My path to destruction started at school.(no pun intended)... I was in the 7th grade, when my teacher introduced the art of levitation to the class.
It was very surprising to me that not all the kids in my class could levitate. There were only a couple of us that could actually do it.
Of course we were looked at in amazement by the others that couldn't levitate. I was so pleased! I thought I had been given a gift....
From that time on my interest in the occult mushroomed. If I had been gifted to levitate, what other wonders could I do?
I began to read tea leaves. I could read the future through the leaves with uncanny accuracy. I also began dabbling in (E.S.P) (foretelling the future, reading minds etc.)
I began to have an intrest in contacting the dead. I was in high school by this time
and I shared with my friends these "gifts" that I had. Of course, as good friends do, they encouraged my use of these "gifts".
So we started to have seances after gym classes. I of course was the medium. Now, I have to say that I never (to my knowledge), conjured up the spirit of a
long departed soul. But I was able to make objects in the room move. Of course the response was the same each time. The girls would
begin to scream in terror/delight and run from the shower room.
I got invited to parties just because I was a medium. I was so pleased. I thought I had been given a gift....
It is at this point I want to say what Gods Word has to say about such things.
I was raised in a middle class family. The third child of four children. It was a stable
good home. There was no abuse or anything to drive me to the darker side.
Know what your children are bieng taught in school. Talk to your children and find out just what
"innocent" little games your childs teacher may be playing.
Leviticus20:27I went to well know hypnotist's show. Now that really impressed me. So I went back a second time, and watched him closely to see how it was done. Of course I shared this new found intrest with my friends who suggested that instead of our weekly seance, that perhaps I should try to hypnotise them. I was delighted and began to do exactly as I had seen the hypnotist do. Not much happened with most of the girls. Kind of a dissapointment I thought. But then one lone girl would not snap out of it. "Now we are getting somewhere" I thought. I couldn't just bring her out of it. After all, the others were watching intently waitng for the show. So, I took her deeper. I had her relive a deep and painful experience. She began sobbing and shaking uncontrollably. I was scared. Gym class was almost over. What if she was like this when the next class began? Could I be in trouble? I worked with her, and worked, and worked. Finally the sobbing and shaking stopped. The other girls gazes were fastend on me and my victim. The bell rang, and all went to their classes. The girl I had hypnotised was sort of back to her own self by this time. I was a little shaken by all this, and yet I felt a bit proud. I could do that to. I felt I had been given another gift....
Please let me give a warning to all: If you think that hypnotism is just a game, it's not!
In the course of hypnotising someone, the one bieng hypnotised is to "empty their mind". This is very dangerous!!!! Never empty your mind for anyone!
This is where the hypnotist gains the power of suggestion. You are never to give your mind over to anyone but God. When you empy your mind, you open it for evil spirits to
envade it!!!!The Bible says we are to 1Cor2:16
"have the mind of Christ." and
Ephesians4:23 "be renewed in the spirit of your mind"
You see.. my mind had become set against God. If anyone had told me that I was into things that displeased God I would have debated it strongly. I didn't know enough of what was in the Bible to know what God liked or disliked. But it is true that I was "fulfilling the lusts of my mind".In the Bible it tells what I was doing. In
4)But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us
In the midst of all of these "gifts" that I was discovering, I was finding it hard to sleep at night.
My dreams began to be filled with assorted creatures that were always chasing me, reaching for me....
I was also finding that foretelling the future was occuring in my dreams. If I had a dream that something was
going to happen, it usually happened.
One night I had a dream that my uncle stood by my bed. He said "Goodbye Karen, I'm leaving now."
The next morning when I awoke and went downstairs mom told me that Uncle_____ had passed away in the night.
Sleep was definately becoming scarce.
It was around this time in my life when a new girl came to our school. I was drawn to her like a moth to a flame.
It turns out that this girl was a witch. She taught me what ever I wanted to know.
And so, I found that I had the power to cast spells of some sorts. It was o.k thought I thought. This was
what was called "white magic". It wasn't that other kind where you have to kill chickens and stuff.
Others that knew me were finding that my personality seemed to be changing.
By now, I found that I hated just about everyone. When I would try to sleep I would be awakened with nightmares,
but usually I couldn't sleep because I just lay there thinking about how much I hated everyone, and how I would
get even with the world.
Odd things started happening in our house to.
Music playing when no music was playing, footsteps walking when no one was there....
you know, the usual.
Oddly enough, even in all my hatred by now, I met someone that I fell in love with.
So, I married him! But that hatred soon turned on him. I didn't know what I was doing really. I was searcing for something,
but I didn't know what it was that I was searching for. When I met my husband I thought that he was what would fix me. But
he was only human and couldn't meet the deep need inside. You see the bible says:
1John2:11
Well, by now my marraige had practically fallen apart. I hated everyone, and I was sure that everyone hated me!
I became a prisoner in my house. I was afraid to go out of my house. I was just certain that everyone one the planet was out to get me.
I hated with a passion all of those "religious shows". I turned them off the t.v. every chance I got.
It had come to the point in my life that when I would awaken in the morning (if I had slept at all) that I cursed under my breath
for having another day to endure.
There was no happiness, no enjoyment in life. The world was grey. Just a sort
of grey hell to endure...nothing mattered, nothing.....
One day as I was doing my usual cleaning thing I passed by the living room and of course
the t.v. was on, and one of those religious shows was on again.
I walked quickly to turn it off.I glanced down at the screen and saw a celebrity face that I
thought I recognized. It was Jeanie C. Riley the country and western singer.
Hmmm? I thought. What would she be doing on a show like that? So I sat down to listen and find out.
She then began to give her testamony of how she had come to give her life to the Lord.
After her testamony, I turned the t.v. off. But the thought of what Jeannie had said kept going throught my mind.
She said that you had to invite Jesus into your heart to be your Lord and Saviour.
No one had ever told me that! Even though I had dabbled in the occult, I believed in God. I believed in Jesus.
I didn't know how a person got to heaven, but I figured that you just believed in Jesus
and *poof* someday, you just got there. But the Bible says:
James2:19
Life went on...nothing changed really. It was the same old drab existance. Except for the fact that I found myself
bieng drawn to one of the religious shows called "100 Huntley Street".
After a period of time I got so that I actually looked forward to it. They all seemed so genuine. There was something so
different about all of them. They seemed to have peace and seemed to be genuinely happy.
Why? Why were they happy? What was there in life to be happy about?
They, and all the guests that they had on the show said that it was because they knew
Jesus personally as Saviour.
I thought on this alot. I found that the more I thought on God and thought that maybe
I should invite Jesus into my life, that a strange thing was happening. The nightmares were getting
even worse. I came to the point that at times the dreams were so real, and so horrible that I couldn't
tell if they were real or not. But one very unusual thing was happening in the nightmares. Something that I
couldn't explain. In the nightmares, when the black creatures were reaching for me, attempting to
grab me, that suddenly I cried out at them, "In the Name of Jesus get away!"
There were screaches of terror and they fled. That was new! Now I had a wepon to fight them with.
I didn't know exactly what it was that they were so afraid of, but hey, it worked so why stop a good thing?
All I knew and cared for that matter, was that now they couldn't touch me when I used the name of Jesus!
And so, I came to the point in my life where I decided I needed to ask Jesus into my life as well. All alone in my kitchen, I bowed my head
and earnestly prayed,:God, I ask Jesus to come into my heart and be my Lord and my Saviour. I give you my life...and I recieve you as my Lord and Saviour.
There was no clap of thunder, no lightning, the earth didn't move, but suddenly I was filled with joy!
Do you remember that I said life was just a grey existance? I wasn't kidding! Suddenly life had color. I hadn't noticed in such a long long time that the trees actually had
color. The sky was such a beautiful blue. I noticed that the birds were chirping and singing.
I remember that I kept running to my living room window and looking down our driveway.
I was just positive that someone very important must be going to come and visit me. After all, I had the gift to know these sorts of things...
Day after day, the joy was there. Day after day, I kept running to my window to see this important guest that would soon be coming by.I was sure that this important person
was bringing me a very impressive gift!
(Remember that I said earlier that when I would try to read the Bible that I would be filled with such fear that I couldn't do it?
Well now, I had a hunger for the Word of God. I would gladly miss meals to be able to sit and drink in every word on every page that I read.
The Bible says, in
John6:47, 48<
I'd like to say that everything was rosy after that, but it wan't. In fact some things even got worse. There were many bondages that
had to be broken over me because of the occultish things I had been into. I had to renew my mind with the Word of God
and change my way of life and lifestyle. Following Christ takes commitment.
I was a good servant of the devil, and the devil wasn't going to let me go without a struggle. But I had decided that I would be a better servant of God!
I would fight with God against this evil thing that had just about destroyed my life.
So fight, I did, and the battle still goes on every day as any Christian knows. It's the battle against the forces of light and darkness. But the fact is that
I've read the book and in the end, WE WIN!!
Do you remember that earlier I said that I had come to hate everyone?
Well, the Bible has much to say about hatred and love. We are to hate sin, but love people.
As I said earlier that I had turned that hatred upon my dear husband. But as I read God's Word, and
began to grow in it, God's Word spoke to me that I must love my husband. I was bluntly honest with God. (Nothing
suprises God anyway...). I told God "Lord, I have no love left for my husband. I don't love him. But Your Word
says I must. Your Word says that I have been given your Spirit of Love poured into my
heart. So God I ask You to give me a new love for my husband. Give me Your love for him. Let me see him through Your eyes!"
It wasn't very long after that prayer that I noticed that little things my husband used to do that irritated me, like ohh say for example, bieng alive,
didn't bother me. After some time went on, and I was trying to walk in God's love I noticed that when my husband would do some dumb little thing
that really was "dumb", instead of getting all hostile, I actually looked at him with compassion, not contempt.
Do you remember earlier that I said when I married my husband I thought that he could "fix" what ever was wrong with me? I thought that
his love could "fix it"?
Well God began to show me that I hadn't loved my husband properly back then either. I had placed the burden
of him meeting every need that I had. To be crude, I had made my husband a little god. That was why my husband could let me down all the time. I expected way more of him than he was able to do.
Lets face it, when your god is only human how much can he do? I needed someone who was Supernatural to meet all those needs that I had.
Most of them were buried so deep inside I didn't even know some were even there. Now granted my husband did think of himself
as "Super", but he just wasn't enough. God told me I needed to take my husband down from that pedestal and give him his rightful place
in my life. Only God Almighty is great enough to be able to meet such needs, heal such wounds, deliver from such bondages.
So anway, I did what God had said. I took my hubby down from that pedestal
and began to look to the Lord to meet all those deep needs that were stored up.
That began to free my husband to be....my husband!
Sometimes slowly (it seemed), other times quickly, love was growing between us again. Only it was different this time.
It was a deeper, more unslefish love. We began to treat each other with a new respect.
I can honestly say that my husband is not the man I married, and I am definately not the woman he married...THANK GOD!!
I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is no relationship gone bad that God cannot heal. There is no hurt to big or deep for God. I know...been there.
So now we and our 4 children all serve the Lord Jesus Christ, and feel honored to do it.
I have heard so many people say that when they get their life cleaned up they will give
God a chance. IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY. You can't clean yourself up. Only God can! God wants you just the way that
you are right now!
Please don't believe that lie any longer.
If you have been touched by this testamony, and perhaps you would like to ask Jesus into your heart, you can do it right there
where you are. It doesn't have to be fancy words, just from your heart. Talk to God like you would to
a good friend. All you have to do is pray a simple prayer like this one:
If you have just prayed that prayer I'd like to share a scripture with you. You are now
a child of God. The Bible says that
Romans 10:9,10:
Jesus says in the Bible that if you are ashamed of Him, He will be ashamed of you. You must tell someone, and why not? Hey, it's the
best thing in the whole wide word you could ever do!! It's worth telling about!
If you would like to, you can e-mail me and tell me that you have made a decision to follow Christ. I would be
delighted to hear that I have another brother or sister in the Lord!
Or maybe you have questions, you can write to me. I will answer all letters!
God bless you, and thanks for reading my testamony.
