ICM’s Legacy to Me
by Mary Beth Branson
The events that brought me to ICM's door are probably pretty similar to everyone's experience. Even though raised in a deeply religious Christian home, where I had asked Jesus into my life at 5, I learned early that my parents couldn't express their love to me. They took me to church but were unable to hug me, say "I love you" or spend any time with me. I was always in the way of their careers or church activities. I do not say these things to dishonor my parents. I deeply loved them and know we are all imperfect people living in a sinful world. I came to forgive them both before their deaths.
If love is skimped on in any way, it will profoundly mark a person for life. It will usually guarantee that they will struggle to understand and believe in God's love. In my case, I never quite believed God liked me. I viewed him as barely tolerating me when others were loved, and I constantly struggled with a profound lack of self-esteem, self-confidence and underachievment because I didn't believe that what I did was significant. I experienced life-long depression, to the point of suicide, emotional and mental anguish, and fear of people.
I thought no one saw the pain I successfully ran away from many years, but God did and He truly wanted to make me whole.
Some of my friends were just like Job's friends who told him if it wasn't for his sins, he would be fine. I lived a lonely, isolated life because many of my previous relationships were too painful for me to be that close to anyone again. This was about where I was when the Institute for Christian Ministry (ICM) was recommended to me by a friend.
I remember the first time I drove up to the house on " Street in Tacoma where ICM then resided. As a supplicant, I hoped that it would be a healing time, but I had no idea the journey it would take me on -- a journey to become a more whole person than ever before; a deep healing time where I was reclaimed as a living, breathing human being, not just a spectator or actor. I truly became convinced at last of my worth in God's eyes, just plain–Jane me. Through prayer with a prayer team, and appointments with an ICM-recommended counselor, I came to be healed of emotional pain.
Over the next three years, week after week, as I drove up to Tacoma from Olympia to be with my prayer team and my counselor, both faithfully met my needs and helped me see Jesus standing in my place of pain and welcoming me out. Now, 9 years later, I look back to where I was then. I know I am new and, most of all, I am free. I am free to receive Jesus's love for me and to me. I am free to breathe it in and bask in it every moment of my day.
I knew many things on an intellectual level in my relationship to Jesus, but through ICM‘s healing ministry my heart came alive! I recovered from just observing and existing in life. I became a participant.
Ps. 107:10, 14-15 says it all, "There were those who dwelt in darkness and in the shadow of death, prisoners in misery and chains. God brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death and broke their bands apart. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his loving kindness and for his wonders to mere mortals!
In the fall of 1996, I entered the Formation for Healing Ministry (FHM) training program. There I came to more of an understanding of how we become instruments of his healing for others and to more of a sense of the gifts he has given me. Most of all, I learned to really worship God in spirit and in truth. Outwardly I may appear no different, but inwardly, I am freer than I ever thought possible.
Jeremiah 9:23 says, "Let not the wise bask in their wisdom, nor the mighty in their might, nor the rich in their riches. But let them boast in this alone: that they truly know me and understand I am the Lord of justice and of righteousness whose love is steadfast, and I love to be this way." I boast in the Lord today.
—Mary Beth Branson
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