If I should describe my life before I got to know more about Jesus then I would start from my childhood. I was born in a both-parents family as an unexpected child. That time my parents already had three children and they were also in an advanced age. Since my early years I was not the child that my parents would be proud of as I attended a nursery where I made a lot of trouble. When I started to attend a primary school I added to those troubles. I hurt other children, I fought with some boys in our class and I damaged other people’s property. I had learning difficulties and some of my school results were poor. Also I fought with my older siblings and many times I heard from them that my parents didn’t want me to be born… Various people complained about me and my behaviour. Then my parents were angry with me and often I heard from them that they wanted to put me in a children’s home or to take me to a psychiatrist. I did not feel very loved and understood by them. And those words really hurt me the most. It all affected my life later on…
When I was about seventeen years old I was still a rebel. I absolutely loved rock, punk, emocore but mainly metal music. When I heard the music I totally found myself in it. I felt like this sorrowful music was about me and my life. While I was listening to this music I convinced myself that I do not belong to this world and nobody could understand me. There was only one person who could understand me. It was my best friend Dominika. We’ve shared our thoughts since we went to the primary school. (To count all the stupid things we’ve ever done would take a long time.)
That time I had a passion to visit one mysterious place. It was an old railway tunnel. We both used to go there together but sometimes I went there alone. It was dangerous because trains were still passing through this tunnel. Once, while we were going through the tunnel, a cargo train appeared unexpectedly. We managed to hide in a space in a tunnel wall. Another time we had to give our personal data to the railway police… Those days I was a non-believer and I would not say that God’s grace was already with us.
When I was sad I often went there. Maybe I was looking for some motivation there or something that would convince me how to continue in my life on. I don’t know. There were times when I wanted to end it all there. I was thinking that if I would do it, people who hurt me would realize something… I was depressed and I didn’t know what to do with myself. It was stronger than me. Who hasn’t experienced it cannot understand it. Somehow I didn’t care about my life. I only wished for the end of my inner pain. But I always found something in this place that’s why I came back again from there. I think that I hoped that something will happen – a change for the better. I didn’t know what my hope was or how the change might happen. That time a word ‘God’ existed for me only as a part of bad language. I blamed Him for what happened to me even though I was not sure whether God really existed.
While I was seventeen I started to date a boy. We were both attracted to supernatural things and we talked about various experience from our lives. For example we talked about how we’d seen some silhouettes or about auras which we also could see. Also I collected occult objects. That time I wasn’t very in touch with Dominika. I became emotionally dependent on the boy. My depression due to the circumstances increased and he became colder and colder towards me (I don’t think he was an evil person but he didn’t know that he was being used by evil forces that wanted to hurt me). I was really unhappy because of it and I didn’t know what to do. Also I started to suffer from a strong stomachache. It happened often.
Then after some time I met Dominika on a public bus. I noticed that she changed, that she is joyful. She told me that she met with some group of people in Brezno and there was a man who could explain how things work. I was surprised and also I was very curious whether he wouldn’t be able to explain some things about auras to me because I could partially see them. She invited me to visit that group of people with her. I thought that I would learn more but I could manage to come only some other time.
There I met Stano for the first time who easily explained to me that ‘aura’ is just a manifestation of God’s presence in us (like halos which are drawn in the pictures of saints). When we pray, read the Bible and meet with other believers God’s presence increases in us. When God’s presence increases in us, then the ‘glory of God’ is manifested – it increases, it intensifies. When we think of bad things or we sin then the ‘glory of God’ decreases because the evil dominates and then the evil manifests itself instead of things of God. I didn’t know about these things before! Stano very practically explained some biblical principles to me so I didn’t find it difficult to understand.
Then I understood why some situations happened in my life. I found out about Jesus’s forgiveness towards us and also about how it ruins us (it hurts us) when we do not forgive someone. When I came into this Bible group for the first time I looked at the people carefully while we were reading the Bible. I was very curious about those people. In a room, there was a white wall and I tried to see auras of women who sat in front of me. Their auras were bright and pretty large. In the Bible we read verses from James. The verses were saying that we should ask God with faith and with no doubt because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea which is blown and tossed by the wind and a man like that is not able to receive anything from God. Later Stano prayed for me. I can’t exactly remember my thoughts during the prayer but I tried to accept as much as I was able to.
After visiting the Bible group I felt confusion inside. On one hand (thanks to the explanations of the Bible) I understood why some situations happened in my life but on the other hand in my head I still had what I knew from before. I was torn between the things I knew before (including The Secret – positive thinking that did not help me to find inner peace in my life) and new knowledge that a real God truly exists who is revealed in Jesus Christ, who forgave me, who is interested in me but mainly that He won the battle for the eternal life which can be given even to me.
I don’t know when exactly but there suddenly appeared a thought in my head: ‘At least I will try this harder way. Precisely because it is harder!’ I wasn’t very familiar with thoughts like this before – it was a great change in my thinking. Maybe I didn’t want to be like a wave driven by the wind anymore. I started to fight. When I was trying to know Lord Jesus more things started to happen which were to frighten me. For example while I was praying alone in a room the furniture started to creak, another time I was scared by a picture falling. Mostly I was afraid of seeing something supernatural that would come to haunt me despite me not wanting to see it. On the other side there were things which testified to me that I’m going the right way now. That reappearing stomachache left me after one time when the pain was so strong that Dominika called up Stano and she asked him to pray for me. He was willing and ready to pray for me and he gave us instructions how we should pray, too. It was quite a lengthy fight. I thought that I have never felt the pain for so long before but ultimately the prayer was successful. The reappearing stomachaches were gone once and for all.
There was another thing that strengthened my faith at the beginning. Before I believed in God I had had a problem with a professor of informatics. Once after a lesson I quarrelled with her because she criticised me for some irrelevant little things. Ever since I worried before lessons with her. And then, after I started to attend the Bible group regularly, I learned that Jesus said that we should love our enemies and pray for them. So I started to pray for her and I tried to see her (to look at her) like she is also one of God’s children. I didn’t have to wait long for Jesus. My faith was turned into reality. Next lesson she stood behind my back and watched me as I worked. Instead of criticism she suddenly started to encourage me. She said also: ‘Nice. You are super!’ I was truly amazed . I also had troubles with another teacher. She had a habit of finding a student or students and humiliate them in front of their classmates. She already did it to me. Once in the morning she came in bad tempered again so I started to pray for her immediately. All the time she didn’t say anything bad to me but she was still offensive to others. After few hours we met a janitor and he asked us what had we done to her, because she was nice today… This encouraged me even more.
I felt peace and joy inside and also I saw that when I prayed for people they acted differently – that was enough to convince me. Another time I had the experience of being healed from an illness from evening until morning. When I started to feel a headache it was enough to put my hand on my head and to pray to Jesus with faith that this is already solved. Last but not least prayers had an impact my school results – they got better. When something tried to cast doubt on my faith I remembered all my previous experience with prayers and I knew this: ‘I know whom I have believed.’ I was aware of how much Jesus is good to me and it led to changes in my life. I tried to give Jesus everything that troubled me now or before and with His help to win the battle in my mind. I gave Him also the unlucky relationship with the boy. Till then the relationship meant everything to me but I just felt suddenly that if I wanted to move on, it would be better to end it. Sure, I had doubts also, it was really painful and I didn’t know what would happen next but I did it. After some time it was visible that it was a very good decision. I started a brand new life.
Also I remember that once, while I was traveling home from the Bible group, I listened to a song from my favourite metal band. The song is called ‘Cries in vain’. As I was listening to it I started to feel how the joy and the peace which I had left with are leaving me. Then I started to feel that the music restricts me but I didn’t do anything to change it then. Later I understood and I felt free to delete all this kind of music from my mobile phone. I have never recorded these songs back on it. After some time I got rid of occult objects, too. I started to feel free.
I felt that I have found exactly what I was looking for all my life. Before I didn’t know what exactly I was missing so much in my life and also I didn’t know where I could find it. Since I have visited the Bible group I felt that I am found. Not found by some people but by Jesus. I started to feel joy in my life in which things suddenly started to work. Sometimes almost every day I had tears in my eyes but now because of the happiness. I even apologised to some people with whom I was in a conflict some time ago or at least I blessed them and prayed for them in my mind. Some people started to say that I have changed and they asked me what had happened. Other people distanced themselves from me.
Now I would say that it was the most beautiful part of my life and the breaking point in my life. Things started to go the another way. There also were moments of difficulties and of doubts. However, there were people who knew Lord Jesus for longer than me and they gladly supported me in their prayers and by God’s Word. I don’t know what would have happened if Jesus wouldn’t have entered my life exactly at that time. He found a way how to introduce Himself to me. He used the way which I understood .
Barbora
Testimony in Slovak – Svedectvo v slovenčine https://zivyjezisvpraxi.sk/ako-som-bola-najdena/