It’s funny how I learned so much while blindly following a cult loyal leader who probably didn’t have a clue that she was a programmed multiple. Yahweh protected me in my ignorance. Her front Christian part led worship at the church we all attended, ran an outreach center that gave food to hundreds of people each week, and ministered to the broken and downtrodden with deep compassion as a Christian therapist pursuing her doctorate. I never saw it coming. And yet, somehow deep down, I did. Denial had always been my faithful companion.

She was the one that helped me understand that I had dissociative identity disorder. She loved on my parts, feeding them, rocking them, and singing to them in sessions. She prayed over them and taught them how to engage in warfare. She let them attach to her and made a space for them to hang out at her office every day. She quoted scripture, celebrated my growth, and encouraged me to seek the Lord with all my heart. She had them eating out of the palm of her hand and I had her eating out of mine.

I was fully aware that her boundaries were not good. I knew all the right things to say and how to be the center of attention while quietly disappearing into the background of noticeability. I jumped through every hoop and followed every order. I was programmed to obey, and I had mastered obedience with an excellence many would never sacrifice their soul to achieve. Endless hours journaling, completing every homework assignment with the right amount of emotional venerability, and sending an absorbent amount of text messages. Especially the positive ones, the ones that drew her in, made her want to have contact with me, the kind that you can’t help but not want to miss because they humbly stroke your ego and blindside you with empathy you never intended to feel.

It wasn’t that I was trying to do it. I honestly thought I was seeking the Lord with all my heart and not leaning on my own understanding. I was acknowledging Him and trusting Him to direct my path. But I also had that controller part of me that was making sure we were not abandoned or forgotten ever again. I didn’t know all the things that I know now. The knowledge I had then was new and exciting and I was seeing God move despite my desperate attempts of being a good Christian that everyone could depend on so that I could maintain control. I had no idea at that point that I had been born into an occult family or trafficked or any of the things. I only knew there had to be more to life than what I had experienced. I was seeking the only Jesus I had ever been shown while desperately fighting for my life.

Then one day, she spoke the life changing words to me that it wasn’t her that I was drawn to, but the Holy Spirit in her. This quickened something deep inside of me. Someone in my system heard it and took it to heart. We decided that if we could get the Holy Spirit for ourselves then we would finally never be abandoned again. The search for the Holy Spirit started and it took me down a path so narrow that I thought I’d fall off the edge a thousand times. I started studying the Bible instead of just reading it, I bought every book I could find on the Holy Spirit and watched every YouTube video.

Early on this search for Him, we found two abandoned puppies that were about 3-4 weeks old. We took them home and looking back I think Yahweh led me to them because I needed something to love. I got up every hour to check on them, and bottle fed them for weeks. I would sit in a rocking chair and feed them while begging for the Holy Spirit to show up and give me the gift of tongues. I would pray and try to speak and it never worked. It was so frustrating, but I was hungry for the truth and relentless in my pursuit. For months and months, I studied and somewhere along the way, I discovered that the Jesus that I grew up knowing was very different from what I had been taught.

I don’t think my therapist ever thought that I would go that deep, be so determined or outgrow her spiritually. But abandonment was a huge deal, and she had unknowingly given me the key to victory in that area of my life. Eventually, I was walking with the true Yeshua, and I no longer needed anyone else to be a proxy between me and Him. I was able to hear Him clearly and started obeying His voice even when it hurt. I was experiencing real love, safe love, for the first time and once that happened, counting the cost was easy. I was willing to do anything it took to keep growing in my relationship with Him.

I don’t pretend to fully understand how that all works, how the Holy Spirit can be in the Christian host while they have back parts that are cult loyal, but I’m so glad that He meets us where we are and walks us out of the darkness. I started my real healing journey when I decided to start seeking the Holy Spirit for myself. When I started reading the Bible for myself, and journaling what He was showing me, my life truly started to change for the first time ever. I don’t know if I would have ever been able to get out if I had not built a foundation and started going to Yeshua for myself.

The more time I spent with Him, the more I fell in love with Him. Once I had grown roots deep enough to stand on my own with Him, He started showing me things I did not want to see or believe. Everything in me was screaming that it couldn’t possibly be true. It wasn’t long after He started really revealing the spiritual atmosphere I was in there that I found myself in a David and Goliath battle. Every day, it felt like I was having to say, “let this cup pass from me, but not my will but Yours be done (Luke 22:42)” and “though He slay me, yet will I trust Him (Job 13:15).”

My therapist was the only mentor I had. Nobody had ever taught me that sometimes the Lord shows you something directly because He only needs you to know. I didn’t understand that I should be waiting for Him to release me to share it with her, so I was telling her everything I was hearing.

I was asking Yeshua one day to take me deeper and I heard Him say, “are you willing to ask Me to be baptized by fire?” In that season, I was getting to spend about 4-5 hours a day in the Word, my whole life was focused on Him, my spirit was strong, and I was so excited to say, “Yes!”

I was also clueless.

I had no idea what a prayer like that would cost me.

Then one day, I was walking across the parking lot for a therapy session, and I heard Him say, “there’s a Jezebel spirit in operation against you.” So, I went inside, greeted the receptionist and sat down to wait for my appointment. Finally, she came down the hallway like she always did, smiling as she waved me back to her office. “How are you doing? How’s your week been?” she asked. Without taking a breath, I blurted out, “God just told me there’s a Jezebel spirit in operation against me!”

I can now tell you that when someone has a Jezebel spirit and you call it out; you suddenly become the target of that spirit and every other spirit it can rally from the pit of Hell.

I don’t know if her front Christian part managed to stay up front and in control for the remainder of my session, but I didn’t see her very often after that day. Her protector part was suddenly front and center for my following sessions and on a mission to completely destroy my life.

Yahweh wrapped their abandonment and betrayals in Psalm 91 and removed me to protect me, but it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to walk through. It was a daily dying to myself to pick up my cross and follow Him. If ever I have had to trust Him when I couldn’t see what the future held, it was during that season.

Sometimes, all roads do lead home…aka the occult, and we must make a new path laid with stones of heartache and faith of steal. The witches’ web is no joke, and I found myself being spun in a million directions.

To be continued.