Are the words spoken over you shaping your identity more than God’s Word is?

In this episode, Nina Pajonas exposes how the enemy uses word curses, family labels, and generational wounds to rewrite your identity—and how to break free from them through Christ.

If you’ve ever battled negative words, family wounds, or labels that follow you, this episode will help you reclaim your identity, reject lies, and walk confidently in Christ.

Only Jesus gets to write your story.

Identity theft is real,

but I'm not talking about someone stealing your credit card number.

I'm talking about the enemy trying to steal your God given identity through something most of us underestimate every single day.

Words.

The words spoken over and over us.

The words we speak to ourselves.

Welcome to Born to be a Butterfly,

where we embrace healing and growth in Christ so that we can experience true transformation.

My name is Nina Pajonis and I pray that today's message ministers to you.

Today we're going to talk about generational words,

subconscious agreements,

pity disguised as compassion,

and how to stop allowing the enemy to rewrite your divine destiny by reshaping your identity with words that God never said about you.

the tongue has the power of life and death,

and those who love it will eat its fruit.

Life and death,

blessing and cursing,

healing and wounding,

all sit right on our tongues.

Let's dive in.

There is a pastor that I listen to on a regular basis and she was recently speaking about generational curses and the power of words spoken over you,

especially by your own family.

And unfortunately,

it doesn't matter whether your family realizes what they're doing.

It's not always malice.

A lot of times their hearts are full of hurt and they're not healed,

so they bleed all over you with their words.

And now those words,

those comments,

those comparisons and labels,

they carry power.

If you don't know how to recognize them and reject them,

if you don't know how to break the spell,

break the curse, and stand in your identity in Christ,

those words will take root because they're speaking from their wounds.

And then those wounds get inflicted on you.

It becomes a trauma cycle,

a generational cycle. And Scripture actually addresses this dynamic. In James 3, verses 9 through 10 and IV,

with the tongue we praise our Lord and Father and with it we curse human beings who have been made in God's likeness.

Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing my brothers and sisters.

This should not be.

And sometimes that cursing doesn't sound like a swear word.

Sometimes it sounds like a label,

something spoken carelessly out of a wounded place.

And that's what I want to talk about through a very personal part of my story.

Some of, you know, pieces of this from my book From Broken to Butterfly,

but I don't think I've really spoken about, about this part of my story in public. Before my mother was an alcoholic and she also struggled with prescription medication addiction.

Her marriage to my father was complicated.

There were good Parts, of course,

but because of her addiction, there were also a lot of struggles.

She was very sick.

My father tried to get her help.

He wanted therapy,

he wanted healing.

But she didn't want to go.

And eventually they got divorced.

I'm saying all this, but I also want to say my mother was not a villain.

She was sick,

she was hurting,

and she was in bondage.

But here is the beautiful part.

Later in life,

my mother got sober,

and we had an absolutely beautiful relationship.

She was my best friend.

Our personalities were incredibly similar, and I still see so much of her in me.

However,

ironically,

I now also see a great deal of my father in me.

But growing up,

that wasn't how he saw me.

My father,

whom I love deeply, was not fully healed, emotionally or spiritually.

And he would often say,

you remind me of your mother.

Let me be clear.

He was not trying to break me down.

He was speaking from a wounded place.

But think about what that communicates to a child.

You remind me of someone who hurt me.

You remind me of someone who wasn't well.

You remind me of a person who brought me pain.

So his wounds were being spoken into by identity.

That's how generational words work.

That's how trauma cycles are transferred.

The funny thing is,

as I got older,

something shifted. And when I look in the mirror now, I see so much more of my father,

and so does everybody else.

It used to be when I was a child, they would say, oh, you look just like your mother, Carmen.

Oh,

wow. It's like you're Carmen's twin.

From the way I looked to the way I acted,

every single thing was always a comparison to my mother.

But as I've gotten older, I hear more of,

wow,

you looked just like your dad when you said that.

It's so funny how time changes things.

And I think that's God's tenderness.

He allows us to see things differently as we heal,

but also as we heal.

People do see us differently if they want to.

And I'm going to get to that in just a bit.

My mom was a fighter.

She was a warrior.

She fought stigma.

She had to fight the lies people told her.

She didn't just fight addiction.

She also fought a physical disease.

In fact, the doctors told her multiple times to stop working and to go on disability.

They said she had every reason and right to.

But my mother refused.

As her daughter, I couldn't understand why, and I told her as much.

But my mother's reply was always the same.

I don't need that baby.

That's for people who are really sick.

I always accepted that answer until one day I finally said, mommy, you are really sick and have been for years.

That's when she said,

nini,

the mind is a powerful thing.

It believes what you tell it.

I don't tell it that I'm sick.

After that day,

I never brought it up to her again.

But I still never fully understood the incredible power and meaning behind her words.

Until just recently.

The Holy Spirit revealed that my mother felt weak most of her life.

She lived under that banner for a very long time.

She was even a premature baby.

The identity of being sick or unwell had followed her around since birth.

No wonder she she refused to go out on disability.

She was proving something to herself and to others simultaneously.

My mother had negative words,

labels and judgments spoken over her from a very young age.

These things were spoken over her life the way some people hand down heirlooms.

But they weren't handing down jewelry.

They were handing down generational curses.

As children,

we can get easily buried under the burdens of someone else's soul.

What was once their story becomes ours and the destructive cycle continues.

That's exactly what happened to me.

However.

The Lord's life, love,

grace and mercy for my soul set me free.

And it's in him that I have found my true identity.

But that doesn't mean that people have stopped trying to speak the old me over the new me.

Sometimes it's subtle.

Sometimes it's wrapped in concern,

wrapped in Christian encouragement,

wrapped in pity pretending to be compassion.

And the perfect example of this is what happened to me after I lost my cat, Chloe,

my baby,

a little over a month ago.

After I shared that she had passed.

Some people began sending messages that felt like invitations into a pool of self pity.

And the Lord made it very clear.

Be careful,

because if you agree with those words even slightly,

you will start believing them.

Let me say something very clearly.

Pity is not compassion.

Compassion uplifts as it comforts.

Compassion aligns with God's healing.

Pity tries to assign you an identity rooted in your suffering.

Pity says,

this is who you are now.

It encourages you to worship your wounds instead of the one who heals them.

And if you let pity seep into your soul, you are silently agreeing.

Maybe this is my portion.

Maybe this is who I am now.

But that is not what scripture says about us.

When I was grieving those first few days,

I cried constantly.

Then I broke down and said,

lord Jesus, I cannot do this on my own.

I need you to carry me.

And he did.

He didn't remove the sorrow he carried it.

This grief season has been entirely different from anything I have ever experienced before Christ.

Before I surrendered my life to the Lord.

Even though I still feel it,

I don't feel it the same way.

It doesn't crush my soul.

I am sustained,

supported and strengthened by my Savior.

I can't explain how he does it.

I can only tell you that he does.

The night I had to put my baby down,

I was at the emergency vet,

and they were getting her ready for me to say goodbye.

And I was sitting in a room by myself because I knew I had to get myself together.

I didn't want her to see me really upset.

So as I sat there,

I started to praise the Lord.

I started to sing goodness of God.

And I told him,

I am not going to get angry with you about this.

I am not going to get resentful about this.

I love you.

I love you with all of me.

And. And nothing can change that.

I wanted to focus on God,

not my grief.

But soon afterwards,

I realized that some people were waiting for me to fall apart.

They expected the old me.

But God said,

oh, no, no, no.

You are going to show them something different.

You are going to show them that true strength comes from me.

People said things like,

I know you're resilient,

even though you're so delicate.

And I read that in a text, and I was in my kitchen and I started laughing.

I was like, whoa.

Who said I was delicate?

Since when did I become delicate?

I couldn't have survived what I've survived if I was delicate.

I wasn't going to say anything nice if I replied at that moment,

so I chose not to.

But in my spirit,

in my mind,

I was thinking,

you must have me confused with somebody else.

I am a daughter of the most High God.

I say this all to say,

speak life over yourself.

Do not let them speak weakness over you.

I plead the blood of Jesus over every word spoken against me.

And I encourage you to. To do the same.

Because some people recognized the seed that God has planted in me. And some people are going to recognize the seed that he planted in you.

And they will try to crush it before it can ever take root.

But those days are over.

You must reject every false identity, every.

You must renounce every lie and return every word. Curse to sender. In the mighty name of Jesus.

You have to be careful not to let anyone else write your story.

There is one author and one finisher of your faith, and his name is Jesus.

So when someone speaks something over you that does not align with His Word you say,

you must have me confused with somebody else.

I serve the Lord Jesus Christ.

He writes my story,

not you.

And read this over yourself.

Psalm 139, 13, 14. NIV for you created my inmost being.

You knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Your works are wonderful.

I know that full well.

You are his workmanship.

You are his favorite creation.

I'm not mad at my dad for saying that. I reminded him of my mother.

He didn't know what he was doing.

I think he was speaking from a place of fear.

He didn't want me to have her problems.

But at the end of the day,

I did wind up having a problem with alcohol,

just like her.

And it's unfortunate,

but I also saw her kick Cancer's butt.

I saw a lot of great things out of a woman that many people said was not strong.

They were wrong about her.

And a lot of people were wrong about me too.

But God,

God knows His children.

God knows what he created us to do,

who he created us to be.

And even those negative things that people spoke over, you don't get to change that.

They don't get to tell you who you are and what you can do in Christ Jesus.

So forgive those who didn't know better,

and forgive those who did know better and did it anyway.

Stand strong in your identity in Christ and bring every word to Him.

If you ever have doubt,

open your Bible and remind yourself that you are his beloved.

Above all,

be grateful that you have a God who will always have the last word when it comes to you.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus,

I thank youk for every woman who is listening right now.

I ask youk to shine a light on every false word,

every label, every lie ever spoken over them that did not come from youm.

Break every generational curse.

Break every subconscious agreement.

Break every identity that came from wounds. Instead of your Word,

teach us to reject pity and embrace purpose.

Teach us to speak life and not death over ourselves.

And remind us every day that there is only one author of our story,

and it is you.

We declare we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

We are your workmanship.

We are chosen,

loved,

redeemed,

and free.

In the mighty name of Jesus,

I pray.

If today's message ministered to you,

please share it with a friend and follow Born to Be a Butterfly so you never miss an episode.

If you'd like to connect or have any questions,

feel free to reach me on Instagram at Born to Be a Butterfly or you can email me@ninapajonesmail.com until next time,

remember,

the Lord can turn your wounds into.

Into wings.

You were born to be a butterfly.