Desiree

Growing up, I had a variety of religiousinfluences.  My mom came from a family of Christian Scientists andPresbyterians.    My dad's family, on his natural father'sside, was Pentecostal.  His mother was Methodist.  He even studied tobecome a Catholic at one time. My mom's mother died when I was 3, and that waswhat eventually led her to seek the Lord.  She got saved when I was 6 yearsold. 

My parents had me baptized as an infant.  Itwas my dad's idea.  My mom and I went to a Methodist church with mygrandmother.  I don't recall my dad going with us, although he may havegone at Christmas time.  When I was about 7 my grandmother passed away, andwe didn't go to church at all for a while.  My dad was mad at God becausehis mother died.  Today I would say he is an atheist on the outside,because only God knows what is in his heart for sure. 

I remember being interested in the occult asearly as 6 years old.  I was influenced by some "fairy tales" andcertain television shows and cartoons. Halloween was my favorite "holiday",second only to Christmas.  My favorite ride at Disneyland was The HauntedMansion. 

I started second grade in a Christian school thatwas sponsored by a Baptist church.  My mom and I sporadically attendedservices there on Sundays. Sometimes we went to an Episcopal church whose pastorshe particularly liked. Mostly, though, my mom listened daily to the teachingsof Kathryn Khulman, Oral Roberts and Pat Robertson.  She and my dad used tohave screaming fights because she would send money to TV preachers. 

While in Christian school I learned Bible"stories".  I even accepted Jesus as my Savior when I was 8, but He wasnever made real to me.  He seemed far away and distant.  They told meHe lived in my heart, but I didn't really understand what that meant, and theydidn't take the time to explain.  They were very clear, however, aboutthings like dancing being a sin, men not having "long" hair, appropriateattire for church (suit and tie for men and boys, skirts and dresses for womenand girls), skirt lengths being no more than one inch above the knee, and theevil of "rock and roll" music. 

I was 10 when "The Exorcist" came out. I was equally fascinated and horrified by it, even though I wasn't allowed togo see it.  There was a book about the "making of the Exorcist" at ourlocal dime store, and I would sneak and look at the pictures while my mom wasshopping.  After that I began to be very afraid of the dark, certain thatthere were demons lurking in every corner of my room. 

I played with a Ouija board a couple of times. The first time I got a terrible headache.  The second time nothinghappened, except that my friend and I took it to school, unaware what an uproarit would cause.  The teacher took it away from us and sent us to theoffice.  I don't remember what they told us, but I know I didn't playwith one again. 

I continued in Christian school through the 8thgrade.  The kids in Christian school were no more kind than theircounterparts in public school.  There were still the thinner, prettier,more popular girls who made fun of others.  The junior high footballplayers and cheerleaders referred to those of us outside of their social circleas 'peasants'.  I always felt bad that my academic accomplishmentsreceived little more than a cursory nod, while those involved in sports andcheerleading received pins, ribbons and extra space in the yearbook. 

I determined that if I couldn't be popular byconventional means, I would gain attention by acting bizarre in order to get arise out of people.  A small group of us joined the fan club of a Saturdaynight horror show host named Grimsley. He was supposed to be a dead mortician,and he did comic bits while introducing and commenting on campy horror flicks (ala Elvira).  Our group would cause disturbances in class on Monday morningsas we recounted Grimsley's antics from the previous Saturday night.  Welaughed when the teacher, frustrated, would send us out of the room.  Wemocked the football players and cheerleaders to the point that the headcheerleader broke down and cried and we were told to knock it off.  I beganto think that there was more power in being bad than good. 

During this time I had a boyfriend whose fatherwas a preacher at a Four Square Pentecostal church.  My mom divided ourchurch time between that church and the Episcopal church.  I thought myhead was going to split sometimes because I couldn't reconcile the two. In one, the people where jumping up and down and shouting, and in the other weread the same boring thing week in and week out. 

My parents divorced when I was 12.  Whenthey split up, my dad said he couldn't afford to give my mom any money, andthere were no child support laws at that time.  One night all there was inthe house to eat was saltine crackers.  So, my mom and I ate saltinecrackers and had some water to drink and that was our dinner.  I told myboyfriend about it the next day at church and I tried to laugh it off.  Hedidn't think it was so funny.  When my mom and I went out to our carafter the service there were bags and bags of groceries in the back seat. It was hard for my mom to accept charity, but what could she say? 

The next day the deacon's wife came to ourhouse and brought six more bags of groceries.  I'll never forget thatlady and that church, because that was the first time I ever really saw God'slove in action with no condemnation. 

After 8th grade I told my mom I wanted to go topublic high school.  It was total culture shock.  I still did my bestacademically but soon found that it wasn't considered "cool" to be a goodstudent.  Not only did I feel I would not be rewarded for myaccomplishments, I feared I would be socially ostracized by those I wanted tobefriend.  I pleaded with my mother to put me back in Christian school. She agreed, even though it was a financial burden for her. For me, it meantwalking back and forth to school about four miles each way.  It wasn'tcommonplace for students to have backpacks then, so I carried my books andsupplies back and forth every day in my arms.  A couple of times I tried toride my bike but it was hard to do in a dress.  Nevertheless, I perseveredbecause I wanted to be with my "friends". 

Apparently they didn't feel the same toward me. Perhaps they thought the month I'd spent in public school had somehow"dirtied" me, or maybe my exploits from 8th grade were still too fresh intheir minds.  I don't know.  What I do know is the people I'dformerly considered to be my friends wanted nothing to do with me.  Theyeven started a rumor about me that went around the whole school, which caused aboy I liked to "hate my guts". 

I started to be absent from school frequently. The vice principal met with me and sent home a book for my mom about adolescentswith adjustment problems.  He gave me a psycho-analysis test and told me Iwas "high strung".  I don't remember him praying with me.  Idon't remember him sharing anything with me from God's word.  I doremember that I hated him and I hated that school.  I began to viewChristians as hypocrites.  Then we moved away and I couldn't have beenhappier. 

I went back into the public school system tofinish out my 9th grade year.  My mom had to work full time because moneywas tight, so I was on my own quite a bit.  When we moved we went to livewith my aunt and cousins, and I got in with the wrong people.  At 14 Istarted smoking cigarettes and I had sex for the first time with my newboyfriend, who was 18. 

While we were living at my aunt's house, mycousins and I got in a huge knock down drag out fight.  The result was mymom and I moved that night to her other sister's house who lived nearby, andwho was a Christian.  We started going to their church, which I didn'tlike very much, but it was a lot less formal than some of the places I'd beenand the people seemed a little more accepting of me. 

My mom and I slept on the floor in my aunt'sliving room.  It was late May and the weather was very warm.  It hadbeen in the 90's and 100's for about a week or so.  The next day wasthe church picnic and also Memorial Day.  That night, as we were going tobed, my mom prayed and told the Lord she was willing to go to this churchfunction, but she asked Him to please send a cool breeze because it had been sohot. 

The next day at the picnic it seemed like it wasgoing to be as hot as ever. But at noon, a breeze began to blow.  Itcontinued to pick up until it sent napkins, paper plates and table clothsflying.  The temperature seemed to drop ten degrees or more, as the windcontinued to blow the rest of that day.  I couldn't believe my eyes. Deep down I knew God had answered my mom's prayers and I knew He wasreal. 

Another prayer He answered was that my mom and Iwould be able to move back to our hometown.  Within a month we were backwhere we longed to be, in our own home, with beds to sleep on, by God's grace. My mom found a local Calvary Chapel and we continued to go to church on Sundays. I was beginning to grasp more about the Lord than I'd learned before. Then my mom started listening to the televangelists again, and gradually westopped going to church. 

She continued to follow Pat Robertson and OralRoberts.  As the prosperity gospel began to gain ground she startedlistening to people like Kenneth Copeland, Fred Price, Marilyn Hickey, BennyHinn and Jesse Duplantis.  As my Christian walk waxed and waned over theyears, well into my adulthood, I tried to listen to these people and couldn'tunderstand why I was frustrated.  I prayed the prayers just like they said,but I was never successful with the "name it and claim it" stuff, so Ifigured I just didn't have enough faith. 

At sixteen I decided I'd had enough and wentback to doing things in my old way. I started smoking again and I startedlistening to music I'd previously had little taste for.  KISS became myfavorite band, and my album collection grew to include artists like Zeppelin,the Stones, Alice Cooper, and Blue Oyster Cult. 

My senior year in high school was the first timeI experimented with drugs.  I smoked pot with a friend a couple of times. The last time, I don't know what was in it, but I was tripping out really bad. I didn't do it again for a long time. 

After I graduated I worked for a while, playedaround and partied.  I finally met a guy I really liked.  I even triedto straighten up so my mom would like him too, but she hated him.  And themore she hated him, the more determined I was to have him. So, I moved away fromhome to go live with him. 

I got pregnant when I was 19.  We found outit was twins, but something went wrong and they were born at 26 or 27 weeksgestation.  They were too small to survive and both passed away within daysof their birth. 

We got married about a month and a half after thetwins passed.  We started partying at that time, drinking and using cocaineand crystal meth. 

When I got pregnant again I cleaned up anddidn't drink, smoke or use drugs.  We went back to church.  This newchurch preached a LOT about the evils of rock music, and how people who believedin a pretrib rapture were wimps.  They spent a lot of time some Sundaysdetailing how local Satanists and witches were harassing them.  I don'tremember learning very much from God's word there. Shortly after my daughterwas born, things got weird. 

I suffered a demonic attack one night. I'd been asleep when suddenly I felt this 'thing' on my chest.  Itseemed to be pushing my face sideways into my pillow.  I couldn't open myeyes, so I thought I must be dreaming, but it was so real.  I could feel'claws' digging into my cheek.  I could hear its 'voice' in my ear. It had a horrid two-toned sound, both high and low pitched at the same time. In my mind I was saying "Jesus, Jesus" and the demon would say "your Jesuscan't help you now".  I guess the Lord must have intervened because itstopped. 

I contacted the church.  I wanted them tocome to our house because I felt like there was a 'presence' there.  Icould hear it thump on the walls at night sometimes and heard something thatsounded like wind moaning, only it wasn't windy.  I was terrified. They wouldn't come to our house, but insisted we go to the church for a'deliverance' ministry. 

During the deliverance "session", they toldmy husband, among other things, he would have to have his tattoos removedbecause they were a "doorway for the devil".  They prayed over me forevil spirits to "come out".  Nothing came out. But we walked out andnever went back to that church. 

We tried for a while to go to an Assemblies ofGod church, but it felt so empty. I felt like I couldn't find the Lord. There were many topical sermons, but no verse by verse, chapter by chapterteaching of God's word.  I was starving spiritually, and I didn't knowit. 

Sadly, we walked away from the Lord and thingswent downhill fast as we went back to drinking and doing drugs.  Eventuallymy husband and I separated and during that time he had an affair before we couldwork out our differences.  I'd also gotten pregnant during one of ourtimes together when I was trying to "win him back" from her.  I had anabortion.  It all became more than I could take and we divorced. 

I moved into another apartment where there weremore incidences of demonic activity.  I wondered if it were drug-induced orrelated, but since my Christian aunt came to pray in my apartment andexperienced it also, I knew it was not in my imagination. 

I moved from there, got clean again, and triedthe Assemblies of God once again. One Sunday, after the morning service, we wereall told that everyone but "the members" would have to leave, as they weregoing to have a "members only" meeting.  I'd never been told I had toleave a church before.  I didn't understand why they were acting soexclusive.  All my old resentment returned, and I stopped going to churchonce more. 

During that time God answered my prayers that mymarriage be restored.  My husband and I reconciled and were remarried. Unfortunately, I never gave my emotions to the Lord.  I figured I had todeal with everything that had happened, but I didn't know how. \About thattime I started to have chest pains and shortness of breath.  I wasdiagnosed with panic attacks and depression.  The doctor put me on Prozacand Xanax, and I had regular appointments with a psychiatrist.  Thingsseemed okay for a while, and then one day I lost it.  I started crying andcouldn't stop. It felt like I was in an emotional nosedive I couldn't pullout of.  I was in the process of writing a suicide note when my husbandfound me.  I was hospitalized for almost two weeks.  They changed mymeds and it seemed I was getting better. 

Once out of the hospital I started going on theinternet and talking in chat rooms.  Then one day I found an email on ourcomputer from my husband's former girlfriend's daughter.  I wentballistic.  I wrote her a scathing email in return, telling her in nouncertain terms to stay away from us.  To get back at him, I startedgetting into cybersex.  To deal with my guilt I started drinking. Itwasn't much at first, but by the time all was said and done I could down a sixpack of beer and a fifth of tequila in one night. 

When alcohol alone wasn't enough to deaden mypain I went back to drugs.  Meth was my drug of choice.  I didn'tstop doing it when blood ran out of my nose.  I didn't stop doing it whenI thought I was having a heart attack while driving, after I'd been wired formaybe 36 or 48 hours (I honestly can't remember exactly how long I'd beenup).  I didn't stop it until I got some meth that made me break out insores all over my body and I was sick in bed for a week; then I decided I'dbetter knock it off or die. 

I was a basket case at work.  Finally oneday I went in and sat down at my desk and just started bawling.  Icouldn't stop crying and so I told my boss I was emotionally burned out andwas no longer an asset to the company, and I resigned. 

I went home and called my psychiatrist and askedhim to put me on temporary disability until I could get straightened up and ableto work again.  I was still on antidepressants and antianxiety meds at thetime, and going to see him once every two weeks to a month.  He told me hecouldn't put me on disability because there was nothing wrong with me.  Iwas furious.  I decided right then and there that if I could kick meth, Icould kick antidepressants.  I slowly weaned myself off of them, but it wasactually harder for me to quit those than it was to quit meth. 

I didn't give up the cybersex, and still drankfrom time to time, but it seemed more controlled.  One night, while talkingwith a guy I "liked", he asked me if I was a pagan.  I thought this wasodd, as I had been toying with the idea of pursuing my old interests in theoccult and taking up witchcraft.  On a whim I told him yes, I was a pagan. We started to talk and I discovered he and his wife were the high priestess andpriest of an eclectic wiccan coven, and they were willing to give me lessonsover the internet.  They recommended books for me to read, which, at thetime, were very hard to find.  I ended up having to special order most ofthem. 

At one point he told me I should be careful aboutusing Hecate's name in my internet address (Hecate is the name for the croneaspect of the triple goddess), and that was the reason he'd asked me if I waspagan.  I was surprised, because I had no idea how it had shown up there. I figured that was a sure sign that I was meant to be a witch. 

As I studied witchcraft it seemed to me itwasn't much different from the 'name it and claim it' garbage spewed bysome televangelists.  It seemed to be basically the same positiveconfession stuff without the guilt.  Plus, it enabled me to indulge my oldhabit of doing things to shock people.  From our Wiccan chat room we wouldgo to Christian chat rooms and harass them, then go back and laugh when we gotbanned.  I became fascinated with vampires and read everything I could getmy hands on about them, fiction and non-fiction. Halloween was now my favoriteholiday.  I had more boxes of decorations for Halloween than I did forChristmas.  We started doing a haunted house every year, each time tryingto outdo the year before. 

Deep inside, though, I missed Jesus.  Everytime I'd cast a circle or contemplate the moon, I would think about Him. These new age gods and goddesses weren't real to me.  But I knew God wasreal, and He had helped me, even in times I didn't deserve it. 

Eventually, my Wiccan friends proved to be asfaithless as my Christian friends from my younger days.  The guy who'dintroduced me to the pagan world turned on me and was cruel and mean.  Atthe same time, my studies were showing me that a true witch embraces the 'darkside' of the goddess, as well as her goodness and light.  I didn't likethe sound of that very much.  The point was driven home when I was chattingone night with a witch back east who shared with me how an 'entity' had'gated' into his living room one evening as he was working on some spells. I really began to doubt the wisdom of dabbling further in witchcraft, especiallyconsidering the brushes I'd had with the demonic. 

Still, I clung to my books, tarot cards, candles,etc., fearful that I wouldn't find fulfillment in anything else.   Ididn't use them anymore, but felt they were there to "fall back on" if Idecided to have another go at it. 

At that time, my dad had retired and my parents(who had also reconciled and remarried) were going to move out of state.  Ihad never been that far away from my mom, and I did not want her to go away. But my dad's mind was made up and I knew there was no human being who couldtalk him out of going.  I prayed to God, the One who had come through forme before when all seemed lost.  In ignorance I made a bargain; that Iwould give up all my witchcraft paraphernalia if He would keep my parents frommoving away. 

My parents tried two or three times to leave. Their truck broke down every single time just before they'd get to the stateline.  Finally, my dad came over to my house and said 'well, guesswe're not going to Texas'.  I put that witchcraft stuff in the garbagethat same day.  Little did we know, my dad's health was failing. Within a month my dad had congestive heart failure, but God's intervention andquick medical attention saved his life.  My dad says now that, had theygone to Texas, he might not be alive right now.  Praise the Lord; He knewwhat was happening with my dad.  Perhaps God would have moved to preventthem from going even without my prayer (my mom didn't really want to goanyway), but He graciously used the opportunity to answer my selfish plea andgive me a chance to let go of witchcraft. 

Nevertheless, I wasn't quite to the end ofmyself, where God could get my attention.  Last summer, I lay on the floorof my bathroom, crying out to Him because I wanted to kill myself, and didn'tknow why.  I had the man I wanted, I had the kids I wanted, I had the houseI wanted, the car I wanted.  I had everything I thought would make mehappy, and I was wretchedly miserable. Still, I couldn't do it because of whatI knew it would do to my kids, and because I figured I'd end up in hell. 

Deep inside, I knew what I needed was Jesus, I just didn't know that even though I'd accepted Him into my heart, what Ineeded was a personal relationship with Him.  I didn't understand howimportant it was to pray daily, not just for what I wanted, but because Godwanted to hear from me, because He loves me.  I didn't understand Hewanted to speak to me through His word.  I didn't know that fellowshipwith other Christians was vital. 

I'd always had a great interest in prophecy,since I was about 10.  Within days of the bathroom floor incident, I wasflipping through the TV channels and decided to stop on Jack Van Impe to seewhat was going on in the world in relation to prophecy.  I don't recalleverything he was talking about, but I do remember him saying to 'keep an eyeon Juan Carlos of Spain'.  I thought, 'wow, it must be getting close ifJack Van Impe's willing to go out on a limb like that".  And then Iheard, in my mind as clear as a summer day, these words: "it's time to getserious.  There's no more time for playing games".  I knew it wasJesus.  I knew at that moment how real He is, and how much He loves me, inspite of all I had done.  I was on my knees, tears of repentance, reliefand joy pouring from my eyes. 

Through one of my son's teachers, the Lord ledus to the church we are now attending, a wonderful Calvary Chapel outreach wherethey teach the Bible verse by verse, chapter by chapter.  The people theredon't judge you by your hair or clothes, or the tattoos on your arms. They've welcomed us with open arms and we've also reached out to them. 

The change in my family is nothing short ofmiraculous.  My husband has given his life back to the Lord.  My kidsare walking with the Lord.  My dad, who is still not saved yet, has evenremarked on the changes in us. 

I will never go back to where I came from,because like Peter I have to say "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have thewords of eternal life".  Religion hadn't saved me.  Material gainhadn't saved me.  Psychiatry hadn't saved me. Drugs and alcoholhadn't saved me.  Sex hadn't saved me.  Witchcraft and the occulthadn't saved me.  The Lord Jesus, in His infinite love, grace and mercyreached out to me, and saved me.

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