Prayer Counseling Testimony

Testimony concerning Prayer Ministry (Prayer Counseling)

Byron Myers



            My marriage had failed and I was looking for help. It started at a men’s retreat where God began working in my life to deal with the area of passivity I was living in. This revealed the basis of anger in my life and the masks I wore to compensate for the things in my life that I thought people didn’t like about me.

            In the sessions with Dr. Jim I found a new freedom as God revealed to me that my life had value and meaning. I did have worth and was worthy. I was of great worth to God. I didn’t have to hide in shame. I was accepted, safe, like the lamb in the Shepherd’s arms.

            A second blessing was my release from sexual addiction and bondage. I found that I didn’t have to hide my shame or carry it any longer. The walls I had built for protection and isolation came down. I no longer needed them. All my life I had felt dirty and now I was clean. There is a new wholeness and a healing in my life.

            I really appreciate Jim in helping me through this process. Before I wasn’t able to talk with my wife because of fear, but now I am able to better communicate with her. The big difference is that now I feel safe. I’m ok in God’s eyes and in my own.

            I had spent 60 years in bondage and now I am free. Since childhood I had built walls of isolation around myself and after all these years God gave me intimacy with Him and with my wife. Nothing helps like having someone to talk with about daily life. I found in Dr. Jim someone who could show me clearly the needs in my life and point me to the God who has the answers. I can truly say that I found the reality and joy of the Gentle Shepherd.

Testimonies of Two Ritual Abuse Survivors

From Janelle a 49 year old female

I am 49 years old and I have been dealing with ritual abuse issues all of my life. In recent years I have pursued secular and Christian counseling as well as medical intervention without much success. Everything came crashing in on me 3 years ago and I eventually had to be hospitalized. After I was dismissed from the hospital, I continued counseling for another nine months without much progress, although it was during this time that I became aware that I was dissociative.

When I decided that it was time to return home, (I had been living with my sister in Oklahoma for over a year) Dr. Stewart (psychiatrist) referred me to Dr. Musgrave who had begun to see people in Fayetteville once a week. After talking to him on the phone, he gave me hope that there might be real help for me through Gentle Shepherd Ministries and the prayer ministry he was doing there. My first visit was in January, 2003, and my life has gone from darkness to light in a year! Dr. Musgrave has been able to help me face the fears and trauma that had ruled my life and receive so much healing during this time.

When he suggested that a week of intensive work in Idaho with Steve Oglevie, could equal a year of weekly counseling or prayer ministry, my husband and I decided it would be worth a try. He was right, the process that Steve uses helps to open doors that I didn’t think could be opened and faced. Upon returning home from Idaho, in August, my husband and others could tell right away that it had been a huge success. The follow up work with Dr. Musgrave has been so much easier and I am gaining more and more freedom and healing even though I am only seeing him occasionally now. I am beginning to enjoy life in a way that I’ve never been able to before. I am so thankful for Gentle Shepherd Ministries and Dr. Musgrave for offering hope, help and healing for people like me who have lost all hope.

From Russell a 43 year old male

I am 43 years old and would describe my life as consisting mostly of suffering and failure. To even begin to describe my problems would take more words than this short narrative can afford – but they generally were in the areas of drug addiction, inability to engage in intimate relationships, and one professional failure after another.

Since childhood I have sought help through number of secular and Christian counseling professionals, as well as through numerous seminars, books, movements, and life changes of all sorts. Notably, none of these efforts provided either short-term relief or long term change in my life situation.

I first became involved with Dr. Musgrave in September 2001 after being referred by a pastor friend. I should state at the outset that I am trained and work highly technical fields (trained in medicine and I work now as a pilot). I am also very analytical, critical, skeptical, and untrusting by nature. Despite how unbelievable and even ridiculous Dr. Musgrave's techniques seemed at the time, he struck me as credible, and it was clear he was sincere in his care for me. We worked together for over a year and a half, sometimes meeting once a month, sometimes not a tall, but more frequently talking by phone and email. Nothing much happened therapeutically during this time, in fact my life situation got worse and I went on to become highly suicidal during that time. However, I also came to trust Dr. Musgrave.

When I was at my lowest, Dr. Musgrave suggested that perhaps my problems were the result of things that were done to me as a child. I think he probably diagnosed me in our first couple of meetings, but he wisely didn’t make any suggestions of this nature to me.

I did have a “difficult childhood”, but I also had no memory of any outright abuse,– so that was a big hurdle. But I was now in severe distress, and it was getting worse. As my life really became unbearable in the beginning of 2003 and Dr. Musgrave suggested that I go for a week of intensive counseling work in Idaho – something I agreed to as a last ditch effort, yet I held firm to my plans to commit suicide “if it didn’t work”.

Fortunately, my sessions in Idaho in April of 2003 with Steve Oglvie and Dr. Jim did “work”. I was able to learn of severe abuse in my childhood and to jump-start my healing process. I like to say that I gained my freedom and got my life back. The changes were instant and dramatic. I don’t think it would be inaccurate to describe the change as miraculous.

Less that 2 months after returning from Idaho I had my lifelong dream of flying for a relief organization in Africa come true (a group I’d been fired from three years earlier) Today I am the Chief Pilot for this group in the Congo, and the changes in my inner life from working with Dr. Musgrave have proven to be lasting and permanent.