My Testimony

How does one distill 30-odd years of their spiritual walk into a tidy couple of paragraphs??

I grew up Christian. I believed in God, knew God, and was very sensitive to the promptings and goings-on of the spiritual world. I know now that was my Gift of Discernment (or Discerning of Spirits) at work. I didn’t question God’s existence too much, and while my life was hard as it seems to be with all dysfunctional families, I had it better than many.

My parents divorced in the late 90s. I was 12, and horrified, shocked, traumatized, and wounded. Three weeks or so before my Dad sent the letter, he packed up his bags to go back out on the truck (he was a trucker by trade), and as he pulled out of the driveway, I asked my mom if she thought he was having an affair. She gawked at me, but something in me KNEW.

A few weeks later, she got the letter in the mail. He was. And he wasn’t coming back.

The next summer at a church gathering, I walked in on a conversation between our pastor and another woman from the congregation. She was telling him all about her secret affair with a married man, and  asking the pastor for advice. They didn’t notice me, and I listened as he dutifully pulled from scripture cherry-picked quotes to support her continuing the affair. I walked away from the church that day. I refused to socialize with such hypocritical people.

In the meantime, my spiritual gifts were blossoming, and I began to have bizarre experiences. In a desperate effort to explain my new reality, I turned to the burgeoning Internet, and ended up reading everything I could get my hands on. Most of it was New Age, some was outright occult, but I was desperate and my family’s church was silent on the issue, except to treat all spiritual gifts with extreme suspicion — even despite their incredible resources through Swedenborg’s writings on the truth of Heaven and Hell and all manner of spiritual topics. For better or for worse, I was on my own.

I grew quite adept at discernment, and my intuition became very accurate. I dutifully stayed away from questionable teachings or stuff too far in the occult as I still loved God and He was with me even then, and over the years ‘saw’ enough things — good and very, very bad — to impress upon me the Truth of the spiritual world that coexists parallel to ours. I was cautious. And every day was a new adventure.

College happened, and being so sensitive was a nightmare on that old campus. And I was insecure, desperately didn’t want to be labeled a weirdo... I tried to shut the door on everything I could sense, and for the most part, succeeded. I met a gentle man, married, graduated, and lived the next ten years as a farm wife, ignoring anything “weird” and throwing myself into a variety of creative pursuits.

In 2013, we gave birth to a son, Michael, whom we lost 34 minutes after he was born in a freak medical accident you can read about on another old blog. God was calling. Over the next year and a half, He would not be denied entrance into my life as I spiralled, depressed and suicidal. At every opportunity He was there, and when I sat on the bottom of that grief hole, He sat there with me and let me rage and cry and whatever I needed. After a while, He offered me a hand back up. And I took it.

After we had our next child, my husband and I faced divorce. Grief is the single most separating and isolating thing there is for a couple, and 95% of couple who lose a kid end up divorced. If that’s your first kid, the number rises to 98%. In desperation, I cried out to God and He came to our aid. We spent the next year rediscovering our marriage, and ourselves. I challenged God, wrestling with Him like Jacob did, and was startlingly surprised at how much false beliefs I’d held of Him, how much I’d blindly accepted, and how much was TRUE and so beautiful. I bared my soul, ugly parts and unnacceptable parts and He took them and showed me they weren’t so ugly after all, or had Good to offer others if I was up to the task.

The next few years were hard. Financial challenges threatened our family farm, isolation, loss of our church community... I am a musician by trade and I experienced setbacks that stole the fire from my belly for it. After getting kicked out from a Christian venue for playing Christian music (figure that one out), I didn’t play for over a year. But I was busy digging into and healing old hurts from childhood and that was good. God was quiet, and in hindsight, I realized I wasn’t listening for him as i should have been.

Then 2018 happened. I started seeking Him again. And He would give me guidance, and show up in startling ways. In October, I threw all caution to the wind and decided to open back up to spiritual matters. And it was like He was waiting for me, because we had Work to Do. As I prayed I started having visions. I encountered demons and was instructed on how to cast them out. I was shown he value of my musical worship. I was led on a flurry of spiritual housecleaning and deliverance, as I learned of generational iniquities (witchcraft, money, and power), and gained new perspective on the power of prayer, and prayer through music. Other believers came alongside me, always right at the Right time. My spiritual growth from October to the present (January 2019 as I write this) has been exponential. My fire for my music has flickered back to life. I am led to worship, and lead at church every few weeks, Celtic whistles and flutes in tow. Every day I am amazed at my God, Lord Jesus Christ. On January 13th, 2019 I was baptised, all, official-like.

Today... I... don’t know what I am. Am I a prophet? A Biblical seer? A mere messenger? It doesn’t much matter, I suppose, because regardless of those titles, I am a musician, and on January 24th I was given a vision of all of God’s people fighting their way through a dark forest, being guided back to the Light by the birdlike strains of my Celtic flutes.

I also don’t know what the future holds, but this I do know: God is Good, and He is ever faithful.