January 7, 2025 • 51 mins
Jessica shares a powerful testimony of her encounters with spiritual warfare that reshaped her life and faith. Through her journey, she emphasizes the importance of recognizing and confronting spiritual realities, illustrating how faith can be a source of strength in times of distress.
• Exploration of cultural influences and spiritual warfare
• Jessica’s background in Catholicism and adjacency to divination
• Experiences of spiritual attacks and isolation
• Dismissal from family and friends regarding spiritual distress
• Tension between mental health and spiritual battles
• Importance of prayer and Scripture in overcoming spiritual attacks
• Understanding redemption through faith in difficult times
• The role of community in acknowledging spiritual experiences
• Invitation for further engagement in subsequent episodes
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Hello and welcome to the Radiant Mission podcast.
My name is Rebecca Toomey andwe are on a mission to encourage
and inspire you as you'renavigating through your life and
with your relationship withChrist.
We have been in a series onbeing countercultural in a
secular world and today Iwelcome a very, very special
guest.
Her name is Jessica Avila andshe is a mama and the founder of
(00:55):
AED Skincare.
And, a fun fact, Jessica and Ihave known each other for
somewhere in the realm of 12 to15 ish years.
I couldn't quite figure it out,Maybe you have a better memory
than I do, but somewhere in thatrange, right?
Yeah, I think it's closer to 15, if not more.
If not, it's been a hot minute.
(01:18):
We actually met at the baremineral store at the Wellington
mall in Florida back in the dayand we became fast friends.
Jessica was working there and Iwent in talking about
foundation and makeup and youknow I could go to any store but
I would always go back to youto visit you in Wellington
(01:41):
because you were awesome and,yeah, I was going out of my way
to just to visit with you.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I loved that was a great time period of my life I
loved that was my favorite partof of being a store manager and
being with Bare Minerals was thekid, like the girlfriend
experience, the connection.
I loved making women like feelbeautiful and like seeing the
confidence you know cause you.
People come in and they andgoing through something, even if
it's like a break or whateverit is, and you know you're like
(02:10):
a therapist, a friend.
You know you just have that likebonding moment and it was a
great time and I still speakwith some of the girls that were
, like my assistant managers atthe Wellington store.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
So absolutely Well, you were a natural at it and you
know what.
I think you're right.
It has to be more than 15 years, because I wasn't even doing
makeup yet at that time forbridal.
I got into that after, so itwas a.
It was a while ago, but thenhere's the funniest thing.
This is a second fun fact forthe Jessica and Rebecca episode.
(02:43):
You are originally from StatenIsland, new York, which is where
my husband is from, and so notonly did we meet in South
Florida, which is where I grewup, but then we crossed over to
Staten Island.
We both live there at the sametime, ironically, so funny.
And then now here we are and welive in the same town again.
We both live in Knoxville,tennessee.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
I know.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
I know.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
It's wild, it's weird and the same thing happened
with my assistant manager thateventually she took my position
when I left and went to New York.
She's in Staten Island now.
She's in the house and we werebest buddies up there until I
left, until I moved to Tennessee, and we still talk.
(03:29):
So it's interesting how Godweaves people in and out of your
life, because when she cameinto my life I was so shocked
I'm like you're going to be inStaten Island and I was really
lonely.
I was going through a longperiod and I was like I need a
girlfriend and I rememberpraying to God.
I was going through like a longperiod and I was like I need a
girlfriend and I remember likepraying to God about it and then
seeing that she was there and Iwas like I miss Staten Island
(03:49):
too.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Such a small world and it is.
It's amazing how he weavespeople in, like you said, in and
sometimes out of our lives, orsometimes in and out and just
some.
You know, you never know howit's going to go, but that's.
The beautiful thing about theLord is that we have seasons in
our life and seasons that we gothrough and moments and times
(04:12):
where we need people and havepeople around.
So you've been a blessing in mylife.
It's been awesome to know youfor the past 17 years let's say
that 15 years and I'm excitedthat you're here to share more
of your testimony too, because Iknow it's something that you
really haven't publicly talkedabout, and so I know you're a
(04:32):
little nervous, but it's goingto be okay.
You got this.
And you know that you're in theright place because you I know
you listen to the show, soyou're with the right people who
are they're on the same trackhere too.
You know, spiritual warfare is ahuge conversation right now and
it's something that a lot of usgrew up not talking about,
(04:55):
especially if we want to talkabout culturally within Staten
Island and the Catholic church.
You know it's not somethingthat is discussed.
I know with my own husband.
He he almost in the beginning,when I first started talking to
him about spiritual warfare,he's like this is creepy, this
is weird to me out.
Yeah, and that is somethingthat can happen too, but I don't
(05:16):
want to jump ahead too far no,but we're, we're on the same
page.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
so your podcast when I heard it I related to it um,
because this it's carried on forover the last 10 years in my
life when I started noticing itvery prevalent um, because I
probably just wasn't on theenemy's radar like I was playing
for the other team.
(05:40):
So I always tell myself like Itry to thank God for this,
because I think that means thatyou know I'm walking with Jesus,
Like I'm trying.
So just to give you a littlebit about, like my background I
was raised Catholic.
I went to a Catholic school.
I was raised Catholic.
I still feel like a babyChristian, Like I am not super
(06:01):
well-versed with the Bible.
I don't remember anything fromCatholic school like Bible
teachings.
I remember being taught theHail Mary.
I remember going to church.
I remember being taught theoutfather, things like that, and
then nuns taking us to church.
When I got older I used to goto church willingly, Like the
(06:21):
church bells would ring on aSunday.
I was probably in like seventhgrade and I would go without my
parents.
We didn't read the Bible in myhouse.
You know we didn't, I guess,walk in that way like in the
faith and you know not to kindof throw family members under
the bus, but my family members,cousins, parents, you know, they
(06:46):
went and had tarot cards read.
They went to psychic mediums.
I remember being a kid and going, you know, with a close family
member to you know, get her, mymother to get her cards read and
her daughter and the motherthey worked at the school, like
her kids went to the catholicschool and then she worked.
(07:08):
She was like a cafeteria person.
So I didn't realize, as I wasgrowing up, like these things
that I'm into, like I dideverything wrong from like a
divination standpoint, like Iwas really big into the fact
that my birthday's in octoberand I'm a libra and I used to
read my zodiac and if I sawsomebody to read a palm I would
do it.
I literally did everything thatyou're not supposed to do.
(07:31):
Growing up, you know, I wasliving in sin.
I was, you know, and it wasnormal to me.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Absolutely, and I think that's a cultural thing
too, right, like in theNortheast I noticed.
It's just something that Ihappened to notice, and I think
that every locationgeographically is going to have
different pockets of these typesof experiences, but it was
something that I noticed in thecommunity where my husband was
as well, staten Island.
It was very, very RomanCatholic, but the women would
(08:04):
have these parties where theywould invite psychic mediums,
and that was a very, almostnormal thing that would occur.
I never got invited to any ofthese things, thankfully, but it
was stuff that I heard aboutand then I would hear the
stories like oh, so-and-so heardthis from their dead
(08:25):
grandfather or their deadrelative or whatever the case
might be.
And now you and I both know thetruth about divination and the
truth about psychic mediums isthat they're not tapping in to
dead relatives.
They are tapping into demonswho are generational, who have
lived for thousands of years andhave been following families,
(08:49):
and that's how they knowinformation about families.
It's a trick, yes, before myhusband knew about spiritual
warfare.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
I remember what he used to say.
He used to say either it's realand they're talking to
something or it's just all biglie and it's all fake.
And I remember when he used tosay that and him, just, you know
, we weren't quite having theseconversations like you and I are
having right now.
Yeah, over the years he's likeyou know, I had a feeling that
(09:23):
it was real, but I didn't.
He didn't understand who thecommunication was with.
I mean, yeah, tell me moreabout have you had or felt like
those experiences opened doorswithin your life or your someone
in your family's life, or howdid that?
(09:45):
The divination side of thingsand psychic mediums, how did
that play into kind of the worldthat was around you guys?
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Okay, so I think that it opened doors I don't know
because there was so muchbetween, because you know, like
you can have family memberswhere it opens this door and
then it's generational, like yousaid.
Um, I was given a ouija boardas a kid.
Like an adult, yeah, gave me aouija board, me and my sister.
(10:13):
We played with it.
I was young, I didn't thinkanything of it and I was always
drawn to like pretending to be awitch, because we used to watch
Hocus Pocus and these things.
Now, even, as you know,throughout everything I didn't
realize what I was participatingin as I became an adult was
wrong, and so my experience withspiritual warfare and what I
(10:38):
experienced was like extreme andI think that it needed to be
extreme and I thank God for it,which sounds very crazy to
people, but I am a very stubbornperson and at the time when I
started having experiences orbeing aware to the experiences,
(11:00):
I was very like the way that theworld behaves is okay.
I didn't see it through abiblical lens.
So I needed, like the dropkick,the shake up of being attacked,
really, in order to say what'sgoing on here, like this is real
(11:21):
.
You know, this is real, this isa real thing and I think if I
hadn't experienced the enemy theway that I did, and so in your
face, and so aggressively that II don't think I would believe
because I believed in Jesus, butI put him in a human category
(11:41):
where, like I mean, he reallydidn't walk on water, like you
know, just because he says he'sGod, he's not really God.
Um, you know, because there'sso many, all these other
religions, who knows who'stelling the truth?
You don't know.
And all the miracles in theBible like, oh, they're just
stories or they're parables.
To learn a good lesson, to be agood person, you know, if
(12:06):
you're a good person, you befine.
Like that was my attitude and Irealized how wrong it was.
And this was God saving methrough showing me the opposite,
through, like showing me and I,I was a special effects artist.
I think you know this about me,like I did the bare minerals,
but I was the special effects.
I horror, like creating horrormovies, all the scary stuff.
I had no fear, like I wasdesensitized, so it needed to be
(12:31):
extreme for me to be shaken up,to recognize it.
And I, I see God, he was withme the whole time.
I, I don't.
I'm still working on reading myBible.
You know I read it.
Now I want to teach my son it.
So I have children's Bibles.
But, like, there were periodswhere I tried to sit down and
read the Bible during all ofthis and I couldn't understand
(12:53):
it.
I couldn't absorb like a KingJames version of the Bible.
It was very confusing to me andJesus was still with me.
He never left me, like all ofthe things that happened to me.
In the end I can look back and,as scary as it was and at times
like I had post-traumaticstress from certain things, um,
cause I'm not going to sit andlike sugarcoat it and be like,
(13:14):
oh, it was a wonderfulexperience, it was a nightmare.
It was like a hell living inhell.
And, um, he was still with me.
He wasn't like, oh, you don'tknow your bible, like he.
Just, he never abandoned me.
And now it's like I have.
I'm like, I'm always.
I'm the type of person thatalways looks for solutions.
So, um, I was searching foranswers and I'll explain that
(13:36):
like in a minute.
But, um, I have.
You know, I bought like a bibleat like a lower reading grade
and I know it sounds silly, butit's helped me so much and going
to like a non-denominationalchurch and the way the pastor
preaches and speaks and how heexplains the Bible sat with me
(13:58):
and going on YouTube and Ifollow certain pastors that I
really like.
I like the way that theyexplain stuff.
You know, when I was raisedCatholic and I would go and I
would listen to a mass, as I, asI got older and these things
started happening and like Icouldn't relate, like I just
felt like like they were justreading it or whatever.
Like it was like going throughthe motions and I feel like God
(14:20):
guided me through all of this tolike where I am now, the person
I am now, because it's like aone, it's like a 180, you know
he worked on my heart.
It just a lot of things, man.
It's just it's crazy how hetransformed me, because the way
that I speak now about God, Ican honestly say, like at 29,
(14:42):
when it started happening, likeI wouldn't have believed me for
the story that I'm going toshare.
I wouldn't have believed me andI would have just thought like
I was crazy and I probably wouldhave just like made it be like
a bible thumper or somethinglike that, like you know, I
would have joked about it andthat's's who.
I was Very cynical and thepeople that I was surrounded by
(15:07):
and I'm not, you know, notblaming or judging them but they
fueled that because a lot ofpeople that are close to me that
know my story, um, that haveknown me since, like high school
you know relationships that Ihad, even close family members
they still cannot acknowledge ordo not acknowledge the attack
(15:30):
that I had as an attack.
They will literally justify itas, like certain I have, you
know, camera and audio footage.
You know at one point andthey'll say like, oh, it's dust,
or the noise that's on thecamera is a rattling of a pipe,
or it's this outside.
And I just I look at peoplelike, how can you deny?
You know, especially peoplethat know me, how can you deny
(15:52):
something like this when youknow the type of person that I
am and it's right in your faceand you still don't want to
accept it?
And a lot of my family at least,that were raised catholic, they
pick and choose parts of thebible so they believe in jesus
and they believe in god or a god, but then they they don't
believe in the gospel that hecast out demons and that demons
(16:14):
are real.
So they pick and choose whatthey want to believe because
it's scary and it is scary and I, I personally, wish it wasn't
that case.
What I now know to be a fact, atruth, is it's real, like real,
and to circle back, I mean withthe special effects, like I
can't even watch horror moviesanymore.
You know, it's one thing whenit's not real, it's one thing
(16:36):
when it's like, oh, just humansare, you know, committing these
evil things and all this stuff,so like it's fake.
But then when you see the worldthrough a biblical perspective
and you've experienced you knowthe attacks that I have I just
don't even want to participatein it, I don't want to give him
any glory.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
You've received like actual monsters attacking you,
and realize that monsters arereal in that sense, you know.
And I want to go back to whatyou said about the Bible,
because I think that it is easyfor us to overcomplicate that.
You know, it's hard tounderstand and stuff like that.
(17:17):
I myself have struggled atdifferent points in time with
that, to be like I just I don'tunderstand this, I don't fully
get it, and it is okay to breakit down.
It's okay to read a versionthat is a little more modern.
You know a version of the Biblethat's a little more modern for
us.
(17:37):
I actually laugh at there'slike a millennial Bible that
speaks in slang and it'shilarious.
Yeah, yeah, there's a version ofeverything these days, but you
know ESV tends to be a littlebit easier to understand.
I kind of grew up reading anNIV, but you know King James can
be tough and plus he he was alittle biased in some ways.
(17:58):
So there's that, but I would myadvice to anybody, the
children's Bible or like I thinkit's absolutely, or whatever,
because I want to know God youknow Absolutely, absolutely, and
my advice for anybody wouldjust be start wherever you feel
you are, like you said, if thereare different versions, or 12th
(18:21):
grade version or third gradeversion, whatever it is, but
also different Bible studiesI've found have helped me to
break it down.
I mentioned a couple episodes.
I got this Bible study called AYear in the Bible and it's
reading the Bible in a year, andI've always tried to read the
Bible through, which can break alot of people, because once you
(18:41):
get to all the this personbegot this person, begot this
person, begot this person youtend to quit Right.
And the way that it's formattedis totally different.
It's like read Genesis one, youknow this part then go to
Isaiah this and read this partand then in it kind of it's
creating different pictures foryou, different pictures of God
(19:02):
and his plan for us and ourlives, versus just read it
through in this chronological,boring, boring air quotes way.
So I just want to touch on thatbecause I do think that there
are, I'm sure, listeners thathave been where you are and feel
like I want to get to know theBible, I want to get to know God
, but I don't know where tostart, and it's okay to find
(19:24):
different ways to get there.
The other thing I want to touchon is the supernatural.
I think that we, you knowwhat's crazy is that in the
circle that you were in, thatpeople believed that they were
communicating with deadrelatives, but have a hard time
believing that demons exist.
(19:45):
You know right, both aresupernatural.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
It's scary.
They don't, they don't want to.
I, like I said I I have a hardtime talking about this because
I have to.
You know, I think about it andthen you know.
But God, I think I needed tonot know the Bible.
That's always when I come back.
He has a plan for all this.
He knows you, he knows me, heknows my husband, my kid, he
knows us and he loves usindividually.
(20:09):
He knew where I was at and thetype of person I was and how
desensitized I was, and likenothing scared me you know what
I'm saying so like I had to berattled, to be shaken for him to
save me, and it's scary.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Tell us about that, if you don't mind.
If you don't mind, kind ofgetting into it a little bit.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
And I think if I had known the Bible I would have, in
my mind, gone well, I'm justcreating this, since I had no
foundation, didn't know theBible and stuff.
When this stuff happened to meI was able to go like this and
go this is spiritual what hashappened.
And then I would hear pastorstalk and they were explaining
(20:50):
exactly what a spiritual attackis.
So I've been attacked majorlytwo times now by the enemy or by
one of, by his minions orwhatever you want to say that
I'm aware of.
So I was, you know, living inthe world, partying and just,
you know, being 20 something andcarefree, and I would go out
(21:13):
and have fun with my friends and, you know, dabble here and
there with like drinking or ifsomebody gave me like a pot
brownie or something like that.
And I'm going to retract alittle bit because I had
seizures, started havingseizures at 16.
So I was on medicine forepilepsy and the epilepsy
medicine made me tired.
(21:34):
I was always tired, alwaysfatigued, or at least that's
what I was told by doctors, andI was given Adderall for energy
and because they were thendiagnosing me with ADHD.
So all of this was like aperfect cluster, I feel like
Plus, I was, you know, going outand I was living in sin and
(21:55):
living like the world promotes,and the enemy was able to hide
in prescription drugs, like forme.
In prescription drugs like forme, um, because, uh, a symptom
of what I experienced would belike psychosis or even like
schizophrenia.
You know, I, um, I startedhaving these issues at 29 and,
(22:20):
um, everything could belogically checked with.
What the world says is like amental disorder or a side effect
of the Adderall.
Oh, you're hallucinating, it'sthe Adderall.
You have your hearing stuff,your psychosis, whatever.
So what happened is I was givena pot brownie and I panicked, I
(22:41):
didn't know, all of a sudden,like I had this bad experience.
A guy gave it to me, I was home, I wound up passing out.
Call my mom, she comes rushingover, tell her what happened.
I woke up and something told melike you're too young to die,
like what are you doing?
You got to open up your eyesand when I woke up from passing
(23:03):
out, my mother called 911.
I woke up and just decided inthat moment I have to stop.
Something bad is going tohappen to me, something I'm
going to do, someone's going togive me something, something's
going to happen and I'm going todie and I don't want to die.
And from that moment on, Istarted like searching for God,
(23:23):
like I just had this pull and Iwas changing my life and then,
all of a sudden, I startedhallucinating.
Like I would watch TV and Iwould hear, like like this
mumbling, monstery sound.
I was coming home one night andat this point I had gone through
(23:43):
a breakup and I was stayingwith family.
I was staying at one night andat this point I had gone through
a breakup and I was stayingwith family.
I was staying at my mom's house.
I heard what sounded like thisguttural growl and it bounced
between my mom's house and myneighbor's house, clear as day.
So now I think now this iswithout having any knowledge,
without having any foundation ofwhat's happened, but I've seen
(24:04):
enough exorcism movies.
Okay, my mother is beingattacked.
So like I rush in to like savethe day, brave, scared, but
brave, and I start praying theHail Mary and my mom's looking
at me like I'm crazy.
So all my family, likeprescription related, and I kept
(24:28):
telling my family I'm notlosing my mind, this is
spiritual, without having anycontext, like I just I knew.
But there was also that logicalpart of me that kept wanting
that, kept thinking well, maybeit could be my Adderall that I'm
taking, maybe it could bethisderall that I'm taking,
maybe it could be this, maybeI'm becoming schizophrenic.
They usually say it's late 20swhere that happens.
(24:50):
So I started hearing things, Istarted having things touch me.
I would feel like a presence.
I would get woken up out of mysleep violently.
Something would wake me up.
Get woken up out of my sleeplike violently, something would
wake me up.
And then everybody that Ishould be able to count on like
family, close friends, cousins,anybody that was in my vicinity,
(25:14):
um, turned on me Like they werevery aggressive, they were um,
um, not understanding.
I've heard like a pastor or apriest describe when you're
attacked spiritually, when, whenthe enemy attacks you, that he
will use people that you love,people that are close to you,
(25:37):
your family, your friends.
So I had nobody.
So now I'm losing my mindbecause I'm hearing stuff.
I'm having like intrusivethoughts, as they call it, but
it's like harassing from theminute I open my eyes to the
minute I end.
Just crazy stuff.
I didn't have a kid, I didn'thave my son at the time and it
(25:59):
would be like your kids areburning in hell over and over
and over again.
Kids are burning in hell overand over and over again, like
when I say like, if you canimagine the worst psychological
warfare, like, like if you werebeing psychologically tortured,
that's what it was.
And then not being able tosleep, not being like being
woken up, not being able to rest.
(26:19):
So I was tired, it wore me outand it was constant.
And then I had family membersthat were convinced they knew
what was wrong with me.
They were making me go to likea psychiatrist.
So I was going to apsychiatrist and they thought it
was drug related.
So I was going to the bathroomor whatever, and they were
(26:41):
testing my urine and I wascoming up clean and the doctor
was looking at, you know, mymother and and he's like, she's
clean, it's not drug related.
So, and and all of this, and inall of this chaos and I don't
think I'm really even painting aclear picture of like, in all
of the chaos, cause it was onething after another like you
think you have somebody to relyon.
(27:02):
No, um, your family, they'renot going to be there.
And then I was trying to go towork and keep my job because I
was a store manager, so I had totake a leave of absence from
work and then I had to go back.
But like I was so bombardedwith thoughts and negative
thoughts and like stuff that wasjust outlandish that I couldn't
(27:25):
focus and do my job.
So I lost everything,everything, like I lost.
I quit my job because I knew Icouldn't perform it, gave the
keys to Brittany and said hereyou go, you know, take over.
My family turned their back onme.
I had nowhere to go.
I was basically homeless and my, my mother was very aggressive
(27:47):
and very, um like,confrontational.
We were just fighting and Ifinally got to a point where,
deep down in my heart, like Iknew that this was something
that was out of my control,because I kept saying it, I knew
it, I felt it, I felt like Iwas being tested by God and I
(28:10):
wound up like throwing two bagsof clothes in a car and, driving
up to New York, to crash at mydad's house, because my dad
lived in Staten Island andthat's how I got from Florida to
New York.
It was because I was literallylosing my mind and in the
process I had checked myself into a psych ward because I wanted
(28:34):
I knew something was wrong.
I knew this wasn't my normalthought process.
So I have spent all my lifewith myself and I've had peace
of mind, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
You knew that, wasn't you yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Yes, I.
It was a quiet mind and all ofa sudden, like this, it was gone
.
My peace was gone and it wasjust nothing but negative.
And I knew, like these are not,this is not my thoughts, this
is not me, but explain that topeople who are looking at you
like what are you talking about?
It's not your thoughts.
Like you, I was made to lookcrazy.
(29:08):
You know what I'm saying, Likeand that, and that's the truth.
And then I came up to New Yorkbut I threw two bags of clothes
in my car.
I had $200 to my name.
I don't even know how I gotwith the gas that I had from
Florida to New York.
It was, by the grace of God.
I kept like.
I felt like my gas gauge neverwent down because it took me
(29:31):
seven days.
That's how like out of it I wasand I'm trying to focus.
That's a long time to do thatdrive Seven days to get from
Florida to-.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
I mean, it is like a 22 hour drive, isn't it?
Or 12.
Yeah, it's far 18, or 18.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
But I was seven days, seven days, and when?
I got there, I was like oh, youknow, after a while I look back
and I'm like, well, maybe thatwas a sign you know, I was just
going to say seven is uh, youknow?
Speaker 1 (30:03):
yeah, there's some symbolism there, maybe.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yeah, but on the way up, you know, I lost everything
and I rebuilt my life.
You know what I'm saying.
But God had to humble me andGod had to shake up my life
because my whole essence of mybeing was based on myself and my
accomplishments.
So, like I worked my butt offto work my way up, you know, as
(30:26):
a part-time makeup artist andall of this stuff, to get to
where I was with bare metals,and I was, my store was doing
great.
They were going to promote meand make me either a trainer or
a district manager.
They had just flown me out toSan Francisco.
But that needed to happen forme to realize I'm not.
I'm not in as much control as Ithink.
That needed to happen for me torealize I'm not in as much
(30:47):
control as I think, you know.
And God had a plan and becausehe cares about my soul, you know
, I had to let go of thosethings.
And on my way up from Florida, Iwas driving in my car and I
don't remember if this wasbefore or after the homeless man
that I met.
I was like running on empty.
I was tired.
(31:07):
I went to pull over in aparking lot because I'm sleeping
in my car.
I got $200 to my name and Ijust something.
I just looked in my rear viewmirror and I was in a parking
lot, so it was like the street,like right behind me, so maybe
50 feet away, maybe 100 feetaway, and there was, you know, a
spotlight shining down and allof a sudden I see what looks
(31:33):
like black smoke, so like, haveyou ever seen like the Disney
movie with Hades?
okay where he comes out of likethe smoke cloud.
He's always in like a smokecloud, okay, or like how, when
they you know, you see someDracula movies, it's always like
a black smoke, like a smokything.
It was solid black smoke.
(31:54):
It never formed into like aperson or anything like that.
It was solid black, blackerthan the night, and it went
under the spotlight, kind ofrocked back and forth like this,
because it knew I was looking,you know, because it rocked back
and forth, spun into a bowl,like sonic how sonic spins
(32:14):
himself into a bowl and thenthat like went like this,
bounced away in to the darknessand I was terrified.
I was, was terrified.
I thought I was going to die inmy car.
I remember praying and, likeyou know, nothing came to my car
and nothing hurt me.
It was very in my face, likedidn't care, you know, like
(32:37):
wanted me to see it, and I wasterrified.
And now, at this point, Ithought to myself either I'm
going to die or I did die when Iate that brownie.
And this is the other side andthere's nobody here to help me
and I'm not in a good place,okay, like I was questioning my
entire reality at this point.
(32:58):
Wow, or I am.
I need psychiatric help.
I need psychiatric help, I needpsychiatric help.
So when I got up to New York, itcontinued and now I have my
immediate family that doesn'tbelieve me.
Nobody believes me.
I don't know if I talked aboutthis, but I had gone through a
(33:19):
10-year breakup.
The guy that I was with nobodybelieved me.
So I felt very alone and veryisolated.
So I started going and tryingto go to a priest, and then I
would be also going to apsychiatrist, and then I went to
get an MRI of my brain to makesure I didn't have a tumor.
You know, like I was coveringall of my bases, like is this
(33:41):
logical, is this spiritual?
What is happening to me?
Because I wanted to save myself, because I know me, and like
this was not, this wasn't normal.
And so when I went back up there, I was honest, I was on a hunt
for I would say like a year,maybe even two years, and and I
went to work and powered through, while I would hear like a hey
(34:04):
at work and I would go home andI would have these horrible,
horrible nightmares and like Iwould get woken up, I would feel
like hands come around mypillow and feel like I was
suffocating.
And I would wake up with myface, face down in the pillow
and I would be like, oh my God,now I'm scared to go to sleep.
I would feel things pull myhair, pull my feet, just disturb
(34:26):
, just disturbing things, and Ididn't have the tools and I
didn't know what to do about it.
And even the priests that Iwent to Catholic priests the
first thing out of their mouthwas when I'm telling them all
this, I'm kind of like shaking,like what do I do?
They were like, have you been toa psychiatrist?
And I'm like, yeah, I have.
And he told me he doesn't thinkI'm schizophrenic, he doesn't
think I'm crazy.
Crazy people don't think thatthey're crazy and usually go
(34:49):
seek help on their own.
And they kind of dismissed meand wrote me off.
So I felt like super helpless.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
That was going to be my question Was these priests?
They didn't say anything aboutspiritual warfare at all.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
No, no.
And that's kind of what Iwanted to convey with all of
this too, other than the factthat this needed to happen to me
, as crazy as it sounds, becauseof the person that I was,
because I was so desensitized Iwouldn't have believed.
I would have just been like, oh, I'm creating this or whatever.
I'm sure there's people outthere that are going through
(35:24):
something.
I'm not a doctor, I'm not apsychiatrist.
I have talked to so many girlsthat, like mothers, my hand, my
old hairdresser, um, and sheused to say, like right after
she had her baby, she used tohave these intrusive thoughts
like let go roller, likehorrible things.
And I think, as a society, wehave now labeled mental illness
(35:50):
as mental illness.
We're creating a label and like, for me, the enemy was able to
move within that and hide,because you could literally say
like oh, this is a side effectof your Adderall, it's this,
it's that.
You're schizophrenic.
He made me believe for a whileyou know, plus, I was looking
for spiritual answers that itwas me.
(36:12):
He made me believe like no,he's not the storm, it's not
something outside of me, it's me, this is, you know, something
I'm doing.
But the positive was stoppedtaking the animal.
I stopped taking these thingsto weed out what was happening
to me.
So, like there was good you know, a lot of really scary bad but
(36:34):
good and like I didn't knowafter all these years, when I
had heard preach, preachers talkabout you know, when the enemy
attacks you, he gets right inyour face.
My, my nightmares that I had,it was like I was there.
You know, when the enemyattacks you, he gets right in
your face.
My nightmares that I had it waslike I was there, you know,
like it was real, like I wassomewhere else, and it was
usually like it would be mymother, but it would be her,
(36:56):
like like the exorcist, likecreepy crawling up walls.
And I remember, you know, onetime it was in a church that I
would go to and he, you know itwas like this scary, blacked
face, like you could tell.
You know like it was.
It was very obvious.
And he said I said like what doyou want?
Or something like that.
And he said your heart.
And I remember putting my handover it and I said you can't
(37:18):
have it.
And then I woke up and he wasusing God's words and why, like
my heart and my soul knew thisis like this.
What I'm experiencing.
This isn't God, and I feel likehe was trying to, you know,
make me look at God maybe in anegative light or make me fall
(37:39):
into despair.
You know, because, even though Iwent through all of this and I
and I, I felt like for a whilelike I lost time.
Um, I met my husband.
It was meant to be.
I don't think that I would be amom.
Um, because my plan for my lifewas girl power career.
(37:59):
I had just gone through abreakup.
You know, the guy had cheatedon me and I had no inclination
to, like, get married.
I just wanted to, you know,play the field.
I was 29, date.
You know, keep it casual andlike, if I meet somebody, sure,
great.
If we fall in love, fantasticif we have kids, if it happens,
if not, I'll be rich enough orsuccessful enough that I can
(38:21):
adopt, like that was my thing.
And God was like, uh-uh, likemy plan is better.
Was it tough to go through this?
Yeah, it was.
It was and it's still like.
You know, it's still cause youcan't see, you can't see it and
I and I feel like it.
How do you fight something?
I've heard preachers talk aboutthis too Like how do you fight
(38:42):
something you can't see?
You can't.
You can only rely on Jesus andcall on Jesus, um, but it's an
unnerving feeling to know likeyou're being monitored, you're
being watched, because he waitedfor, like, the perfect
opportunities to um attack mewhen, like, I was at the mercy
of other people or or he createdthat problem.
(39:06):
You know what I mean and you'remost vulnerable.
Yeah, it was, it was, it washard.
And then I think that first timethat it happened when it
carried on for like a year ortwo, after it kind of stopped
when I met my husband, there wasa period where I had peace and
nothing happened or nothing thatI was aware of, and I kind of
(39:28):
like forgot about it, which iswhich sounds crazy Like I just
carried on with my life.
I forgot about it.
I was kind of getting back andtrying like my hand at special
effects, and then it happenedagain.
So the second time it happenedwhen I was pregnant.
I was pregnant with my son andI was probably a couple months
(39:57):
pregnant and I was relaxing andI was just about to wake up from
sleeping.
The nightmares had stopped, youknow, for a while I would say
like two years or whatever.
And, um, I saw something in myroom Like it's, it's right when
I wake up, right before I'mabout to open my eyes.
So, like you second guessyourself, you second guess like
(40:17):
am I, I'm seeing something?
I'm dreaming, I must bedreaming, but I it was red,
looked like a cat tail swishing,just hanging out on my dresser,
and I woke up and I shook itoff.
As I'm dreaming, because upuntil this point, even though
this went on for, like I'mtrying to think, 2014, I met my
husband in 2017.
(40:37):
So I had some strangeexperiences that whole time.
No religious figure, like nopriest that I went, catholic
priest that I went to talk to,helped me.
So I kind of just brushed itoff, as there must be something
else happening to me.
It can't be spiritual, like Ijust kind of I had to survive, I
(40:59):
had to work, I had to, like youknow, power through and get
through all of these things, andI and I did.
But I saw what I saw and Ididn't realize what it was until
the next time he attacked me.
So he showed me that.
I saw that and then, a couplemonths later, my son was born
(41:22):
and then I had this horriblenightmare when Aiden was about
like five months old.
It was my son again, once againlike a monster.
My son wasn't sitting up in acrib at that time, he was only,
just, you know, four or fivemonths old, and he was sitting
up in a crib at that time he wasonly just four or five months
old and he was sitting up in thedream and he looked at me,
(41:42):
swung his head around and hisface was a little dark and scary
and he made a disgusting,vulgar comment to me, which I'm
not going to say, and two frogscame out of his mouth.
And then I woke up and I was sodisturbed by it because I'm
right there, like it's firstperson vision in these
nightmares that I've had.
(42:03):
So it's like how I'm at you.
I don't see myself.
It's like I'm looking right atyou.
So he was in my face and I wokeup.
I took my son out of his crib,which was stupid of me because
that's not the logical thing todo, but I was so shaken up and I
was scared so I wanted to likehug my baby.
I brought him in my bed with meand I had to go to the bathroom
(42:26):
.
So I get up.
I go to the bathroom, I'm notworried.
I hear my son crying.
I get up, I come back andthere's the pillow moved almost
over my son's face and I'm likewhat's going on.
And then I started to feeluneasy.
Nothing happened to my son,thank God.
It was that direct and I wasnervous, I felt horrible about
(42:52):
it and then I again, I shook itoff, continued on until it
started to ramp up.
When we got locked down forCOVID, or right before COVID
happened, all of a sudden my TVwould sound like it had an
internet lag and it would soundlike a monster coming out of my
TV.
All of a sudden my Victrola, mymusic box, my radio would
(43:15):
switch.
It would go from Bluetooth andswitch to radio.
Somebody hit the button and itwould be like screaming rock
music.
So all these things started tohappen and I kept brushing it
off.
Because until you look at all ofthe different things, I can
look back now with confidenceand say he went after my son.
And if something would havehappened to my son, I you know
(43:38):
it would have been explainable.
It would have been like okay,sids, right, that's what it's
called like sudden infant deathor you know the guilt.
He would have made it look likeit was me, or I would have felt
like it was me.
Like, oh my God, I went to thebathroom and you know, you know
what I'm saying.
Yeah, like my fault.
Meanwhile he, there was a forcebehind that and I never, I
(44:01):
didn't think of evil as beinglike an outside force that
exists.
I always equated it to like youknow, it's just the things that
we do, like when someone getsmurdered or someone rapes
somebody or somebody doessomething horrible, like that's
the person and it could be andyou still have choice, but there
is an external force that can'tbe explained.
(44:24):
And after that nightmare andthat incident, I just kept on
working, um, you know, living mylife.
And then COVID happened and myson had a horrible experience to
COVID.
The first time my son got COVID, he turned purple on me and
looked like he was going into aseizure and I thought I had to
call 911.
I thought that he, you know, hewas going into like a cardiac
(44:48):
arrest or something like that,and I had just started a
Daniel's fast that week becauseI was getting more into
Christianity, so I had juststarted the Daniel's fast, my
son got COVID and it was onceagain the one thing after
another piling up and I remembersitting back and saying I'm
being attacked.
I was telling my husband and hewas looking at me like I was
(45:11):
crazy, and then the phone wouldstart ringing and I'd get all
these nasty text messages frompeople Like it was just every
single thing to come at you atonce.
That's what happened and by thegrace of God I got through it.
My son, nothing happened to him,you know.
They sent me home at thehospital.
(45:33):
I was so scared.
I'm like, if something happenslike I, you know, I want you to
keep him because I don't feel,you know, I want you to keep him
because I don't feel, you know,comfortable to resuscitate like
a one and a half year old orhowever old he was at the time.
I think he was like he was likeone in a couple of months and
it was very obvious.
So, like what I took from thatattack because it was different
(45:53):
than the first time, the secondtime that he did it, something
was watching me, like somethingwas monitoring me from the time
that I was pregnant.
He waited.
He waited until I was tired,run down from being a new mom
taking care of my son up allnight, every two to four hours,
and that's when it started, whenI was exhausted and, like
(46:16):
there's nothing I don't thinkthat there's anything that I
could have done differently to,like you know, to prevent it.
There's nothing that I couldhave done but I learned from it.
You know not to try to not runmyself down, not, you know, not
take on too much and try not toreact over fear.
(46:38):
Take on too much and try not toreact over fear, because my
reaction of taking my son out ofmy crib and and kind of like
snuggling up to him was his, hiswas his entryway, because he
used my emotions against me.
So, like they know, and and thething is, the the Daniel's fast
just to circle back around likethe Dan the Daniels fast during
(47:00):
that time period when I wasattacked the second time.
That growl or roar because to meit sounds like a lion that
sound was the exact sound that Iheard 10 years ago in Florida.
There is no explanation for it.
Nobody was home in my housewhen I caught it on my baby.
You know the security camerasor whatever.
That audio that I shared withyou, that was the sound that I
(47:22):
heard 10 years prior, and evenif that that was, you know
whatever was attacking me, um, Ifelt so redeemed.
I felt like God had taken aweight off of my shoulders and I
know that probably sounds crazy, because I had spent all of
this time thinking it was megoing to all these doctors,
going to psychiatrists, going topreachers, going to priests,
(47:45):
trying to search for answersthat when I heard that I went oh
my God, like you just redeemedme.
You showed me that I am notcrazy, what I'm experiencing is
very real.
Me that I am not, I'm not crazy, what I'm experiencing is very
real.
And then, the flip side of thismy family still, like I, look
at them in shock, like how doyou not believe?
(48:07):
Like?
Or how do you not say like,validate the experience that I
had, because that was hard, youknow when like people, you love
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
But that's the thing with spiritual warfare is that
it is a personal attack againstus and so, because other people
aren't experiencing it with usin first person, it's easy to be
dismissed.
And I have found that incertain situations where other
people have been going throughspiritual warfare, there have
been other believers around meeven that can't see that the
other person is going throughthat, even though they're saying
(48:45):
it out loud.
And I do think that it's anenemy tactic, that you know, he,
he, they always say there's the, there's the voices, right,
like you think about the goodand evil voices on your
shoulders, you know the deviland the angel kind of thing, the
devil and God.
But really, if you think aboutit, we hear the voice of the
Lord, we hear our own voice inour head and then we hear the
(49:08):
voice of the enemy.
And the enemy could come outjust like he did in your case in
your situation where he wasgetting you at times where you
were weak, at times where youwere vulnerable, but also he was
coming to you at times you weretrying to seek the Lord, and
I've mentioned that this hashappened on this show before
(49:30):
that I tried to do this serieson testimonies back in the
spring and it was like everysingle person had something come
up last minute, have to cancel,and it was because the enemy
was getting to them.
He didn't want those people toshare their testimony and you
know, I wouldn't be surprisedand that's why you and I prayed
before we started this episode.
Today, if he tries to throwsome stuff at you after sharing
(49:53):
this because you're exposing theenemy and I like that, you said
his minions his minions for forwhat they are, which honestly,
they're a bunch of bullies andthey can get out of here,
because I rebuke any thing evilor demonic and you know there's,
there's nothing that they cando to touch us.
(50:15):
But this is the important partfor us to really emphasize,
right Like, we all have power inJesus's name, to rebuke demons.
Yes, the Lord gave us the Biblefor a reason.
And what did Jesus spend themajority of his ministry doing?
He was ministering to people.
(50:35):
He was healing the sick,healing the blind and casting
out demons and it seems like thewhole part has gotten cut out.
Oh yeah, because people don'twant to believe that it is real,
because it is scary to believethat it's real.
But yet, at the same time, ourchildren are watching monsters,
(50:55):
inc and nightmare before BeforeChristmas and all these scary
movies, and they're gettingscared of pretend monsters that
are in these movies.
But there are real monstersaround us and they are demonic.
Yeah, thank you so much fortuning in to today's episode.
As you can hear, jessica has avery powerful testimony.
(51:17):
There is more to this story, sostay tuned for next week to
hear more from Jessica.
Today we're going to close with1 Peter 5, verse 8.
Be sober-minded, be watchful.
Your adversary, the devil,prowls around like a roaring
lion seeking someone to devour.
We're wishing you a radiantweek and we'll see you next time
(51:40):
.
Bye, everyone.
Hello and welcome to the Radiant Mission podcast.
My name is Rebecca Toomey andwe are on a mission to encourage
and inspire you as you'renavigating through your life and
with your relationship withChrist.
We have been in a series onbeing countercultural in a
secular world and today Iwelcome a very, very special
guest.
Her name is Jessica Avila andshe is a mama and the founder of
(00:55):
AED Skincare.
And, a fun fact, Jessica and Ihave known each other for
somewhere in the realm of 12 to15 ish years.
I couldn't quite figure it out,Maybe you have a better memory
than I do, but somewhere in thatrange, right?
Yeah, I think it's closer to 15, if not more.
If not, it's been a hot minute.
(01:18):
We actually met at the baremineral store at the Wellington
mall in Florida back in the dayand we became fast friends.
Jessica was working there and Iwent in talking about
foundation and makeup and youknow I could go to any store but
I would always go back to youto visit you in Wellington
(01:41):
because you were awesome and,yeah, I was going out of my way
to just to visit with you.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
I loved that was a great time period of my life I
loved that was my favorite partof of being a store manager and
being with Bare Minerals was thekid, like the girlfriend
experience, the connection.
I loved making women like feelbeautiful and like seeing the
confidence you know cause you.
People come in and they andgoing through something, even if
it's like a break or whateverit is, and you know you're like
(02:10):
a therapist, a friend.
You know you just have that likebonding moment and it was a
great time and I still speakwith some of the girls that were
, like my assistant managers atthe Wellington store.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
So absolutely Well, you were a natural at it and you
know what.
I think you're right.
It has to be more than 15 years, because I wasn't even doing
makeup yet at that time forbridal.
I got into that after, so itwas a.
It was a while ago, but thenhere's the funniest thing.
This is a second fun fact forthe Jessica and Rebecca episode.
(02:43):
You are originally from StatenIsland, new York, which is where
my husband is from, and so notonly did we meet in South
Florida, which is where I grewup, but then we crossed over to
Staten Island.
We both live there at the sametime, ironically, so funny.
And then now here we are and welive in the same town again.
We both live in Knoxville,tennessee.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
I know.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
I know.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
It's wild, it's weird and the same thing happened
with my assistant manager thateventually she took my position
when I left and went to New York.
She's in Staten Island now.
She's in the house and we werebest buddies up there until I
left, until I moved to Tennessee, and we still talk.
(03:29):
So it's interesting how Godweaves people in and out of your
life, because when she cameinto my life I was so shocked
I'm like you're going to be inStaten Island and I was really
lonely.
I was going through a longperiod and I was like I need a
girlfriend and I rememberpraying to God.
I was going through like a longperiod and I was like I need a
girlfriend and I remember likepraying to God about it and then
seeing that she was there and Iwas like I miss Staten Island
(03:49):
too.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Such a small world and it is.
It's amazing how he weavespeople in, like you said, in and
sometimes out of our lives, orsometimes in and out and just
some.
You know, you never know howit's going to go, but that's.
The beautiful thing about theLord is that we have seasons in
our life and seasons that we gothrough and moments and times
(04:12):
where we need people and havepeople around.
So you've been a blessing in mylife.
It's been awesome to know youfor the past 17 years let's say
that 15 years and I'm excitedthat you're here to share more
of your testimony too, because Iknow it's something that you
really haven't publicly talkedabout, and so I know you're a
(04:32):
little nervous, but it's goingto be okay.
You got this.
And you know that you're in theright place because you I know
you listen to the show, soyou're with the right people who
are they're on the same trackhere too.
You know, spiritual warfare is ahuge conversation right now and
it's something that a lot of usgrew up not talking about,
(04:55):
especially if we want to talkabout culturally within Staten
Island and the Catholic church.
You know it's not somethingthat is discussed.
I know with my own husband.
He he almost in the beginning,when I first started talking to
him about spiritual warfare,he's like this is creepy, this
is weird to me out.
Yeah, and that is somethingthat can happen too, but I don't
(05:16):
want to jump ahead too far no,but we're, we're on the same
page.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
so your podcast when I heard it I related to it um,
because this it's carried on forover the last 10 years in my
life when I started noticing itvery prevalent um, because I
probably just wasn't on theenemy's radar like I was playing
for the other team.
(05:40):
So I always tell myself like Itry to thank God for this,
because I think that means thatyou know I'm walking with Jesus,
Like I'm trying.
So just to give you a littlebit about, like my background I
was raised Catholic.
I went to a Catholic school.
I was raised Catholic.
I still feel like a babyChristian, Like I am not super
(06:01):
well-versed with the Bible.
I don't remember anything fromCatholic school like Bible
teachings.
I remember being taught theHail Mary.
I remember going to church.
I remember being taught theoutfather, things like that, and
then nuns taking us to church.
When I got older I used to goto church willingly, Like the
(06:21):
church bells would ring on aSunday.
I was probably in like seventhgrade and I would go without my
parents.
We didn't read the Bible in myhouse.
You know we didn't, I guess,walk in that way like in the
faith and you know not to kindof throw family members under
the bus, but my family members,cousins, parents, you know, they
(06:46):
went and had tarot cards read.
They went to psychic mediums.
I remember being a kid and going, you know, with a close family
member to you know, get her, mymother to get her cards read and
her daughter and the motherthey worked at the school, like
her kids went to the catholicschool and then she worked.
(07:08):
She was like a cafeteria person.
So I didn't realize, as I wasgrowing up, like these things
that I'm into, like I dideverything wrong from like a
divination standpoint, like Iwas really big into the fact
that my birthday's in octoberand I'm a libra and I used to
read my zodiac and if I sawsomebody to read a palm I would
do it.
I literally did everything thatyou're not supposed to do.
(07:31):
Growing up, you know, I wasliving in sin.
I was, you know, and it wasnormal to me.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Absolutely, and I think that's a cultural thing
too, right, like in theNortheast I noticed.
It's just something that Ihappened to notice, and I think
that every locationgeographically is going to have
different pockets of these typesof experiences, but it was
something that I noticed in thecommunity where my husband was
as well, staten Island.
It was very, very RomanCatholic, but the women would
(08:04):
have these parties where theywould invite psychic mediums,
and that was a very, almostnormal thing that would occur.
I never got invited to any ofthese things, thankfully, but it
was stuff that I heard aboutand then I would hear the
stories like oh, so-and-so heardthis from their dead
(08:25):
grandfather or their deadrelative or whatever the case
might be.
And now you and I both know thetruth about divination and the
truth about psychic mediums isthat they're not tapping in to
dead relatives.
They are tapping into demonswho are generational, who have
lived for thousands of years andhave been following families,
(08:49):
and that's how they knowinformation about families.
It's a trick, yes, before myhusband knew about spiritual
warfare.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
I remember what he used to say.
He used to say either it's realand they're talking to
something or it's just all biglie and it's all fake.
And I remember when he used tosay that and him, just, you know
, we weren't quite having theseconversations like you and I are
having right now.
Yeah, over the years he's likeyou know, I had a feeling that
(09:23):
it was real, but I didn't.
He didn't understand who thecommunication was with.
I mean, yeah, tell me moreabout have you had or felt like
those experiences opened doorswithin your life or your someone
in your family's life, or howdid that?
(09:45):
The divination side of thingsand psychic mediums, how did
that play into kind of the worldthat was around you guys?
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Okay, so I think that it opened doors I don't know
because there was so muchbetween, because you know, like
you can have family memberswhere it opens this door and
then it's generational, like yousaid.
Um, I was given a ouija boardas a kid.
Like an adult, yeah, gave me aouija board, me and my sister.
(10:13):
We played with it.
I was young, I didn't thinkanything of it and I was always
drawn to like pretending to be awitch, because we used to watch
Hocus Pocus and these things.
Now, even, as you know,throughout everything I didn't
realize what I was participatingin as I became an adult was
wrong, and so my experience withspiritual warfare and what I
(10:38):
experienced was like extreme andI think that it needed to be
extreme and I thank God for it,which sounds very crazy to
people, but I am a very stubbornperson and at the time when I
started having experiences orbeing aware to the experiences,
(11:00):
I was very like the way that theworld behaves is okay.
I didn't see it through abiblical lens.
So I needed, like the dropkick,the shake up of being attacked,
really, in order to say what'sgoing on here, like this is real
(11:21):
.
You know, this is real, this isa real thing and I think if I
hadn't experienced the enemy theway that I did, and so in your
face, and so aggressively that II don't think I would believe
because I believed in Jesus, butI put him in a human category
(11:41):
where, like I mean, he reallydidn't walk on water, like you
know, just because he says he'sGod, he's not really God.
Um, you know, because there'sso many, all these other
religions, who knows who'stelling the truth?
You don't know.
And all the miracles in theBible like, oh, they're just
stories or they're parables.
To learn a good lesson, to be agood person, you know, if
(12:06):
you're a good person, you befine.
Like that was my attitude and Irealized how wrong it was.
And this was God saving methrough showing me the opposite,
through, like showing me and I,I was a special effects artist.
I think you know this about me,like I did the bare minerals,
but I was the special effects.
I horror, like creating horrormovies, all the scary stuff.
I had no fear, like I wasdesensitized, so it needed to be
(12:31):
extreme for me to be shaken up,to recognize it.
And I, I see God, he was withme the whole time.
I, I don't.
I'm still working on reading myBible.
You know I read it.
Now I want to teach my son it.
So I have children's Bibles.
But, like, there were periodswhere I tried to sit down and
read the Bible during all ofthis and I couldn't understand
(12:53):
it.
I couldn't absorb like a KingJames version of the Bible.
It was very confusing to me andJesus was still with me.
He never left me, like all ofthe things that happened to me.
In the end I can look back and,as scary as it was and at times
like I had post-traumaticstress from certain things, um,
cause I'm not going to sit andlike sugarcoat it and be like,
(13:14):
oh, it was a wonderfulexperience, it was a nightmare.
It was like a hell living inhell.
And, um, he was still with me.
He wasn't like, oh, you don'tknow your bible, like he.
Just, he never abandoned me.
And now it's like I have.
I'm like, I'm always.
I'm the type of person thatalways looks for solutions.
So, um, I was searching foranswers and I'll explain that
(13:36):
like in a minute.
But, um, I have.
You know, I bought like a bibleat like a lower reading grade
and I know it sounds silly, butit's helped me so much and going
to like a non-denominationalchurch and the way the pastor
preaches and speaks and how heexplains the Bible sat with me
(13:58):
and going on YouTube and Ifollow certain pastors that I
really like.
I like the way that theyexplain stuff.
You know, when I was raisedCatholic and I would go and I
would listen to a mass, as I, asI got older and these things
started happening and like Icouldn't relate, like I just
felt like like they were justreading it or whatever.
Like it was like going throughthe motions and I feel like God
(14:20):
guided me through all of this tolike where I am now, the person
I am now, because it's like aone, it's like a 180, you know
he worked on my heart.
It just a lot of things, man.
It's just it's crazy how hetransformed me, because the way
that I speak now about God, Ican honestly say, like at 29,
(14:42):
when it started happening, likeI wouldn't have believed me for
the story that I'm going toshare.
I wouldn't have believed me andI would have just thought like
I was crazy and I probably wouldhave just like made it be like
a bible thumper or somethinglike that, like you know, I
would have joked about it andthat's's who.
I was Very cynical and thepeople that I was surrounded by
(15:07):
and I'm not, you know, notblaming or judging them but they
fueled that because a lot ofpeople that are close to me that
know my story, um, that haveknown me since, like high school
you know relationships that Ihad, even close family members
they still cannot acknowledge ordo not acknowledge the attack
(15:30):
that I had as an attack.
They will literally justify itas, like certain I have, you
know, camera and audio footage.
You know at one point andthey'll say like, oh, it's dust,
or the noise that's on thecamera is a rattling of a pipe,
or it's this outside.
And I just I look at peoplelike, how can you deny?
You know, especially peoplethat know me, how can you deny
(15:52):
something like this when youknow the type of person that I
am and it's right in your faceand you still don't want to
accept it?
And a lot of my family at least,that were raised catholic, they
pick and choose parts of thebible so they believe in jesus
and they believe in god or a god, but then they they don't
believe in the gospel that hecast out demons and that demons
(16:14):
are real.
So they pick and choose whatthey want to believe because
it's scary and it is scary and I, I personally, wish it wasn't
that case.
What I now know to be a fact, atruth, is it's real, like real,
and to circle back, I mean withthe special effects, like I
can't even watch horror moviesanymore.
You know, it's one thing whenit's not real, it's one thing
(16:36):
when it's like, oh, just humansare, you know, committing these
evil things and all this stuff,so like it's fake.
But then when you see the worldthrough a biblical perspective
and you've experienced you knowthe attacks that I have I just
don't even want to participatein it, I don't want to give him
any glory.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
You've received like actual monsters attacking you,
and realize that monsters arereal in that sense, you know.
And I want to go back to whatyou said about the Bible,
because I think that it is easyfor us to overcomplicate that.
You know, it's hard tounderstand and stuff like that.
(17:17):
I myself have struggled atdifferent points in time with
that, to be like I just I don'tunderstand this, I don't fully
get it, and it is okay to breakit down.
It's okay to read a versionthat is a little more modern.
You know a version of the Biblethat's a little more modern for
us.
(17:37):
I actually laugh at there'slike a millennial Bible that
speaks in slang and it'shilarious.
Yeah, yeah, there's a version ofeverything these days, but you
know ESV tends to be a littlebit easier to understand.
I kind of grew up reading anNIV, but you know King James can
be tough and plus he he was alittle biased in some ways.
(17:58):
So there's that, but I would myadvice to anybody, the
children's Bible or like I thinkit's absolutely, or whatever,
because I want to know God youknow Absolutely, absolutely, and
my advice for anybody wouldjust be start wherever you feel
you are, like you said, if thereare different versions, or 12th
(18:21):
grade version or third gradeversion, whatever it is, but
also different Bible studiesI've found have helped me to
break it down.
I mentioned a couple episodes.
I got this Bible study called AYear in the Bible and it's
reading the Bible in a year, andI've always tried to read the
Bible through, which can break alot of people, because once you
(18:41):
get to all the this personbegot this person, begot this
person, begot this person youtend to quit Right.
And the way that it's formattedis totally different.
It's like read Genesis one, youknow this part then go to
Isaiah this and read this partand then in it kind of it's
creating different pictures foryou, different pictures of God
(19:02):
and his plan for us and ourlives, versus just read it
through in this chronological,boring, boring air quotes way.
So I just want to touch on thatbecause I do think that there
are, I'm sure, listeners thathave been where you are and feel
like I want to get to know theBible, I want to get to know God
, but I don't know where tostart, and it's okay to find
(19:24):
different ways to get there.
The other thing I want to touchon is the supernatural.
I think that we, you knowwhat's crazy is that in the
circle that you were in, thatpeople believed that they were
communicating with deadrelatives, but have a hard time
believing that demons exist.
(19:45):
You know right, both aresupernatural.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
It's scary.
They don't, they don't want to.
I, like I said I I have a hardtime talking about this because
I have to.
You know, I think about it andthen you know.
But God, I think I needed tonot know the Bible.
That's always when I come back.
He has a plan for all this.
He knows you, he knows me, heknows my husband, my kid, he
knows us and he loves usindividually.
(20:09):
He knew where I was at and thetype of person I was and how
desensitized I was, and likenothing scared me you know what
I'm saying so like I had to berattled, to be shaken for him to
save me, and it's scary.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Tell us about that, if you don't mind.
If you don't mind, kind ofgetting into it a little bit.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
And I think if I had known the Bible I would have, in
my mind, gone well, I'm justcreating this, since I had no
foundation, didn't know theBible and stuff.
When this stuff happened to meI was able to go like this and
go this is spiritual what hashappened.
And then I would hear pastorstalk and they were explaining
(20:50):
exactly what a spiritual attackis.
So I've been attacked majorlytwo times now by the enemy or by
one of, by his minions orwhatever you want to say that
I'm aware of.
So I was, you know, living inthe world, partying and just,
you know, being 20 something andcarefree, and I would go out
(21:13):
and have fun with my friends and, you know, dabble here and
there with like drinking or ifsomebody gave me like a pot
brownie or something like that.
And I'm going to retract alittle bit because I had
seizures, started havingseizures at 16.
So I was on medicine forepilepsy and the epilepsy
medicine made me tired.
(21:34):
I was always tired, alwaysfatigued, or at least that's
what I was told by doctors, andI was given Adderall for energy
and because they were thendiagnosing me with ADHD.
So all of this was like aperfect cluster, I feel like
Plus, I was, you know, going outand I was living in sin and
(21:55):
living like the world promotes,and the enemy was able to hide
in prescription drugs, like forme.
In prescription drugs like forme, um, because, uh, a symptom
of what I experienced would belike psychosis or even like
schizophrenia.
You know, I, um, I startedhaving these issues at 29 and,
(22:20):
um, everything could belogically checked with.
What the world says is like amental disorder or a side effect
of the Adderall.
Oh, you're hallucinating, it'sthe Adderall.
You have your hearing stuff,your psychosis, whatever.
So what happened is I was givena pot brownie and I panicked, I
(22:41):
didn't know, all of a sudden,like I had this bad experience.
A guy gave it to me, I was home, I wound up passing out.
Call my mom, she comes rushingover, tell her what happened.
I woke up and something told melike you're too young to die,
like what are you doing?
You got to open up your eyesand when I woke up from passing
(23:03):
out, my mother called 911.
I woke up and just decided inthat moment I have to stop.
Something bad is going tohappen to me, something I'm
going to do, someone's going togive me something, something's
going to happen and I'm going todie and I don't want to die.
And from that moment on, Istarted like searching for God,
(23:23):
like I just had this pull and Iwas changing my life and then,
all of a sudden, I startedhallucinating.
Like I would watch TV and Iwould hear, like like this
mumbling, monstery sound.
I was coming home one night andat this point I had gone through
(23:43):
a breakup and I was stayingwith family.
I was staying at one night andat this point I had gone through
a breakup and I was stayingwith family.
I was staying at my mom's house.
I heard what sounded like thisguttural growl and it bounced
between my mom's house and myneighbor's house, clear as day.
So now I think now this iswithout having any knowledge,
without having any foundation ofwhat's happened, but I've seen
(24:04):
enough exorcism movies.
Okay, my mother is beingattacked.
So like I rush in to like savethe day, brave, scared, but
brave, and I start praying theHail Mary and my mom's looking
at me like I'm crazy.
So all my family, likeprescription related, and I kept
(24:28):
telling my family I'm notlosing my mind, this is
spiritual, without having anycontext, like I just I knew.
But there was also that logicalpart of me that kept wanting
that, kept thinking well, maybeit could be my Adderall that I'm
taking, maybe it could bethisderall that I'm taking,
maybe it could be this, maybeI'm becoming schizophrenic.
They usually say it's late 20swhere that happens.
(24:50):
So I started hearing things, Istarted having things touch me.
I would feel like a presence.
I would get woken up out of mysleep violently.
Something would wake me up.
Get woken up out of my sleeplike violently, something would
wake me up.
And then everybody that Ishould be able to count on like
family, close friends, cousins,anybody that was in my vicinity,
(25:14):
um, turned on me Like they werevery aggressive, they were um,
um, not understanding.
I've heard like a pastor or apriest describe when you're
attacked spiritually, when, whenthe enemy attacks you, that he
will use people that you love,people that are close to you,
(25:37):
your family, your friends.
So I had nobody.
So now I'm losing my mindbecause I'm hearing stuff.
I'm having like intrusivethoughts, as they call it, but
it's like harassing from theminute I open my eyes to the
minute I end.
Just crazy stuff.
I didn't have a kid, I didn'thave my son at the time and it
(25:59):
would be like your kids areburning in hell over and over
and over again.
Kids are burning in hell overand over and over again, like
when I say like, if you canimagine the worst psychological
warfare, like, like if you werebeing psychologically tortured,
that's what it was.
And then not being able tosleep, not being like being
woken up, not being able to rest.
(26:19):
So I was tired, it wore me outand it was constant.
And then I had family membersthat were convinced they knew
what was wrong with me.
They were making me go to likea psychiatrist.
So I was going to apsychiatrist and they thought it
was drug related.
So I was going to the bathroomor whatever, and they were
(26:41):
testing my urine and I wascoming up clean and the doctor
was looking at, you know, mymother and and he's like, she's
clean, it's not drug related.
So, and and all of this, and inall of this chaos and I don't
think I'm really even painting aclear picture of like, in all
of the chaos, cause it was onething after another like you
think you have somebody to relyon.
(27:02):
No, um, your family, they'renot going to be there.
And then I was trying to go towork and keep my job because I
was a store manager, so I had totake a leave of absence from
work and then I had to go back.
But like I was so bombardedwith thoughts and negative
thoughts and like stuff that wasjust outlandish that I couldn't
(27:25):
focus and do my job.
So I lost everything,everything, like I lost.
I quit my job because I knew Icouldn't perform it, gave the
keys to Brittany and said hereyou go, you know, take over.
My family turned their back onme.
I had nowhere to go.
I was basically homeless and my, my mother was very aggressive
(27:47):
and very, um like,confrontational.
We were just fighting and Ifinally got to a point where,
deep down in my heart, like Iknew that this was something
that was out of my control,because I kept saying it, I knew
it, I felt it, I felt like Iwas being tested by God and I
(28:10):
wound up like throwing two bagsof clothes in a car and, driving
up to New York, to crash at mydad's house, because my dad
lived in Staten Island andthat's how I got from Florida to
New York.
It was because I was literallylosing my mind and in the
process I had checked myself into a psych ward because I wanted
(28:34):
I knew something was wrong.
I knew this wasn't my normalthought process.
So I have spent all my lifewith myself and I've had peace
of mind, you know.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
You knew that, wasn't you yeah.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
Yes, I.
It was a quiet mind and all ofa sudden, like this, it was gone
.
My peace was gone and it wasjust nothing but negative.
And I knew, like these are not,this is not my thoughts, this
is not me, but explain that topeople who are looking at you
like what are you talking about?
It's not your thoughts.
Like you, I was made to lookcrazy.
(29:08):
You know what I'm saying, Likeand that, and that's the truth.
And then I came up to New Yorkbut I threw two bags of clothes
in my car.
I had $200 to my name.
I don't even know how I gotwith the gas that I had from
Florida to New York.
It was, by the grace of God.
I kept like.
I felt like my gas gauge neverwent down because it took me
(29:31):
seven days.
That's how like out of it I wasand I'm trying to focus.
That's a long time to do thatdrive Seven days to get from
Florida to-.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
I mean, it is like a 22 hour drive, isn't it?
Or 12.
Yeah, it's far 18, or 18.
Okay.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
But I was seven days, seven days, and when?
I got there, I was like oh, youknow, after a while I look back
and I'm like, well, maybe thatwas a sign you know, I was just
going to say seven is uh, youknow?
Speaker 1 (30:03):
yeah, there's some symbolism there, maybe.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
Yeah, but on the way up, you know, I lost everything
and I rebuilt my life.
You know what I'm saying.
But God had to humble me andGod had to shake up my life
because my whole essence of mybeing was based on myself and my
accomplishments.
So, like I worked my butt offto work my way up, you know, as
(30:26):
a part-time makeup artist andall of this stuff, to get to
where I was with bare metals,and I was, my store was doing
great.
They were going to promote meand make me either a trainer or
a district manager.
They had just flown me out toSan Francisco.
But that needed to happen forme to realize I'm not.
I'm not in as much control as Ithink.
That needed to happen for me torealize I'm not in as much
(30:47):
control as I think, you know.
And God had a plan and becausehe cares about my soul, you know
, I had to let go of thosethings.
And on my way up from Florida, Iwas driving in my car and I
don't remember if this wasbefore or after the homeless man
that I met.
I was like running on empty.
I was tired.
(31:07):
I went to pull over in aparking lot because I'm sleeping
in my car.
I got $200 to my name and Ijust something.
I just looked in my rear viewmirror and I was in a parking
lot, so it was like the street,like right behind me, so maybe
50 feet away, maybe 100 feetaway, and there was, you know, a
spotlight shining down and allof a sudden I see what looks
(31:33):
like black smoke, so like, haveyou ever seen like the Disney
movie with Hades?
okay where he comes out of likethe smoke cloud.
He's always in like a smokecloud, okay, or like how, when
they you know, you see someDracula movies, it's always like
a black smoke, like a smokything.
It was solid black smoke.
(31:54):
It never formed into like aperson or anything like that.
It was solid black, blackerthan the night, and it went
under the spotlight, kind ofrocked back and forth like this,
because it knew I was looking,you know, because it rocked back
and forth, spun into a bowl,like sonic how sonic spins
(32:14):
himself into a bowl and thenthat like went like this,
bounced away in to the darknessand I was terrified.
I was, was terrified.
I thought I was going to die inmy car.
I remember praying and, likeyou know, nothing came to my car
and nothing hurt me.
It was very in my face, likedidn't care, you know, like
(32:37):
wanted me to see it, and I wasterrified.
And now, at this point, Ithought to myself either I'm
going to die or I did die when Iate that brownie.
And this is the other side andthere's nobody here to help me
and I'm not in a good place,okay, like I was questioning my
entire reality at this point.
(32:58):
Wow, or I am.
I need psychiatric help.
I need psychiatric help, I needpsychiatric help.
So when I got up to New York, itcontinued and now I have my
immediate family that doesn'tbelieve me.
Nobody believes me.
I don't know if I talked aboutthis, but I had gone through a
(33:19):
10-year breakup.
The guy that I was with nobodybelieved me.
So I felt very alone and veryisolated.
So I started going and tryingto go to a priest, and then I
would be also going to apsychiatrist, and then I went to
get an MRI of my brain to makesure I didn't have a tumor.
You know, like I was coveringall of my bases, like is this
(33:41):
logical, is this spiritual?
What is happening to me?
Because I wanted to save myself, because I know me, and like
this was not, this wasn't normal.
And so when I went back up there, I was honest, I was on a hunt
for I would say like a year,maybe even two years, and and I
went to work and powered through, while I would hear like a hey
(34:04):
at work and I would go home andI would have these horrible,
horrible nightmares and like Iwould get woken up, I would feel
like hands come around mypillow and feel like I was
suffocating.
And I would wake up with myface, face down in the pillow
and I would be like, oh my God,now I'm scared to go to sleep.
I would feel things pull myhair, pull my feet, just disturb
(34:26):
, just disturbing things, and Ididn't have the tools and I
didn't know what to do about it.
And even the priests that Iwent to Catholic priests the
first thing out of their mouthwas when I'm telling them all
this, I'm kind of like shaking,like what do I do?
They were like, have you been toa psychiatrist?
And I'm like, yeah, I have.
And he told me he doesn't thinkI'm schizophrenic, he doesn't
think I'm crazy.
Crazy people don't think thatthey're crazy and usually go
(34:49):
seek help on their own.
And they kind of dismissed meand wrote me off.
So I felt like super helpless.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
That was going to be my question Was these priests?
They didn't say anything aboutspiritual warfare at all.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
No, no.
And that's kind of what Iwanted to convey with all of
this too, other than the factthat this needed to happen to me
, as crazy as it sounds, becauseof the person that I was,
because I was so desensitized Iwouldn't have believed.
I would have just been like, oh, I'm creating this or whatever.
I'm sure there's people outthere that are going through
(35:24):
something.
I'm not a doctor, I'm not apsychiatrist.
I have talked to so many girlsthat, like mothers, my hand, my
old hairdresser, um, and sheused to say, like right after
she had her baby, she used tohave these intrusive thoughts
like let go roller, likehorrible things.
And I think, as a society, wehave now labeled mental illness
(35:50):
as mental illness.
We're creating a label and like, for me, the enemy was able to
move within that and hide,because you could literally say
like oh, this is a side effectof your Adderall, it's this,
it's that.
You're schizophrenic.
He made me believe for a whileyou know, plus, I was looking
for spiritual answers that itwas me.
(36:12):
He made me believe like no,he's not the storm, it's not
something outside of me, it's me, this is, you know, something
I'm doing.
But the positive was stoppedtaking the animal.
I stopped taking these thingsto weed out what was happening
to me.
So, like there was good you know, a lot of really scary bad but
(36:34):
good and like I didn't knowafter all these years, when I
had heard preach, preachers talkabout you know, when the enemy
attacks you, he gets right inyour face.
My, my nightmares that I had,it was like I was there.
You know, when the enemyattacks you, he gets right in
your face.
My nightmares that I had it waslike I was there, you know,
like it was real, like I wassomewhere else, and it was
usually like it would be mymother, but it would be her,
(36:56):
like like the exorcist, likecreepy crawling up walls.
And I remember, you know, onetime it was in a church that I
would go to and he, you know itwas like this scary, blacked
face, like you could tell.
You know like it was.
It was very obvious.
And he said I said like what doyou want?
Or something like that.
And he said your heart.
And I remember putting my handover it and I said you can't
(37:18):
have it.
And then I woke up and he wasusing God's words and why, like
my heart and my soul knew thisis like this.
What I'm experiencing.
This isn't God, and I feel likehe was trying to, you know,
make me look at God maybe in anegative light or make me fall
(37:39):
into despair.
You know, because, even though Iwent through all of this and I
and I, I felt like for a whilelike I lost time.
Um, I met my husband.
It was meant to be.
I don't think that I would be amom.
Um, because my plan for my lifewas girl power career.
(37:59):
I had just gone through abreakup.
You know, the guy had cheatedon me and I had no inclination
to, like, get married.
I just wanted to, you know,play the field.
I was 29, date.
You know, keep it casual andlike, if I meet somebody, sure,
great.
If we fall in love, fantasticif we have kids, if it happens,
if not, I'll be rich enough orsuccessful enough that I can
(38:21):
adopt, like that was my thing.
And God was like, uh-uh, likemy plan is better.
Was it tough to go through this?
Yeah, it was.
It was and it's still like.
You know, it's still cause youcan't see, you can't see it and
I and I feel like it.
How do you fight something?
I've heard preachers talk aboutthis too Like how do you fight
(38:42):
something you can't see?
You can't.
You can only rely on Jesus andcall on Jesus, um, but it's an
unnerving feeling to know likeyou're being monitored, you're
being watched, because he waitedfor, like, the perfect
opportunities to um attack mewhen, like, I was at the mercy
of other people or or he createdthat problem.
(39:06):
You know what I mean and you'remost vulnerable.
Yeah, it was, it was, it washard.
And then I think that first timethat it happened when it
carried on for like a year ortwo, after it kind of stopped
when I met my husband, there wasa period where I had peace and
nothing happened or nothing thatI was aware of, and I kind of
(39:28):
like forgot about it, which iswhich sounds crazy Like I just
carried on with my life.
I forgot about it.
I was kind of getting back andtrying like my hand at special
effects, and then it happenedagain.
So the second time it happenedwhen I was pregnant.
I was pregnant with my son andI was probably a couple months
(39:57):
pregnant and I was relaxing andI was just about to wake up from
sleeping.
The nightmares had stopped, youknow, for a while I would say
like two years or whatever.
And, um, I saw something in myroom Like it's, it's right when
I wake up, right before I'mabout to open my eyes.
So, like you second guessyourself, you second guess like
(40:17):
am I, I'm seeing something?
I'm dreaming, I must bedreaming, but I it was red,
looked like a cat tail swishing,just hanging out on my dresser,
and I woke up and I shook itoff.
As I'm dreaming, because upuntil this point, even though
this went on for, like I'mtrying to think, 2014, I met my
husband in 2017.
(40:37):
So I had some strangeexperiences that whole time.
No religious figure, like nopriest that I went, catholic
priest that I went to talk to,helped me.
So I kind of just brushed itoff, as there must be something
else happening to me.
It can't be spiritual, like Ijust kind of I had to survive, I
(40:59):
had to work, I had to, like youknow, power through and get
through all of these things, andI and I did.
But I saw what I saw and Ididn't realize what it was until
the next time he attacked me.
So he showed me that.
I saw that and then, a couplemonths later, my son was born
(41:22):
and then I had this horriblenightmare when Aiden was about
like five months old.
It was my son again, once againlike a monster.
My son wasn't sitting up in acrib at that time, he was only,
just, you know, four or fivemonths old, and he was sitting
up in a crib at that time he wasonly just four or five months
old and he was sitting up in thedream and he looked at me,
(41:42):
swung his head around and hisface was a little dark and scary
and he made a disgusting,vulgar comment to me, which I'm
not going to say, and two frogscame out of his mouth.
And then I woke up and I was sodisturbed by it because I'm
right there, like it's firstperson vision in these
nightmares that I've had.
(42:03):
So it's like how I'm at you.
I don't see myself.
It's like I'm looking right atyou.
So he was in my face and I wokeup.
I took my son out of his crib,which was stupid of me because
that's not the logical thing todo, but I was so shaken up and I
was scared so I wanted to likehug my baby.
I brought him in my bed with meand I had to go to the bathroom
(42:26):
.
So I get up.
I go to the bathroom, I'm notworried.
I hear my son crying.
I get up, I come back andthere's the pillow moved almost
over my son's face and I'm likewhat's going on.
And then I started to feeluneasy.
Nothing happened to my son,thank God.
It was that direct and I wasnervous, I felt horrible about
(42:52):
it and then I again, I shook itoff, continued on until it
started to ramp up.
When we got locked down forCOVID, or right before COVID
happened, all of a sudden my TVwould sound like it had an
internet lag and it would soundlike a monster coming out of my
TV.
All of a sudden my Victrola, mymusic box, my radio would
(43:15):
switch.
It would go from Bluetooth andswitch to radio.
Somebody hit the button and itwould be like screaming rock
music.
So all these things started tohappen and I kept brushing it
off.
Because until you look at all ofthe different things, I can
look back now with confidenceand say he went after my son.
And if something would havehappened to my son, I you know
(43:38):
it would have been explainable.
It would have been like okay,sids, right, that's what it's
called like sudden infant deathor you know the guilt.
He would have made it look likeit was me, or I would have felt
like it was me.
Like, oh my God, I went to thebathroom and you know, you know
what I'm saying.
Yeah, like my fault.
Meanwhile he, there was a forcebehind that and I never, I
(44:01):
didn't think of evil as beinglike an outside force that
exists.
I always equated it to like youknow, it's just the things that
we do, like when someone getsmurdered or someone rapes
somebody or somebody doessomething horrible, like that's
the person and it could be andyou still have choice, but there
is an external force that can'tbe explained.
(44:24):
And after that nightmare andthat incident, I just kept on
working, um, you know, living mylife.
And then COVID happened and myson had a horrible experience to
COVID.
The first time my son got COVID, he turned purple on me and
looked like he was going into aseizure and I thought I had to
call 911.
I thought that he, you know, hewas going into like a cardiac
(44:48):
arrest or something like that,and I had just started a
Daniel's fast that week becauseI was getting more into
Christianity, so I had juststarted the Daniel's fast, my
son got COVID and it was onceagain the one thing after
another piling up and I remembersitting back and saying I'm
being attacked.
I was telling my husband and hewas looking at me like I was
(45:11):
crazy, and then the phone wouldstart ringing and I'd get all
these nasty text messages frompeople Like it was just every
single thing to come at you atonce.
That's what happened and by thegrace of God I got through it.
My son, nothing happened to him,you know.
They sent me home at thehospital.
(45:33):
I was so scared.
I'm like, if something happenslike I, you know, I want you to
keep him because I don't feel,you know, I want you to keep him
because I don't feel, you know,comfortable to resuscitate like
a one and a half year old orhowever old he was at the time.
I think he was like he was likeone in a couple of months and
it was very obvious.
So, like what I took from thatattack because it was different
(45:53):
than the first time, the secondtime that he did it, something
was watching me, like somethingwas monitoring me from the time
that I was pregnant.
He waited.
He waited until I was tired,run down from being a new mom
taking care of my son up allnight, every two to four hours,
and that's when it started, whenI was exhausted and, like
(46:16):
there's nothing I don't thinkthat there's anything that I
could have done differently to,like you know, to prevent it.
There's nothing that I couldhave done but I learned from it.
You know not to try to not runmyself down, not, you know, not
take on too much and try not toreact over fear.
(46:38):
Take on too much and try not toreact over fear, because my
reaction of taking my son out ofmy crib and and kind of like
snuggling up to him was his, hiswas his entryway, because he
used my emotions against me.
So, like they know, and and thething is, the the Daniel's fast
just to circle back around likethe Dan the Daniels fast during
(47:00):
that time period when I wasattacked the second time.
That growl or roar because to meit sounds like a lion that
sound was the exact sound that Iheard 10 years ago in Florida.
There is no explanation for it.
Nobody was home in my housewhen I caught it on my baby.
You know the security camerasor whatever.
That audio that I shared withyou, that was the sound that I
(47:22):
heard 10 years prior, and evenif that that was, you know
whatever was attacking me, um, Ifelt so redeemed.
I felt like God had taken aweight off of my shoulders and I
know that probably sounds crazy, because I had spent all of
this time thinking it was megoing to all these doctors,
going to psychiatrists, going topreachers, going to priests,
(47:45):
trying to search for answersthat when I heard that I went oh
my God, like you just redeemedme.
You showed me that I am notcrazy, what I'm experiencing is
very real.
Me that I am not, I'm not crazy, what I'm experiencing is very
real.
And then, the flip side of thismy family still, like I, look
at them in shock, like how doyou not believe?
(48:07):
Like?
Or how do you not say like,validate the experience that I
had, because that was hard, youknow when like people, you love
Absolutely.
Speaker 1 (48:24):
But that's the thing with spiritual warfare is that
it is a personal attack againstus and so, because other people
aren't experiencing it with usin first person, it's easy to be
dismissed.
And I have found that incertain situations where other
people have been going throughspiritual warfare, there have
been other believers around meeven that can't see that the
other person is going throughthat, even though they're saying
(48:45):
it out loud.
And I do think that it's anenemy tactic, that you know, he,
he, they always say there's the, there's the voices, right,
like you think about the goodand evil voices on your
shoulders, you know the deviland the angel kind of thing, the
devil and God.
But really, if you think aboutit, we hear the voice of the
Lord, we hear our own voice inour head and then we hear the
(49:08):
voice of the enemy.
And the enemy could come outjust like he did in your case in
your situation where he wasgetting you at times where you
were weak, at times where youwere vulnerable, but also he was
coming to you at times you weretrying to seek the Lord, and
I've mentioned that this hashappened on this show before
(49:30):
that I tried to do this serieson testimonies back in the
spring and it was like everysingle person had something come
up last minute, have to cancel,and it was because the enemy
was getting to them.
He didn't want those people toshare their testimony and you
know, I wouldn't be surprisedand that's why you and I prayed
before we started this episode.
Today, if he tries to throwsome stuff at you after sharing
(49:53):
this because you're exposing theenemy and I like that, you said
his minions his minions for forwhat they are, which honestly,
they're a bunch of bullies andthey can get out of here,
because I rebuke any thing evilor demonic and you know there's,
there's nothing that they cando to touch us.
(50:15):
But this is the important partfor us to really emphasize,
right Like, we all have power inJesus's name, to rebuke demons.
Yes, the Lord gave us the Biblefor a reason.
And what did Jesus spend themajority of his ministry doing?
He was ministering to people.
(50:35):
He was healing the sick,healing the blind and casting
out demons and it seems like thewhole part has gotten cut out.
Oh yeah, because people don'twant to believe that it is real,
because it is scary to believethat it's real.
But yet, at the same time, ourchildren are watching monsters,
(50:55):
inc and nightmare before BeforeChristmas and all these scary
movies, and they're gettingscared of pretend monsters that
are in these movies.
But there are real monstersaround us and they are demonic.
Yeah, thank you so much fortuning in to today's episode.
As you can hear, jessica has avery powerful testimony.
(51:17):
There is more to this story, sostay tuned for next week to
hear more from Jessica.
Today we're going to close with1 Peter 5, verse 8.
Be sober-minded, be watchful.
Your adversary, the devil,prowls around like a roaring
lion seeking someone to devour.
We're wishing you a radiantweek and we'll see you next time
(51:40):
.
Bye, everyone.
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