J
I have always believed in God and Jesus of the bible. I have never been an atheist and I have always known I would serve God. From a young age I would have dreams that I knew were divine. One of these dreams occurred when I was very young. I was around 10 years of age and in the dream I was laying on my death bed with my mother by my side. I just died and I saw a tunnel ascending to heaven with swirling blue and white clouds with light circling through them that reminded me of lightning flashing through the sky. I was about to enter into the tunnel of clouds when I heard my mother sobbing. I went to look back at her and I felt sad because she was distraught but a voice said “Don’t look back” and then I complied and entered the tunnel. The feeling of going into that tunnel and into heaven was indescribable and I understood then that God was speaking to me. Mum later commented that the morning I had that dream I walked out into the living room and I was glowing. Then as I became older the Lord started to impress on me the urgency of being born again although at the time I didn’t understand this as I assumed I would go to heaven even though I had never actually invited the Lord to be my saviour. He would give me startling and sobering dreams and I would wake from these dreams with a massive impact upon me. I remember two specifically where I had died again but my spirit remained in my dead body and I was awaiting my destiny. I thought to myself in both dreams “Am I going to heaven or hell?” Suddenly I realised that I would not be going to heaven because I was not actually saved. Before my spirit went to hell though, I woke up very afraid and knew something had to change. At this time I did not know that Jesus was the way, the truth and the life and although the Lord graciously communicated to me many times over the course of many years that unless I was saved, I would not be with him, I remained ignorant and my life still belonged to me and not to Him. I did not understand what it meant to be saved. But I convinced myself that I was going to heaven anyways. I always marvel at remembering every instance that the Lord attempted to save me. All throughout my life are so many instances of God trying to get my attention. He truly is a God of love. The personification of love itself and the only source of true love.
I was a “good child” and I had a healthy fear of my parents. I rarely stepped out of line because my parents were strict and I respected their authority. However, once I turned 18 which is the legal age to drink and enter night clubs in Australia, this changed. From the age of 18 until the age of 23, I partied hard. I binge drank until I was completely intoxicated and I took drugs whenever they were free (which was hardly ever so thankfully I had only taken drugs a handful of times) But I was a raging weekend alcoholic and I lived to party. I worked and wasted all my money on party outfits and there were always men to buy my drinks. I would use men to buy my alcohol, flirt a little but rarely did I ever go home with anyone. I felt like I was teaching these men a lesson because being treated like a one night stand disgusted me so I felt that getting their hopes up and then ditching them was my vengeance for them disrespecting me like that. But the few men I did go home with makes me feel very ill because although I was not as sexually promiscuous as most women, I know God’s standards now, even having slept with one person who was not my husband makes me wonder how I could have been so deceived to believe I was nothing like other people who had slept with many more men than me.
It was weird though when I would get drunk as every night I had in the club, I remember thinking of God and knowing deep down what I was doing was wrong. I still believed I would go heaven just because I did believe. I did not know being an unregenerate person would actually land me in hell.
After leaving my long term relationship with the man who is now my fiancé and whom I led to God (Praise the Lord!) I then met my first fiancé J***. He seemed like such a lovely person and in the first three months of our relationship he was so attentive and loving. He was older than I but we were on the same level. Or so I thought. I fell pregnant within the first three months of our relationship. He proposed to me and I accepted. Two days after his proposal I had a physically agonising miscarriage. The baby became “stuck”. He was around three months old. After this happened, I became numb and kept forgetting about the baby because of the shock I was in. Then things got worse and my fiancé became another person. He started to hit me and mentally abuse me. I saw demons manifest in him and they would tell him things such as their unhappiness that I had a crucifix necklace in the bathroom. I had also became demonically oppressed from dabbling in tarot cards a couple of years before this so we were both host to evil spirits. I had began praying to the Lord to release me from the demonic harassment as they would hold me down and I couldn’t talk. The Lord being patient, longsuffering and filled with love for me gave me another dream in which the demons came to harass me again. The Lord told me to say THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB over and over again and I coughed out between 5-7 black demons that looked like huge wafts of black smoke. I did not know what the blood of the lamb meant and I had never heard this term before. I didn’t know Jesus was the lamb and I knew nothing of the power of Christ’s blood. I only knew Sunday school theology. When I found out what the blood of the lamb meant I instantly knew it was God intervening and answering my prayers. I stopped getting harassed after this dream which I now believe to have happened “In the spirit.” I remained with my fiancé after this because I did love him and I tried hard to please him and make him love me. He became repulsed by me and contained to yell at me, call my names and beat me- especially when he was drunk. He was always anaesthetising himself with drugs or alcohol. I forbade him from drinking around me because I would be his punching bag. So instead he swapped alcohol for marijuana which I felt was better as it would calm him down. He still couldn’t stand me and I have no idea why he remained with me.
I enjoyed going to the op shop for cheap second hand books. I went there one week and saw a book titled “Deliver Us From Evil” by Cindy Jacobs and it was only $1. I just knew I had to buy. I was intrigued by what I was reading but I was so scared. I was home alone and felt evil around me. A threatening presence so I went to my mother’s to finish reading it. I started to realise then that my fiancé was demonically oppressed because of the things this book said, was exactly what was happening to me and my fiancé. Then there was Neil T Anderson’s book “The Bondage Breaker” for $2.50. I remember reading one of his deliverance prayers out loud and I felt an evil presence flee from me. It was so scary that I had to stop half way through the prayer because I was aware of the evil in my life. But then I continued the prayer anyways. It became abundantly clear that the Lord was continually throwing things in my path to help me. I started going to church with my fiancé’s sister who was a Christian and I also was harassed by sprits externally for doing this.
One night he went out with his friends and I went out with mine. He was drinking but I thought since he was with friends he would be ok. He pretended to the outside world that he was a model citizen. Whenever he abused me, it was never when anyone could see it. At the end of the night we were both intoxicated and we walked together to the taxi line. I was very hungry and wanted to get some chips to line my stomach as I knew that if I didn’t eat, I would be hung over the next morning. The mere suggestion of this to J*** sent him into a flying rage and he began screaming at me in the middle of the busiest street. The bizarre thing is, that at 1am on Saturday night in the busiest street, it was silently empty. There was nobody around. As drunk as I was, I took clear note of this. He started bending my fingers back and dragging me down the street. He threw me into a doorway, screamed at me and kept walking. I was crying so hard from all of this but he would laugh at me and call me pathetic and a loser. He took my money and left me there. I believe that God caused the street to become empty so my fiancé would push me so far that I would finally get the strength to leave him. He always only just stopped so as I would forgive him and stay but I believe with my whole heart that the busiest street on a Saturday night became completely empty so he would push me enough to make me leave. It gave me the courage to see that if he could go this far, he would continue going even farther and I may even end up seriously hurt. I called my mother and I was bawling. I told her what happened and she collected me from town and took me to her house. I stayed there that night. The next morning Jeff came to get me and I went with him. He said his usual sorry’s and I accepted it. But two days later I made plans to move out. And then we broke up. It was one of the best decisions I had ever made. His family and friends say I am a liar and that he would never do those things, but I know deep down they know it’s true. We were together for one and half years. Most of it was misery.
After all of this I made a dangerous inner vow that no matter what I would have fun. So my partying and drinking became heavier. I would even just go out nightclubbing on my own. Despite all of God’s help and love, I resumed partying because I was so empty and so sad. I still didn’t know how to call on the Lord so I could be saved. I started praying again as I became so spiritually dry and dead and I couldn’t bear the desolation I felt. On Sundays after a night of clubbing I would promise myself that was the last time and I wouldn’t go again. It never happened. Then one Saturday night I was out again and I was very drunk. Then my mind became sober even though my body was still very much drunk and I heard a voice say “Why are you here?” I looked around at the club and I knew this was it. This was my deliverance. Those simply words “Why are you here?” changed everything. It changed my life. Those four words from God gave me the strength to walk out of the club and to not return the following week. The next week I was in church and I was saved. And I have not been in a nightclub for two years now.
I have so much more to add to this testimony and I will continue to have even more to add. I went through more anguish after walking out of the club. A lot has happened since then and will continue to happen but this is sanctification and this is what the Lord does to refine and purify his people. But I have a perspective and a new understanding of the grace and love of God. He has saved me and he continues to rescue me every day of my life. There is always going to be hardships and trials but I have been cleansed and restored each time and made into the likeness of Christ. God is love and thank God for God. He is Lord.
I was a “good child” and I had a healthy fear of my parents. I rarely stepped out of line because my parents were strict and I respected their authority. However, once I turned 18 which is the legal age to drink and enter night clubs in Australia, this changed. From the age of 18 until the age of 23, I partied hard. I binge drank until I was completely intoxicated and I took drugs whenever they were free (which was hardly ever so thankfully I had only taken drugs a handful of times) But I was a raging weekend alcoholic and I lived to party. I worked and wasted all my money on party outfits and there were always men to buy my drinks. I would use men to buy my alcohol, flirt a little but rarely did I ever go home with anyone. I felt like I was teaching these men a lesson because being treated like a one night stand disgusted me so I felt that getting their hopes up and then ditching them was my vengeance for them disrespecting me like that. But the few men I did go home with makes me feel very ill because although I was not as sexually promiscuous as most women, I know God’s standards now, even having slept with one person who was not my husband makes me wonder how I could have been so deceived to believe I was nothing like other people who had slept with many more men than me.
It was weird though when I would get drunk as every night I had in the club, I remember thinking of God and knowing deep down what I was doing was wrong. I still believed I would go heaven just because I did believe. I did not know being an unregenerate person would actually land me in hell.
After leaving my long term relationship with the man who is now my fiancé and whom I led to God (Praise the Lord!) I then met my first fiancé J***. He seemed like such a lovely person and in the first three months of our relationship he was so attentive and loving. He was older than I but we were on the same level. Or so I thought. I fell pregnant within the first three months of our relationship. He proposed to me and I accepted. Two days after his proposal I had a physically agonising miscarriage. The baby became “stuck”. He was around three months old. After this happened, I became numb and kept forgetting about the baby because of the shock I was in. Then things got worse and my fiancé became another person. He started to hit me and mentally abuse me. I saw demons manifest in him and they would tell him things such as their unhappiness that I had a crucifix necklace in the bathroom. I had also became demonically oppressed from dabbling in tarot cards a couple of years before this so we were both host to evil spirits. I had began praying to the Lord to release me from the demonic harassment as they would hold me down and I couldn’t talk. The Lord being patient, longsuffering and filled with love for me gave me another dream in which the demons came to harass me again. The Lord told me to say THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB over and over again and I coughed out between 5-7 black demons that looked like huge wafts of black smoke. I did not know what the blood of the lamb meant and I had never heard this term before. I didn’t know Jesus was the lamb and I knew nothing of the power of Christ’s blood. I only knew Sunday school theology. When I found out what the blood of the lamb meant I instantly knew it was God intervening and answering my prayers. I stopped getting harassed after this dream which I now believe to have happened “In the spirit.” I remained with my fiancé after this because I did love him and I tried hard to please him and make him love me. He became repulsed by me and contained to yell at me, call my names and beat me- especially when he was drunk. He was always anaesthetising himself with drugs or alcohol. I forbade him from drinking around me because I would be his punching bag. So instead he swapped alcohol for marijuana which I felt was better as it would calm him down. He still couldn’t stand me and I have no idea why he remained with me.
I enjoyed going to the op shop for cheap second hand books. I went there one week and saw a book titled “Deliver Us From Evil” by Cindy Jacobs and it was only $1. I just knew I had to buy. I was intrigued by what I was reading but I was so scared. I was home alone and felt evil around me. A threatening presence so I went to my mother’s to finish reading it. I started to realise then that my fiancé was demonically oppressed because of the things this book said, was exactly what was happening to me and my fiancé. Then there was Neil T Anderson’s book “The Bondage Breaker” for $2.50. I remember reading one of his deliverance prayers out loud and I felt an evil presence flee from me. It was so scary that I had to stop half way through the prayer because I was aware of the evil in my life. But then I continued the prayer anyways. It became abundantly clear that the Lord was continually throwing things in my path to help me. I started going to church with my fiancé’s sister who was a Christian and I also was harassed by sprits externally for doing this.
One night he went out with his friends and I went out with mine. He was drinking but I thought since he was with friends he would be ok. He pretended to the outside world that he was a model citizen. Whenever he abused me, it was never when anyone could see it. At the end of the night we were both intoxicated and we walked together to the taxi line. I was very hungry and wanted to get some chips to line my stomach as I knew that if I didn’t eat, I would be hung over the next morning. The mere suggestion of this to J*** sent him into a flying rage and he began screaming at me in the middle of the busiest street. The bizarre thing is, that at 1am on Saturday night in the busiest street, it was silently empty. There was nobody around. As drunk as I was, I took clear note of this. He started bending my fingers back and dragging me down the street. He threw me into a doorway, screamed at me and kept walking. I was crying so hard from all of this but he would laugh at me and call me pathetic and a loser. He took my money and left me there. I believe that God caused the street to become empty so my fiancé would push me so far that I would finally get the strength to leave him. He always only just stopped so as I would forgive him and stay but I believe with my whole heart that the busiest street on a Saturday night became completely empty so he would push me enough to make me leave. It gave me the courage to see that if he could go this far, he would continue going even farther and I may even end up seriously hurt. I called my mother and I was bawling. I told her what happened and she collected me from town and took me to her house. I stayed there that night. The next morning Jeff came to get me and I went with him. He said his usual sorry’s and I accepted it. But two days later I made plans to move out. And then we broke up. It was one of the best decisions I had ever made. His family and friends say I am a liar and that he would never do those things, but I know deep down they know it’s true. We were together for one and half years. Most of it was misery.
After all of this I made a dangerous inner vow that no matter what I would have fun. So my partying and drinking became heavier. I would even just go out nightclubbing on my own. Despite all of God’s help and love, I resumed partying because I was so empty and so sad. I still didn’t know how to call on the Lord so I could be saved. I started praying again as I became so spiritually dry and dead and I couldn’t bear the desolation I felt. On Sundays after a night of clubbing I would promise myself that was the last time and I wouldn’t go again. It never happened. Then one Saturday night I was out again and I was very drunk. Then my mind became sober even though my body was still very much drunk and I heard a voice say “Why are you here?” I looked around at the club and I knew this was it. This was my deliverance. Those simply words “Why are you here?” changed everything. It changed my life. Those four words from God gave me the strength to walk out of the club and to not return the following week. The next week I was in church and I was saved. And I have not been in a nightclub for two years now.
I have so much more to add to this testimony and I will continue to have even more to add. I went through more anguish after walking out of the club. A lot has happened since then and will continue to happen but this is sanctification and this is what the Lord does to refine and purify his people. But I have a perspective and a new understanding of the grace and love of God. He has saved me and he continues to rescue me every day of my life. There is always going to be hardships and trials but I have been cleansed and restored each time and made into the likeness of Christ. God is love and thank God for God. He is Lord.
