My Testimony

 

     I was thirty when Jesus called me out from the darkness that was my life. I was fully entrenched in the religion of Wicca and I sought out anything mystical and dark. I believed in evil forces and the supernatural. In my blindness I had never contemplated that if there is darkness in the supernatural then there has to be light. Life is about balance.

     I remember walking into a small church in the country. I was arrogant in my sinfulness. I had agreed to go because I loved my husband. I was cocky and angry that he even asked me. Hadn't we agreed early in our marriage that we would pursue our "religious" life separately and not judge each other? I remember feeling sick to my stomach as I stepped foot inside that building. I wasn't there to be saved. I didn't need the Christian view of God, I had my own gods. I believed in the god and goddess. I believed in mother nature and the law of karma. I didn't want to be a robot. Nope, I'll skip the Kool-Aid thank you Mr. Jones.

     There was absolutely nothing in my life before my salvation that would have pointed to the life I have now. I grew up in a home completely devoid of God. When I say there was no God, there was no God. It's not an exaggeration to get your attention. It's the cold hard truth. The gods of violence, drugs, alcohol, sexual deviance and abuse reigned in my life. There was no light and certainly no mention of Jesus Christ. I'm sure there were Christians in my middle school and high school but I was never witnessed to. I know there were Christians in my family but still no mention of Jesus and His love for me. There was only darkness and the struggle to just maintain my sanity in the chaos of my life.

     I worshipped very early in my life at the feet of the god that controls narcotics. I could self medicate pretty easily in my home. I learned which pills made me sleep and which ones just mellowed me out. I knew how many I could steal before my mother, in her own drug induced haze, would notice them gone. While other kids were getting excited for kids camp or riding their bikes, I was slipping the pills onto my tongue and waiting for the release that came with it. I was ten when I took my first pill. I was twelve when I crushed a Pepsi can and smoked weed out behind our trailer. I figured out what inhaling and holding was all by myself. I didn't have friends at that time who taught me. No one led me down the path of destruction outside my own home. I just figured it out.

     By the ancient age of 13 I was full blown marijuana user, regular partaker of pills and I began to drink. Anything to remove me from my surroundings. Anything to keep me from realizing that I was completely different from every kid in my school. I needed to be numb to the fact that they were never going to accept me, I'd never be a popular kid. I knew from the first day in 6th grade that people just knew about my life. They didn't know everything but I'm sure they had heard rumor from the adults in their lives. I was "that" kid in school. The one at the very bottom of the social ladder. I didn't explode, instead I imploded. I had a small group of outcast friends. We clung together in our feeble little herd just hoping we'd get through one day with out some sort of ridicule or cruel joke. Rarely happened.

     Something changed my life in the 8th grade. My mom got one of those book club flyers in the mail. Pick out 5 books for a penny! What a deal! I picked out fiction titles. All of them were dark, horror novels. I had never read anything remotely dark or dealing with the occult. My first book every into that world was "It" by Stephen King. I received it right after school let out my 8th grade year. I was faced with another summer of nothing to do. I didn't go to church. No one invited me to camp. Nothing was keeping me from reading. I picked up "It" with the clown on the front cover and read for 24 hours straight. I finished that book over night and I was forever changed. I was terrified! I remember being too scared to go to the bathroom so I had to run and flip on all the lights. Pennywise haunted my dreams for weeks after.

     I wasn't scared enough to stop and seek out something bright and airy. Why would I? What in my life would have directed me that way? Something felt right about reading these dark things. My next book was the Stand. My mind was blown! It began my interest in the occult and I spent the next 15 years delving into every inch of that dark world. I've never really been one to watch movies but when I did back then it was everything dark and twisted but the written word was always my muse. It still is today but for different reasons. I devoured books over that summer. I don't remember where I got them but there just seemed to appear. I read every book that Stephen King wrote by the time I was a junior.

     I changed a lot from the timid freshman outcast. I had moved to Houston and attended a massive high school where no one knew who I was. Nobody cared about my home life. I was invisible and I loved it. I found strength in it. I branched out and actually sought friendships. Then we moved back to my hometown in the middle of my junior year. I was devastated and so angry. I went from being a nobody in a very large fish tank to "that" girl in a tiny goldfish bowl. I was the freak again. I was the one that was perpetually excluded. I had never stood up for myself in the years before my return that year. I had always just walked away from the insults or tried to just ignore it. If I could just walk into the classroom and keep my head down maybe the hyenas would be circling another poor sap. That year I was mad at the world. I snapped back in a class at one of the popular kids and I actually screamed at them! I remember it so vividly because I went to the principals office. I had never been in trouble. I spent a lot of time in the OCS and the principals office after that. I had found my dysfunctional voice and I was roaring with anger. Lots of anger.

     Dear reader please understand that I am not bitter about my school years. I'm really not! I have forgiven every person that hurt me in those years. They were kids and I don't know what their lives were truly like. So, please know that I am not ragging on those people and saying they were the cause of my bad life.  The only thing I really want to know from someone is why no one ever shared Christ with me? I know a lot of them went to the local 1st Baptist and other churches. I'd heard them talking many times about youth group and activities but never once was I invited. No one ever looked at me and thought for a second that maybe what I needed was some Light in my life. That being said I could ask the very same question of people in my own family! Just simply, why?

     I barely graduated (thank you Lynett for making me do the right thing) and struggled for years. I still wanted the things of the darkness. I loved anything mystical or supernatural. I sought out spirits. I wanted a spirit guide. All the while fueling myself with drugs and alcohol. Spiritually I was a swirling mass of everything dark. I was vile and putrid. I was the enemy of God. I was the solider who gladly nailed Jesus' feet to the cross. Back then I would have done it and smiled. I didn't care about anyone or anything. I just wanted to feel something. I wanted to be something powerful. To make sure that no one ever had power over me again. I wanted power to make my own choices and decide my own fate. My love affair with the occult made that happen for me, or so I thought.

     Years ticked by. I got married and had kids. I loved those three people as much as I could at the time. I was broken inside. I had done so many things to myself and those around me. I was hateful, bitter, mean, fearful and so very lost. I never found that power I thought Wicca would give me. I had the altar, the statues of the god and goddess, the special branch and rocks. I cast runes and read tarot. I had a spell book. I prayed to those dead things on that pathetic altar and nothing ever happened. I was one of the 500 prophets of Baal who faced off against Elijah. My god was busy, couldn't hear me, maybe he/she forgot their phone. I was floundering in my life and it was all because my spiraling vortex of a dark soul was imploding on itself.

     I was a dark warrior. I hated everything about Christ and most definitely His followers. Those self absorbed hypocrites! I could tear down a Christian in an AOL chat room like a pro. Oh, did I mention at this point in my life the internet boomed and AOL came on the scene. That opened up worlds of communication that this ol' introvert loved. I would spend hours upon hours debating with Christians in their own chat rooms. Pointing out inconsistencies in their precious Bible. Tearing Jesus limb from limb. I would write out the most vile things about Jesus and their religion. I was wicked.

     Society was turned "wicked" into a cool slang word. The reality of being wicked isn't cool. Its horrifying. I was a beast. I thought I was so free and enlightened. So much more intelligent than those Christians in the chat rooms. Don't forget this was the only experience I had with Christians. No flesh and blood interactions at this point. If I could have seen myself in the spiritual world I would have been shocked to death. Spiritually I was a groveling slave at the feet of Satan. I would have seen myself bound in chains from head to toe. I would have seen terrible things about myself. Jesus saw me as I was back then and He loved me still. Even when His children didn't reach out to me in my prison cell, He saw me. He kept me alive. There are 3 distinct moments in my life where I should have died.  Jesus had other plans and I survived.  They are actual miracles in my life. God's providence making itself known in my puny, evil, wicked life. He had a plan and nothing was going to thwart that plan.

     I had a clinical, sure 'nuff, nervous breakdown at the age of 26. I cracked like an egg over a hot skillet. My mind, heart, soul and body just couldn't take the emotional load I had been carrying since childhood. I'd had enough and I lost touch with reality. I've been through extensive psychotherapy and countless counseling sessions. I've been on just about every "crazy" med you can think of. I was taking Seroquel nightly at one point just to be able to sleep. I was being demonically attacked constantly after my nervous breakdown. Maybe you don't believe in that kind of thing but I'm living proof it happens. It's real. The battle is raging and we can't always see the battlefield.

     Jumping forward to my 30th year, I was a shell. I had full blown OCD, Agoraphobia, Panic/Anxiety and major, crippling depression. Meds kept a lot of it at bay but it didn't cure me. It's at this point that Jesus decided it was time to bring me on board. My calling out from the darkness had nothing to do with me in the beginning. I did not want to go to church! I had no idea what craziness was working in my husband but I was not amused. That Saturday night before going to church I smoked every big of weed I had. I was protesting in my own way. I had no way of knowing that Jesus was calling me for His army. He had a magnificent plan of redemption for me. I was fearfully and wonderfully made and I was going to see that! His time had come in my life.

     My salvation story isn't super exciting. In fact, it's pretty bland I suppose. I was sitting in my living room in the middle of the night and I just got on my knees. I cried a lot. I remember talking to Jesus, asking Him to please be real. I let Him know that I most certainly could not take another false god in my life. I needed Him to be exactly who He said He was in the Bible. I needed Him to live up to the hype that His people shared with me. He had to be real. In that moment of me pouring out my heart to Him I just knew. I knew He was real and that He loved me. I also saw all my sin vividly and I was wrecked. I was sick and I couldn't have stopped crying if I tried. It was at that moment, at 30 years old, that I truly saw how wretched I was. How much I had wrecked my spiritual self with all the darkness I embraced. I saw that I had opened myself up to so much wickedness and that I had no one to blame. I couldn't blame my mom. I couldn't blame the kids in school. I couldn't blame anyone but myself. I couldn't even blame Satan. I had made my choices.

     I'm not sure how long I stayed on the floor. At some point I think I was face down on the carpet. When I stumbled to my feet I was a new creation and I felt it!! I was now a warrior princess in the family of the one true King of the Universe! I wasn't invisible and pathetic anymore. I remember feeling like I was on fire inside! I felt light as a feather. I had never felt light as a feather but it was awesome!! Of course, I cried all over again but they were tears of thankfulness. He had taken my load that was so heavy on my shoulders. Years of self loathing, bitterness, isolation, depression, abandonment gone! So many more burdens were lifted and they are too great to list here. Some of my burdens are not things that I will ever share. Those are between me and my Jesus.

     I am now 42 and I am always preparing for the battle. Satan simply loathed me before salvation. Since my salvation he despises me to the depths of his black heart. I'm not some super special Christian that caught the eye of Satan. I'm a Daughter of the King who was rescued by her Prince! Jesus destroyed the chains that were holding me, biting into my skin, keeping me from looking up into the Son. I still struggle with my mental issues. It's a matter of the brain, it's real and it's something I'll struggle with till I go to Him. That's ok I can handle it because I know that every day that Jesus keeps me on this earth I have training to do. I'm learning all the time. I never want to stop learning! I have so much space to fill in a void that was left by the darkness. I want as much Light as I can stand and then I want even more!

     So that's my condensed salvation story. I'm long winded, I'm told that a lot! I hope that it helps someone. Maybe it'll stir something in a heart that is dark. Maybe it will perk up the hear of a fellow Christian who is dulled by this world. The battle isn't over because I got saved. The battle is raging on still but the awesome thing is that Jesus Christ has already won! I'm on the winning side! He picked me! He saw something good in me! He saw something in me that He wanted for Himself! Can you believe that? I hope that you can believe it because it's true. Not just for me but for you too.

With the love of Christ,
Mar