Hi everyone.
This is quite a long post and I hope you take the time to read it all.
Just so you know, over last 12 or so years I've had many spirtual attacks that have beat me down and caused a lot of trauma and both mental and physcial pain.
But as bad as it get's, God is always there to pull you through!
And wow, what an experience it's been!
A little back history first on my life to help you understand why it's been so bad for me. For a start, my parents were into the occult when I was still young. Then one day [to keep things short] they found Jesus and were born again. But the Devil didn't like this much as you can imagine and tried his best to make my parents life hell basically but God was with them and help them survive. But to top things off, Saten didn't just go after them, he came after me and my brother as well.
This is when it got scary; as the devil appeared to me twice which I can tell you is a scarey sight to see when you're only 7 or so, my bro saw him as well but was too young to remember it, but I can still remember seeing my brother pointing and screaming at somethign only he could see. Freaky stuff it was.
Then that's where it all started for me, ever since then I kept seeing other things all over the place, heard voices, did things without my control (mainly cutting myself) got suicidel, could sense things around me.. eventually I broke down and had to have counsiling for a while.
All these years I prayed and prayed that God would deliver me from the torment of it all and often wondered why He seem to let it go on and on for so long, as bad as it all was tho I never lost faith that He would save me from it one day when the time was right.
And sure enough that time came at CrossRhythms 2003!
They asked everyone to come forward to the stage at once of the conference things so they could pray for people to recieve the Spirit.
These two people came to me and asked what I wanted to be prayed for so I gave them a short reason to my problems and they started praying over me, one speaking in tongues the other translating as far as I could tell.
Then I went weak in the knees and one of the prayer said they felt God was telling him that i should kneel before God which I did.
Then it all started to happen!
My face on the ground and my eye lids flickering uncontrolably, I just lay there listening to everything. Suddenly I felt as tho someone had put their hand over my eyes, I looked up thinking it was the prayers but they were in a deep state of prayer with their hands over my head. I closed my eyes again and the flickering of my eye lids started again but faster.
This time I felt the hand over my eyes again but when I went to look up, my eyes didn't open yet I could still see (sounds strange I know!)
Everything around me was pitch black, I couldn't hear the surroundings anymore either but as I looked forward I could still see the crowd of people a few feet away but everything looked kinda fuzzy around the edges.
Then the hand again and this time I followed where it was coming from and to my amazment I saw Jesus knelt there infront of me!!
Then suddenly I saw the face of the devil I saw all them years ago screaming in absolute terror, I could see how scared he was by the look in his eyes and the face kinda faded off into the distance then the devil was on his hands and knees and literalty just ran away from Jesus and me and I never saw his again then.
I looked towards Jesus again and He appeared to be smiling, yet I could see any actual facial features.. it was just a kinda warm knowing feeling that He was happy for me now
Then the prayers stopped and the real world came back and I 'woke up'.
I sat up but just fell over backwards!
The prayers asked me how I was and I couldn't speak! All i could do was sit and look at them with the biggest smile on my face ever!
I did manage to stutter out a few words tho and just said "I..can't...speak!"
They smiled at me and helped me to my feet and I was so filled with joy and happiness it was great! I've never felt so happy in all my life before and I just danced off back to my tent!
While sitting in my tent thinking over what had happened I also noticed one other thing: the voice in my head had finally gone! I had my mind back and I could finally feel what it was like to only have my own thoughts and voice in there - a feeling that I had long forgotten!
After realising that I went off dancing again in extreme happiness and found my friends who were on their way back from something. I hugged them and danced around them and they thought I was drunk!
After that day all has been well, I haven't seen anything, heard anything or sensed anything. It's been weird and quite hard to get used to.. to feel 'normal' is a strange feeling indeed!
But the hardest thing has been getting me to refer to myself as 'I' and not 'we'.
The devil has taken pot shots at me since then but I had been able to over come them more easily as he doesn't seem to have so much of a hold on me anymore.
So there's my story and testimony. It's been quite a wild ride and I think the best is yet to come now with God on my side and the devil out of the way things can only get better!
All that's happened I've always seen as a test in a way, whether it was an intentional test or not, it turned out as a test of faith and I get the feeling that having been through all that, I can now use that experience to spread God's word and help others in similar situations.
*phew* A lot of typing! If anyone wants to talk more about anything then feel free to! Just reply or PM or email I don't mind.
This is quite a long post and I hope you take the time to read it all.
Just so you know, over last 12 or so years I've had many spirtual attacks that have beat me down and caused a lot of trauma and both mental and physcial pain.
But as bad as it get's, God is always there to pull you through!
And wow, what an experience it's been!
A little back history first on my life to help you understand why it's been so bad for me. For a start, my parents were into the occult when I was still young. Then one day [to keep things short] they found Jesus and were born again. But the Devil didn't like this much as you can imagine and tried his best to make my parents life hell basically but God was with them and help them survive. But to top things off, Saten didn't just go after them, he came after me and my brother as well.
This is when it got scary; as the devil appeared to me twice which I can tell you is a scarey sight to see when you're only 7 or so, my bro saw him as well but was too young to remember it, but I can still remember seeing my brother pointing and screaming at somethign only he could see. Freaky stuff it was.
Then that's where it all started for me, ever since then I kept seeing other things all over the place, heard voices, did things without my control (mainly cutting myself) got suicidel, could sense things around me.. eventually I broke down and had to have counsiling for a while.
All these years I prayed and prayed that God would deliver me from the torment of it all and often wondered why He seem to let it go on and on for so long, as bad as it all was tho I never lost faith that He would save me from it one day when the time was right.
And sure enough that time came at CrossRhythms 2003!
They asked everyone to come forward to the stage at once of the conference things so they could pray for people to recieve the Spirit.
These two people came to me and asked what I wanted to be prayed for so I gave them a short reason to my problems and they started praying over me, one speaking in tongues the other translating as far as I could tell.
Then I went weak in the knees and one of the prayer said they felt God was telling him that i should kneel before God which I did.
Then it all started to happen!
My face on the ground and my eye lids flickering uncontrolably, I just lay there listening to everything. Suddenly I felt as tho someone had put their hand over my eyes, I looked up thinking it was the prayers but they were in a deep state of prayer with their hands over my head. I closed my eyes again and the flickering of my eye lids started again but faster.
This time I felt the hand over my eyes again but when I went to look up, my eyes didn't open yet I could still see (sounds strange I know!)
Everything around me was pitch black, I couldn't hear the surroundings anymore either but as I looked forward I could still see the crowd of people a few feet away but everything looked kinda fuzzy around the edges.
Then the hand again and this time I followed where it was coming from and to my amazment I saw Jesus knelt there infront of me!!
Then suddenly I saw the face of the devil I saw all them years ago screaming in absolute terror, I could see how scared he was by the look in his eyes and the face kinda faded off into the distance then the devil was on his hands and knees and literalty just ran away from Jesus and me and I never saw his again then.
I looked towards Jesus again and He appeared to be smiling, yet I could see any actual facial features.. it was just a kinda warm knowing feeling that He was happy for me now
Then the prayers stopped and the real world came back and I 'woke up'.
I sat up but just fell over backwards!
The prayers asked me how I was and I couldn't speak! All i could do was sit and look at them with the biggest smile on my face ever!
I did manage to stutter out a few words tho and just said "I..can't...speak!"
They smiled at me and helped me to my feet and I was so filled with joy and happiness it was great! I've never felt so happy in all my life before and I just danced off back to my tent!
While sitting in my tent thinking over what had happened I also noticed one other thing: the voice in my head had finally gone! I had my mind back and I could finally feel what it was like to only have my own thoughts and voice in there - a feeling that I had long forgotten!
After realising that I went off dancing again in extreme happiness and found my friends who were on their way back from something. I hugged them and danced around them and they thought I was drunk!
After that day all has been well, I haven't seen anything, heard anything or sensed anything. It's been weird and quite hard to get used to.. to feel 'normal' is a strange feeling indeed!
But the hardest thing has been getting me to refer to myself as 'I' and not 'we'.
The devil has taken pot shots at me since then but I had been able to over come them more easily as he doesn't seem to have so much of a hold on me anymore.
So there's my story and testimony. It's been quite a wild ride and I think the best is yet to come now with God on my side and the devil out of the way things can only get better!
All that's happened I've always seen as a test in a way, whether it was an intentional test or not, it turned out as a test of faith and I get the feeling that having been through all that, I can now use that experience to spread God's word and help others in similar situations.
*phew* A lot of typing! If anyone wants to talk more about anything then feel free to! Just reply or PM or email I don't mind.
