Iowa, USA
Let me tell you what it was like.
It felt like your soul was being torn apart. The pain you feel from one thread (the size of a strand of hair) of your soul being torn off felt like someone grabbed a handful of flesh from your arm and ripped it off. But it didn't end here. Satan took that one sliver of my soul and tore it over and over and over again. And each time the pain was just as intense as the first time. Like having your flesh ripped off. It was horrifying and it never ended. One strand of your soul lasts an eternity and beyond. Imagine how much is left yet. It scared me and it scared me real bad. Here I thought that I was doing what satan wanted and he was laughing at me all the time. He didn't care what happened to me. But you know what? Someone did. God DID care. He sent a friend for me to trust in.
One day, I met this man Bill Reisman. He heads the Cornerstone Seminars in Indianola, Iowa. He is a very strong Christian and one of the best investigative resources on the occult. When groups started surfacing in my county, he was brought in to help investigate and inform the public. The county sherriff was the one who told him I was the expert and that's how he showed up on my doorstep. He soon became a good friend and never stopped letting me know that God loved me and through Jesus Christ I could be saved and have life everlasting.
For a few more years I continued to be defiant. I got pregnant in 1990 and I came across the Shepherd's Psalm (Psalm 23, I do believe). It said: "yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me". I started thinking about it and more and more I began to read things that kept leading me. Even the poem, "Footprints in the Sand" says "you are not alone, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you". I realized that if it weren't for a force greater than myself I should have been dead by then. There were times that it seemed someone stretched out an invisible hand and helped me out of my situation.
In January 1991, my brother was back from the army on leave. He was an evangelist -- filled to overflowing with the Holy Spirit and bursting with the love of the Lord. Oh, how I longed to feel this joy, to feel loved again, to not feel afraid. But I couldn't say it. Satan was holding my tongue and closing my ears. I just sat there with this stupid smile on my face while my brother so desperately was trying to get me to see the light. Whenever anyone talked about God, Jesus, etc., my body would tingle like I was plugged in to a wall socket. The demons that were binding me were getting the willies because they knew what the power of the Lord could do. Only I didn't. If my brother would have touched me, I would have jumped out of my skin.
Not more than a week later, on January 13, 1991, my family for the first time in may years, was together in church. During the sermon, we had an impromptu prayer time One of the brethern stood up and said: "There is one among us who has a black..." I didn't need to hear anymore. I knew who he was talking about and so did my family.
I spent 11 years searching, fighting, struggling to find something -- and there it was: talking to me. I just got slapped upside the face by Jesus. I could hear him say "No more", and I believed him. I knew I couldn't go on like I was anymore. So, I turned my life over to Him then and there. That was the day I became born again.
I have been very happy ever since. I had a daughter in May 1991. Just recently, I got married again and we now have a daughter who is five months old. Life has been good since that day. I can only hope that others will see the right path and chose to follow it. I hope I can help them find that path.
