followerofjesus
Member
The Bible says in Revelation 12:11:
"And they overcame him with the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony."
It all started for me at the tender age of four years old. The first memory I have of my life is a dream. In this dream was a large hill on a mountain. It was a beautiful day, with a brillant sky and a large cross. It was draped with a purple sash. A white dove came out of the sky touched the top of the cross and went back up into the sky. I believe Jesus was speaking to me, even then.
My childhood was always surrounded by Biblical teachings and learning about Jesus Christ. At the age of twelve, I decided to truly dedicate my life to the Lord and participated in a baptism in a mini pool in the church. Looking back, I think I was too young to fully comprehend what it was that I was doing and what the power of baptism truly means. I was never really an avid reader and didn't do a lot of reading the Bible, I just listened in church.
Around the teenage years, I was young and not really going around the church much. I wanted to be around friends that wanted to sow some oats and took a much more secular approach in my living. Absorbing the music, movies and books. Immersing myself in fiction.
I thrived off it so much. As I'm sure so many can relate. Yet, in the back of my quiet mind I knew He was with me the entire time, gently trying to call me back but I wanted to live my life the way I wanted to do so. I was surrounded by drugs and alcohol at a young age and had friends who had older cousins supplying the goods.
However, I was never much of a drinker. I've never in my life done drugs. I didn't taste alcohol until nineteen and even then it was maybe one or two drinks on rare occasions but the vast majority of the time I was the designated driver making sure everyone got to and fro places safely.
In my spirit I wanted to protect people and make sure they were okay. It's always been like that but rarely reciprocated and you know what...I'm genuinely fine with that. I was attacked at sixteen and managed to shake off my attacker, only because he was drunk and wrestled him off. I formed PTSD from that experience though and found it harder to trust people.
By the time twenty-one rolled around, this was now the part of my life where I met a fun karaoke group who welcomed me into their fold since I didn't have friends around much since they were away at college. Things were a blast and yet, I felt unfulfilled.
My dad who is such an amazing man had met a woman online and dated her briefly. She turned out to be unstable. Once he realized that, he tried to end it amicably.
That's when things turned very dark and went sideways. I was harassed repetitively online on my various social media sites. I ended up deleting them all since someone photoshopped my head onto derogatory pictures/videos.
This unfamiliar person was trying to make my life uncomfortable. I was gang stalked. I was tailgated on a freeway with two cars trying to run me off the road. I had to cancel on a close friend of mine's birthday party so I didn't lure the culprit to the location it was.
My work place wasn't safe either. My tires were messed with. I had a trailer hitch thrown in my living room window. While at work one day, whoever it was broke into my house and left things an utter mess.
In my bedroom, they poured cans of Pepsi in my dresser where my clothes were, ruining most things. Broken stuff. Of course I was keeping a log of the things done with times and dates in the hope to get enough evidence to try and go for a restraining order.
Eventually I succeeded when it became apparent that it was the woman my father met online. My dad had shared with me that she put bee bees in his motorcycle gas tank and had to fish them out with a magnet attached to a stick.
Apparently it wasn't just her but also her son and daughter. Her son bashed out the windows to my brother's car and my brother's pregnant girlfriend had to watch the scene from her apartment window and reported that incident to the police.
The crazy lady's daughter stole my identity and charged money onto my energy bill account. Luckily for me she got my middle intial wrong and I got it dropped in court. My father, brother and I managed to get a retraining order from the court against all three of them. It was a turbulent time in my life.
The whole nightmare lasted nine consecutive months. Barrages of unwanted phone calls. I'd change my number and they'd find it again. I never blamed God or asked why, I believe sometimes life just happens. They got served the order but still she couldn't restrain herself and text messaged me. "Your dad isn't your father but instead a convict, you're life is so trivial now."
I reported it to the police and they went and arrested her. That was finally the last time I had to deal with her. Let me tell you...once you go through something of this nature, trust in other people seems like a gargatuan mountain to climb.
I felt completely upside down. My whole world changed. I didn't feel anger. I didn't quite know what word to describe the whole essence of every emotion merging into one yet I had a calm like only the Holy Spirit could provide. People wondered how I handled it, this revelation.
My dad admitted I was adopted by him at the age of one. I made up my mind, I'd always love the dad who raised me. I get why he did it. I managed to look up my real father but never chose to meet him. It was false that he was a "convict" the woman just wanted to hurt me in everyway possible yet, I wouldn't allow her to.
God can give you an incredible love for people in general, it's who Christ is and I always wanted to emulate that in any way I could.
Even living a life I wanted, I was surrounded by wild music, friends who were predominantly athiest. I had one male friend in particular who I had taken a liking to and felt feelings develop between us. I was this non denominational christian woman and he was this wild rebellious guy but exceedingly kind.
He was the jokester of the group and we had many cherished talks on our philosophies on life, talking our dreams for the future and connected. He never pressured me into anything I didn't want to do and sex was the farthest thing from my mind.
He never shamed me for it either. We knew each other about six months and tragedy struck. He took his life. I was utterly devastated. Here was a man that appeared to have it altogether. He had a wonderful job, was very outgoing and had many friends.
Constantly making people laugh. What's worse, he asked me to stay the night he did it, but I hadn't been able to discern his trouble. There were no signs! I kick myself every day. Needless to say, he haunts me still and I miss him terribly. I tuned out God for awhile after this...not because I was mad at Him, but mad at myself.
By the age of twenty-four I met up with my karaoke pals and went to a place called The Iron Horse. It was there I went to the table wrote my name and put the song Halo by: Beyonce and handed the slip to the karaoke operator. The only guy running the computer.
As I waited my turn I felt something stirring in me. I can't quite describe that feeling and I couldn't shake it. I kept my eyes on the large TV screen that showed lyrics from songs people sang. At the bottom of it there scrolled the name of the next singer with their song choice. It was mine with the song listed as: Hevenu Shalom Aleichem.
Now...at the time I had no clue whatsoever what that song was nor the language. It was a bizarre mystery and not wanting to get caught with my pants down, I went to address the KJ who ran the machine.
I told him I didn't sign up for that song. When I tell you the guy literally almost had a heart attack, he nearly did because he couldn't for the life of him figure out how this particular song got manually placed into the system because by his own admission said he was the only one that ran it and never left the computer.
He was awestruck. I was just stunned. He removed that song and programmed the song I requested earlier and we tried to drop it. As I sang I kept my eye on the guy trying to shake off the bizarre incident. As I went back to my seat after my song, I Googled it and it translates: "Peace be upon you" or in some translations: "God's Peace Upon You" and it was Hebrew.
There could be an explanation for that mishap but I do believe God shows up in unlikely places to let you know He sees you and loves you where you're at. There were two other bars where Jesus found me in the bar or tavern.
(To be continued)
"And they overcame him with the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony."
It all started for me at the tender age of four years old. The first memory I have of my life is a dream. In this dream was a large hill on a mountain. It was a beautiful day, with a brillant sky and a large cross. It was draped with a purple sash. A white dove came out of the sky touched the top of the cross and went back up into the sky. I believe Jesus was speaking to me, even then.
My childhood was always surrounded by Biblical teachings and learning about Jesus Christ. At the age of twelve, I decided to truly dedicate my life to the Lord and participated in a baptism in a mini pool in the church. Looking back, I think I was too young to fully comprehend what it was that I was doing and what the power of baptism truly means. I was never really an avid reader and didn't do a lot of reading the Bible, I just listened in church.
Around the teenage years, I was young and not really going around the church much. I wanted to be around friends that wanted to sow some oats and took a much more secular approach in my living. Absorbing the music, movies and books. Immersing myself in fiction.
I thrived off it so much. As I'm sure so many can relate. Yet, in the back of my quiet mind I knew He was with me the entire time, gently trying to call me back but I wanted to live my life the way I wanted to do so. I was surrounded by drugs and alcohol at a young age and had friends who had older cousins supplying the goods.
However, I was never much of a drinker. I've never in my life done drugs. I didn't taste alcohol until nineteen and even then it was maybe one or two drinks on rare occasions but the vast majority of the time I was the designated driver making sure everyone got to and fro places safely.
In my spirit I wanted to protect people and make sure they were okay. It's always been like that but rarely reciprocated and you know what...I'm genuinely fine with that. I was attacked at sixteen and managed to shake off my attacker, only because he was drunk and wrestled him off. I formed PTSD from that experience though and found it harder to trust people.
By the time twenty-one rolled around, this was now the part of my life where I met a fun karaoke group who welcomed me into their fold since I didn't have friends around much since they were away at college. Things were a blast and yet, I felt unfulfilled.
My dad who is such an amazing man had met a woman online and dated her briefly. She turned out to be unstable. Once he realized that, he tried to end it amicably.
That's when things turned very dark and went sideways. I was harassed repetitively online on my various social media sites. I ended up deleting them all since someone photoshopped my head onto derogatory pictures/videos.
This unfamiliar person was trying to make my life uncomfortable. I was gang stalked. I was tailgated on a freeway with two cars trying to run me off the road. I had to cancel on a close friend of mine's birthday party so I didn't lure the culprit to the location it was.
My work place wasn't safe either. My tires were messed with. I had a trailer hitch thrown in my living room window. While at work one day, whoever it was broke into my house and left things an utter mess.
In my bedroom, they poured cans of Pepsi in my dresser where my clothes were, ruining most things. Broken stuff. Of course I was keeping a log of the things done with times and dates in the hope to get enough evidence to try and go for a restraining order.
Eventually I succeeded when it became apparent that it was the woman my father met online. My dad had shared with me that she put bee bees in his motorcycle gas tank and had to fish them out with a magnet attached to a stick.
Apparently it wasn't just her but also her son and daughter. Her son bashed out the windows to my brother's car and my brother's pregnant girlfriend had to watch the scene from her apartment window and reported that incident to the police.
The crazy lady's daughter stole my identity and charged money onto my energy bill account. Luckily for me she got my middle intial wrong and I got it dropped in court. My father, brother and I managed to get a retraining order from the court against all three of them. It was a turbulent time in my life.
The whole nightmare lasted nine consecutive months. Barrages of unwanted phone calls. I'd change my number and they'd find it again. I never blamed God or asked why, I believe sometimes life just happens. They got served the order but still she couldn't restrain herself and text messaged me. "Your dad isn't your father but instead a convict, you're life is so trivial now."
I reported it to the police and they went and arrested her. That was finally the last time I had to deal with her. Let me tell you...once you go through something of this nature, trust in other people seems like a gargatuan mountain to climb.
I felt completely upside down. My whole world changed. I didn't feel anger. I didn't quite know what word to describe the whole essence of every emotion merging into one yet I had a calm like only the Holy Spirit could provide. People wondered how I handled it, this revelation.
My dad admitted I was adopted by him at the age of one. I made up my mind, I'd always love the dad who raised me. I get why he did it. I managed to look up my real father but never chose to meet him. It was false that he was a "convict" the woman just wanted to hurt me in everyway possible yet, I wouldn't allow her to.
God can give you an incredible love for people in general, it's who Christ is and I always wanted to emulate that in any way I could.
Even living a life I wanted, I was surrounded by wild music, friends who were predominantly athiest. I had one male friend in particular who I had taken a liking to and felt feelings develop between us. I was this non denominational christian woman and he was this wild rebellious guy but exceedingly kind.
He was the jokester of the group and we had many cherished talks on our philosophies on life, talking our dreams for the future and connected. He never pressured me into anything I didn't want to do and sex was the farthest thing from my mind.
He never shamed me for it either. We knew each other about six months and tragedy struck. He took his life. I was utterly devastated. Here was a man that appeared to have it altogether. He had a wonderful job, was very outgoing and had many friends.
Constantly making people laugh. What's worse, he asked me to stay the night he did it, but I hadn't been able to discern his trouble. There were no signs! I kick myself every day. Needless to say, he haunts me still and I miss him terribly. I tuned out God for awhile after this...not because I was mad at Him, but mad at myself.
By the age of twenty-four I met up with my karaoke pals and went to a place called The Iron Horse. It was there I went to the table wrote my name and put the song Halo by: Beyonce and handed the slip to the karaoke operator. The only guy running the computer.
As I waited my turn I felt something stirring in me. I can't quite describe that feeling and I couldn't shake it. I kept my eyes on the large TV screen that showed lyrics from songs people sang. At the bottom of it there scrolled the name of the next singer with their song choice. It was mine with the song listed as: Hevenu Shalom Aleichem.
Now...at the time I had no clue whatsoever what that song was nor the language. It was a bizarre mystery and not wanting to get caught with my pants down, I went to address the KJ who ran the machine.
I told him I didn't sign up for that song. When I tell you the guy literally almost had a heart attack, he nearly did because he couldn't for the life of him figure out how this particular song got manually placed into the system because by his own admission said he was the only one that ran it and never left the computer.
He was awestruck. I was just stunned. He removed that song and programmed the song I requested earlier and we tried to drop it. As I sang I kept my eye on the guy trying to shake off the bizarre incident. As I went back to my seat after my song, I Googled it and it translates: "Peace be upon you" or in some translations: "God's Peace Upon You" and it was Hebrew.
There could be an explanation for that mishap but I do believe God shows up in unlikely places to let you know He sees you and loves you where you're at. There were two other bars where Jesus found me in the bar or tavern.
(To be continued)