonna get up. Go get me a Blow Pop. God wants me to hold, "You're not". I'm gonna have an argument with my emotions. "You don't get to take me yet. You have taken me through all these years. You don't get to do it anymore. Sit down, shut up, go somewhere".
You take authority over those emotions. Depression is an enemy to the plan. It's an enemy to the will of God for your life. Do you all appreciate our guest, Destiny? You're did amazing job, amazing job today. Wow. Amazing job. Have you ever felt all alone and afraid and ready to let it all end? It's natural for us to feel afraid when we're faced with trouble too big to handle by ourselves. Fortunately, there is supernatural help available. God loves us very much, and he wants us to know that he's on our side and wants us to win in life. God never changes, never wavers, and never turns back, and this is precisely why we find firm footing when we stand on his promises. The world will try to tell us it's hopeless, that we've lost the fight, but his Word says the exact opposite. I wanna thank my guest, Destiny, for joining us today.