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The following is an excerpt from the study guide titled “Healing the Mind and Emotions of the Oppressed” by Pastor Rick Renner. It is his personal story of oppression. As a young child, he believed the lie “ there’s something wrong with you. “
When I was a young boy I dealt with oppression. Most of our friends in the church where I grew up participated in sports, and the mindset was that to be a real man, you had to be a sportsman. Sports were highly valued, and our church friends either bowled or played basketball, softball, or baseball. In fact, they participated in anything involving a ball! But guess what?
Ricky Renner was not gifted in any kind of sports involving a ball. I actually hated every kind of ball sport.
As a very young boy, voices began to speak to me, saying, There’s something wrong with you. You can’t compete with the other guys. You cannot do what the other guys can do. Those thoughts just kept continually striking my mind.
School Days
When I went to school, I tried again to be involved in sports with the other guys. However, I still was such a failure when it came to sports. Every day, I would have those feelings of failure reinforced by voices speaking failure to me over and over and over again.
This was an early assault on my mind, and because I didn’t understand what was happening, I couldn’t articulate it or even verbalize it. I knew I was different from the other guys. I liked art, museums, and music, which included the symphony. Moreover, I liked creativity. I was just wired differently. But the same voice that told me I was a failure for not being good at sports also repeatedly sneered, You’re a freak to like the things you like.
Those voices constantly lambasted me, day in and day out. I can still remember looking into the mirror as a young boy and thinking, What is wrong with you? There’s something really wrong with you. It wasn’t depression; it was an outside oppressive force trying to penetrate my mind and take me hostage.
Seventh Grade
When I was in the seventh grade I became ill and missed half of the school year. During my absence, a new type of math had been introduced. When I finally returned to school, I did not understand what was being taught. Not only was I struggling in math, but I also didn’t do well in writing because I had missed so much about English and grammar.
Every day I struggled, and as I sat at my desk, I would hear voices constantly accusing me of being stupid and a failure. However, even though I really had failed in mathematics, my teacher liked me and graduated me to the next level in school. Consequently, for another entire year, I struggled with mathematics. But that year, my eighth-grade teacher also liked me and passed me into the ninth grade.
Ninth Grade Reinforcements
When I entered ninth grade, my algebra teacher was so old that she had also been my father’s algebra teacher! Unfortunately, when my father was a child, she did not like him.
During my first day in class, as this teacher was taking roll, she came to my name and said, “Ricky Renner.” I responded, “Here.” She asked, “Is your father Ronald Renner?” I answered, “Yes, that’s my father.”
I vividly remember her face as she pulled her glasses down to the end of her nose. She peered at me behind those thick lenses. Then she pushed her glasses back up onto her face and said matter-of-factly, “Stupid. In this class your name is Stupid. Any child of Ronald Renner is stupid, stupid, stupid. and that is your name in this class.”
Then when the other students heard what the teacher had called me, they thought it was hysterical and they all began to call me Stupid. When I walked through the hallway at school, I would hear, “Hey Stupid! Hey Stupid, where are you going?”
Every day when that teacher called the roll in class, she would call everyone else by their actual name, but as soon as she came to my name, she would call out, “Stupid Renner.” And every time, I would compliantly answer, “Here.” If I raised my hand to ask a question, she would respond, “Yes, Stupid. Can somebody please help Stupid?”I was labeled Stupid in that class and it spread to the hallways and the campus of that school.
The Lies will Become Our Reality
Notice what was happening. The devil was telling me I was a stupid failure and a freak. And now he was able to bring in reinforcements through this woman. He began to use someone who was an authority figure, with the power of influence, to reinforce the lies he had already been telling me.
The devil was striking and striking and striking to penetrate my mind so I would believe the lie that I was stupid, a failure, a freak, and that there was something really wrong with me. Satan was an outsider and a cruel dictator — an absolute tyrant trying to subdue, conquer, and dominate my young life.
The devil knew if I began to believe what I was hearing, that lie would have eventually become my reality, and I would fail in life. The adversary wants us to believe his lies because if he can deceive us into believing a lie, that lie will become our reality. Oppression will leave the mental and spiritual realms and it will become a reality in all of life.
There is Hope!
Even though the devil was in pursuit of my destruction through his persistent lies, when I was 14 years old, I gloriously received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and those attacks ceased. When I received the baptism in the Holy Spirit, the power of God came on me, the devil’s mission was aborted. All of those attacks stopped and drove that darkness out of my life.
