A personal testimony from a RESCUE member on her journey to deliverance and freedom in Christ.
From birth to the age of 16, i was raised in a catholic home. It wasn’t a strict catholic upbringing but we went to mass every Sunday, participated in Bible Study and confession regularly. My catholic life was dry for the most part, the only time i had a supernatural experience was one time i had to go do my confession to a priest in order for the church to give me the sacrament of confirmation which was to signify that i have been filled with the Holy Spirit and now worthy to receive the body & blood of Jesus which was the wafer and wine offered during mass.
I was dreading my walk to the church due to a number of reasons, first, I was naturally a fearful person, the church was also located in a neighborhood that wasn’t very safe, i remember my heart racing and a strong urge to not go for the confession but i thought that was the devil deterring me from being filled by the Holy Spirit. I went to the church and confessed my sins, even during confession, i lied and made up sins that i didn’t even do. The priest told me to repeat the hail mary & the Lord’s prayer several times and he declared me absolutely clean. I felt this amazing sense of peace and joy. The girl walking back home was confident and happy and sure that she had received the Holy Ghost, the truth is i didn’t by a simple teaching from Jesus, “you shall know them by their fruits.”
My feelings of joy and peace didn’t last long, there was no substantial change in my spiritual life, it was still dry and full of rituals. My fear increased greatly. I resigned myself to thinking this is how spiritual life is, many adults weren’t living holy as they claimed. I was initially exposed to hypocrisy in the church while being catholic, it used to bother me that the “spiritual giants” used to gossip and be mean to fellow church goers. I was a child and raised not to question adults so i kept this question to myself and remained troubled over it.
FALSE CONVERSION
In 2000, I was 16 and in high school where a church group visited and we were shown an “End time” movie. They later explained how many will be be-headed and suffer when they miss the rapture. We were also threatened with the prospect of dying & going to hell, where people burn forever. I panicked and rushed forward to say the sinner’s prayer which was supposed to allow Jesus to enter my heart and seal me with eternal life in heaven. I thought I received Jesus Christ of Nazareth but red flags started popping up immediately.
- First red flag was that I started suffering from sexual thoughts about Jesus, the thoughts felt like a blow to my mind, I would fight back to stop the thought from continuing. I suffered in silence, very embarrassed and thought i was a very lustful person. I cried for forgiveness constantly hoping God wont be angry with me.
- Second red flag was the constant cuss words in my mind directed towards God the Father and the Holy Spirit. One time during a prayer meeting, i felt a strong force pushing me to open my mouth and hurl obscenities, i held my mouth tight, waiting anxiously for the meeting to end so i can run out.
- I got a dream where i was surrounded by strange looking creatures, in the dream i realized they were demons and all of them stared at me intently, they all looked ready to attack especially one that looked like an anaconda. I wondered why they didn’t attack, but as i looked out the corner of my right eye, i saw a man dressed in white. I thought that was Jesus of Nazareth protecting me but during my counselling it became evident to me that dream was showing me the fake Jesus and his demons who have entered my life.
TORMENT
I was always a fearful person and this increased after getting “saved.” Every night i would perform a ritual of anointing myself, the bed, and room before i slept. I was afraid of death, torture, nightmares and demons attacking me while i slept. Listening to worship songs, sermons and anointing the vicinity gave some comfort but the results were short lived. I started taking sleeping pills after a family tragedy to try and get some sleep but my sleep pattern was ruined, i suffered from insomnia and constant fatigue.
Things took a turn for the worse in 2004 when I was asleep alone in my room and a spirit touched my private part. I woke up in complete shock, it felt like a complete invasion of privacy, I wasn’t safe in my own home. All the doors were locked, the windows were shut but yet i was attacked. My fear grew tremendously because the demons taunting me made me know there was more to come. I didn’t share this with anyone because i never heard other people suffering from this. I felt ashamed, embarrassed, and felt sad for myself, wondering who could help me, i prayed, read the bible, went to church but baffled as to why this was happening. I engaged in a lot of prayer meetings where we would recite Cindy Trimm prayers from her book, binding demons and releasing angels. I would feel pumped after a prayer session but as always, the feelings were short lived.
I was filled with anxiety before going to bed, making sure i slept with the lights on, slept in certain positions, played christian music hoping that i wouldst get sexually or physically assaulted. All the while i showed other people that i was as normal as i can be, yet i was falling apart on the inside.
In 2013/2014 the night visits became weekly and the demons were becoming more bold in their attacks, I’ve been slapped and had my private parts fondled. I suffered from sleep paralysis as well. By mid 2014 i finally acknowledged i was in trouble as the years of torment were adding up, also the attacks were getting more frequent and more deadly. I started to feel my mind slip and knew if i don’t get help soon, the situation will turn critical.
HOW I MET PAM SHEPPARD
I was restless, i could feel i was at a turning point in my life, a feeling like i was at the edge and almost about to fall off. I listened to more TD Jakes sermons, then moved to G Craige Lewis. My thinking was to combat demonic attacks with more religious ritual, i was so blind and couldn’t see that the more i engaged in religion, the worse the attacks became. I wrongly thought that the rituals – reading the bible, listening to sermons & christian music helped lessen the intensity of these attacks, if i stopped them, the attacks would become much worse. I was completely blind!
I always searched various christian topics on the web, i literally stumbled on Pam Sheppard’s blog and the topic was on sexual acts that would defile a marriage. I found her take on the topic interesting and it led me to read more topics she had covered on her blog. As i read her blogs about the Institutional Church (I.C.) having been taken over by fallen angels, i was shocked yet intrigued because she was answering all the questions i had while being in the church.
Through reading more posts from Pastor Pam i found a video she did on “Spirit Rape” where she spoke on women experiencing visitation from spirits which would engage in sexual acts with them, she finished the video by saying if this is happening to you, you are not born again. I tried to ignore the last part but the torment caused me to realize something is terribly wrong and its time to get some answers. I knew my time to face the truth had arrived.
EMOTIONS
For the longest time i struggled with low self esteem. I would cry for no reason and always find something to worry about and when the situation was resolved, i would look for the next issue to stress about. My emotions were determined by outside factors and other people, i bought into the labels society, family and church gave me.
Growing up in Africa as a black person, my ethnicity was never an issue. I never felt inferior as a black person. I knew what the world thinks of Africa and Africans in general but it never affected me in my day to day life. When i moved to North America, i felt my blackness and it wasn’t good, i felt inferior and any incident where someone would be rude or dismissive would affect me greatly since i wanted other people to validate me since i had no identity.
i was chained to standards set by other people e.g. Ethnic stereotypes, church views that women can’t be pastors, a woman is not valuable to society if she is not married or have children. My bias against women pastors almost led me not to listen to Pam but i stayed and listened because my torment was greater than my opinions and it humbled me to a point i was ready to listen and i thank God for making it that way otherwise my pride would have made me walk away.
DELIVERANCE PROCESS
Before i started my counselling sessions with Pam, i thought deliverance was a pastor shouting at a demon to come out as the captive manifests and rolls on the ground shouting. My view on deliverance was very different from what it really is. I watched several of Pastor Pam’s videos and read her blogs, after a couple of days i sent her an email stating that I felt i had a false conversion and needed help. I filled out a Deliverance form which helped me go down memory lane in my life and it helped me through the counselling process as Pam could look through the forms and see the doorways I had opened to the demons that were harassing me.
I learnt lot and discovered that i had a false conversion which we broke. My will was weak and passive and needed to be built up. I also learnt of ancestral demons that affect people of African background and how to break any covenants that i would have been a part of. My biggest challenge was to stop religious rituals that i was used to, but my desire to be free was greater and the more i learnt, the more i saw what i was doing was putting me in more danger.
Pam has a huge resource through the blogs, videos, books, phone sessions and the online ministry group which i am a part of. All of these have helped me overcome so many strongholds.
RESCUE
As the Psalmist says Psalm 18:29 With your help I can advance against a troop; with my God I can scale a wall. That has been my experience with Pam Sheppard and RESCUE. I learnt how to break my false conversion, build up my free will and not allow my emotions to control my actions. Views that held me in chains for years have been broken, i know my value and i get my identity from me, not what outsiders say. I have learnt my personality and know myself better than i have in years which has led to better decision making. I have learnt how to distinguish a spiritual issue from a non-spiritual issue. The torment i suffered for years has stopped! The shame i felt was removed when i realized i had been tricked into worshiping the fake Jesus and others have suffered the same issues i faced. I’m gaining a respect for God, something i never had while religious, i look back and see he has been guiding and protecting me even when i was an idolater. I have seen God’s mercy and compassion firsthand when he led me to Pam Sheppard, his faithful servant. I have gained so much yet i am thrilled because there is more to come, I am now waiting to be born again which will happen at the Holy Spirit’s timing.
Jesus warns his people in Rev 18:4 Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins and lest you receive her plagues.
Spiritual Warfare Library of PSM 