What If Your Addiction Started As A Lie You Believed

A single sentence spoken in sixth grade can lodge like a splinter for decades and sometimes it shows up later as addiction, shame, and distance inside a marriage. We talk with Pastor Linda Budd of Rivergate Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who shares how healing prayer and deliverance ministry can go deeper than symptoms by returning to the original trauma point where the wound began.

Pastor Linda begins with a direct prayer for anyone dealing with pain, sickness, or disease, leaning on the biblical practice of laying hands on the sick and expecting recovery through Jesus Christ. Then she tells a striking testimony from a miracle healing service: a young couple walks in, and she senses a clear word for them that infertility will not be a problem. Minutes later, the husband asks for healing but breaks down in tears, revealing a private struggle that started after a humiliating comment from friends when he was a kid.

We follow the thread from that early moment into adulthood and marriage, and we unpack what it looks like to identify the entry point of an addiction, repent, and command everything connected to that trauma to leave in Jesus’ name. The story also includes a powerful moment for the wife, as she is reassured that the struggle is not her fault and she finds her own freedom. If you’re searching for Christian healing testimonies, prayer for healing, spiritual freedom, and hope for relationships under pressure, this conversation will meet you where you are. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs hope, and leave a review with the part that challenged you most.

Transcript

Introduction and Healing Ministry

Linda Budd 0:00

Hi, I'm Linda Budd. I'm a pastor at Rivergate Church in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And I take the scriptures literally that says that we are to lay hands on the sick and see them recover. And so for several years I've gone after a healing anointing. I've prayed for people dozens of times over the years. And I see so many get healed. I've seen all manner of sickness and disease healed. If you have any pain in your body, if you're infirmed, if you have any disease, if you have any sickness at all, I just reach my hand up to heaven right now in the name of Jesus and I call forth the new body part that you need. Listen to this testimony. Well, I was doing a powerful miracle healing service, and uh a couple came in that I really had not seen very often before, a young couple, and and I know they don't come to my church, they go somewhere else. Uh but when I saw them walk in, I heard the Lord say, tell them that infertility will not be a problem. And so uh as we were progressing, I did that. I said, I said, I don't know if you have children or not, I don't know if you're trying to have children, but infertility will not be a problem. And they received it very well. And so we just kept on going in the service, and people were getting healed, and it was getting to be about 10 minutes before the service was to end. And I said, Is there anyone else that needs a healing? Well, this same man lifted his hand and he said, I do. And I said, Well, what do you need to be healed of? And right at that minute, he just bent forward in his chair and began to sob and sob and sob, and he couldn't talk. He was crying so hard. And so I just kept on praising the Lord, praising the Lord. And finally, he was able to tell us that uh when he was in the sixth grade, his friends had girlfriends, and he did not have a girlfriend. And so one of them said to him, Well, then you must just be a homosexual. And it so wounded him and so hurt him that from that time on he began looking at stuff that he should not be looking at, and he got caught up in that all the way from sixth grade now to adult manhood, being a married man, and he wanted to be free of it, and so we took him all the way back to the trauma point and said, uh, let's let the Lord heal you right at the trauma point of where this was said to you in the sixth grade, and we did some deliverance there, and we cast out the spirit that came and attached itself to him in that trauma, and we said that you're set free from this, and we did a lot of praying there and just uh kept flowing with the Holy Ghost, and to the point where probably after 10 minutes of ministry to this young man, married man, he felt a total relief. And his wife was standing and watching, and I looked at her and she looked very stoic. And I put my arms around her and I said, There is no way in the world that this has been your fault. This has nothing to do with you, this has nothing to do with you being desirable or not. I said, You are a great wife, and she just busted out crying, and she got totally set free. And uh this young couple walked out just so, so happy. And now I knew why the Lord said fertility will not be a problem for you. And they were just ecstatic, just so very happy and and so forth. And I heard even today, which has been about two weeks later, that he is free from this. If you are suffering from being caught up in an addiction, please look at your life and see where when that entered you, what happened to cause that addiction to enter your life, what trauma took place, what kind of thing was said to you, what kind of thing was done to you, and then rise up in the name of Jesus and repent for allowing that trauma to hit you, and then command every spirit that is associated with that trauma to come off of you in the name of Jesus. And I too believe that you will be set free. Glory to God for healing the way that Jesus heals. Glory to God for this young couple being set free, glory to the name of Jesus. Aren't these just great testimonies of the goodness of God and the healing power of Jesus Christ? If you are interested in having me come and speak at a motivational event, your church, or a conference of some sort, I am more than happy to consider that invitation. Please contact my church's office, Rivergate Church Ultra, 918-492-5511, and we'll see if we can set something up. God bless you.