Was there one moment for you in which you suddenly realized God was real, or did it come upon you gradually? I don’t understand what you experienced when you said God began speaking to you.
I was born a Lutheran pastor's son, so I even as a small boy, I believed. God remained silent to me until age 15. At that time I was sitting in a church which had a circular sanctuary with the alter in the center. At the end of the service people got up and started to shuffle out. I felling of peace over took me that was so rich I had no intention of moving. Then I heard a voice speak to me from with in me and it was not heard in my ears, but I could clearly perceive it.
The voice spoke in almost a soft gentle tone and nothing about it frightened me as it felt very natural. The voice said "Do you see that woman?". Up front was an older Hispanic woman crying at the alter and praying fervently. Then after a brief pause the voice said "Her son is in prison." Then after another short pause the voice said "I am going to help her son, because I love her". Then after another pause the voice said "I am going to help you because I love you". I cried and walked two miles home, crying the entire way. At that point, I knew for sure that God was real. God never spoke to me again until 2 or 3 years ago.
Over the years my faith cooled and cooled until it stopped having a pulse. Gradually, for reasons I can't explain I eventually questioned if God was real. One day i was speaking to a life long friend who was an atheist and told him I was an atheist as well.I stayed in that state for more than a decade. My wife lost her faith and we didn't even bring our kids to church.
My mother died suddenly and a couple of months after that i was hospitalized with appendicitis. While i the hospital I had a dream of my mother visiting me in my hospital room. After I woke up and at the risk of ridicule I will state that I started to occasionally have uncontrolled and sporadic psychic visions.
In time I learned how to initiate a vision, but I will not mention how I did it as I have no desire for others to attempt this. I would amaze my friends with information I got from these visions. I eventually became confident and started to post on certain message boards that if you need a psychic I would help. I also met two others like myself. I did do cold readings on strangers and I became very confident in "my gift".
I never once wondered about God. In fact I started to hate Christianity and Christians. On holidays I would go visit my sister who would always invite her church friends. I bristled around them and gave them angry looks. My hatred for them was completely irrational. One of her friends I especially hated more than the rest. Later he would be my pastor.
One day I got a message from a lady who wanted my help. Her name was Tabitha D. She would have some strange black out spells and as she would come out of them she would have a vision of her young daughter dead in a coffin. I did the reading online and told her about her past. I saw her crying as a young girl and agreed she did that because of her dad, I mentioned her dad's alcohol abuse and how many in her family were alcoholics I also told her how her childhood German Shepard would wait for her at her front gate as she came home from school. But I got nothing on her daughter.
Later while driving on the freeway and bored, I was trying to see if her daughter was sick. I could psychically scan a person and "see" illness but I found none. Then I looked at her in a a total sense and suddenly the vision changed and I saw what looked like a demon waving his hand in front of my which implied "Don't go here". I broke off that vision and tried again but this time I saw dozens of demons working inside her body.
From that point on my life turned into hell. My visions turned scary. Every time I would close my eyes I would see a man starring back at me in amazing detail. I could count his whiskers. He seemed to be staring at me from a couple three feet away from me it it was never a pleasant experience. Each night as I lay in bed, I could feel someone stare at me from a spot ten feet away from me. I could sense exactly where his eyes where. I saw a dark silhouette of my son walk into my bedroom out of the corner of my eyes and he headed to the restroom. Then I realized I never heard a sound, so I went to see if he was there. He was not. Then my daughter Jessica told me she believed in ghosts and i asked her why. She said every time she took her clothes off she sensed something starring at her. She said as she would shower she could sense it in the shower with her.
One day as the entire family was together I asked if anyone had sensed being watched. Right away my son said he did. I asked him where he felt it was coming from and he identified the exact same spot I had. He went on to say he had also seen our dog Kona, a Rottweiler even though we had put her down 6 months prior. He also said he saw a shadowy figure of a man reach over and touch his arm which went immediately numb. my wife had not yet seen anything and she was lived that somehow I had polluted my kids into believing this junk. She said I was crazy and in my opinion, really harmed her own children. After her angry outburst they no longer wished to talk about it for fear of being labeled crazy and catching mom's wrath. Later, my wife would encounter a strange paranormal event. She laid on top of her daughters bed and sensed her daughter was with her, in that room.
I contacted a friend named "TC" or Terry C. who was a medium. She gave me some advice on how to get rid of the shadow man. She said to pour salt around windows and doors on exterior walls, also pour some rose oil and sleep with a white candle. I was desperate and tried it She also told me to go and walk to the area the ghost stands and stares at me, I did and came back to the computer and she told me she got him. I no longer sensed the staring and felt a huge relief. Neither the shadow man or the starring ghost ever came back. I thought I was in the clear but I was wrong.
Soon I began having uncontrollable visions of a demon. Every time I closed my eyes I now saw this demon who really looked odd. He appeared to be very thin with disproportionately large horns, one on each side. He would always appear with a huge grin and showing all his teeth. Nite after nite I had to deal with him by keeping my eyes open until I fell asleep. I began drinking heavily to make sure I would quickly go to sleep. I told another friend about him and she said "don't mention it's name" but before I could respond I heard a voice inside my head say "baphomet, baphomet, baphomet" in a strange goat like voice. One day while in a vacant floor and I felt a person about my height rush me from behind. TC told me to use a blocking technique. I would imagine in my minds eye as if I was viewing myself from above. By filling my mind with images it would hopefully block out these intrusions. I had limited success with that technique. I could sense it was going to put its hands on my throat but it all suddenly stopped. This same thing happened one more time while I was killing time in my truck.
After two months I had enough. I decided to take my own advice I had given Tabitha and go see a priest. As I pulled into the parking lot of a local Catholic church, I heard a soft female voice say "Don't do it" and it brought me to tears. So I found the secretary and she could see I had been crying and she gently asked what I wanted and informed me the priest is busy but he can call me. The priest, Father Edward, came to my home. When I told him I was a psychic his face went from friendly to angry and said "Don't you know what you are doing with that crap? Don't you realize who is behind your abilities? I can't help you unless you completely give the up." He told me to start reading the bible, pray often and attend church. I did all he suggested and things got better.
Soon I found on online deliverance forum where I had posted my story and started to learn about deliverance which is a specific type of ministry that deals with demons. This post is already way too long so I won't bore you with details on that. Eventually, Life returned to normal. One lady in particular helped me out a great deal and she is now a member of forum. God again has spoken with me. In fact I hear God speak to me once in a couple of weeks or so. In a nutshell, that is how I came back to my faith in God.
