My Testimony

My Testimony - Part 4 The Deaf & Dumb Spirit

And when Jesus was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast him out? And he said to them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.  Mark 9:28-29

So I was healed of physical seizures from the age of 14. But soon after my 18th birthday a new struggle ensued which involved nightmares and night terrors that would make me think that I was awake having a seizure when I was really asleep. These nightmares felt exactly like the physical seizures except in the dream I would usually have no one to run to, just like my last physical seizure. And I would often try to fight to wake myself up which I was able to do on many occasions. The worst ones were when I would think I had woken up only to discover that the dream had just restarted from the beginning. This could sometimes occur 4 to 5 times before actually waking up. These dreams were not only terrifying, but they were tiring as well. 

It's probably important to say, that between the age of 14 and 18 I eventually forgot about God healing me and I lived a very worldly life, God being very far from my mind and heart.   These dreams would last right up until around 23 when the Lord in His mercy gave me a vision of Him on the Cross. I didn't need anyone to tell me what that meant. Just being reminded of Him and His suffering on the Cross was enough to bring me back to that childlike faith I once had in Him. Even my husband talks about how he too used to watch the movies about Jesus over Easter, I was doing it right up into my teens. There was something about His story that always drew me in. Despite not having all the knowledge I have now, I recognise that I had simple childlike faith in Him all along. It's almost as if when we get older, we think it can't be that simple. But it really is. The Lord Jesus' own words confirm that it really is that simple:

...Truly I say to you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:3-4

It's important to mention at this point that Jesus also said that the Kingdom of Heaven is inside us.
 
And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God comes not with observation: Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you. Luke 17:20-21
 
Some denominations of Christianity would debate whether this is the correct translation of this verse and would opt for a verse that says "in the midst of you" or "in your midst" as if to say around you and not inside you as the verse above puts it. But what I say to this is, don't you think it would be better to first explore that it ain't in you first before you dismiss it. The Lord Jesus got really angry with the religious leaders of His day for closing the Kingdom of Heaven in the face of people. He said they wouldn't go in themselves, and they were preventing anyone who was entering from going in. What better way to do just that by changing the location of heaven from inside people to some outside yonder place that people need to go in search for. When we understand that heaven is inside us, we realize that there is no one hindering us from entering heaven except ourselves. This I believe is the Good News of the Gospel. Heaven is open to all who will enter in. In the Bible Jesus describes Himself in many ways and one way that's relevant to this story is the Door. Using a parable Jesus calls Himself the Door of His Sheep:
 
Then said Jesus to them again, Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door: by me if any man enters in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. The thief comes not, but to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.  I have come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. John 10:7-10
 
I'm reminded of a workshop I did with my sister recently after my release from the Psychiatric Hospital (in 2020). It's a workshop that I will lovingly refer to as "Remembering My Space of Love". In it we're asked to think of things that help us to nourish our mind, body, heart and spirit, and help us to find our space of love. In the workshop my sister used an important synonym for the word "spirit" and that was the word "essence". Up until that point I couldn't imagine what I was going to write in my little "spirit" slice of the circle, that's until I heard my sister describe my spirit as "my essence". Suddenly it felt personal to me and who I am, and the words for "my spirit" literally came flooding in. The words I used to describe "my essence" were all to do with WORDS, which led to me realizing just how important making this website was to "my essence". Here's a list of all the words I wrote in "my spirit" slice:
 
WORDS
THE LIVING WORD (aka Jesus)
SPOKEN WORD
VISUAL WORD
CREATIVE WORD
WORD PUZZLES
BIBLE PUZZLES
MY STORY
MY HOPE
MY FAITH
MY WEBSITE

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.  John 1:1-3
 
And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.  John 1:14

The reason this is such a huge realization for me is because I didn't know this about myself, until the right words were spoken and the right questions asked. I had never pictured myself as a writer before. I treated it more like an accident that happened on the way to somewhere else I was going lol. But it's true, most of the skills I've developed were secondary results of my primary motivation. Maybe that's the trick the Lord plays on us all along. Gets us thinking we're developing a skill for one reason, while all along He knows it's not going to be any use to us, until we learn to use it for His purposes. I wonder if this is how He does it with all of us. He's nurturing and growing our spirit and essence without us even being aware, until the appointed time.

I think one way that the Lord caught me unawares, is because I'm still not a very good reader at all. He seemed to know that all I needed was the drive to learn, and I would find a way of overcoming my reading obstacles. I did this years ago by investing in a good pair of cordless headphones and a text-to-speech reader. Most of the books that I have read over the years, involved the use of these 2 valuable items. They are so valuable to me that I even use them to read back my own website articles for proof-reading. When it came to the Bible, I saved up and bought myself the Audio KJV on CD.  Thankfully with the advancement of the internet, a lot of these resources are now free online.

If you're a Non-reader like myself but would like to read my website, you can install an extension to most browsers called "Read aloud". It provides a variety of great voices and allows you to change the pitch and the speed of the voice. It's great.  On your smartphone, you can use a text-to-speech app and just copy and paste text into it.

COMING SOON IN 2025

Since writing my testimony in 2020, I have developed the courage to start creating audio recordings of my writings, thanks to a very close relative named Harmony who encouraged me to give it a go.