So, the time period after I graduated with my BA was the MOST troublesome of my life. Here I was, with two children, about to embark on a graduate school study, with an out of control husband, and not even 22 years old! I contemplated abortion very seriously. In fact, I made an appointment at the abortion clinic on two separate occasions, but couldn’t go through with it either time. The fact that my mom was urging me to have an abortion didn’t help. I felt so guilty that I hadn’t made the right decisions in life....that my mom had warned me before I married Steven that my marriage was a mistake....it just seemed that abortion was the most obvious solution. There’s no way, I thought, that Steven and I would salvage what was left of our marriage, and no way I could raise three children alone while I went to school. But, something inside of me just couldn’t do it. Steven didn’t want me to have an abortion for sure. He threatened to leave me if I went ahead with it. That didn’t bother me so much. But, the fact that I already had two children, had been married for seven years, and that Steven promised he would take care of the baby while I went to school, was the thing that most affected my decision to not have an abortion. And so, again, I relied on the promise that he would provide the love, care, and support that I felt I couldn’t provide for this child......

That was a mistake......Again, Steven became my hope, and that hope didn’t last long. He and I were separated twice during this pregnancy. The main reason was his drug activity. I just couldn’t allow it to continue in my home anymore. I remember how painful that time was for me.....I was all alone...had these two small kids...and pregnant. I had even gotten into a pretty serious car accident, and had to call my mom to come and get me from the hospital....

The pain turned to anger and rage, and again, I found myself out of control. Whenever I felt an uncontrollable rage, I would always turn it inside, and would hurt myself. Only this time, I was pregnant....and had children. I remember on a few occasions I would start hitting my abdomen. I thank God that He protected Jared from all the harm I tried to do him. It’s a wonder that he was born a healthy baby with all the things that went on during my pregnancy..... I had actually lost 20 pounds, and sometimes went days without eating...Anyway, I eventually came to a point where I felt desperate again. But, I couldn’t bare the prospect of my children being raised by Steven if I killed myself...so the only alternative I saw was to kill us all. In the depths of my being I knew I was sick, but the thoughts of killing my children, and then killing myself wouldn’t leave me. I was crying out for help with everything I had. Looking back, I truly believe this was a definite demonic influence in my life. I remember laying on the floor, seven, even eight months pregnant, holding sharp instruments in my hands, as I sobbed uncontrollably. Although I didn’t really believe that God was there for me personally, I would cry out to him in deep sobs, to just save me......

Around this same time, Steven suggested to me that I start attending church. I vehemently protested at his first few suggestions. After all, religion was just hypocrisy to me, and who was he to tell me I should go to church? Here he was high most of the time...telling ME I should go to church! But, in desperation to reach out to somebody...anybody at all....I started attending a local church. When I first started I enjoyed the music...it was upbeat...with electric guitars, drums, and all. It certainly wasn’t like any of the churches I had attended in childhood....dark pews, the stench of cheap perfume, ridiculous hymnals that nobody could sing, and long sermons that made no sense to me. But, even though it was a contemporary church, I still had a hardness in my heart...a resentment towards organized religion. I would sit and listen to the pastor, and would come home and criticize him for his beliefs. I couldn’t stand to hear the pastor stand up there and criticize other religions. After all, I still held a lot of the beliefs I had obtained from my studies in the occult. So, I sat there every Sunday for a good six months, listening, but silently protesting....

I don’t know exactly what happened. I wish I could pinpoint it to any one event which changed my life, but in reality, I know it was nothing I did, but God’s grace. He opened my eyes one day...that’s the best I can explain it. One day I just woke up and everything made sense to me....all those Bible verses that just seemed like clichés ("Love your neighbor as yourself"), suddenly had a real meaning. I spent the next few days with a feeling of being on LSD....everything in the world seemed surreal...different....

And I was excited! For the first time in my life I understood God! And.....I fell in love with Him. He touched me in the inner most parts of my being. I understood that the ONLY One who had the love I was seeking is Him. That forever changed me. You know, there's many Scriptures that I have come to identify as "life Scriptures" for myself, but there's one particular story that truly describes my own experience of recieving salvation. It is found in Luke chapter 7, verses 36-50. That woman is the representation of my own relationship with the Lord.

Through talking with other Christians, I have come to understand that when one gets "saved", some things God heals immediately. The Bible says we are a new creature in Christ. While becoming "new" isn't something that is finished upon receiving salvation, it is a marked beginning of my own spiritual journey. One of the things that got immediately healed for me was my suicidal impulses. Although, the thoughts continued to sometimes "fly" by, they didn’t control me as they once did. As a pastor once said: "You can't stop the birds from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair". And, my husband was no longer my reason for living, and as harsh as it sounds, neither are my children....But, I have found a reason to live in Him. And He is faithful, He will not fail me like so many people have......

Another thing that God healed me of was the rage that had become so characteristic of my life. He brought me an immediate peace.....no matter what happens in my life, I am okay. That is not to say that I don't feel, that I don't worry, that life is without its' trials, because this healing was only a beginning of my true testimony of my personal encounter with God. I can also say that I am stronger today than I ever was without him. The apostle Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, as recorded in 2 Corinthians 12:9 that God had spoke to him, saying, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness". God spoke this to all of us at one time or another. But, this is the first time I actually heard what He said. With all the abuse that had gone on in my life I had learned to be a victim....to just let things happen to me. Through God I have inherited a strength, and even if I am victimized by something beyond my control, I will never BE a victim again. My relationships with people have shown me that sometimes they are not trustworthy. But my relationship with God has shown me that He is trustworthy.

Another thing I would like to share is that through my daily walk with Jesus, I have been able to share Him with my children. Although they are growing, they understand more about Him than I ever did at their ages. I'm not always a good example of His character, but at least I can share the fact that He forgives me for that. You know, forgiveness has been a major thing in my life. Although I spent most of my life feeling like I was the victim, and not the victimizer, He has shown me that we are all sinners. When I came to know the Lord I thought I was a pretty decent person.....I had a lot of emotional problems, but after all, I had quit drinking, quit doing drugs, quit engaging in promiscuous sexual activities. I had a lot going for me. Yet, at the same time, I had no real purpose for life......no purpose for the pain that I seemed to have to endure. Praise God that He gave me a purpose.....and loved me even when I didn't have one! He told me that "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Luke 5:31+). I needed a doctor. And, he healed me. But, that was only really the beginning, because that healing had to be put to the test..........

As much as I was in love with the Lord, the romance ended almost as quickly as it began. You see, Steven never truly sustained sobriety. So, here I was, a brand new babe in Christ, still with this husband that was using drugs. In fact, on his own he decided to get baptized. That wasn't a decision I was willing to make at that point. And, he made me feel horribly guilty because I wasn't ready. That was his "proof" of his ultimate submission, and my lack of. But, that very night he was supposedly baptized, he also went out and got high. This was a very confusing time for me. I loved the Lord so much, and desired so strongly to follow His will, that at every twist and turn it seemed Steven was right there telling me how out of the Word of God I was living. While my insecurities in my faith were growing, so was my desire to learn more about God. One night, while Steven was out getting high, I found the courage to call the pastor's wife and share with her my confusion and the things that were going on at home. She told me one of the simplest, but most profound things in my spiritual walk. "Judge the spirit by its' fruit". That forever changed my view about Steven, and lit the spark that would develop into the wonderful spiritual gift God bestowed upon me. You see, I had known ever since that psychiatrist pulled me aside when I was just a newly married teenager that Steven was an alcoholic/addict, but it wasn't until seven years later that I would truly begin to see the depths of his spiritual sickness.

Now aware of the spiritual ramifications for Steven's behavior, we became engaged in a two year long intense spiritual battle. Steven continued using drugs, mainly methamphetamines. And, he also began dabbling with the occult. He was reading books on channeling, near death experiences, and all sorts of bizarre theories and philosophies. And, not too long after that, he began having all sorts of hallucinations, mostly auditory. He would tell me people were talking to him. He overheard two individuals carrying on conversations about him. And, he believed they were either angels, or his mother. Within weeks these conversations turned from being benign auditory hallucinations to paranoid delusions. Now, these two individuals he heard were debating whether to kill him, and the "conversations" turned to "arguments". Steven also began believing that he had some sort of psychic "gift". While all of this stuff seemed extreme, and not ordinary for Steven, I didn't pay a lot of attention to it at first. I dismissed most of it as some sort of stupid game he was playing to try to affect me. I truly beleived it was all an elaborate scheme that he was in control of, and that he didn't really believe all that stuff he was saying. But, it progressively got worse. And, the more I resisted "buying into" this delusional view, the more intense the spiritual battle became.

I began challenging Steven to "prove" all this stuff he was saying was true. Not because I believed any of it, but because I didn't, and thought he would let it all go in the face of contrary evidence. But, he didn't let it go. He demonstrated his "psychic" ability on more than one occassion. And, I know that it was more than mere chance or coincidence......it was a real power. I also know that the power he had inherited was not a gift from God. But, this power became the focal point for even more elaborate and horrifying delusions. Now, the "government" was after him, wanting him dead, because of this special "gift" he had. And, they bugged the vents in the ceiling, the electrical outlets in the walls, the light sockets, and many other places in the house. The car was "marked", and undercover men were watching us. And, I was somehow in on the whole plot to kill him. I became the traitor. The more I tried to rationalize, to dispute his beliefs, to challenge them, the more furious he became. On many occassions during this two year ordeal, I literally saw murder in his eyes, even though he never physically touched me.

Through all of this experience, God helped me to develop the gift of discernment. It became my survival tool. Without it, we were sitting ducks in Satan's labyrinth of delusions and lies. All my conversations with Steven began to sound like bizarre riddles. And, I began to question my own reality and sanity. But, even more bizarre things began to happen. Steven always suffered from insomnia, but he began to have nightmares again. He would wake up in terrified sweats, screaming and punching. And, sometimes he would wake up with physical bruises or scrapes on his body. He would tell me that demons were doing that to him. And, I scoffed at first. I insisted that he had done that to himself sometime during the night, despite the fact that he never left the bed. The evidence of demonic activity was mounting, even though I was in denial about much of it.....

Steven actually called the police himself a few times, claiming that some man in a "white" car was in the neighborhood harassing him......he worked for the FBI, of course. One night he actually kept me up all night long, and had backed me into a corner...literally......He was telling me over and over again about this whole delusional life he was living. I wasn't allowed to sleep until he had it all out of his system. Except for that one time several years back, he had never physically harmed me. And, even during this time in the marriage, he never actually assaulted me. However, he was very scary to me. The things he was saying and his behaviors were terrifying. I had this growing uneasiness that he wasn't going to start off with a push or a slap, like so many abusers do, but would just go straight for the kill. His eyes spoke murder, and his rationality was long gone. I remember him telling me that "they" were going to break into our house one night to come get him, and when they did, he was going to immediately kill me because I had "tipped them off to his location". I wasn't ready to take the chance that my husband would progress from auditory hallucinations to visual ones. What if he saw someone break into our house, when they really hadn't? Several times the kids found knives under the beds....along with other paraphernalia that obviously belonged to Steven. Needless to say they were terrified of him as well........

I remember distinctly two seperate occasions where we barely escaped Satan's wrath for our growing faith, and several others where he showed his true self to us. Most of these "showings" occurred within a context of spiritual discussion. Supposedly being a re-committed Believer himself, Steven would often bring up a particular Scripture or spiritual principle in support of his delusional system. And, his interpretation of the Scripture or principle was almost always either completely backwards from the TRUE meaning, or it was so subtley twisted that it required intense concentration to discern the lie. Anyway, almost all conversations ended up being centered around God. In a normal Christian family, that is a sign of being Christ-centered. However, Steven and I were obviously on opposite sides of the fence. There were times I would attempt to "take captive" his thoughts to make them "obedient to Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5), but this always resulted in his extreme rage. We were literally fighting against one another, but not with words or emotion....with the Truth of God and the lies of Satan. The more I began to fight back with Scripture, the more Satan showed himself to me. On one occasion Steven began yelling at me with his Bible open, as if he were preaching from it. He was yelling in an old-English style of grammer, as if from a King James bible (which he didn't have), and was addressing me as if I were to be submissive to him. All the things he was preaching were so backwards and against the Truth that it made my stomach turn just listening. But, if I dared say anything or question, I was questioning the very Word of God in his eyes. Sometimes he would go out into the front yard and would "preach" to the neighbors. Sometimes he would stand on the roof and do it. Another time he became so mad at me he ripped the gold cross I had bought him right off of his neck, and slung it about 20 feet across the house. While none of these behaviors were evidence of Godliness, I was still pretty much in denial about the spiritual ramifications. I knew something was wrong, but had no idea the depth until those two events occurred.....

The first event occurred the night before Thanksgiving in 1996. The debate got heated to the point I feared for my life. Without hesitation I grabbed the three kids and ran to the car. The youngest was a baby at the time, still in diapers and on a bottle. He had nothing but a tee-shirt and a diaper on. My middle child was about four at the time, and she too wasn't dressed for the weather. The oldest was about seven. We took off in the car with nothing but the clothes we had on, and headed as far away from that house as fast as we could go. We ended up in church. And, as the service was ending, all I could do was fall to my knees and cry. I had tried everything to make this marriage work, and my new hope in Christ was dwindling each day. I began to feel responsible for the predicament in our lives. Sitting in that church, not knowing where to go, I was confused and terrified. I was certain he would kill us if we went back. And, no one around me had any understanding of the things I was facing at home. I was told that "fear is never from God". I took that to mean that I was once again, not being faithful by allowing myself to be afraid. I was able to obtain a restraining order, and we eventually found our way back home. But, in a matter of time, Steven was back again, with new promises. I had grown weary to the point of not really placing hope in his promises anymore. My hope was in God. And, I knew God could perform a miracle and heal my husband, so I kept hanging on. And, I let him move back into the house. I think I allowed him back in partially out of fear, as well as hope. I just didn't have much more fight left in me to battle with him if I had said no........

But, I was determined to remain faithful to God. And, I really thought that part of that faithfulness meant remaining in my marriage. While I was beginning to let go of Steven, I was also beginning to feel like I had an obligation to stay with him. Once again, I prayed, I annointed my children and my home with oil, I consulted various people about spiritual warfare, and read books about demonic possession. I was starting to believe that this horrible nightmare I was living was a result of demonic possession. But, I also knew my attempts at addressing it from that point of view weren't working. So, I begin to fall back on the idea that Steven was mentally ill. Seriously. Schizophrenic. And, seeing him as ill overwhelmed me with compassion. Everything in me said to run like hell. But, the compassionate part of me told me to stay at least long enough to get him some real help. So, I did. I began to make phone calls to find out how I could have him involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric hospital. And, I hit a brick wall. I was told that mentally ill persons have rights....that it wasn't a crime to be mentally ill.....that if I was that afraid of him, I should just leave. I was told that the only way to have him legally committed against his will was to have the police determine he fell within the legal definition of California Penal Code 5150....a danger to himself or to others. The only way to determine that is by a suicide/homicide attempt, or by the person stating they had an intent. I knew there was no attempt for Steven....when it came to that point it would be a completed act....not just an attempt. And, I also knew he wasn't stupid. He would play the act in front of the police. Even worse, if I called them out and they did not determine he met the criteria for 5150, everything he said about me being a part of this paranoid delusion would come true. He told me I was going to have him "arrested and taken insane". For two years he told me that. When the reality of that actually hit me, I wondered if it was him or I that was actually going crazy. He also told me they wouldn't take him alive. So, needless to say, I was terrified to call the police in case they made the wrong decision.

But, God intervened. He went before me and paved the way for our safe exit from that home. That was the event that was the turning point in this battle I was losing. Steven called me at about 2am one morning, from a bar. He had been drinking, and wanted me to come pick him up. I hadn't seen him in days, and had he done that a few years ago, I would've left him there. But, I was more scared of him now than I was then. He told me if I didn't come get him he'd take a cab, and that he was coming home to stay the night because he had no where else to go. "No" was not an option, and so I figured I'd better come get him or he would be even more mad by the time he actually got to the house. So, once again, I piled the kids up in the car, half dressed, at this ridiculous hour of the morning. About half way home on the dirt road, out in the middle of nowhere, he began accusing me again of being part of his paranoid delusion. I told him he was scaring me, and he told me I scared him. He said "they" were going to kill us all. The Spirit of God in me led me at that moment out there on that desolate desert road, because I stopped the car right there. I told him to get out, that I was going to the police. He jumped out of the car and began running towards the house. He yelled as he was running that by the time I got back with the police the house would be burned down. I didn't care. I went straight to the sheriff's station. Not like this was the first time. Two restraining orders, and several police calls later, here I was again. Only this time, the watch commander on duty that night was the same deputy who had come out to the house when Steven had called to report being harassed by an FBI agent. So, I didn't have to convince him of Steven's craziness like I did all the others. He already believed me. He looked up his criminal record, and found nothing in over 8 years. That's because Steven had been sober for 5 years, and the past two years of his drug usage he hadn't gotten in trouble. So, I was once again informed that since he appeared "clean" the deputies would assess Steven for 5150 criteria, but could do nothing if he didn't meet it. It was a chance I had to take. I couldn't go home. Me and the kids waited at the station for the deputies to go to the house and interview him, and they radioed an "all clear" for us to return home. We got the all clear, and I expected they'd have him gone already, but they didn't. I told the kids to lock the doors and stay in the car, while I went in the house to check. Just as I had thought, he was sitting on the couch, obviously nervous, but as clear-minded as possible. Apparently, though, he lied to the deputy, because the deputy mentioned that he had just lied to him. They asked him to step outside and they handcuffed him as all three kids watched from the back seat of the car. Steven yelled out specifically to our daughter: "see what your mommy did to me".

The ordinary stay at county psychiatric hospital is 72 hours. Steven was there nearly 3 weeks. I visited him once, which was more than I could bare. I had been there as a patient myself, so I knew what it was like, but seeing Steven like that was beyond words. His eyes were half shut, and he was drooling. He had no shoe laces in his shoes....none of the patients did. He could barely carry on a coherent conversation. I felt pity. I felt saddness. But, for the first time, I didn't feel "attached". At least he was finally getting help. It may not have been the deliverance he needed, but it was at least subduing the demonic activity. He got out of the hospital, stayed with his step-dad for a while, and then went into another private psychiatric hospital. He eventually came home and we made one more go at the marriage. The intensity of the psychosis was much less, and instead of daily, he spoke about his delusions only on occasions. He wasn't threatening to kill us anymore. But, things were never the same. I had pity for him, but my heart was hard towards him. I forgave him, but would never feel safe around him again. And, he still had some very scary behaviors towards the children. Mostly, these behaviors were targeted towards our oldest child. And, each time he would begin to talk about his delusions, my skin would crawl with contempt. I was certain it was a demonic influence by this point, and despite my attempts to get him spiritual help, Steven always resisted. He attended church with us on occasion, but went less and less as time went on. When he did go he would hear things I didn't hear. And, he woud write notes all over the pages of his Bible that had nothing to do with the sermon or Scriptural passage. Even through the craziness of this battle, my faith grew stronger. However, my faith was that God would miraculously heal Steven, because after all, it is against God's will to divorce. So, I faithfully attended church, Bible study, prayed, and waited for the miracle........