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This story was posted on-line by with permission from the author Jerry Mason. Please direct comments or questions about this story by sending Email to the author, Jerry Mason. If you wish, Jerry will be happy to make a hard copy of any email you wish to send to Julia and snail-mail it to her. She would surly appreciate your support and encouragement. She would also be elated if her story gives hope to others. Please write. Thank you. Preface: Jerry Mason 4/24/98, San Diego Some years ago a friend was suffering with depression and Anorexia. In 1988, a ‘word' came me. I believed that God was telling me that she,was dying. I called and set up a time to talk with her together with her husband and my wife, but I had little idea of what was really going on. She was resistant when I shared that "the Lord said... " About a week later, however, she called me and confessed that she was well on her way to starving herself to death-- intentionally. Although she now lives a thousand miles away from my wife and I, we have continued to be close friends. We've ridden out some emotional and spiritual trials together. Recently I asked her to write her story. Her story has some startling candor; be advised. "My name is Julia. I was born in 1957 in California. "I never met my father, I always wished that I could know him, but efforts to find him revealed that he died over twenty years ago. I grew up with my mom and a brother, Russell, two years older than me. "It seems appropriate to share some background to the eating disorder which came later on. When I was a baby, one year old, we moved next door to two ladies who soon were named as my godmothers. One of these ladies had two sons, Tom and Jake. They moved in with us when I was four, they were then fourteen and eleven years old, respectively. And they were pedophiles. "I don't remember how old I was when they began to molest me, nor do I know how old my brother was when they began to molest him. But we were very young. "I remember from age five or six that Tom and Jake would take me into a closet separately and each would have me engage in oral sex for him. I hated this and was extremely fearful, but they assured me that if I did what they said and kept quiet about it they would leave my brother alone. They told my brother the same thing, of course, so each of us endured years of sexual abuse hoping to protect the other. "My two godmothers and my mother were nurses. Their work schedules frequently left Tom and Jake responsible for Russell and I. I took to hiding in our basement or staying with a friend as much as possible. "When I was eight, Tom took me away from the house in his truck (he was eighteen then) to a deserted dirt road and raped me. As I look back, I believe this may have been a pivotal point in my life. It was an opportunity for evil to take hold of me." Note: Study and experience have led me to believe that demons are real and that they, like any predator, will seek entry like a burglar enters a house-- through any security breach. When a person's emotions break, like the window of a house, they have access. They do not seek permission. They enter. "The night after the rape I sat soaking in the tub. Talking to myself I whispered low enough that no one outside the door could hear me. Looking down toward my vagina a terrible rage came as a blanket for my fear. Speaking to my vagina, I said, ‘You're a monster! If it weren't for you this would never have happened to me! It's all your fault! I hate you!' "I spoke to my body as though this part of me were a separate entity, as though this ugly thing was just attached to my skin. As I sat there, I fantasized how I could detach this monster from me. I thought of getting a butcher knife and cutting it completely away from me. I pictured a huge, gaping, bleeding hole there in my body, as big as a cereal bowl. I envisioned gobs of blood oozing out and filling the water with red. "A grin came onto my face as I thought of Tom trying to rape me again when there was nothing there for him to use. It seemed a perfect revenge to a violated eight year old girl. "Because I did not know that my brother was also being molested, I felt the only reason that I was being so abused was because of my vagina. That was the cause of all the pain. "Some time later I was taken again into the closet with Jake, the younger brother, and he forced me to satisfy him orally. He had always allowed me to take my mouth off before he ejaculated. But this time he held my head down until he was finished. "I remember running out of the closet, choking and spitting, running, screaming. I stood in our front yard screaming hysterically. Jake ran out and tried to calm me. He apologized. I don't remember him molesting me after that. "There were others who raped me after this. Others besides Tom and Jake. When I was sixteen I successfully fought one of the rapists off. As I look back, however, I believe the demonic activity in my life began with Tom and Jake. "Between my legs the monster, my vagina, continued to live. My body felt like two separate things. One was me, the other I hated. Because I could not get rid of the monster I came to feel that my only alternative was to kill the whole body. "My first attempt at suicide was the same year as that first rape. I sat beside a busy road waiting for a big truck to run in front of. My only obstacle was the thought that the truck driver would feel so bad if I used him that way. And I thought about my brother. "I decided to write a note when my godmother pulled up in her car and punished me for sitting so close to the busy road. That was the beginning of my desire to escape from the pain-- when I was eight years old. "From the age of sixteen I stayed away from guys and didn't let anyone touch me. During the four years that followed, it felt like the monster subsided. Most importantly, when I was sixteen, I accepted Jesus as my Savior. I asked Him to forgive my sins. He forgave me, I know to this day that He did. He came inside me in an honorable way and I came to love Him dearly. I did have a sense of assurance that I was saved and forgiven because I could feel the cleansing power of the Holy Spirit come upon me as I prayed. This occurred at a Christian camp. "When I came home from the Christian camp as a new believer, I thought that everything would be changed. I thought my life would become normal. I had no idea what normal was, but I did think that things would be better. Unfortunately, however, I returned home from that Christian camp to find that nothing had changed. My mother was still a drinking alcoholic. She had married another drinking alcoholic a few months earlier. Her new husband's interests were obviously toward me. "Sadly, things seemed to get worse. The drinking seemed to increase and my mom and her husband began to fight more. They were rapidly becoming dangerously violent. "During one loud argument I became so frustrated that I left the house to storm up the vacant, lonely hill behind our trailer house. I was yelling at God at the top of my voice as I climbed. God is so powerful, why did He not fix my situation? I wanted to know. "As a child of seven I began to ‘hear' God talking to me. I could discern His voice in my mind. I did not then understand the saving grace and love of God, but I knew He was nearby. During the years of abuse, when I hid in my basement, the Lord would talk with me, comfort me. As I stormed up that hillside as a newly saved sixteen year old I was so angry that I began complaining to Him loudly for His apparent neglect. "When I reached the hilltop, I looked down at the trailer where my mom's fight continued to rage. I could just barely hear their inflammatory remarks. My thoughts raced in search of reason and stability. I was so angry! It seemed as though my prayer to receive Jesus into my life had been too easy, that it must have been a farce. Yet I knew within me that He was there, that it was real, yet my miserable life remained miserable. God hadn't fixed anything for me. "God had spoken to me as a child, and it always calmed me and helped me. But now that I had invited Him in, I felt that He should do much more for me. Now I was a Christian, I was His child! "My anger grew intense as I sat on a rock. ‘If I prayed You in, God, I can pray You out!' I announced. ‘Do You hear me, God? I want You out of me and out of my life!' "Then He spoke to me. This time He spoke audibly, ‘I will never leave you, nor will I forsake you!' He said. I jumped up and looked behind me, but there was no one there. Even my dog, a German Shepherd who had tagged along with me up the hill, perked up and jumped from the rock beside me. My dog did not, however, bark. Note: The words the Lord spoke to Julia are right out of the Bible, but she didn't know it at the time. She had no Sunday School background, no Bible knowledge whatsoever. That she remembers the words clearly and specifically after so many years should surprise no one. "It's hard to explain, but His voice was the same as I had so often heard in my silent heart as a frightened child. That the words were audible this time did not effect the personal sense of communication-- the voice was entirely recognizable. Realizing this, and seeing that no visible person was present to hear me or to speak to me, I broke down and cried. I repented and asked God for His forgiveness. I vowed my love for Him and promised that I would never try to pray Him out again. I thanked Him for not leaving me and prayed for His help and protection. I remained for a long time before walking more calmly back down the hill. "My mother left her husband a month later when he tried to rape me. He didn't succeed, I knocked him unconscious. "I married when I was twenty. My husband was an active, vocal Christian, but our marriage carried little sense of love for me. He had rigid religious views and practices but seemed void of compassion. Though I loved him and was strongly hopeful for years that he would be used as the key to my finding healing, peace and true love, the opposite took place. What little self- esteem which survived my childhood was quickly snuffed. Instead of feeling accepted by him, I felt undeserving and unimportant. I felt as though I had nothing to offer him except my body. Thus the familiar monster was revived. Everything within me seemed to call me to self-destruction again, after four years of what I thought was freedom." Note: Julia and her husband returned to the town of her childhood, where I met them. One of the first things I learned, to my absolute amazement, was that her husband had invited Tom and Jake (who still lived there) to dinner! He wanted to display the power of God to heal and forgive and thereby, perhaps, to win them to the Lord. I successfully discouraged this when she appealed to me in the matter. Julia did not seem to be sufficiently healed for such a confrontation. Furthermore, neither Tom nor Jake showed any evidence of repentance or remorse. Although Julia and her husband moved away after less than two years, her troubles moved with her. "At one point I devised a death-plan. I began searching for a nice, steep cliff! I would make it appear accidental-- then my husband and three children wouldn't have to deal with the embarrassment of a suicide. To make certain that I would have the courage to carry out my plan, I decided to take some pills first. The plan was foiled when the youth pastor at the church we attended approached me (to my great surprise!) and said: ‘Julia, if you ever decide to take some pills and go for a fast drive off a cliff, I want you to promise that you'll call me first.' He insisted that I promise-- I did, and I wouldn't lie. I called him that night. I knew that he had heard God who revealed my plan to him. "Our fourth child came along later, which helped for awhile. The thoughts of self-destruction, however, soon returned. So I began to slowly starve myself to death. My five foot, eight inch frame reduced to one hundred, nine pounds when I was hospitalized. Not because of my eating disorder, actually. Rather, one night before church I took ten Trazadone, an anti-depressant. Because of this I was hospitalized. I had tried to get into a hospital before this, but we had no money, we had no insurance. Ten days in the hospital netted me five pounds of weight gain and a realization that my husband could not care for our children on his own. "I was working at the time and my boss threatened to contact the State to take our children away from us during the time I was in the hospital. So I came home more committed to fooling people, for the sake of my children. I wasn't, however, in a better state of mind. "I knew that I needed help. I had already been in counseling for some time. Much of the counseling was constructive, but some of it made matters worse. My pastor preached about how suicide was a matter of selfishness. It seemed very much a matter of unselfishness to me-- I was the problem-- I just wanted to eliminate the problem... And I was miserable, damned to unhappiness and hopelessness." Note: I was angry at her church pastor for the guilt he was heaping on Julia. I prayed furiously and the Lord did reveal to me that Julia was dying. She dressed and wore make-up in a manner that successfully hid her skin-and-bones condition. Neither my wife nor I nor even her husband (which has always seemed odd to me) realized how far her condition had gone. After Julia admitted that she was intentionally starving herself I decided that the cause of her suicidal tendency was demonic and asked a friend "A good friend of mine called and said that he and another gentleman wanted to come over and pray with me. I was open to anything. I knew that if I kept starving myself I wasn't long for the world. By this time I did desire to live-- for the sake of my four boys. "What I was hoping for from their prayer with me was strength to endure the pain of my life. I just wanted to be able to start eating again. Jerry had recommended that my husband join us, but work scheduling didn't match up. My husband did approve of the two men praying for me as they did do. "Jerry and George arrived and George began sharing principles from the Bible regarding demonic activity, to set a stage for intelligent action. They began praying immediately after. I sat in a chair in my living room. They stood, walked around me or placed their hands (courteously, appropriately) on me and prayed. It wasn't long [a few minutes at most] before I was telling them to stop! When asked why, I said, ‘There's a war going on in my head!' I grabbed my head. ‘There are too many voices in my head! There's too much shouting!' "Either George or Jerry said, ‘Let's keep praying!' The voices in my head calmed for a moment. I looked up at the men, George had a very intense expression, Jerry was praying and his face was serene, confidant. "I lowered my head again and closed my eyes. The voices inside my head became erotic with my eyes closed, so I opened my eyes and looked at the ugly green carpet beneath my feet. Then Jerry prayed in an odd manner and it restored my attention. ‘You mind! You in Julia's body! I pray for Julia's body to be restored to cleanness and purity in Jesus' Name!' He prayed other things concerning my mind, but I don't remember what. I do remember that a sense of rage began to surge in me like a swollen river lashing at its banks. "They prayed for my entire body to be freed from evil. As they prayed, rage and fear too intense to describe began to overwhelm me-- it wasn't me that was enraged and afraid, it was something else. Next I found myself on the floor, on my back, kicking and clawing at George and Jerry! "Horrible obscenities were coming from my mouth. I could hear my own voice, but it wasn't me shouting, it didn't even sound like me. I could see George and Jerry and I felt my body becoming rigid and fighting them with all the strength I had. I had no control over either my own words or my own actions, something else was controlling me and that something was very unhappy. "It felt as though I, my own real self, was trapped in a mental submarine with tiny port holes (my eyes) to see through. Someone else was steering the submarine and I was along for the ride. I wanted out and I wanted the voices to stop, but I was powerless. "George was commanding, ‘identify yourself!' My conscious mind, however, was in a paralyzed shock. I heard my voice say,'No!' and ‘F--- you!' (repeatedly). I couldn't make my body stop fighting and I couldn't silence the voice. I certainly couldn't believe the language I was using! I felt terribly embarrassed, I was horrified by my conduct. But I had no control. "George kept at it, demanding that the voice identify itself. Then a harsh name flew out. It was from my mouth but it wasn't me. George commanded the demon to come out in the name of Jesus. I felt my body resist and fight all the more. "Inside, I was praying with George. ‘Yes! get out of me in the name of Jesus! Help me Jesus, I don't know what's happening!' I noticed that the more I prayed within this bondage the more violent my body would become. "There was no concept of time. A minute felt like an hour." Note: Julia referred to finding herself on the floor. What actually happened is that she leaped from her chair in the living room where George and I had been sitting on a couch and made a very sudden dash for her bedroom! One of us got to the door just as she was slamming and locking it! We pushed the door open and met her looking and acting like a caged animal. When she said that she was clawing at us, that's quite accurate. Her actions were not aggressive, however, she was mostly just trying to get away from us. She would cover her ears as we spoke, shouting constantly as though that would prevent us from speaking. I don't remember how long we fought like this-- two hours, three? It was exhausting. And it was exhilarating. George and I knew that we would win. A kind of disclaimer might be appropriate here. I had been a close friend of Julia's for 5 years at this time. I had asked both her and her husband whether they trusted me, and George with me (whom they did not know), enough to take this kind of authority over her and to do so in her house. She and her husband had already agreed to this. Julia wanted to be free and Julia was not afraid to take whatever steps were needed. As they say on television before jumping buses on a motorcycle, ‘do not try this at your house!' "While I crab-clawed on my back across the floor, Jerry and George held me down by my arms. I feared that I would hurt them and I'm sure they feared that they would hurt me. The demons controlling me, however, didn't care who they hurt. The demons didn't want to come out or give up control. They didn't want to fail in their mission-- which was to kill me. "George kept demanding that each demon which surfaced identify itself. They didn't like to identify themselves, usually, because it seemed to be the last thing they would do before leaving me. George would address the demon by the name it gave, but always with the clearly stated authority of Jesus Christ. And out they began to come, one after another! "Much of this I don't remember because it seemed my mind was in a fog. I do remember one demon stating a right to keep me. Although many had said, ‘She is ours,' this one said, ‘Her father and mother gave her to us, she is rightfully ours!' "George scolded the demon for lying and demanded that it identify itself. This one threatened to kill me, right then, if George and Jerry didn't leave well enough alone. It felt like my body began to shut down. My organs began to strain, my breathing, my heartbeat, everything became terribly labored. "George commanded the demon to quiet so that he could talk to me. Up to this point, most of the talk seemed muffled and confusing. But I could hear George loud and clear. He was telling me that he needed my help to cast this one out. It had to be my choice to join with him. He directed me not to give up. When I did this, my breathing was eased. Soon enough even that demon was gone. Then we continued as before, but the remaining demons seemed weaker. "The last demon identified itself as ‘Purging.' Interestingly, I had only been purging my food for two weeks before this time." Note: Altogether 30 demons were identified. "I felt physically weak, drained. Jerry and George looked drained, too, but we rejoiced together. I rejoiced because of the power of God and the obedience of the two men who cared about me. "I went into the bathroom to brush my hair and straighten up and recompose myself. I remember looking in the mirror at a woman I didn't even know. It was the first time my eyes had been opened since the eating disorder had begun to consume me. "Raising my shirt, I could see my ribs protruding like someone just freed from a concentration camp. My skin was sunken deep in my shoulders and face. I could see every small bony knob of my spine as it seemed to protrude from my back. "It was as though blinders had been removed, I was seeing my body for the first time in years. Before this, I always saw fat, I only saw fat. I can't possibly explain this. I felt horror and shock as I now saw what I had been doing to myself. Death hung on me like a robe. "I had suffered many years from depression and constant suicidal thinking. Both things ended on that day! New hope filled me, along with strength to move forward with life. This does not mean that all problems ended, unfortunately they didn't. But I was freed to begin a re-do of my entire life! "God had always spoken to me, through all the years, just as He had when I hid in the basement as a child. Now He directed me to take two years to rebuild my physical strength and health. He told me that I would be leaving after that time, that my sons and I both needed freedom from the religious irresponsibility that my marriage and our house had represented. "I did come leave my husband, and California. I left with the four boys and a sense of hope and absolutely nothing else. I hoped that my leaving would awaken my husband to his responsibility to provide financially and emotionally for us. He did follow us to out of California, but now nearly eight years since moving he remains unemployed and irresponsible. I eventually divorced him, but only after all hope for us was gone. Time spent with him had the powerful effect of dragging me back toward the despair which had gripped me for so long. I decided that I simply could not allow him to emotionally strangle me any longer. He has provided virtually no child support, despite court requirement of it. Now in his mid-fifties, he continues to live off the good graces of churches. "It hasn't been easy being a single mom, yet the times of feeling lonely and overwhelmed with responsibility have been rare. God has been with me and my boys-- three of them are more men than boys now-- all along. "In the near decade since the demons fled I have considered suicide only once. God provided Christian friends to pray with and to hold me up on that one day-- as He has always done. God has surrounded me with spiritual warriors. I am grateful to them and to Him. That one day of suicidal thought was more than five years ago! "Old, lifelong tapes of thoughts in my mind have continually attempted to control me. It took much effort and time to learn new ways of thinking because the old thought patterns have lurked so very nearby. The new patterns have resulted from seeing and holding tightly to God's truths. The truth of God's persistent love. The true way that God sees me-- He sees me as lovely and precious and pure. It has often been necessary to refute demonic lies regarding my appearance and life performance but it's no longer so difficult to do. "More freedom came as I was able to genuinely forgive my abusers. Not only do I forgive them, I also pray that God would not judge them for their wrongdoing toward me. I hope to see them in heaven, to praise God in harmony with them in places where selfish desires no longer touch us. In previous years I had derived some pleasure from the thought of them burning in hell-- this is a real change! "Now I praise God for my past! What Satan meant for destruction God has used to draw me close to Him. I don't accept a mediocre relationship with God but strive continually for deep intimacy with Him. He is my life-saver in this world so flooded with turmoil and fear and hate. I sense His closeness each day-- and I love it!" Post-script: Julia began to notice another ailment over a dozen years ago, but thought it related to her abuse of drugs and alcohol and food. A creeping numbness. It increased until she began seeking medical help. For awhile doctors thought she had multiple sclerosis. Instead, she has recently been diagnosed with CADASIL (Cerebral Autosomal Dominant Arteriopathy with Subcortical Infarcts and Leukoencephalopathy)-- a little known, fatal, degenerative disease. Julia's response to this turn of events? "I grieve at times for my sons' sake, but for me I see this not as God's punishment or anger toward me. I see it as an opportunity to experience God's great love and the excellence of His gift of life. It is ironic, though: now that I want to live, life is receding. My perspective on life, however, has changed-- I take nothing for granted! I cherish every moment and every person that crosses my path. "Pity is a poor substitute for the out-pouring and empowerment of God's love. Self pity is even worse, a dark force devised by the devil to impose yet another kind of destruction on people. If it took all the troubles of my self-absorbed years of self-pity to see this truth, then I thank God for those years! "I understand now the great love that God has for people. I savor the sacrifice he has made for me and for all who believe in Him. It is evident to me now that God never abandoned me. He does not abandon me now."