Samantha's Testimony

              I was 2nd born to my mother and 1st to my father of which were not married. My father gave me up at the age of 6 and I was adopted by my stepfather who physically, mentally and sexually abused me from the ages of 4 to 10, of which my mother had knowledge of, but did nothing to stop it. I was also sexually abused by my step-grandfather. Witchcraft and things of the occult were common growing up, as members of my family practiced “white witchcraft” (all witchcraft is evil), played with tarot cards, Ouija boards, crystals, consulting the dead, psychic readings, etc. I remember having supernatural experiences at a young age with demonic entities. Some would come into my room at night and hold me down, some would open drawers and doors or throw things across the room. I also remember seeing them in and around my home, but they commonly took on the appearance of a human. I grew up in a very unstable environment as my mother used alcohol and drugs, dated many different men, and had trouble maintaining a place to live. Because of this we moved frequently and endured homelessness. We were very poor as well. So much of what I had was either given to me from church donations or hand me downs from my older sister. I would constantly be made fun of at school because of my clothes, disheveled appearance, and my birthmark. I was very much rejected all through my school years and never had many friends. My mother also was verbally and sometimes physically abusive and was not affectionate. It was common for us to be left alone in the house for weeks at a time. The extended family on my mother’s side cut ties with us at a young age so it was just my mom, my 3 sisters and I most of my life. Into my teens my life continued to go down a dark path as I began using drugs and alcohol, having sex, and stopped caring about school. I remember struggling with same-sex attraction as well but fought it off because I just had this feeling like I knew it was wrong and it was not something that was accepted. I went to many parties and was always looking to get high or numb myself in some way. At one of these parties, I was raped by a friend’s family member while under the influence. I continued on like this and eventually dropped out of High School and moved in with my ex-boyfriend and his college roommates where we frequently did drugs.

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              After that relationship ended, I began dating my ex-husband. We had a fairly unhealthy relationship as we always fought, drank alcohol, did party drugs and there were times I even fooled around with women in front of him. I had always fought the attraction to women, and this was the only way I was allowed to satisfy that urge. I married him at the age of 19 after finding out I was pregnant with my first child. After having my second child I began to struggle a lot more with anxiety, depression, panic attacks, and suicidal thoughts. I was so bound by anxiety that I couldn’t leave my house except to go to work. I couldn’t even go to the grocery store by myself. I had irrational fears of dying or that one of my children would be hurt if I left my house. I suffered from social anxiety so badly that I couldn’t make eye contact with anyone, and if I was ever talked to or had too many people looking at me at once my whole body would begin to visibly tremble. Because of this I was always trying to numb myself with alcohol or by popping pills. I hated myself and what I had become so much that I strongly desired to end my life. I even began to plan how I would do it. I went back and forth between swallowing a bottle of pills and shooting myself in the head or stomach. As I planned my suicide the Lord had different plans. One day at work a co-worker was sharing with many of us about Jesus. I was such a mean hurtful person that at the beginning of the conversation I began to mock her and make fun. But it didn't even phase her. She continued to share and eventually it began to really intrigue me. She mentioned how she had a personal relationship with Jesus and how He would speak to her. I was mind blown hearing this because all I had ever heard about before was religion and following a set of rules to be a "good person" and avoid hell. I didn't know there was a God that cared about us. I ended up asking her more about this and she invited me to church one evening.

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             This night changed my life forever. The woman preaching called me up to the front and began speaking about my life, telling me about things only God could know. She then touched me on top of my head, and I fell under the power of God. In that moment I saw Him in all His holiness and realized how sinful I was. I wept bitterly on the ground for quite some time and began repenting of everything in my life I had done wrong. That night He instantly delivered me from smoking, alcohol, pills, and thoughts of suicide. I ended up being baptized just a few weeks later and received the baptism of the Holy Spirit a few months after that. I had a radical transformation, so much so that many people thought I was crazy. I was telling everyone what Jesus had done for me. It put a strain on many relationships including my marriage. My ex-husband did not like how radically the Lord was changing me. He told me he didn’t know who I was anymore.  As I grew in confidence and discovered my worth, he began to lose his grip on things in my life because I was no longer weak and easy to control. The Lord began to open so many things up and started to speak to me about the calling on my life. I kept receiving words about having my own street ministry and that I was an evangelist. I was very intimidated by the call on my life because I made the mistake of looking at myself instead of Christ. I continued to go after the Lord for a few years and eventually grew weary. My marriage was failing because we constantly fought. He battled anger and struggled with being upset with everyone in the house. I also struggled with being more Christ-like when it came to the fights and would get caught up in arguing and pointing fingers instead of acting in love. I was very stubborn and always felt the need to be right or defend myself. After many failed attempts to try and go for marriage counseling to fix things, we ended up divorcing.

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                In this time, I walked away from the Lord because I blamed myself for the divorce and was overcome with guilt and condemnation. I went back to living in complete sin. Immediately after the divorce I began dating and sleeping around with women and men. I also turned back to alcohol and some party drugs. I was in such a terrible state of mind because I knew the Lord and I couldn’t deny everything He had done for me in the past. I thought about Him every day, how much I missed Him, and still remained in my sin.  After some time, I got into a serious relationship with a man that eventually turned verbally and physically abusive. It got so bad that I began to want to take my life again. I felt trapped because I didn’t want to put my kids through any more pain by leaving this relationship and uprooting their lives again, so I kept things hidden and stayed with him. That was until one day he physically assaulted me while the kids were home and God gave me the strength to report it and leave him.

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After about 4 years away from the Lord I had such a strong desire to seek Him again, I knew that I had nothing left in myself and was tired of running from Him. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think of how much I missed Him. The enemy tried to convince me the Lord would not take me back, but I knew it was Jesus that was drawing me back to Himself because of certain people He placed in my life, and many things He did to let me know He was still there waiting. So, I began going after Him again, I rededicated my life to Him and got plugged back into a church. I can remember like yesterday the moment I was driving in my car worshipping and my words turned into tongues, this was about 2 weeks after my rededication. I was so overcome with joy knowing the Holy Spirit was still with me. I ended up joining a discipleship program at my church and continued to grow in the Lord. He radically changed me again, took away so many sinful desires, and gave me so much revelation of who He is. He also radically healed my heart of pain from the many things that happened in my childhood and young adult years. By His grace I was able to forgive people from my past like my mother, father, exes, etc. This forgiveness that occurred in my heart was totally supernatural. I made the decision to forgive, but He came in and picked up where I couldn't, removing the pain and replacing it with an unexplainable love for each person. He also opened my eyes to the fact that many who had ever hurt me did so because they were in pain themselves, and many of their actions were caused by their own past traumas and generational curses in their family line. Seeing the Lord work in this way was amazing because only He can take our pain and transform our hearts, He just needs our yes. A few months after rededicating my life to Him, I began to tell the Lord that I wanted to marry the person He has for me, and no one else. Right after I said this, I suddenly had men coming from everywhere trying to date me. I began to get overwhelmed and ended up accepting some dates only to find out none of these men were Christian and seeking after God, so they never really went anywhere.  

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            Then one day Jason reached out to me on Facebook. He was a mutual friend of someone I knew since I was 17 years old. It turns out the mutual friend of mine was married to Jason's best friend. We began talking as friends and getting to know each other. One of the conversations we had the very first time we met in person was why we don’t see the book of Acts happening today.  After about 3 weeks the Lord gave Jason a word in prayer that said:

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“Pray and intercede for her, don’t let your flesh get in the way. Both of you aren’t ready, I am not finished. I desire your hearts fully, let me fill the cup with the wine that I started to fill. When I am finished, I will let you drink of the cup I’m preparing. The wine isn’t fermented and will taste good to the tongue but will mess up your tummies. Let it go through the time, the fire, let Me stomp out the grapes in your lives, let Me pull out the bugs and bitter leaves. I will fill your cup so you may drink new wine that no one else I will allow to drink, and when you’re done drinking, I will personally break the cup.”

 

                   After Jason told me this, I was a bit skeptical and very standoffish but began to ask the Lord if the word Jason received was true, and if it was to tell me when we were to be married. During this period of time the Father revealed many things to Jason about myself including things from my past that caused me to let my guard down.  One morning in prayer God randomly spoke to me the dates 6/11 through 6/19. When I saw 6/11 was a Saturday, I believed this was the day we would be married and requested those days off work. I went to Jason and told him that I knew the date and I would not tell him the day, month, or year. That he would have to get the date from the Father, otherwise it wouldn’t happen. After about 7 weeks of Jason asking God for the date, we were praying together one day and 6/11 randomly came out of his mouth. I told him that is the date and we both began to cry because we knew 100% the Lord was in this. He confirmed the date with us two other ways and then provided for our wedding that was just a few months later. The Father even gave us a highly sought after venue that was usually booked out for 2yrs for no cost, all we did was tile a shower as payment. Many people contacted us and requested to provide our food, cater, plan the wedding, etc. God the Father showered His love and undeserved favor on us during this time and it was absolutely amazing. I truly felt like the prodigal son who came back home as my Father placed a robe on my back, rings on my finger and held a feast as celebration.

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           The Lord began to remind me of the calling He has on my life and told me to start training in evangelism. He eventually led me to meet with my pastors and present to them what I was learning concerning sharing the Gospel. The main scripture I shared around was Mark 16: 15-18. Jason was supportive of the direction God was taking me but couldn’t see fully how the Lord was going to use us in that way. I continued to seek the Lord and grow in my relationship with Him. Many things began to open up in the spiritual realm and my time with the Lord in the secret place took off. He started to show me so many things and gave me deep revelation. In the secret place He would take me places, show me visions and speak to me about what He wanted me to do and the direction He was leading me. I grew so much in this time but still felt something was missing. I began to look at myself and realized that I was letting Jesus have only certain parts of me, not everything. I realized that I had the fear of man, that I was complacent in so many areas, and that I was very carnal. I saw that I was seeking God and going to church on Sundays but what else was I doing? I was useless in the kingdom of God.  I told the Father one day that I was tired of the life I was living. That I want to walk fully in what He has for me and give Him 100% of myself.

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    Not long after that prayer the Lord began to open our eyes to more in the spiritual realm. At the same time Holy Spirit began to show me things I needed to get rid of in my home. He had us get rid of many things including wine, video games, all secular media, items tied to witchcraft (like Native American spiritual items, crystals or decorative items with symbols that had dark meanings) that we had no idea about, etc. We also began to get many words from the Lord in our prayer time as well as prophetic words from others confirming where He was taking us with ministry and what He was calling us to do. He told us we would be torch carriers for revival and that we would have a deliverance and evangelism street ministry as well as many other things. He was also revealing to us that we needed deliverance, which we never knew about nor thought it was something we needed. Which brings me back to Mark 16: 15-18. At the time I preached on these verses I was totally blinded to what Jesus was saying about the signs that would follow a true believer. I was so ashamed that I was a lukewarm Christian and that I had a form of godliness but denied His power. But I was thankful that He opened our eyes to the truth. The closer we got to Him and our calling the more we began to be attacked by the kingdom of darkness with serious sicknesses and visitations as an attempt to instill fear in us. We pushed through trusting in the Lord and went on a 2-week trip He led us on, where we stopped in a few states ministering and being ministered to, and ended it with a revival in TN. At the revival both Jason and I received deliverance from many things including generational curses and many demons. We saw the Lord work many miracles, many were healed and set free and mass deliverance was occurring for thousands of other people there. We were forever changed from that moment and the Holy Spirit began using us in the same ways we saw Him working through others. He began using us in deliverance, healing, prophecy and many other things. Because of the mighty works He has been doing through us many souls have begun to be added to His kingdom by us, only through His hand.  We are totally sold out for the cause of Christ, and we cannot wait to see all of the amazing things He will do through our ministry.