"Psalm 18:28: My God turns my darkness into light."

After a week of sleeplessness, illness, weird happenings, extremely discouraging thoughts, such as “Why try anything? Why have dreams? Life’s just full of strife and junk anyway,” and nightmares, I was discouraged, and depressed. Using the excuse that I needed the sleep to get well, I slept in and did not go to church one Sunday.

My friend Brian, a Spirit-filled Christian, called to check on me. After I described my week of frustrations and failures, he asked, “Tonja, have you dedicated your house and yard to the Lord since you moved in? And have you asked His forgiveness for sins committed there? And have you asked Him if there is anything in your house that is offensive to Him?”

The Spirit surged within me, and I felt a righteous anger, as well as hope and joy. That was it! I knew Brian’s call to me was a divine answer to my prayers the past week.

“I always plead the Blood of Jesus over every home I move into,” I told him, thinking that I’d moved into at least five the last three years since the divorce. “But I never thought of dedicating the yard and asking forgiveness for sins committed here!”

We said goodbye, and I immediately turned off the ringers to the phone and turned on the praise music, and started praising the Lord. God had taught me much the past two years about worship and the power it gives believers over the enemy. I soon felt the blessed stirring in my spirit, and I soon felt the Spirit swell within me, as I praised God aloud, proclaiming His Word back to Him, thanking Him for His goodness and mercy.

I prayed and praised for several minutes. Then, I started rebuking the enemy. “JESUS has dominion here!” I declared. “And HE is the only One welcome here—no one else!” I took oil—just normal cooking oil, but holy in the Hands of God—and spread it like blood over the doorways, the windows, pleading the blood of Jesus and declaring that no wrongful spirit could enter. I constantly praised the Lord and thanked Him and declared Him sovereign.

I begged the Lord’s forgiveness for wrong done on the land and in this rental home, remembering the many broken beer bottles I’d cleaned out of the yard since I moved in. I asked the Lord to post sentries on each corner of the house, and each corner of the yard. The next morning, I determined, I would walk the land at the earliest light and declare that the enemy had no right there anymore.

Meanwhile, I knew deep within that there was an even more intense battle in which to engage. Even since the intense, three-hour counseling session with my pastors, in which I’d been delivered from decades of demonic depression and oppression, I knew something was still holding me down. Something was causing these bad dreams, this sleeplessness, etc. So, still praying and praising aloud, I walked through the house, and asked my Father to show me if there was something offensive to Him in the house in which Miss T and I lived. Shortly, I spotted a couple of pictures of unicorns. I tore them up, and thanked the Lord for showing me.

Still, there was something……I prayed very intensely, and very loud for about 15 minutes. My four-year-old daughter had gone to sleep immediately before Brian called, and amazingly, she was still sleeping! I was making a LOT of noise shouting at the enemy, and praising God! But, I knew that this was a spiritual war, a battle in the heavenlies……

I walked through the house again, and when I got to my bedroom, I saw a picture on my bedroom wall. I knew in my Spirit that this was offensive to the Lord. My brother had drawn it several years ago. It was an innocent-looking picture, of me standing on a beach, hair blowing in the wind, and writing. I’d found it when I’d moved last time, and had put it by my desk for inspiration. I quickly squelched the thought that this was an innocent picture, special because my brother had drawn it. I didn’t understand why it was offensive to God, but by faith I was determined to be obedient, because I wanted to please Him above all.

“THANK You, Lord!” I shouted, as I took it off the wall started to removed it from the frame. I pulled it out to destroy it—and I felt a deep sudden surge of the Holy Spirit within me--THERE! THERE was the TRUE offense, behind it! Another, earlier, picture my brother had drawn, of me—cavorting with unicorns and fairies! No wonder; this was witchcraft, occultic mess, abominable to our holy God—and it had been hidden behind the innocent picture for all these years!

As I tore it and the first picture into tiny bits, binding, rebuking, and casting out the demons associate with it—the spirits who, through this picture--had been oppressing me for all of these YEARS—I felt a true LIFTING!!! The OPPRESSION was GONE! I literally threw the bag OUT of the house that night (almost morning, by now!), kept the praise music playing—and slept like a baby the rest of the time.

The next morning, before work, I rose and immediately started praying and praising God aloud. I dressed and ate, got everything prepared to go to work, then told my daughter I was taking her tape player outside to praise the Lord and run off the enemy. She, having been taught spiritual truths since she was in the womb, cheered me on. I turned on the praise music, player and oil in hand, and walked out the door. I walked the land, anointing the fenceposts with the oil, pleading the Blood of Jesus over the yard, asking God’s forgivness for past sins, and rebuking the enemy, declaring it OFF LIMITS to evil spirits. I went all the way around the yard—just as I had done a few weeks earlier to rid the yard of other, less damaging pests, like fire ants—and made a complete circle.

It’s been peaceful ever since.

Try it; it works!

Through books, courses, presentations, service, prayer, worship, and more, Tonja and her husband live to exalt God. Her series for girls, P.O.W.E.R. GIRL ADVENTURES, is now out (books I-V), along with LEGACY; YOUR HOLY HEALTH: VISIONS OF THE KING, and more. See the "River Rain Creative" YT channel.