The Radiant Mission
The Radiant Mission
120. Navigating Spiritual Warfare & Mental Health: Jessica's Faith Journey
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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Hello and welcome to the Radiant Mission podcast. My name is Rebecca Toomey and we are on a mission to encourage and inspire you as you're navigating through your life and with your relationship with Christ. We have been in a series on being countercultural in a secular world and today I welcome a very, very special guest. Her name is Jessica Avila and she is a mama and the founder of AED Skincare. And, a fun fact, Jessica and I have known each other for somewhere in the realm of 12 to 15 ish years. I couldn't quite figure it out, Maybe you have a better memory than I do, but somewhere in that range, right? Yeah, I think it's closer to 15, if not more. If not, it's been a hot minute.
Speaker 1:We actually met at the bare mineral store at the Wellington mall in Florida back in the day and we became fast friends. Jessica was working there and I went in talking about foundation and makeup and you know I could go to any store but I would always go back to you to visit you in Wellington because you were awesome and, yeah, I was going out of my way to just to visit with you.
Speaker 2:I loved that was a great time period of my life I loved that was my favorite part of of being a store manager and being with Bare Minerals was the kid, like the girlfriend experience, the connection. I loved making women like feel beautiful and like seeing the confidence you know cause you. People come in and they and going through something, even if it's like a break or whatever it is, and you know you're like a therapist, a friend.
Speaker 2:You know you just have that like bonding moment and it was a great time and I still speak with some of the girls that were, like my assistant managers at the Wellington store.
Speaker 1: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 for bridal. I got into that after, so it was a. It was a while ago, but then here's the funniest thing. This is a second fun fact for the Jessica and Rebecca episode. You are originally from Staten Island, new York, which is where my husband is from, and so not only did we meet in South Florida, which is where I grew up, but then we crossed over to Staten Island. We both live there at the same time, ironically, so funny. And then now here we are and we live in the same town again. We both live in Knoxville, tennessee.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:I know.
Speaker 2:It's wild, it's weird and the same thing happened with my assistant manager that eventually 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 were best buddies up there until I left, until I moved to Tennessee, and we still talk. So it's interesting how God weaves people in and out of your life, because when she came into my life I was so shocked I'm like you're going to be in Staten Island and I was really lonely. I was going through a long period and I was like I need a girlfriend and I remember praying to God. I was going through like a long period and I was like I need a girlfriend and I remember like praying to God about it and then seeing that she was there and I was like I miss Staten Island too.
Speaker 1:Such a small world and it is. It's amazing how he weaves people in, like you said, in and sometimes out of our lives, or sometimes in and out and just some. You know, you never know how it's going to go, but that's. The beautiful thing about the Lord is that we have seasons in our life and seasons that we go through and moments and times where we need people and have people around. So you've been a blessing in my life. It's been awesome to know you for the past 17 years let's say that 15 years and I'm excited that you're here to share more of your testimony too, because I know it's something that you really haven't publicly talked about, and so I know you're a little nervous, but it's going to be okay. You got this.
Speaker 1:And you know that you're in the right place because you I know you listen to the show, so you're with the right people who are they're on the same track here too.
Speaker 1:You know, spiritual warfare is a huge conversation right now and it's something that a lot of us grew up not talking about, especially if we want to talk about culturally within Staten Island and the Catholic church. You know it's not something that 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 something that can happen too, but I don't want to jump ahead too far no, but we're, we're on the same page.
Speaker 2:so your podcast when I heard it I related to it um, because this it's carried on for over the last 10 years in my life when I started noticing it very prevalent um, because I probably just wasn't on the enemy's radar like I was playing for the other team. So I always tell myself like I try to thank God for this, because I think that means that you know I'm walking with Jesus, Like I'm trying. So just to give you a little bit about, like my background I was raised Catholic. I went to a Catholic school. I was raised Catholic. I still feel like a baby Christian, Like I am not super well-versed with the Bible.
Speaker 2:I don't remember anything from Catholic school like Bible teachings. I remember being taught the Hail Mary. I remember going to church. I remember being taught the outfather, things like that, and then nuns taking us to church. When I got older I used to go to church willingly, Like the church bells would ring on a Sunday.
Speaker 2:I was probably in like seventh grade and I would go without my parents. We didn't read the Bible in my house. You know we didn't, I guess, walk in that way like in the faith and you know not to kind of throw family members under the bus, but my family members, cousins, parents, you know, they went and had tarot cards read. They went to psychic mediums.
Speaker 2:I remember being a kid and going, you know, with a close family member to you know, get her, my mother to get her cards read and her daughter and the mother they worked at the school, like her kids went to the catholic school and then she worked. She was like a cafeteria person. So I didn't realize, as I was growing up, like these things that I'm into, like I did everything wrong from like a divination standpoint, like I was really big into the fact that my birthday's in october and I'm a libra and I used to read my zodiac and if I saw somebody to read a palm I would do it. I literally did everything that you're not supposed to do. Growing up, you know, I was living in sin. I was, you know, and it was normal to me.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I think that's a cultural thing too, right, like in the Northeast I noticed. It's just something that I happened to notice, and I think that every location geographically is going to have different pockets of these types of experiences, but it was something that I noticed in the community where my husband was as well, staten Island. It was very, very Roman Catholic, but the women would have these parties where they would invite psychic mediums, and that was a very, almost normal thing that would occur. I never got invited to any of these things, thankfully, but it was stuff that I heard about and then I would hear the stories like oh, so-and-so heard this from their dead grandfather or their dead relative or whatever the case might be. And now you and I both know the truth about divination and the truth about psychic mediums is that they're not tapping in to dead relatives. They are tapping into demons who are generational, who have lived for thousands of years and have been following families, and that's how they know information about families. It's a trick, yes, before my husband knew about spiritual warfare.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I remember what he used to say. He used to say either it's real and they're talking to something or it's just all big lie and it's all fake. And I remember when he used to say that and him, just, you know, we weren't quite having these conversations like you and I are having right now. Yeah, over the years he's like you know, I had a feeling that it was real, but I didn't. He didn't understand who the communication was with. I mean, yeah, tell me more about have you had or felt like those experiences opened doors within your life or your someone in your family's life, or how did that? The divination side of things and psychic mediums, how did that play into kind of the world that was around you guys?
Speaker 2:Okay, so I think that it opened doors I don't know because there was so much between, because you know, like you can have family members where it opens this door and then it's generational, like you said. Um, I was given a ouija board as a kid. Like an adult, yeah, gave me a ouija board, me and my sister. We played with it. I was young, I didn't think anything of it and I was always drawn to like pretending to be a witch, because we used to watch Hocus Pocus and these things. Now, even, as you know, throughout everything I didn't realize what I was participating in as I became an adult was wrong, and so my experience with spiritual warfare and what I experienced was like extreme and I think that it needed to be extreme and I thank God for it, which sounds very crazy to people, but I am a very stubborn person and at the time when I started having experiences or being aware to the experiences, I was very like the way that the world behaves is okay. I didn't see it through a biblical lens. So I needed, like the dropkick, the shake up of being attacked, really, in order to say what's going on here, like this is real. You know, this is real, this is a real thing and I think if I hadn't experienced the enemy the way that I did, and so in your face, and so aggressively that I I don't think I would believe because I believed in Jesus, but I put him in a human category where, like I mean, he really didn't walk on water, like you know, just because he says he's God, he's not really God. Um, you know, because there's so many, all these other religions, who knows who's telling the truth? You don't know. And all the miracles in the Bible like, oh, they're just stories or they're parables. To learn a good lesson, to be a good person, you know, if you're a good person, you be fine. Like that was my attitude and I realized how wrong it was. And this was God saving me through 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.
Speaker 2:I horror, like creating horror movies, all the scary stuff. I had no fear, like I was desensitized, so it needed to be extreme for me to be shaken up, to recognize it. And I, I see God, he was with me the whole time. I, I don't. I'm still working on reading my Bible. You know I read it. Now I want to teach my son it. So I have children's Bibles.
Speaker 2:But, like, there were periods where I tried to sit down and read the Bible during all of this and I couldn't understand it. I couldn't absorb like a King James version of the Bible. It was very confusing to me and Jesus was still with me. He never left me, like all of the 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-traumatic stress from certain things, um, cause I'm not going to sit and like sugarcoat it and be like, oh, it was a wonderful experience, it was a nightmare. It was like a hell living in hell. And, um, he was still with me. He wasn't like, oh, you don't know 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 that always looks for solutions. So, um, I was searching for answers and I'll explain that like in a minute. But, um, I have.
Speaker 2:You know, I bought like a bible at like a lower reading grade and I know it sounds silly, but it's helped me so much and going to like a non-denominational church and the way the pastor preaches and speaks and how he explains the Bible sat with me and going on YouTube and I follow certain pastors that I really like. I like the way that they explain stuff. You know, when I was raised Catholic and I would go and I would listen to a mass, as I, as I got older and these things started happening and like I couldn't relate, like I just felt like like they were just reading it or whatever. Like it was like going through the motions and I feel like God guided me through all of this to like where I am now, the person I am now, because it's like a one, 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 he transformed me, because the way that I speak now about God, I can honestly say, like at 29, when it started happening, like I wouldn't have believed me for the story that I'm going to share. I wouldn't have believed me and I would have just thought like I was crazy and I probably would have just like made it be like a bible thumper or something like that, like you know, I would have joked about it and that's's who.
Speaker 2:I was Very cynical and the people that I was surrounded by and I'm not, you know, not blaming or judging them but they fueled that because a lot of people that are close to me that know my story, um, that have known me since, like high school you know relationships that I had, even close family members they still cannot acknowledge or do not acknowledge the attack that I had as an attack. They will literally justify it as, like certain I have, you know, camera and audio footage. You know at one point and they'll say like, oh, it's dust, or the noise that's on the camera is a rattling of a pipe, or it's this outside. And I just I look at people like, how can you deny? You know, especially people that know me, how can you deny something like this when you know the type of person that I am and it's right in your face and you still don't want to accept it?
Speaker 2:And a lot of my family at least, that were raised catholic, they pick and choose parts of the bible so they believe in jesus and they believe in god or a god, but then they they don't believe in the gospel that he cast out demons and that demons are real. So they pick and choose what they 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, a truth, is it's real, like real, and to circle back, I mean with the special effects, like I can't even watch horror movies anymore. You know, it's one thing when it's not real, it's one thing when it's like, oh, just humans are, you know, committing these evil things and all this stuff, so like it's fake. But then when you see the world through a biblical perspective and you've experienced you know the attacks that I have I just don't even want to participate in it, I don't want to give him any glory.
Speaker 1:You've received like actual monsters attacking you, and realize that monsters are real in that sense, you know. And I want to go back to what you said about the Bible, because I think that it is easy for us to overcomplicate that. You know, it's hard to understand and stuff like that. I myself have struggled at different points in time with that, to be like I just I don't understand this, I don't fully get it, and it is okay to break it down. It's okay to read a version that is a little more modern. You know a version of the Bible that's a little more modern for us. I actually laugh at there's like a millennial Bible that speaks in slang and it's hilarious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, there's a version of everything these days, but you know ESV tends to be a little bit easier to understand. I kind of grew up reading an NIV, but you know King James can be tough and plus he he was a little biased in some ways.
Speaker 1:So there's that, but I would my advice to anybody, the children's Bible or like I think it's absolutely, or whatever, because I want to know God you know Absolutely, absolutely, and my advice for anybody would just be start wherever you feel you are, like you said, if there are different versions, or 12th grade version or third grade version, whatever it is, but also different Bible studies I've found have helped me to break it down. I mentioned a couple episodes. I got this Bible study called A Year in the Bible and it's reading the Bible in a year, and I've always tried to read the Bible through, which can break a lot of people, because once you get to all the this person begot this person, begot this person, begot this person you tend to quit Right. And the way that it's formatted is totally different. It's like read Genesis one, you know this part then go to Isaiah this and read this part and then in it kind of it's creating different pictures for you, different pictures of God and his plan for us and our lives, versus just read it through in this chronological, boring, boring air quotes way.
Speaker 1:So I just want to touch on that because I do think that there are, I'm sure, listeners that have been where you are and feel like I want to get to know the Bible, I want to get to know God, but I don't know where to start, and it's okay to find different ways to get there. The other thing I want to touch on is the supernatural. I think that we, you know what's crazy is that in the circle that you were in, that people believed that they were communicating with dead relatives, but have a hard time believing that demons exist. You know right, both are supernatural.
Speaker 2:It's scary. They don't, they don't want to. I, like I said I I have a hard time talking about this because I have to. You know, I think about it and then you know. But God, I think I needed to not know the Bible. That's always when I come back. He has a plan for all this. He knows you, he knows me, he knows my husband, my kid, he knows us and he loves us individually. He knew where I was at and the type of person I was and how desensitized I was, and like nothing scared me you know what I'm saying so like I had to be rattled, to be shaken for him to save me, and it's scary.
Speaker 1:Tell us about that, if you don't mind. If you don't mind, kind of getting into it a little bit.
Speaker 2:And I think if I had known the Bible I would have, in my mind, gone well, I'm just creating this, since I had no foundation, didn't know the Bible and stuff. When this stuff happened to me I was able to go like this and go this is spiritual what has happened. And then I would hear pastors talk and they were explaining exactly what a spiritual attack is. So I've been attacked majorly two times now by the enemy or by one of, by his minions or whatever you want to say that I'm aware of. So I was, you know, living in the world, partying and just, you know, being 20 something and carefree, and I would go out and have fun with my friends and, you know, dabble here and there with like drinking or if somebody gave me like a pot brownie or something like that. And I'm going to retract a little bit because I had seizures, started having seizures at 16. So I was on medicine for epilepsy and the epilepsy medicine made me tired. I was always tired, always fatigued, or at least that's what I was told by doctors, and I was given Adderall for energy and because they were then diagnosing me with ADHD. So all of this was like a perfect cluster, I feel like Plus, I was, you know, going out and I was living in sin and living like the world promotes, and the enemy was able to hide in prescription drugs, like for me. In prescription drugs like for me, um, because, uh, a symptom of what I experienced would be like psychosis or even like schizophrenia. You know, I, um, I started having these issues at 29 and, um, everything could be logically checked with. What the world says is like a mental disorder or a side effect of the Adderall. Oh, you're hallucinating, it's the Adderall. You have your hearing stuff, your psychosis, whatever. So what happened is I was given a pot brownie and I panicked, I 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 rushing over, tell her what happened. I woke up and something told me like you're too young to die, like what are you doing? You got to open up your eyes and when I woke up from passing out, my mother called 911. I woke up and just decided in that moment I have to stop. Something bad is going to happen to me, something I'm going to do, someone's going to give me something, something's going to happen and I'm going to die and I don't want to die. And from that moment on, I started like searching for God, like I just had this pull and I was changing my life and then, all of a sudden, I started hallucinating. Like I would watch TV and I would hear, like like this mumbling, monstery sound.
Speaker 2:I was coming home one night and at this point I had gone through a breakup and I was staying with family. I was staying at one night and at this point I had gone through a breakup and I was staying with family. I was staying at my mom's house. I heard what sounded like this guttural growl and it bounced between my mom's house and my neighbor's house, clear as day. So now I think now this is without having any knowledge, without having any foundation of what's happened, but I've seen enough exorcism movies. Okay, my mother is being attacked. So like I rush in to like save the day, brave, scared, but brave, and I start praying the Hail Mary and my mom's looking at me like I'm crazy.
Speaker 2:So all my family, like prescription related, and I kept telling my family I'm not losing my mind, this is spiritual, without having any context, like I just I knew. But there was also that logical part of me that kept wanting that, kept thinking well, maybe it could be my Adderall that I'm taking, maybe it could be thisderall that I'm taking, maybe it could be this, maybe I'm becoming schizophrenic. They usually say it's late 20s where that happens. So I started hearing things, I started having things touch me. I would feel like a presence. I would get woken up out of my sleep violently. Something would wake me up. Get woken up out of my sleep like violently, something would wake me up. And then everybody that I should be able to count on like family, close friends, cousins, anybody that was in my vicinity, um, turned on me Like they were very aggressive, they were um, um, not understanding. I've heard like a pastor or a priest describe when you're attacked spiritually, when, when the enemy attacks you, that he will use people that you love, people that are close to you, your family, your friends. So I had nobody. So now I'm losing my mind because I'm hearing stuff. I'm having like intrusive thoughts, as they call it, but it's like harassing from the minute I open my eyes to the minute I end. Just crazy stuff.
Speaker 2:I didn't have a kid, I didn't have my son at the time and it would be like your kids are burning in hell over and over and over again. Kids are burning in hell over and over and over again, like when I say like, if you can imagine the worst psychological warfare, like, like if you were being psychologically tortured, that's what it was. And then not being able to sleep, not being like being woken up, not being able to rest. So I was tired, it wore me out and it was constant. And then I had family members that were convinced they knew what was wrong with me. They were making me go to like a psychiatrist. So I was going to a psychiatrist and they thought it was drug related. So I was going to the bathroom or whatever, and they were testing my urine and I was coming up clean and the doctor was looking at, you know, my mother and and he's like, she's clean, it's not drug related.
Speaker 2:So, and and all of this, and in all of this chaos and I don't think I'm really even painting a clear picture of like, in all of the chaos, cause it was one thing after another like you think you have somebody to rely on. No, um, your family, they're not going to be there. And then I was trying to go to work and keep my job because I was a store manager, so I had to take a leave of absence from work and then I had to go back. But like I was so bombarded with thoughts and negative thoughts and like stuff that was just outlandish that I couldn't focus and do my job. So I lost everything, everything, like I lost. I quit my job because I knew I couldn't perform it, gave the keys to Brittany and said here you go, you know, take over.
Speaker 2:My family turned their back on me. I had nowhere to go. I was basically homeless and my, my mother was very aggressive and very, um like, confrontational. We were just fighting and I finally got to a point where, deep down in my heart, like I knew that this was something that was out of my control, because I kept saying it, I knew it, I felt it, I felt like I was being tested by God and I wound up like throwing two bags of clothes in a car and, driving up to New York, to crash at my dad's house, because my dad lived in Staten Island and that's how I got from Florida to New York. It was because I was literally losing my mind and in the process I had checked myself in to a psych ward because I wanted I knew something was wrong. I knew this wasn't my normal thought process. So I have spent all my life with myself and I've had peace of mind, you know.
Speaker 1:You knew that, wasn't you yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, I. It was a quiet mind and all of a sudden, like this, it was gone. My peace was gone and it was just nothing but negative. And I knew, like these are not, this is not my thoughts, this is not me, but explain that to people who are looking at you like what are you talking about? It's not your thoughts. Like you, I was made to look crazy. You know what I'm saying, Like and that, and that's the truth. And then I came up to New York but I threw two bags of clothes in my car. I had $200 to my name. I don't even know how I got with 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 never went down because it took me seven days. That's how like out of it I was and I'm trying to focus. That's a long time to do that drive Seven days to get from Florida to-.
Speaker 1:I mean, it is like a 22 hour drive, isn't it? Or 12. Yeah, it's far 18, or 18. Okay.
Speaker 2:But I was seven days, seven days, and when? I got there, I was like oh, you know, after a while I look back and I'm like, well, maybe that was a sign you know, I was just going to say seven is uh, you know?
Speaker 1:yeah, there's some symbolism there, maybe.
Speaker 2: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 and God had to shake up my life because my whole essence of my being was based on myself and my accomplishments. So, like I worked my butt off to work my way up, you know, as a part-time makeup artist and all 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 me and make me either a trainer or a district manager. They had just flown me out to San Francisco. But that needed to happen for me to realize I'm not. I'm not in as much control as I think. That needed to happen for me to realize I'm not in as much control as I think, you know. And God had a plan and because he cares about my soul, you know, I had to let go of those things.
Speaker 2:And on my way up from Florida, I was driving in my car and I don't remember if this was before or after the homeless man that I met. I was like running on empty. I was tired. I went to pull over in a parking lot because I'm sleeping in my car. I got $200 to my name and I just something. I just looked in my rear view mirror and I was in a parking lot, so it was like the street, like right behind me, so maybe 50 feet away, maybe 100 feet away, and there was, you know, a spotlight shining down and all of a sudden I see what looks like black smoke, so like, have you ever seen like the Disney movie with Hades?
Speaker 2:okay where he comes out of like the smoke cloud. He's always in like a smoke cloud, okay, or like how, when they you know, you see some Dracula movies, it's always like a black smoke, like a smoky thing. It was solid black smoke. It never formed into like a person or anything like that. It was solid black, blacker than the night, and it went under the spotlight, kind of rocked 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 himself into a bowl and then that like went like this, bounced away in to the darkness and I was terrified. I was, was terrified. I thought I was going to die in my car. I remember praying and, like you know, nothing came to my car and nothing hurt me. It was very in my face, like didn't care, you know, like wanted me to see it, and I was terrified. And now, at this point, I thought to myself either I'm going to die or I did die when I ate that brownie. And this is the other side and there'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. Wow, or I am. I need psychiatric help. I need psychiatric help, I need psychiatric help.
Speaker 2:So when I got up to New York, it continued and now I have my immediate family that doesn't believe me. Nobody believes me. I don't know if I talked about this, but I had gone through a 10-year breakup. The guy that I was with nobody believed me. So I felt very alone and very isolated. So I started going and trying to go to a priest, and then I would be also going to a psychiatrist, and then I went to get an MRI of my brain to make sure I didn't have a tumor. You know, like I was covering all of my bases, like is this 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.
Speaker 2: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 at work and I would go home and I would have these horrible, horrible nightmares and like I would get woken up, I would feel like hands come around my pillow and feel like I was suffocating. And I would wake up with my face, 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 my hair, pull my feet, just disturb, just disturbing things, and I didn't have the tools and I didn't know what to do about it. And even the priests that I went to Catholic priests the first thing out of their mouth was when I'm telling them all this, I'm kind of like shaking, like what do I do?
Speaker 2:They were like, have you been to a psychiatrist? And I'm like, yeah, I have. And he told me he doesn't think I'm schizophrenic, he doesn't think I'm crazy. Crazy people don't think that they're crazy and usually go seek help on their own. And they kind of dismissed me and wrote me off. So I felt like super helpless.
Speaker 1:That was going to be my question Was these priests? They didn't say anything about spiritual warfare at all.
Speaker 2:No, no. And that's kind of what I wanted to convey with all of this too, other than the fact that this needed to happen to me, as crazy as it sounds, because of the person that I was, because I was so desensitized I wouldn't have believed. I would have just been like, oh, I'm creating this or whatever. I'm sure there's people out there that are going through something. I'm not a doctor, I'm not a psychiatrist. I have talked to so many girls that, like mothers, my hand, my old hairdresser, um, and she used to say, like right after she had her baby, she used to have these intrusive thoughts like let go roller, like horrible things. And I think, as a society, we have now labeled mental illness 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 effect of your Adderall, it's this, it's that. You're schizophrenic. He made me believe for a while you know, plus, I was looking for spiritual answers that it was me. 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 stopped taking the animal. I stopped taking these things to weed out what was happening to me.
Speaker 2:So, like there was good you know, a lot of really scary bad but good and like I didn't know after all these years, when I had heard preach, preachers talk about you know, when the enemy attacks you, he gets right in your face. My, my nightmares that I had, it was like I was there. You know, when the enemy attacks you, he gets right in your face. My nightmares that I had it was like I was there, you know, like it was real, like I was somewhere else, and it was usually like it would be my mother, but it would be her, like like the exorcist, like creepy crawling up walls.
Speaker 2:And I remember, you know, one time it was in a church that I would go to and he, you know it was 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 do you want? Or something like that. And he said your heart. And I remember putting my hand over it and I said you can't have it. And then I woke up and he was using God's words and why, like my heart and my soul knew this is like this. What I'm experiencing. This isn't God, and I feel like he was trying to, you know, make me look at God maybe in a negative light or make me fall into despair.
Speaker 2:You know, because, even though I went through all of this and I and I, I felt like for a while like I lost time. Um, I met my husband. It was meant to be. I don't think that I would be a mom. Um, because my plan for my life was girl power career. I had just gone through a breakup. You know, the guy had cheated on 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 and like, if I meet somebody, sure, great. If we fall in love, fantastic if we have kids, if it happens, if not, I'll be rich enough or successful enough that I can adopt, like that was my thing. And God was like, uh-uh, like my plan is better.
Speaker 2:Was it tough to go through this? Yeah, it was. It was and it's still like. You know, it's still cause you can't see, you can't see it and I and I feel like it. How do you fight something? I've heard preachers talk about this too Like how do you fight something you can't see? You can't. You can only rely on Jesus and call on Jesus, um, but it's an unnerving feeling to know like you're being monitored, you're being watched, because he waited for, like, the perfect opportunities to um attack me when, like, I was at the mercy of other people or or he created that problem. You know what I mean and you're most vulnerable. Yeah, it was, it was, it was hard.
Speaker 2:And then I think that first time that it happened when it carried on for like a year or two, after it kind of stopped when I met my husband, there was a period where I had peace and nothing happened or nothing that I was aware of, and I kind of like forgot about it, which is which sounds crazy Like I just carried on with my life. I forgot about it. I was kind of getting back and trying like my hand at special effects, and then it happened again. So the second time it happened when I was pregnant. I was pregnant with my son and I was probably a couple months pregnant and I was relaxing and I was just about to wake up from sleeping. The nightmares had stopped, you know, for a while I would say like two years or whatever.
Speaker 2:And, um, I saw something in my room Like it's, it's right when I wake up, right before I'm about to open my eyes. So, like you second guess yourself, you second guess like am I, I'm seeing something? I'm dreaming, I must be dreaming, but I it was red, looked like a cat tail swishing, just hanging out on my dresser, and I woke up and I shook it off. As I'm dreaming, because up until this point, even though this went on for, like I'm trying to think, 2014, I met my husband in 2017. So I had some strange experiences that whole time. No religious figure, like no priest that I went, catholic priest that I went to talk to, helped me. So I kind of just brushed it off, as there must be something else happening to me. It can't be spiritual, like I just kind of I had to survive, I had to work, I had to, like you know, power through and get through all of these things, and I and I did. But I saw what I saw and I didn't realize what it was until the next time he attacked me. So he showed me that.
Speaker 2:I saw that and then, a couple months later, my son was born and then I had this horrible nightmare when Aiden was about like five months old. It was my son again, once again like a monster. My son wasn't sitting up in a crib at that time, he was only, just, you know, four or five months old, and he was sitting up in a crib at that time he was only just four or five months old and he was sitting up in the dream and he looked at me, swung his head around and his face was a little dark and scary and he made a disgusting, vulgar comment to me, which I'm not going to say, and two frogs came out of his mouth. And then I woke up and I was so disturbed by it because I'm right there, like it's first person vision in these nightmares that I've had. So it's like how I'm at you. I don't see myself. It's like I'm looking right at you. So he was in my face and I woke up.
Speaker 2:I took my son out of his crib, which was stupid of me because that's not the logical thing to do, but I was so shaken up and I was scared so I wanted to like hug my baby. I brought him in my bed with me and I had to go to the bathroom. So I get up. I go to the bathroom, I'm not worried. I hear my son crying. I get up, I come back and there's the pillow moved almost over my son's face and I'm like what's going on. And then I started to feel uneasy. Nothing happened to my son, thank God. It was that direct and I was nervous, I felt horrible about it and then I again, I shook it off, continued on until it started to ramp up.
Speaker 2:When we got locked down for COVID, or right before COVID happened, all of a sudden my TV would sound like it had an internet lag and it would sound like a monster coming out of my TV. All of a sudden my Victrola, my music box, my radio would switch. It would go from Bluetooth and switch to radio. Somebody hit the button and it would be like screaming rock music. So all these things started to happen and I kept brushing it off.
Speaker 2:Because until you look at all of the different things, I can look back now with confidence and say he went after my son. And if something would have happened to my son, I you know it would have been explainable. It would have been like okay, sids, right, that's what it's called like sudden infant death or you know the guilt. He would have made it look like it was me, or I would have felt like it was me. Like, oh my God, I went to the bathroom and you know, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, like my fault. Meanwhile he, there was a force behind that and I never, I didn't think of evil as being like an outside force that exists. I always equated it to like you know, it's just the things that we do, like when someone gets murdered or someone rapes somebody or somebody does something horrible, like that's the person and it could be and you still have choice, but there is an external force that can't be explained.
Speaker 2:And after that nightmare and that incident, I just kept on working, um, you know, living my life. And then COVID happened and my son 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 a seizure and I thought I had to call 911. I thought that he, you know, he was going into like a cardiac arrest or something like that, and I had just started a Daniel's fast that week because I was getting more into Christianity, so I had just started the Daniel's fast, my son got COVID and it was once again the one thing after another piling up and I remember sitting back and saying I'm being attacked. I was telling my husband and he was looking at me like I was crazy, and then the phone would start ringing and I'd get all these nasty text messages from people Like it was just every single thing to come at you at once. That's what happened and by the grace of God I got through it.
Speaker 2:My son, nothing happened to him, you know. They sent me home at the hospital. I was so scared. I'm like, if something happens like 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 or however old he was at the time. I think he was like he was like one in a couple of months and it was very obvious.
Speaker 2:So, like what I took from that attack because it was different than the first time, the second time that he did it, something was watching me, like something was 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 all night, every two to four hours, and that's when it started, when I was exhausted and, like there's nothing I don't think that there's anything that I could have done differently to, like you know, to prevent it. There's nothing that I could have done but I learned from it. You know not to try to not run myself down, not, you know, not take on too much and try not to react over fear. Take on too much and try not to react over fear, because my reaction of taking my son out of my crib and and kind of like snuggling up to him was his, his was his entryway, because he used my emotions against me. So, like they know, and and the thing is, the the Daniel's fast just to circle back around like the Dan the Daniels fast during that time period when I was attacked the second time.
Speaker 2:That growl or roar because to me it sounds like a lion that sound was the exact sound that I heard 10 years ago in Florida. There is no explanation for it. Nobody was home in my house when I caught it on my baby. You know the security cameras or whatever.
Speaker 2:That audio that I shared with you, that was the sound that I heard 10 years prior, and even if that that was, you know whatever was attacking me, um, I felt so redeemed. I felt like God had taken a weight off of my shoulders and I know that probably sounds crazy, because I had spent all of this time thinking it was me going to all these doctors, going to psychiatrists, going to preachers, going to priests, trying to search for answers that when I heard that I went oh my God, like you just redeemed me. You showed me that I am not crazy, 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 this my family still, like I, look at them in shock, like how do you not believe? Like? Or how do you not say like, validate the experience that I had, because that was hard, you know when like people, you love Absolutely.
Speaker 1:But that's the thing with spiritual warfare is that it is a personal attack against us and so, because other people aren't experiencing it with us in first person, it's easy to be dismissed. And I have found that in certain situations where other people have been going through spiritual warfare, there have been other believers around me even that can't see that the other person is going through that, even though they're saying it out loud. And I do think that it's an enemy tactic, that you know, he, he, they always say there's the, there's the voices, right, like you think about the good and evil voices on your shoulders, you know the devil and the angel kind of thing, the devil and God. But really, if you think about it, we hear the voice of the Lord, we hear our own voice in our head and then we hear the voice of the enemy. And the enemy could come out just like he did in your case in your situation where he was getting you at times where you were weak, at times where you were vulnerable, but also he was coming to you at times you were trying to seek the Lord, and I've mentioned that this has happened on this show before that I tried to do this series on testimonies back in the spring and it was like every single person had something come up last minute, have to cancel, and it was because the enemy was getting to them.
Speaker 1:He didn't want those people to share their testimony and you know, I wouldn't be surprised and that's why you and I prayed before we started this episode. Today, if he tries to throw some stuff at you after sharing this because you're exposing the enemy and I like that, you said his minions his minions for for what they are, which honestly, they're a bunch of bullies and they can get out of here, because I rebuke any thing evil or demonic and you know there's, there's nothing that they can do to touch us. But this is the important part for us to really emphasize, right Like, we all have power in Jesus's name, to rebuke demons. Yes, the Lord gave us the Bible for a reason. And what did Jesus spend the majority of his ministry doing? He was ministering to people. He was healing the sick, healing the blind and casting out demons and it seems like the whole part has gotten cut out.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, because people don't want to believe that it is real, because it is scary to believe that it's real. But yet, at the same time, our children are watching monsters, inc and nightmare before Before Christmas and all these scary movies, and they're getting scared of pretend monsters that are in these movies. But there are real monsters around us and they are demonic. Yeah, thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. As you can hear, jessica has a very powerful testimony. There is more to this story, so stay tuned for next week to hear more from Jessica. Today we're going to close with 1 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 radiant week and we'll see you next time. Bye, everyone.
