One Sunday evening in the church where I first pastored as a young man, I saw a new yet familiar face enter the back of the sanctuary as the service began. Jackie slipped in and sat down alone. As I glanced at my wife who normally met the eye of any visitor with a warm smile, I first noticed a surprised expression as she seemed to slump down into her seat. Something was up.

As it turns out, Jackie was as surprised as my wife to find herself providentially sitting in our little church. After the service my wife kindly greeted Jackie and reintroduced me to her college friend, whom I had first met at our wedding. Jackie looked different. The past five years had taken their toll on her. We exchanged brief updates on our lives and commented that we should have her over soon.

Later, with a painful look on her face, my wife asked me to pray for her inner struggle about getting involved in Jackie’s life again. Even though Jackie was dear to her, everything within her said that she was not ready for another difficult journey with her. However, because she recognized God’s patience in her own life and knew that his grace would enable her, there was nothing to do but trust God and exhibit the love of Christ to her old friend.

I had forgotten all about Jackie. Not long after my marriage to Zondra, she had received an unexpected call from Jackie. They were close friends. Zondra had been the floor leader in Jackie’s dorm and had helped her through a number of troubling situations, including a horrible drug addiction withdrawal. Jackie was calling to ask Zondra’s forgiveness for maintaining a life of habitual, compulsive lying while in college. She communicated that she had recently been saved and wanted to confess that the drug problem and other crises she had shared with Zondra were total fabrications, including her claim of being violently raped. Zondra was shocked. At this point in her life, my young wife had no idea how to trust or help someone with such deep problems. As she reflected on Jackie’s admission of her bizarre deceit, Zondra was secretly relieved that she and Jackie were separated by many miles and that someone else was now involved in Jackie’s life. In reflecting back on this particular time in her life, Jackie wrote:1

Zondra wasn’t sure Jackie would return, but once again she was surprised when Jackie began regularly attending our little church and spending time in our home. It was soon obvious that Jackie had many doubts and questions about who God really is and whether she could be forgiven and know him personally. She expressed a desire and a commitment not to make things up about herself anymore, but she continued to be very private, had difficulty relating to people, and still tended to manipulate others in various ways for attention.

As Jackie attended church and heard the Word of God, the Spirit began to work in her life. The gospel became more personal. She would later reflect on this time, after many conversations and sermons which clarified for her the true gospel and the transformative nature of the new birth:

Jackie manifested an understandable tension that commonly plagues those who are saved out of years of secret sin. She had a fresh hope based on her secure, eternal, grace-based standing with God, but she also had trouble getting out of long-standing sin patterns and developing new righteous habits. This tension can produce a deeply strained Christian experience, and people like Jackie often find themselves in desperate need of the interpersonal ministry of God’s Word. Jackie needed the light of God’s Word to shine on her daily desires and thoughts. She needed to understand the divine and human dynamics of change. Most of all Jackie needed the glories of Christ and his gospel to explode with fresh relevance for her current challenges.

Still plagued at times with guilt and shame over her past, she regularly struggled with depression and anxiety. She was still experiencing difficulty deciphering reality and telling the truth. Her emotions were unstable, and she was uncomfortable giving or receiving expressions of affection. These serious and legitimate issues were outweighed by a greater concern on Jackie’s part as she came to me for help. She was aware that she could not account for substantial blocks of her time, and she actually thought that she was (in her own words) “catching glimpses of Christ or someone while at home.”

Unfortunately, at this point in my ministry, I had no idea how to help someone like Jackie. In fact, my seminary training had taught me to refer such troubled individuals to a Christian psychologist or psychiatrist. I chose to recommend Jackie to a local Christian psychiatrist, assuming she would receive some secret psychological or medical key from a biblical perspective and be prescribed the medications she likely needed.

Because of Jackie’s arrival and two other difficult counseling cases in our church, I simultaneously began to seek further training that might help me in my counseling ministry as a pastor. A past ministry colleague told me about a biblical counseling program, but I was skeptical. Could it be true that the Word of God was sufficient for handling complex psychological problems?

As I followed the progress of both Jackie and the other two members with their counselors, I grew increasingly concerned. The methods their counselors were using were anything but biblical, and I realized that virtually no biblical truth was being offered. All of them were getting worse, becoming more self-focused and troubled. In fact, Jackie was now having panic attacks. How can this be right? I thought. How could this be reconciled with the sanctification claims of the Bible? As I investigated further, I learned that even with a signed release form it was difficult to obtain any kind of substantial explanation of Jackie’s troubles or a basic summary of the help she was and would be receiving. I eventually received this from her psychiatrist:

I later learned that Jackie had been diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, or what is now called dissociative identity disorder (DID). Her therapist held to the perspective (common even among Christian psychiatrists) that multiple personalities were responsible for conflicting behaviors and memory loss. A number of factors led Jackie’s psychiatrist to give her the DID label. First, Jackie could have won an acting award for her habitual pattern of lying, which led to a great deal of confusion about the truth and who she actually was. Second, she had a traumatic childhood experience. Third, she was engaging in bizarre behaviors such as walking aimlessly down the middle of the street in a rainstorm at night, not knowing what she was doing or why she was doing it. Fourth, Jackie had great trouble now managing her emotions. Fifth, as mentioned, she was losing blocks of time. A final, critical piece in the diagnosis was her sexual confusion and inability to explain it.

The popular Christian Survivors website states:

These perspectives are built on and follow the presuppositions and theories of secular psychology divorced from biblical truth.3 Such theories are merely derived through human interpretation of the observation of troubled individuals. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (then the DSM-III-R) encompasses the prevailing psychiatric thought about DID:

Jackie grew concerned that the results of her therapy did not justify the expense. She believed all she was doing was talking about her feelings and was seriously considering discontinuing her sessions. In our conversations I also voiced my own concern about how she was doing. During this period my wife and I received a call from the police in the middle of the night. Jackie was found distraught, in the middle of a busy street, running barefoot in the rain. Clearly she was not improving, and she was now endangering herself.

Eventually Jackie did stop attending therapy. At the urging of my colleague and friend, I began to counsel Jackie. I decided to try the biblical counseling program. Within a relatively short time, I was assured that I could offer Jackie better help with the Word of God, the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit, and the involvement of the church. What Jackie needed was to understand her problems biblically and to apply God’s truth specifically to her life.

As I began my new counseling training, I began meeting with Jackie more consistently (often with Zondra present). My situation allowed me to consult with other biblical counselors regarding her case. Because Zondra and I already had a trusted relationship with Jackie, my first priority was to shine some hope into the situation. I explained to Jackie that we were going to trust God’s promise to sanctify her by his Word (John 17:17). We were going to depend on his faithfulness to provide a way out of her present struggles and lead her to a walk with Christ that would bring him glory (1 Cor 10:13; 1 Pet 1:3–4). Through our discussions we established that her old sin-enslaved self was dead and buried with Christ and that her new nature was invincibly alive with Christ. In certain ways, since her conversion she was a completely new person, never to be the same again (2 Cor 5:17). Jackie was alive from the dead, inhabited by the Holy Spirit, and empowered to love and obey God. Through Christ she had a new heart and new power to appropriate biblical truth in new ways. She had a new relationship with God, and even with all her current struggles, Zondra and I had seen a difference in Jackie’s life and desires.

My second priority was to learn all I could about Jackie’s life. What was her story? Wisdom speaks clearly in Prov 18:13: “The one who gives an answer before he listens—this is foolishness and disgrace for him.” I needed to listen well before I could counsel well. Here is Jackie’s own lengthy personal account of the information I gained through the early data-gathering process and subsequent conversations.

In our early sessions together, Jackie and I discussed most of the dynamics surrounding her life story. I investigated her family relationships more deeply. I explored her interaction with the trials in her life, including how the tragic car accident changed her life so dramatically. We talked about her understanding of God and the spiritual steps she tried to take along her path. I looked for evidence of her goals in life and took note of the sins in which she was currently engaged. I questioned her more carefully about exactly how she related to others in her life, and I began to ask myself what God says about each of the key discoveries learned.

During my time gathering information about Jackie, I also learned that she had not been sleeping much at all. It was important for me to minister to her as a whole person since spiritual and physical components do affect each other (1 Kgs 9:1–18; 2 Cor 4:16–18). One of my first steps was sending Jackie for a physical checkup, and her physician prescribed a few nights of sleeping pills. It was crucial that Jackie get some good sleep to stabilize her overall physical and emotional state, to increase her ability to concentrate, and to help her benefit from counseling.7

Over time we dealt with the issues in Jackie’s life one by one. Following the initial promise of hope in Christ, we started with (and often returned to) her recent conversion and its implications for her daily life. We unpacked 1 Cor 6:11 and 2 Cor 5:17 as we discussed the gospel and especially her identity in Christ. Whether Jackie’s old identity was viewed as multiple confused personalities or a singular enslaved personality, her past identity as a whole was just that—old and dead. “Such were some of you,” Paul wrote to the converted sinners of Corinth (1 Cor 6:11 NASB, emphasis added). Now, along with these redeemed saints, Jackie was, in a real sense, a new creation (2 Cor 5:17). We also pondered Phil 2:12–13 as we examined her role and God’s role in the process of change. God desired Jackie to work hard at growth and tend the garden of her own thought life. He also promised that her labors would be fueled and fertilized by his own energizing and cultivating work within her. This blend of serious responsibility and energizing power was designed by God to amplify Jackie’s commitment to apply God’s truth personally to her life (Jas 1:22) for the right reasons (Rom 12:1–2). Even in the face of great difficulty, it was wonderful to watch Jackie work at the assignments I gave her with prayer and zeal. Ultimately she had a true desire to honor the Lord and submit to Scripture. This commitment went a long way in facilitating the Spirit’s supernatural work in her life (Eph 4:30).

Jackie’s heart was genuinely arrested by God’s grace. Therefore, she was ready and eager to consider the practical issue of what her heart was worshipping in her everyday living. After talking through certain Scriptures that deal with one’s heart (Romans 1; Ezekiel 14; Jas 1:12–15; 4:1–4), Jackie was motivated to contemplate some questions I gave her: “What am I willing to sin to get, or sin if I don’t get?” “For me, to really live is what?” (see Phil 1:21). “What have I habitually sought and set my heart on in this life?”

With compassion for what Jackie had been through as a child, we traced patterns of sinful worship which she had been pursuing throughout her life. Her eyes were opened to certain lusts she had developed—for attention; for a personal, all-satisfying relationship; for the approval of others; and for control over her situations. It was essential for Jackie to understand that every human heart always fixates on some object of worship because we are created to worship (Deut 11:16; John 4:23; Rom 1:18–32; Col 1:16).

She learned that prior to salvation her heart was enslaved to false worship and engaged in it constantly. It also made sense to her that while life’s circumstances may have influenced the direction of her affections and her false worship, such external factors were not the ultimate cause of her idolatry. Rather, her sinful idolatry must be attributed to her fallen condition and the lustful bent of her own heart (Jer 17:9; Titus 3:3). It was helpful for her to understand that because she did not know God she would have found something to worship instead of him—even if her family’s car accident had never happened. Without Christ, Jackie became increasingly convinced that other things would bring her meaning and happiness. Her pursuits, choices, and responses had all flowed from the true objects of her affections and her hope or loss of hope in them.

Exchanging the worship of God for the worship of her idols, Jackie spiraled down into new sins. A lesbian relationship followed her complete and decisive rejection of God’s truth and a full pursuit of what she desired most. She was given over to her lust for a personal, all-satisfying relationship and was willing to fulfill it any way she could. Unlike some, Jackie did not struggle with a desire for women throughout her life, nor did she have a problem with it following her salvation.8 It was driven by her false worship and by her outright rejection of God. With the embracing of God’s grace came also a decisive rejection of this particular sexual sin. Still, while Jackie was no longer a full-time idol worshipper and didn’t fulfill her basic relational lust in that way, it showed up in other ways at various times until it was recognized, repented of, and replaced with a deeper and more united pursuit of Christ.

In contrast to Jackie’s idolatrous lusts, we discussed the supreme worth and value of Christ along with the saints’ profound experience of knowing and worshipping him alone (Ps 73:25–28; Phil 1:21). Jackie was deeply affected by this revelation about her daily heart’s desires and passions. She confessed her sin to God and asked him to remind her of his value and his call to undivided worship if and when she began to resurrect these idolatrous lusts. In the coming months she would have many opportunities to practice this repentance. Over the next few weeks, we continued to paint a picture of undivided worship in her daily life while emphasizing the possibility and importance of being satisfied in God alone. Honing in on the heart (her affections, beliefs, and thoughts) was vital for her growth.

In order to give God the worship he deserved, Jackie would need to pursue several significant new mind-sets: appropriating the gospel daily and embracing God’s love for her (Eph 3:17–19), learning to give love rather than seek it from others (Acts 20:35; Phil 2:3–4), and cultivating a trusting and submissive spirit, yielded to a good God’s control rather than trying to control her own life and the lives of others (Ps 138:8; Prov 16:9, Jas 4:13–15). In the coming months and years, several of these passages would become precious to Jackie.

God’s Word teaches that in the disordered soul, it is natural for sin to flow from the affections, to the thoughts, to the emotions, and to the behavior. The flow of righteousness within even a new and changed heart, however, faces active and powerful obstacles—the flesh, the world, and Satan (Gal 5:16–17; Rom 12:2; 1 Pet 5:8–9). Therefore, I needed to help Jackie work on both the heart and behavioral aspects of her life. It was vital that thankfulness and worship of God remain her motivations and that she learn to depend on Christ’s power so that her new pursuits would actually please God. She also needed to learn the principle of exercising herself toward godliness in tangible and specific ways (1 Tim 4:7–8). Her application of the put-off/put-on principle from Eph 4:22–32 needed to differ entirely from her past efforts to staple good fruit onto a dead tree (her dead heart) and from the toxic legalism that once reigned in her life.9 As expected, learning these lessons was not a one-time event but rather came in successive seasons of life in which she grew by increasing degrees.

A significant theme and substantial problem throughout Jackie’s life was her pronounced guilt and shame over her sins, including her bitterness as a child. The guilt of her sin was still playing a central role in her depression and anxiety, and it often hindered her relationship with God. It was obvious that even as a five-year-old, Jackie had been aware that her angry, simmering thoughts toward her mother and brother were wrong. At such a young age, she was naturally confused about her seeming responsibility for their accident and about what to do with her guilt. Her guilt, stemming from both the violation of God’s Word and her own rules, needed to be confessed and/or forsaken.

We discussed the extent of God’s forgiveness through Christ, how to deal biblically with all of her past sins, and how to clear her conscience.10 On the basis of John’s merciful promise that God responds to sincere confession with full forgiveness (1 John 1:9), I gave Jackie the opportunity to confess to the Lord anything she had not already confessed. Emphasizing Christ’s work for her again (2 Cor 5:21), I pointed out her lack of genuine trust in his atonement at times and encouraged her to confess this as well. Jackie then returned often to the shadow of the cross. This particular session and her continued application of its truth to her familiar patterns of thinking brought a level of peace and freedom to Jackie she had never known before. She learned to bask in God’s forgiveness and its implications declared by the apostle Paul: “Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus” (Rom 8:1).

From an early age Jackie had found ways to dissociate herself from feelings of guilt and pain, escape into nonreality, and dichotomize her “spiritual” life and speech from her personal practice and inner thoughts. There were significant ramifications of this repeated choice. Her ability to relate personally to God’s truth or to relate meaningfully to others was severely hindered. She possessed little emotional capacity to face her own thoughts and feelings honestly. Over time she grew largely out of touch even with good emotions and became fearful or devastated when negative ones emerged. The false refuge of her mental fantasies cornered her into isolation, and she began to voice her fantasies to others as though such ideas were real. She would sometimes get confused about certain aspects of her two lives (made-up versus real), wondering which one was real. Jackie was so personally detached that parts of her memory were affected more than what is typical for those sharing her struggle. She was a small step away from completely compartmentalizing aspects of her person, fully retreating into other “realities,” and being subject to the suggestion of multiple personalities.11 Thankfully, the Spirit of God broke through with the gospel and led her to discontinue her secular-based therapy.12

Jackie needed to know God as her sufficient refuge in reality (Ps 46:1–3). Obviously, focusing on God’s character and his faithfulness to her was foundational for her reliance on him. For this purpose, I asked her to read Psalms and see how the psalmist related to God. She recognized how he experienced difficult emotions at times yet poured out his heart to God (Pss 62:8; 142:1–2), returned to God’s character and truth (Pss 31:9–24; 40:1–5), and trusted God for the grace to get through his painful situation and emotions (Ps 73:23–28). My wife remembers clearly how Jackie pushed through her fears and began imitating this mind-set. Once she began to be honest with God about her thoughts and emotions, the floodgates seemed to open. During this time her emotions were more heightened than she would have liked, but the process was essential.

It was extremely helpful at this time for Jackie to learn how renewing beliefs (embedded ideas of thought) and specific thoughts could affect and help manage her emotions. She needed to confront her anxiety with truth in a personal way. I encouraged her to ask God for the help she needed to face her thoughts and feelings honestly. She found him faithful to give her the help she needed. She was able to learn to take her thoughts captive regarding some long-standing beliefs, her fearful and anxious episodes, and her memories about her past (Rom 12:2; 2 Cor 10:5; Col 2:8).13 This was another huge step in her walk with Christ and her overall growth.

In addition to the guilt over her sin, not trusting God’s good control over her life had contributed to Jackie’s anxieties and panic attacks. As we continued talking about the love of God for her through Christ, we also began pinpointing evidences of God’s common grace, ways he had worked in her life, and what he had been doing in times of trouble (Ps 145:9; Lam 3:19–28,31–33; Rom 8:28–29). Seeing his love demonstrated in this way was an important motivation for embracing the sovereignty of God and viewing her past differently. It also encouraged her to trust God’s control in both the present and the future. Seeing afresh God’s sovereign love and learning to repent of the false control she had learned to practice concerning her own life and the lives of others helped her lingering anxiety to subside. Reading Trusting God by Jerry Bridges led to even greater strides in trust.14

Jackie had practiced the sin of lying for so long and in so many ways that dishonesty had become second nature for her. From the time she began hiding her guilt and shame as a child, deceit had become a way of life. It helped Jackie to know that deceit is a natural, sinful outflow from any unredeemed heart (Jer 17:9). Many years of false worship and turning to other refuges had developed this strong habit that would not be easily broken. It would take a full offensive and relentless accountability. We spent time going over deceit from a biblical perspective (Prov 12:22), examining the various forms of deceit illustrated in Scripture—from purposefully giving wrong impressions to telling a complete untruth.15 Jackie was learning to value and worship Christ above all else. She was committed to confession and repentance any time she was deceitful, no matter how painful. I had her track specific instances of deceit in a weekly calendar so that we could gain insight into any patterns, facilitators, or motivators.16 Evaluating this information while continuing to examine Jackie’s tendencies toward idolatry helped her make regular progress. Though her temptation to deceive seemed to linger the longest, she did eventually become a truth-teller. Jackie later wrote: “There came a day when I HATED to lie about ANYTHING, and I would go back and correct so many little ‘white’ lies. Truth is now a very precious thing to me. Knowing God’s truth (his Word) is the most precious of all.”

One of Jackie’s greatest needs was to learn to love others in a Christlike way. Rather than work on her self-esteem, self-image, or self-confidence, she needed to consider and revel in the love of God and forsake her inordinate focus on herself in her thoughts and relationships. Because of her inward focus, isolation, and preoccupation with fantasies and attention, she did not know the first thing about typical relationships, much less biblical ones. Learning to give unselfishly and sacrificially—rather than using, manipulating, and desperately needing others—would bring glory to God, which was her new goal in life. Doing this would also liberate her from the bottomless pit of self (Phil 2:3–4). Only as she sought to love others just as Christ loves her would Jackie find joy in relationships.

We studied pride and humility and how these opposing mind-sets related to her preoccupation with self or her desire to be approved by God and others based on her own merit. I had Jackie study 1 Corinthians 13 and envision how she could specifically apply love’s various characteristics to her own life. She was then to make concrete plans for loving and serving others. As Christlike love for others became a driving motivation, behaviors like responding to others, communicating more, expressing emotion, and displaying appropriate affection were much easier to work through. I helped her formulate thoughts on how to develop godly relationships from a biblical perspective and to outline practical plans for growth. With Christ’s help Jackie began to experience joy and liberty in relationships in addition to the greater joy she was finding in Christ’s love and her increasingly undivided devotion to him. Her own reflections reveal how pivotal it was for her to learn to love like Christ:

Our small church community was also an integral part of Jackie’s growth and change (see Gal 6:1–3; 2 Corinthians 12; Eph 4:1–13). In many ways it was the catalyst for the public and private ministry of God’s Word to her. It was a spiritual family like she had never known, and it was her training ground where she could apply what she was learning. Through several women who ministered to her, Jackie discovered and began using her own spiritual gifts. In the words of the Christian Counseling and Education Foundation (CCEF), floundering people are “best able to image the triune God as they live and grow in community. Therefore we embed personal change within God’s community—the church, with all its rich resources of corporate and interpersonal means of grace.”17 After all, “change is a community project.”18 Jackie’s transformation brightly illustrated this truth as the church served as the crucial communal environment of truth, care, encouragement, service, and accountability. My work with Jackie was not private by any means.

Jackie’s hope grew incrementally from day one. It was small and weak at first, but as she learned about God’s character and commitment to her she began personally and practically interacting with the Word of God. Changes began to take place in her life, and her meager hope blossomed into a strong faith. Through our counseling sessions, family conversations in our home, and Bible study, a biblical understanding of the dynamics of nonorganic depression along with God’s answers for it began to emerge. Her problem of mysticism and subjectivity in her relationship with God and her decision-making as well as how to handle anger, bitterness, and resentment biblically became a focus of work. Jackie began to conquer impure thoughts, developed a proper view of dating, set clear vocational goals, and began to put in place biblical financial principles.19

It was an awesome thing to watch God work in her life. She became one of the greatest servants in our church and one of the most contented single women we have ever known. It wasn’t that Jackie never wanted to marry. She just became more and more focused on loving, serving, and becoming more like the God who had graciously forgiven her and continued to change her. She ministered to our own family in a myriad of ways, particularly to my wife and children in key times of need.

This case is still particularly meaningful to me for many reasons. First, it was my earliest experience of seeing such drastic transformation in a life fraught with difficulties. I saw the personal ministry of the gospel working through God’s revealed truth. Second, it was a personal lesson of trusting God’s wisdom and ability in the face of my own inexperience. Third, it was a major catalyst for the invaluable training I received in how to minister the Word in counseling. Fourth, I have been able to follow God’s continued work of grace in Jackie’s life and to see the ongoing fruit of his Word.

Jackie’s experiences and responses would have led to greater dissociation, more severe emotional upsets, and deeper escapes into nonreality had she stayed her course. To clarify, if Jackie had evidenced stronger expressions when I was counseling her, I would have needed to stay my course of speaking the truth to her in any way possible. It would also have taken more perseverance in the personal application of the gospel and the patient explanation of biblical principles. I likely would have asked for greater accountability and involvement from the church. It may even have taken a stay at a residential biblical counseling facility.20 If Jackie’s problems had been even more amplified and contorted than they already were, God’s Word remains true: “His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness” (2 Pet 1:3), and “Sanctify them by the truth; Your word is truth” (John 17:17).

Jackie married 10 years later. At just the right time God brought her a godly man whom she loves and supports with joy. Their marriage itself is another story of God’s grace. Today Jackie is a devoted mother of three children and also ministers faithfully to women in her church. Now, 27 years after the fact, Jackie reflected on her time in counseling: