Rejoice Essential Magazine May 2021

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REJOICE ESSENTIAL MAGAZINE MAY 2021

DR. KRISTI LEMLEY INTERVIEWD BY KIMBERLY MOSES

Interviewer: Thank you so much Dr. Kristi for accepting the invite. Tell us a bit of your salvation journey? When did you get saved and how was that day when you accepted Jesus into your heart. Dr. Kristi Lemley: Well, I grew up in a Christian home, so I feel like I always knew the Lord, but I didn’t always serve Him. So, I rededicated my life to the Lord in 1997 and I remember being at a women’s conference and just hearing them talk and I felt like I was hearing the Word for the first time. Even when I was in high school, I would read and fall asleep with my Bible because I would be so afraid. It was like I knew the Lord, but it was like I really wasn’t living for Him. So, in October 1997, I rededicated my life to the Lord, and I was weeping and it was such a powerful experience. The next day I started telling everybody about Jesus. I rededicated my heart to Him. When I rededicated

my life, I was on fire for the Lord and then He started changing things about me. Instead of Him just being my Savior, I made Him my Lord. I surrendered my life to Him and started saying “Yes” and allowed Him to get some really unhealthy things out of my life. Interviewer: Amen. That is so powerful! Especially that transformation about the deliverance process. Many people say it takes years and for me, I had anxiety for five years. So it took me five years to actually get free. So, could you tell us about your deliverance process? Dr. Kristi Lemley: Yes, it was a process because after I rededicated my life, then it was just a process of different things like I still was the life of the party and I was still drinking. I was still doing that kind of thing, but slowly things like that started to decrease. Up until 2002 was the year that the Lord just took me through deliverance from shame

and guilt. It was an enormous thing. I went through many things in my life. I was sexually abused and then my parents divorced. Then I moved away and then my oldest sister moved out. My middle sister stayed with my dad and I went to live with my mom, so my family broke up. So, the Lord had to deliver me from how I respond to pain. Instead of turning to God to deal with pain, I turned to boys and alcohol. There was a lot of fear there. So, I would actually come to face the time that the Lord actually began to put a stinger on things and He said that “That needs to go, and that needs to go.” Because I am very prophetic, He did it with pictures. I will never forget the day that the Lord showed me what I looked like to Him when I drank alcohol. I was mortified and said, “Okay, I am done with that.” Every day for eight months, I prayed that the Lord would deliver me from guilt. I


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