I had this hatred for men. I became the radical, lesbian, feminist, "We’re gonna take over the world. You better like who I am or you better get out of my way" type person, and that really wasn’t who I was. By nature, I’m a pretty mild-mannered person, but I was just trying to find my identity, so I tried looking in a lot of different places.
I was also developing addictions to alcohol, sleeping pills, pain pills, and different things I could get my psychiatrist to give me. In fact, I got to the place I would go into college classes with bourbon and coke in my hand and sit in the front. I suppose I was delusional because I thought nobody noticed, but I’m sure they did. At one point, I had a counselor suggest that I maybe I should try Alcoholics Anonymous. One particular lady became an unofficial leader of some of the younger women. She would sort of take us under her wing. I completely looked up to her because she had been sober for ten years. She was very sophisticated. She knew a lot about literature and history and all of these things, and I always had a hunger for knowledge. She would also talk about things like receiving messages from her deceased brother and getting messages from the dead. She would do hypnosis.
Just the two of us sat down in her basement office, and she began to do some hocus pocus stuff. I literally felt some kind of cold force in the room coming from the left side. It was like something taking over me. At that moment, it was like there was nothing in me that could stop it. There was nothing in me that could disagree with what she said because I had given this lady power over my life. That’s when the darkness and my extreme sickness began. Within two weeks I was jaundiced. I was having trouble seeing. I was having trouble hearing. I could not remember things from one moment to another. I would literally just lie on my bed with my arms underneath me. I could hardly move. It had taken over. I remember being at a place where I wished I could go back to those days of suicidal thoughts and drug alcohol rehabs because they seemed like an easy time, a hay day compared to the literal torment that I lived within my mind.
One day my aunt came to town. The one whom we always thought was different, the one that I would have never listened to before. As I sat with her in another aunt’s living room, she looked right into my eyes. At this point, I was very physically ill. Life and everything I had been involved in had taken its toll. She looked at me and said, “I’m really concerned about your health, but I’m more concerned about your soul.” The moment she said that her words pierced me. There was a time I would never have listened to that, but I was so desperate. When she began to share the gospel and share her experiences of how Jesus had been real in her life suddenly my eyes were opened, my heart was opened, thinking, “You mean this Jesus thing that I’ve been telling everybody is a big hoax could actually be real?” To the best of my ability I began to pray like, “God, if you’re real, I’m open."
Finally, I was invited to a women’s prayer meeting that took place in a courthouse building. I didn’t know anything about worshiping God, but these women were coming together to study the Bible and pray. As they stood and began to close their eyes and raise their hands, I stood with them. I didn’t know anything about that but thought, “Hey, I’m going to try this.” Suddenly I felt the real power and presence of God. It was like fire and electricity shooting through my body. I literally felt like there was this war going on between this demonic force and the power of God and the Holy Spirit. What was amazing was I was very aware of this. One would think it would be a very frightening experience, but I wasn’t frightened at all. It was almost like, “This is really cool. It’s almost like a Sci-Fi movie, but something’s happening here, and I know the God of the universe has stepped on the scene.” It was really instantaneous for me.
I am free from alcohol, from drug addiction, from pills. I’m now married. I have a husband. I have two sons, and we all serve the Lord together.
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