My Testimony: How I Became Clothed And In My Right Mind
Mark Twain said, “The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.”
I say,“The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you were "born-again" and understood why.
God performed a miracle of seismic proportions in my life. He healed me of bipolar disorder—an incurable, mental condition that causes severe shifts in moods which interfere with normal daily activities such as going to work, maintaining friendships, and increasing one’s risk of suicide. My highs and lows were so extreme that I often swung from fatal desolation to dangerous impulsivity—feeling a bit like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
To make matters worse, I was deeply entrenched in the occult world since the early age of thirteen. By my twenties, I had become a professional tarot reader, a natal astrologer, numerologist, amateur shamanist, etc. The list is too long to mention—if it was “alternative” in any way, I believed it, practiced it, studied it, and eventually became bound by it.
Ultimately, the demons I had unwittingly invited into my life with occult practices began to torture me. In the midst of my psychiatric and therapeutic sessions, I innocently revealed that a host of demons was attacking me. I revealed that they visited me regularly at night to choke and suffocate me. Other times they filleted my flesh, threw my bloodied body against my bedroom walls, and pierced my ears with sharp objects till I blood gushed from my ears and I was left in excruciating pain that I believed would leave me deaf.
Of course, this only proved to my psychiatrist what he had already believed—that I was truly mentally ill. Dr. G did not believe in demons. Instead, he was convinced that I was inflicting pain on myself since I often had marks from choking and pains in areas of attack. However, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, that these demons were real. I knew I was crazy but not that crazy!—not enough to hurt myself or imagine demons attacking me, especially since I was wide awake when they happened.
Nevertheless, as a result of my confession, I was pumped with more antipsychotic medication UNTIL I WAS TAKING 14 PILLS A DAY! I became emotionless and zombielike in my overly medicated stupor.
Eventually, the demons, my suicidal depression, and impulsive hypomania forced me to quit my job, file for disability, and move back home to live with my parents like an invalid. I was in my thirties and I had lost all hope of getting better. I simply wasted away in a tiny room that used to be my younger sister’s nursery.
BUT GOD IS SO AWESOME!
He showed up when I’d finally accepted that the problem was too big for me to handle.
One day, four young, college-aged Christians evangelized to me in a Barnes and Noble café about Jesus. They told me about the cross and Jesus Christ had done for me. At first, I fought them with liberal, pagan ideas but the more defensive I became, the more lovingly they answered my doubts and shared the goodness of God’s will for me. They spoke to me until I was either out of arguments. They were so happy and peaceful that I couldn’t help but want what they had.
I could feel God’s peace around them and in the café. I could feel God speaking to me, moving me to surrender my problems to Him, and telling me to allow these young adults to pray for me. So, I surrendered, not really knowing or understanding what it meant or what would happen. In the end, I figured I had tried all manner of spiritual practices but never Christ.
In prayer, I surrendered it all to Jesus. I allowed him to take over my problems, my fears, and my anxieties and I invited Him into my life—which I had never done before.
That same night, in the privacy of my bedroom, I felt compelled to speak to God. I spoke to him for hours! I couldn’t stop confessing to Him all that I had done and tried in search of a “God” but never the one true God who had sacrificed his son on the cross for me so that I could have an eternity with him.
In prayer, I cried out to Jesus and prayed earnestly to know Him. I began to read the gospels with the same fervency I had studied the occult. I wanted to get to know Him and day by day his peace came upon me in such away, that I had forgotten I was a mentally ill and a broken spirit.
To be honest, at the time, I wasn’t sure what I was doing or what my actions meant, or how I would change but with a pure heart and little expectations, Jesus began to give me peace like I had never felt before!
FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY 38 YEARS OF LIFE, I HAD PEACE AND THE PEACE PRODUCED HOPE.
Jesus, my Lord, and Savior, replaced all my fears and doubts with such ease and order that it wasn’t until two weeks later when I fully and suddenly realized that GOD, THE FATHER, JESUS, HIS SON, AND THE HOLY SPIRIT HAD CURED ME OF MY BIPOLAR DISORDER.
I felt like the demon possessed man who had been running around the tombs naked and cutting himself until Jesus showed up.
Luke 8:35 says: "Then they went out to see what had happened, and came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid."
Finally, I had found freedom! The demons, the depression, and the suicidal spirits that tried desperately to take my life were gone and I was finally CLOTHED AND IN MY RIGHT MIND!
I WAS NEVER THE SAME AGAIN!
My faith in Christ led me to a new life, a “born again” life.
John 3:3 says: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
I was born December 18, 1971, when my mother brought me into this world. And I was born a second time on January 14, 2010, when I allowed Christ to take over the mess I had become. And I have never been the same again. Not one iota of me resembles that torn, worn, person from before.
Even though I had been miraculously healed and transformed, everyone who knew me thought I had really lost my mind this time. But little by little, my life became a true testimony of the power of God and his sovereignty over everything. Only He could do the impossible. He cured an illness science and doctors said was not possible.
He provided me with a life of hope, where there had never been one, and he healed the broken pieces in my life because I had surrendered it all to Him and I had allowed Him to do His will over mine. Jesus is a gentleman. He will never intrude in anyone’s life unless he is invited.
Two weeks later, at the same Barnes and Noble cafe, I met my future husband. Ironically, one the evangelists, a young man named Brooke, had prayed that I would meet a man of God. Two years later, in April 2017, we married. Less than a year later, we bought a house. And almost five years later, the unexpected happened. I was pregnant with my miracle child!
Since January 2010, I have dedicated my life to sharing the truth about the good news of Jesus Christ, the cross, and His resurrection to anyone who will give me an ear. He saved me, restored me, and gave me a new life. He can do the same for you! Your circumstances may not change immediately or as miraculously, but I promise that you will find hope, power, faith, and freedom in a life of Christ.
Psalm 91:7 says, “A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.”
I am no longer moved by the chaos of this fallen and sick world.
Jesus Christ is the answer; He is the only one who will give one a new life and a new hope. Without hope there is nothing.
Thank you, Jesus!