After my encounter with Jesus, and witnessing the demons so clearly, I sought God like I never had before. My mind was very boggled. The next morning, I awoke like every other morning; I went through the motions of my routine. There was one thing different...me. I tried not to think about the day before, but fear and curiosity intruded every thought I had. As I sat at my station, it was located by the conveyor belt the participants (I) threw clothes on after they were tagged. I wrote on a piece of paper the following:
God is Real
What I thought was a dream was in fact real. God is real. I have now experienced the forces of good and evil in its truest form. And I am a witness to the truth. God will always prevail. God is real. 1/1/20.
It remains in my bible. On the back side of the paper, I had written my own fasting goals that I participated in about a week or so later with a local church called the Church of the Highlands. After my experience, I dove headfirst in my bible and my prayer life increased significantly. I often wondered why it happened to me. In the beginning, someone told me it was a blessing that most people long to encounter such a spiritual realm as I did. I did not see it that way. I wanted to unsee what I saw. I had wished it never happened and asked God to remove the visualizations of the demons from my memory. He did not. I developed a fear of having another attack. I was terrified that such evil forces would come visit me again. On the other side, I had a deep longing to know Jesus more. I felt in my heart a love so pure and strong and a sense of gratitude that no one could ever convince me otherwise that God was not real. I felt protected and my sweet Jesus has walked with me every day since. Fun fact! He had always walked along my side. I now appreciate the awareness and call it one of my most blessed moments to have experienced such an intimate moment with my Lord. Did this encounter make me 'more special' in the sight of Jesus? Absolutely not. What I have realized is that Jesus took action. I surrendered and the devil was not thrilled. I had been living a life/lie that the enemy condoned. I was sick and had made the decision to break free. The enemy used his tactics and Jesus showed up and fought for me. God fights so many battles that we know nothing about.
I ran across this quote: "Be careful who you decide to hurt cause some people pray, and when they cry, God acts on their behalf."
God hears our prayers, protects his children, and WILL act on our behalf. I am speaking from truth, one encounter with Jesus can change your life. My faith as grown and continually grows. I have searched things of this world and I have questioned if God is real, and I have questioned if God is real then why such suffering is there. Like anyone who wants to search out answers and find the truth- I did. I had a lot. Every avenue and every road or curiosity train I had taken led me back to Jesus. God attained my attention that day because I no longer could question his existence. Even if I wanted to-which surprise! I did. But- like all things real, once you have experienced love for itself and Jesus-your earthly mind wants to make logical sense of a spiritual encounter. Even when the son of God stood before me in the supernatural, I felt the truth. I knew it to be true; but like all thing's we humans experience rather good or bad, we tend to want to label. It was an activation of my faith. It was what I NEEDED to be saved. I labeled it as 'my dream.' Do you know why? To say it was real, scared me. My faith grew stronger, I leaned onto Jesus, while my mind remained curious, and I noticed later on the fear I carried and my questions I had kept silent. I wholeheartedly believed in Jesus, but I wanted to know why God allows his followers to suffer. Guess what? I made it much complicated. The answers you seek- are in you.
A few days later, Tawana (the director), spoke with me about attending outside counseling. Tawana is beautiful on the inside and out! She is a God- fearing woman with a great personality and loving heart. She made me feel not alone and is the most understanding, empathetic, caring, funny, loving woman I know. She is a gift from God and always radiates God's light in her presence. She has a true gift taking care of ladies in recovery. She is my role model and is like a big sister to me now, that tells me like it is! I am so grateful for her and all the women in my life that build me up and support my recovery journey. She explained a counseling service that is out-of-the-box. Other women who needed extra therapy had gone to this counselor and it helped them tremendously. She left the decision to me, but highly recommended it after the spiritual warfare attack. I told her I would go. I was nervous and honestly all of it was very new to me. She spoke about deliverance ministry. I was a bit eerie. She began explaining the differences between demonic oppression and possession. To speak on any of this shocked the hell out of me. I had never seen or experienced anything of this nature except on television until my own experience. That I referred to as 'my dream.' She told me I had heavy demonic oppression. "You cannot become possessed if you are saved." I had relief after hearing that. I thought, "why in the world does the devil care to visit me like this? He needs to go torture someone else! I believe in God and have always since I was a little girl! Even when had questioned my faith, in my heart, I knew the truth!"
My first appointment I was driven about twenty-five-minutes away to the ministry counseling. The office was located in a large building that was not easily accessible to walk-in. Other businesses were located there. I sat outside a door for about three minutes until my counselor introduced himself. He was a friendly man in his sixties, maybe? He walked me to his office and asked if I wanted something to drink as he motioned for me to take a seat on the couch by his desk. I was very anxious as he told me a little about himself and his story. He explained how we would start at the beginning of my life. I thought, " who cares about that, I need help now with my addiction and these demons!" We talked about my current affairs and then he gave me homework and a book to read the first chapter of called The Cure. My homework was writing down my first memories of my life starting with childhood. To say I was not excited about it is an understatement. I looked at him and said, "I do not recall many memories of my childhood." He then said, "You will. Ask God to reveal what you need to heal." I walked out thinking, "great. I need to pray to God to remember memories that obviously I do not remember for a reason and I am forgetful!" The work, the work that I had never done in my recovery had begun. The work that I had bypassed or refused to look that deep into had resurfaced. I had done something similar in my 12-step work; I had written and shared what was comfortable for me. It was then, that I knew, in order to heal, I had to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Next, I will walk you through my very first deliverance and all the work and drama in between. God is in every little detail of my story.
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