Editor’s Note: This devotion was written by Dianna Hobbs and used by permission from her ‘Your Daily Cup of Inspiration’ blog. To read more encouragement like this, visit YourDailyCupOfInspiration.com.

I got a text from a friend at the beginning of the year. She told me that her mother was sick with COVID and was on a ventilator.

The message caught me off guard. Our family had just laid my brother to rest several weeks earlier. He died from COVID after spending a short time on a ventilator. I think it was all too much for me, because the next morning, I freaked out while I was in the kitchen making coffee.

I don’t know what happened exactly, but the whole kitchen transformed into the intensive care unit. Suddenly, the year was 2019, and I was back in ICU—at least mentally. I could see everything vividly. I heard the sounds. Felt the feelings. Everything.

I was there. Only I wasn’t. But my mind didn’t know that. It could not differentiate reality from fantasy. The brain is powerful that way!

By the time I snapped back to reality, I was in the kitchen, holding on to the sink, trembling, and couching down in fear. If anyone had walked in the room, they would have been right to worry about my mental state.

That’s what living with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is like. A trigger can send me back to the scene of my 2019 trauma and make it all feel real again.

Sadly, my friend’s mom died not long after.

Even before she passed on, I was triggered by the news that her mother was in the ICU in the same state that my brother was in before he died. The ICU and Dianna Hobbs do not get along. At all. I don’t even like talking about it.

Y’all gone have to pray for me.

It brings back too many memories. Horrible ones.

When PTSD swoops in, it makes my brain think I’m in danger when I’m not. I start to believe that imagined things are real, and I feel powerless against it. Thank God I am in therapy working through my issues, because boy can it be hard to get things straight in my head some days.

For this reason, I try to do what my therapist tells me to do, but first and foremost, I do my spiritual work. I constantly feed my spirit with the word of God and meditate on His promises. I confess Scripture despite what I’m feeling. Otherwise, I will be a wreck who constantly believes a bunch of berserk, untrue, triggering, anxiety-inducing, mentally taxing, scary lies.

“Every time the devil lies, hit him right back with the truth of God’s word. Every lie will fail, but the word of our God will always prevail!”

— Dianna Hobbs

I tell myself all the time, “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever” (Isaiah 40:8 ESV). His word never fails. It is my secret weapon to counter the attack of the enemy.

You’ve got to use your weapon. The word is your weapon. You can always count on it to combat every lie. You’ve got to pray, speak, rehearse, and meditate on the word. Fill yourself with as much truth as possible, so when the lie shows up, it’ll stick out like a sore thumb.

What, then, is the truth?

No weapon formed against me shall prosper (Isaiah 54:17). I am more than a conqueror through Christ (Romans 8:37). The Greater One lives in me (1 John 4:4). I will not die but live to declare the works of the Lord (Psalm 118:17). By His stripes I am healed (Isaiah 53:5)

That’s the truth!

The ultimate truth is found in the first half of John 14:6, which is what I’m stirring into your cup of inspiration, where Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”

As you drink down the contents of your cup, continue to look to Jesus, the author and the finisher of your faith (Hebrews 12:2). When you do this, the enemy cannot pull the wool over your eyes and force you to accept his lies. You will instead declare the truth of the word of God.

As often as you can, speak it over yourself. Speak it over your family. Speak it over your destiny.

Tell yourself the truth—and it will manifest.

It must.

Before I go, God told me to speak prophetically over somebody and tell you this:

Because you have been confessing the word, you are about to possess the promise. He knows you have been under attack, but you are about to see evidence of God’s favor, all because you have exercised your faith and placed your confidence in the truth. And He is the truth.

No lie will prevail.

Now, let’s pray.

God, thank You for reminding me that the lies of the enemy are no match for the truth of Your word. In times when my mind is tormented by doubt, fear, confusion, worry, and stress, please remind me to confess Your word, because You watch over Your word to perform it, according to Jeremiah 1:12. In Jesus name, Amen.

Dianna Hobbs is founder of EEW Magazine Online and CEO of Empowering Everyday Women Ministries — a 501c3 nonprofit organization that shares the gospel and provides humanitarian aid to the hurting. She is also the writer of Your Daily Cup of Inspiration and executive producer of the companion podcast. Follow Dianna on social media: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube. Sign up for her free ministry newsletter here.