To give a little background, I wasn’t raised in the faith even though I was baptized in the catholic church as a young child occasionally taken to mass by my grandparents. I had faith in my own way but wasn’t following religion and refused to do my communion.
I had a “normal childhood” and grew up to be a “regular” young woman. In my teenage years (and actually since quite young but didn’t really understand it), I was quite depressed and increasingly so in my twenties. I was also a smoker including weed which had become an addiction even though I told myself I wasn’t smoking that much.
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In 2014, at the age of 26, I was diagnosed with a heart condition which within 2 years had suddenly become severe and life threatening. It was to the point where being previously in perfect health, I could barely climb up a set of stairs without being fully out of breath. I was under medication but at this stage, the only option seemed to be surgery which I underwent in 2016. I actually felt like I was dying and thought that was it.
It was open heart surgery. The report explained it lasted over 8 hours and that I almost didn’t make it as my heart stopped.
[In case you’re wondering, I definitely had somewhat of a near death experience where I “saw the light” but I fought it. It wasn’t going through a tunnel like most people describe, it was more like it coming closer and closer and was unavoidable.
I knew what it meant (or thought I did) and thought to myself “No! I’m too young to die.”]
So I made it out of the surgery by God’s grace and felt almost well again after having to learn to walk all over again and going through pain that made me wish I had died. I couldn’t even lift up myself in my hospital bed on my own. If you don’t know, let me just explain that in order to perform an open-heart surgery, they have to cut open your plexus bone which is your upper chest. And it hurts more than fathomable. I was given morphine and later painkillers. The recovery for such a surgery is a full year. After a month of physical therapy (which to this day, I have no idea how older people or those that are not young and athletic can get through), I went home and was kind of ok with the painkillers although I felt drugged, started to have hallucinations. I decided to stop them and was in unbearable pain, remember just sitting on my sofa for what felt like months on end with all the symptoms of hard drugs withdrawal on top of the pain.
The only thing I could do was breathe. Breathing took so much focus to do it in a way that didn’t hurt. My life consisted of focusing on my breathing and trying not to cry because it hurt more if I did. I had learnt some of these in yoga classes they had at the mental health clinic I went to in the waiting for the surgery. I resorted to chakra tuning videos. They are short, 1 minute for each of the 7 chakras. I got into transcendental meditation which for me consisted of sitting up straight with my eyes closed and letting my mind wonder in visual landscapes and derived to sort of hallucinations later on. (I would like to add that yoga is worship of Saturn (the sun and moon) and that transcendental meditation is linked to Hindu religion with their gods including Shiva which I didn’t know.) I also realized God had warned me through a dream then years prior to that: I saw myself opening my bedroom door and getting attacked by a huge multicolored boa snake. It was really unnatural colors like orange, pink and green, if I recall correctly and horizontal stripes. This thing was taller than I was.
(If you see a picture of "chakras" and representation of the kundalini, you'll understand/
I also started to feel a strange electrical sensation in my body. I started noticing it after a concert I went to (it was the rock band Scorpions). After a few months, I got into it and started to think I could see people’s aura color. I would be walking down the street and actually see colors around people’s faces. Another symptom was hot and cold flashes. When I say hot I mean imploding hot and when I say cold, I mean feeling like being in iced cold water for hours, to the bones. These symptoms intensified over the course of 6 months to the point I got really worried and looked them up. I stumbled across people with similar ones after getting into meditation also. That’s when I found out the aim of yoga/ transcendental l meditation was to awaken the kundalini “energy”. I saw an article describing “ascension” and entering the 4th and 5th dimension by listening to spirit guides and I thought “what on EARTH did I get myself into???!!”
“And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.”
2 Corinthians 11:14
I remember the look on my mother’s face when I explained this and told her I thought I needed exorcism. I found a video entitled “Kundalini is NOT the Holy Spirit” which got me thinking it was an actual entity/ spirit. Joined to it was a very thorough renunciation prayer.
Before I even started reading it, it hit me. It’s all true:
Jesus, demons, heaven and hell. It’s REAL!
I read the whole prayer and started getting deliverance. Meaning over the course of a few weeks, it was gone. Also, the desire to smoke was lifted overnight when even dying with a heart condition, I was unable to quit. I started to get visions that were really specific memories I didn’t remember like drawing a picture of Jesus at school in bible study. My sister was in that class, I remember she was reading but I was too young to understand it or just distracted. Spent days just crying and weeks repenting.
It felt like having been underwater for all this time and taking my first breath.
"He sent from above, He took me;
He drew me out of many waters." Psalm 18:16
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God also revealed to me that I had been raped when I was around 10 (I think)
[I remember having a nightmare at age 12. I was in the dark on a bed in a place that I know and would go to sometimes. I didn’t see what was happening but just the sense of what it was and how traumatic it was. Actually, I could barely see anything but just knew where it was and with whom. When I woke up, I brushed it off thinking I don’t remember being there with this person. Must be a nightmare]
This was confirmed when I was doing my baptism preparation as there is a section about breaking soul ties with former sexual partners. Prayed for God to show me any other person that I should break soul ties with. This person’s name came up and it didn’t make sense in this section. It was a relief to understand the depression had come from.
I am sharing this to talk about what is known as “traumatic memory” : the fact that we can live experiences that we do not recall at all. This one was 20 years long for me. I really think is God only revealing when we are able to handle the truth about our past.
We can only deal with the spiritual consequences once we know about them and address them spiritually so we may hand over all the hurt, pain, trauma and shame that came for them and to forgive those who harmed us.
God does not forgive us if we refuse to forgive others.
Keep in mind that “traumatic memory” aspect of things. Imagine someone having gone through that as a child and not even remembering. Then having a spirit of incest, for example, if it was their parent, which is then passed on as a curse generationally.
Praise God it can be broken in Jesus name.
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Let me rewind now to about a month after I read the prayer. I called my sister and started explaining what had happened to her over the phone and she phoned my parents who basically sent a psychiatric staff to my apartment the next days and took me to a psychiatric ward in restraints.
“Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. 21 But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.” John 15:20-21
[They take you to ER for a night before you got there and give you a health checkup.
(It looks like cells with a leather mattress with restraints on the floor since the grounds for having anyone sent there is being dangerous to themselves or others, which I wasn’t but judged “crazy”.
“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:18
Interestingly enough, I was able to keep my phone and read about Paul in prison that very night.) In the next cell there was growling. I had never heard such a thing. It sounded like a wild animal. I understood from the conversation within the doctors and nurses staff it was a girl. They would bring her her food and get bitten. It lasted all night.
Didn’t get any shut eye. Morning came and suddenly the growling got weaker. I felt lead to pray and remember having a vision of a twig being broken in half. I asked to use the bathroom and when I was back, I got a glimpse of her: a black girl who looked barely 18. She was sitting down quietly.
The staff came to transfer her and the nurse called for backup. I went and watched from my door window. She got up on her own initiative and went to sit on the stretcher. Saw her again about a week later and she seemed perfectly fine and normal.]
There at the psychiatric ward, I was made to give away my medication which I was not given for over 3 days. (This was a year post-surgery, mind you…) I had to have my boyfriend sneak some in for me.
“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” Ephesians 6:12
I was out of there in 10 days which was a miracle just like the fact that I was able to refuse any type of psychiatric treatment as I have seen patients who couldn't speak.
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Since then, I joined an evangelical church I had to leave as they didn’t really practice deliverance and were not in line with the word of God, mainly regarding female teaching the Word of God. (They still did really help me in guiding me through the first steps leading up to baptism but I soon realized they were compromising and saw no deliverance or healings. I kept telling them about mine and how we should focus on it but they didn’t seem to agree)
“But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. She must remain quiet." 1 Timothy 2:12
Which leads me to what I would like to conclude with: “religion”
“Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven.
And do not be called teachers; for One is your Teacher, the Christ.” Matthew 23:9
Let Truth Abide in You
"Therefore let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, you also will abide in the Son and in the Father. 25 And this is the promise that He has promised us—eternal life.
26 These things I have written to you concerning those who try to [f]deceive you. 27 But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him."
1 John 2:24-27
"And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; 18 they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
Mark 16:17-18
“These things says He who has the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars: “I know your works, that you have a name that you are alive, but you are dead. 2 Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die, for I have not found your works perfect before God. 3 Remember therefore how you have received and heard; hold fast and repent. » Revelation 3:1-3
- And what seems like true Christianity yet is preaching forms of works as means of salvation and despises certain gifts of the Holy Spirit such as prophecy.
“I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. 21 I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.” Galatians 2 :20-21
“Do not despise prophecies. 21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.”
1 Thessalonians 5:20-21
Some guidance and advice from personal experience due to my testimony:
Please go through this prayer :
Breaking generational curses and Going from the Curses to Blessings by Derek Prince
And of course read the Word of God and be lead of the Holy Spirit.
Don’t depend on anyone to teach you, the Holy Spirits ministers to us.
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” John 14:26-27
We do need fellowship with brethren in Christ but please, judge by the fruit and be sensitive to leadings about whether a group/ church/ ministry is truly following Christ.
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16 You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? 17 Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Therefore by their fruits you will know them.” Matthew 7:15-20
“And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” 1 Corinthians 2:4-5
Also, an online ministry is a Church. The body of Christ is worldwide, and we can be in contact digitally.
“The God who made the world and everything in it, who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives life and breath and everything to everyone.”
Acts 17:24-25
Finally, what I learned to really apply only recently is Christianity is about relationship.
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him and he with Me."
Revelation 3:10-22
He calls us to enter His rest and in a Father/ child relationship.
"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you and learn form Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls."
For My yoke is easy and my burden is light."
Matthew 11:28-30
And our connection with Him comes down to keeping our hearts pure.