The Testimony of Melody II

Hi! My name is Melody & I am here to share with you about how the Creator of the Universe freed me from bondage & how He can & wants to do the same for you!

Let me give you a little of my background to lay the foundation for my story. I was the youngest of 5 kids born into a strong, Bible-believing, missionary family. My first memories were actually in Africa. According to my oldest sister, Ruth, I was 4 years old when I prayed to ask Jesus into my heart. I do not actually remember life before Jesus, & have always just known He was with me.

When I was 13 or 14 years old, going into the 9th grade, my parents sent me to a boarding school in Kenya. The boarding school was Rift Valley Academy, or RVA for short. At the time, my family was in Ethiopia, so I spent my high school years... 3 months at RVA, then 1 month at home in Ethiopia, then 3 more months at RVA, then 1 month at home, and so on.

The bondage took hold during my 10th grade year at RVA. I think it was early 1993. It all started during Interim week. This was a week when the Juniors & Seniors would get a week to go on a fun trip like scuba diving in the Indian Ocean coast, learning to fly a plane, climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro, riding motor bikes all over Kenya, etc. During this particular Interim week, my brother, Tim, was on "Piki Safari"... Basically, he got to drive all over Kenya on a motorcycle.

One night during that week, I woke up suddenly in the early hours of the morning - I am guessing between midnight and 3AM - when a horrible heavy fear came over me. In my mind, I was certain that my brother Tim had had an accident and was dead. In the next instant, I felt something press down on me & hold me down on the bed (I was laying on my stomach) & sensed a very evil presence. Thank God for my training in His Word. I knew instantly that I was being pinned to my bed by an evil spirit & I said out loud, "In the name of Jesus, get off of me!" The being instantly released me. I jumped out of bed & my room-mate & I high-tailed it out of that room. We ran down the hall & woke up 2 friends. The four of us got out Bibles & read & prayed for a while before we got the courage up to go back to our room. When we got back to our room, we turned on the lights, but there was a shadowy, dark gray haze that seemed to cling to the ceiling & the room remained pretty dark. The room also had a very tangible heaviness to it. The four of us held hands and prayed in the name of Jesus Christ & told this spirit that it had to leave the room. Right away, the dark haze lifted and the heaviness was replaced by peace. As a side note: We had no more problems for the rest of that year, but interestingly, 2 years later another girl experienced the same thing in the same room, but she didn't know what to do & lay their helpless until the evil spirit let her go.

Now for a 13 or 14 year old, that is a pretty intense experience. I remember it scared me so badly, I did not really like to talk about it, & every time I would get up the courage to share it with someone, fear of being attacked or held down again would come over me, so for the most part I just kept it to myself.

The next experience I want to tell you about happened the following year. By this time, I was in the 11th grade. One week-end my room-mate left for the week-end & I had the room to myself. I had had a good week; nothing terrible had happened & I was not depressed or anything. Friday night as I lay in bed, a sudden heavy fear fell over me. As with my first "experience", I had a terrible certainty that my brother Tim (who was in the US now) had been in a car accident & died. The next thing I knew I was hearing in my head, "You might as well end it all; you might as well kill yourself; there is a bottle of Ibuprophen in your drawer; why don't you just take the whole bottle?" I remember laying there seriously contemplating suicide. The one thing that kept me from it was the thought of what it would do to my family. Then I began praying & begging God to take care of my family, & Tim in particular. God sent a peace over me that sent away the fear & I have never thought about suicide since. Interestingly, I later found out that Tim had been in a car accident around the same time this fear came over me, but even though the car was totaled, he was okay. It was not until years after this incident that I realized it as another spiritual attack. I have recently come to the realization that probably every suicide is related in some form or another to spiritual deception and/or bondage.

Let's skip ahead a few years. I graduated high school & came to the US for college. I had several spiritual encounters in college. One time my room-mate & I were driving through town to a training we had to take when I suddenly got a horrible feeling & told my room-mate to turn the car around immediately. My roommate - who knew about some of my encounters - immediately stopped & did a 3-point turn in middle of the road. By the time she had the car turned around, a garage (on the side of the road about a half a block away) had opened & a handful of guys had come out of the garage with chains & were already walking toward the car.

On another occasion, I was walking through a store when a man walked by me & glared at me with eyes that didn't look human & were very evil; there was extreme hatred in his eyes, and as he passed me by, I sensed that he was possessed with an evil spirit & that spirit was angry about the presence of the Holy Spirit (and perhaps an angel) with me.

As time went on, I continued to have these experiences in varying ways. Occassionally, I would have a period of time without any attacks, but the more confident and certain I became of the authority God had given me through the name of Jesus, the more persistently the evil spirit or spirits would attack and try to figure out how to control me.

In 2001, I got married to a very Godly, Bible-believing man. Although he personally did not experience spiritual attack often like I did, he never doubted what was going on with me and has always been very supportive.

Shortly after we were married, I began to experience the attacks in a new way. They began to come to me in my dreams because they could keep me from speaking in my dreams. I think this would be considered a form of sleep paralysis. The first time it happened, I could feel the spirit above me, holding me down, but no matter how hard I tried to speak to call on the name of Jesus, all that came out of my mouth were grunts and groans. The entire time I could sense their taunting, I could hear voices in my mind, “Ha... so you thought you could stop us! We can do whatever we want with you.” I remember struggling to speak and finally realizing I was not going to be able to speak. Knowing that my only hope was the power of Jesus and His wonderful name, I calmed my spirit down and thought, “In the name of Jesus, get off of me!” Instantly, the being lifted off of me and disappeared. I sat bolt upright in bed and my husband was asking me if I was okay. He said I had been grunting and groaning in my sleep. I shared with him what happened and he prayed with me and assured me that I had just won a battle. Needless to say, I don't think I slept anymore that night.

For a few more years, they would periodically come to me in my dreams and try again, but through the name of Jesus, they were sent away every time!

Then my husband experienced a very difficult loss and was grieving deeply. During that time, he slipped into a pretty severe depression and I did not know what to do to help him. One night we were both asleep in bed. In my dream, I saw the dark form of a demon descend from the corner of the ceiling onto my husband and dig talons into his head, as though reaching into his brain. I was shocked and angry and in righteous indignation I sat up and said in a loud voice, “In the name of Jesus Christ, you get off of him right now!” The next thing I knew, my husband was waking me up saying, “Boy, you were really fighting, weren't you?” When I shared my dream with him, he was so excited and even a little relieved that God had allowed me to see that. He shared that he had been having a lot of thoughts that were very negative and just contrary to who he is, and the dream revealed exactly where those thoughts were coming from and what we needed to do about it. I knew I needed to pray for his spiritual protection during this tough time, and he knew he needed to “take his thoughts captive” and rebuke anything that tried to plant thoughts that were contrary to what God says.

Shortly after this experience, I found out I was expecting our first child. Over the following four years, I did not experience any overt attacks. I was focused on my newly expanding family, as we had 3 children during those four years. But the enemy had not given up and was still trying to control me; it was just in a much more deceptive form that I did not yet recognize.

About 2 years ago, in the summer of 2009, my sister challenged me to try a water fast and to seek God for physical healing while fasting. I decided to do as she suggested and proceeded to complete a 30-day water fast. Prior to and during this fast, I specifically asked God for physical healing in two areas of my life.

A very interesting thing happened on day 21 of the water fast. My husband sent me a link to an audio on the book of Daniel from a Bible teacher by the name of Chuck Missler. I started listening to the audio and came to the part where Daniel fasted and prayed for 3 weeks (21 days) before receiving a message from God through an angel. That angel explained that God had heard Daniel's prayers from the beginning, but that he had been detained by the “Prince of Persia”, and had finally been able to overcome him with the help of another angel, Michael. As I listened to Chuck's teaching on Daniel 10, I was suddenly overcome with a new understanding of the passage. I suddenly grasped that somehow fasting was capable of breaking strongholds, perhaps by strengthening God's messengers who fight on our behalf. Although I did not recognize yet that I had been held by a stronghold, I felt like that day was very significant because I could feel myself changing somehow. I remember running to the ladies room and crying for joy as I called my husband and tried to explain what had happened that day.

One day, shortly after I had completed the 30-day fast, I read the verse in Matthew where Jesus told his disciples, “This kind [he was talking about a demon] comes not out but by prayer and fasting.” and it hit me like a lightening bolt. I was no longer afraid! Fear had had a very strong hold on my life since I first experienced the attack back in my dorm room at RVA. Through the years, it had intensified until it was actually debilitating me. The example I like to give is how when my husband would go to the grocery store only about 5 minutes down the road, I would pace the floor worrying and dreading the phone call. I just knew the police were going to call me and tell me that he had been in a car accident and was dead. I would hear these kinds of thoughts all the time, and I had never recognized what it was; I never could see that I was under spiritual oppression from a spirit or spirits of fear. Through the fasting, God completely freed me from that stronghold and it is so nice to be able to just breathe!

I had suspected since my first spiritual attack at RVA that I had been given the spiritual gift of Discerning Spirits. There have been numerous occasions where God would allow me to sense an evil presence, but other Holy Spirit-filled believers around me could not sense it. Unfortunately, because of the fear, I had squelched it & not wanted to use the gift. I always found encounters too frightening & was always on the defensive. After fasting, God began to allow me to use the gift more often, & it was very exciting because the fear was gone & I knew I was on the winning side. Rather than cower from the encounters, I was emboldened to face them whenever God chooses to show me glimpses of what is happening in the spirit realm. Here are a few examples:

One day, I was visiting the home of a very sick little girl. She was at home in hospice care, and when I came into the house, I could hear evil voices saying “We got her; she gonna die!” over and over again. It was very oppressive.

On another occasion, my husband and I had invited some Mormon missionaries for dinner, and just before they arrived, I got a strong sense that evil spirits were coming with them. My husband and I prayed over our home and over our children; we spoke in the name of Jesus that these spirits were not allowed in our home. When the guys came in for dinner, it was peaceful and we had a good dinner with them and continued sharing God's truth with them, as we had been for months. We actually told them about the experience one day several months later and it really challenged at least one of them to re-investigate everything he had been taught about Mormonism; he even stated that he would want to know if he was being deceived by an evil spirit. Unfortunately, the other missionary was very hardened and disgusted by it, and unwilling to even entertain the possibility that he was being deceived.

Another time, my husband and I had a friend over for a visit and he cautiously brought up the topic of other dimensions because he had heard me mention them. He asked us if we believed there were beings in other dimensions and if people could sometimes see or hear or feel them. We assured him that we not only believed it but knew it first-hand. I shared a little of my story with him and his guard came down then – I think because he realized we would not think he was crazy. He then shared about several experiences he had had and how even his 4-month old daughter already seemed to be having. Of course, we were very concerned and talked about what could be done to stop them. He then shared about how he had gotten saved at 11- years old, but had turned his back on God around 21 years old and hadn't spoken to Him in over 10 years. He did say that he had been feeling a drawing, like God was trying to get his attention. We pulled out a Bible and my husband began directing him to read certain passages. As he was trying to read the passages, he was stumbling and having a hard time reading. He then pointed at the page and said to my husband, “The part you want me to read keeps getting crossed out, so I can't read it! Can you see that?” My husband looked at it and couldn't see anything unusual. Based on our earlier conversation with our friend, my husband asked him, “Who do you think would not want you reading the Bible? Who would try to stop you from reading it?” Our friend recognized that evil spirits would want to keep him from reading God's Word. So we prayed. My husband prayed first, then I prayed, both of us rebuking the evil spirits in the name of Jesus, then our friend prayed. He poured out a sincere apology to God for avoiding Him and asked for His forgiveness. When he finished praying, you could see that a weight had lifted from him. We went back to reading the Bible and the most wonderful thing happened. Rather than having words and sentences crossed out, the Holy Spirit began using arrows and circling certain verses for our friend, and these verses were exactly what he needed at that moment. My husband and I could not have picked better verses if we had tried to orchestrate it ourselves! He then shared how just a few weeks earlier, he had tried to open his Bible, but it kept slamming shut, and he finally gave up on it. He now recognized that that experience had been evil spirits trying to prevent him from reading God's Word as well.

Another time, a friend named Sheila was passing through town and decided that she and her two small children would stay overnight with us. One was 4-year old Michael and the other was 10-year old Emily. In the middle of the night, Sheila woke me up terribly concerned that Michael was running a fever and hallucinating. I quickly went downstairs and she practically threw him into my arms. His fever was not dangerously high, but he immediately began flinching and drawing back from me saying that a snake was trying to bite my neck and he was afraid it was going to bite him too. I told him that there was no snake and tried to reassure him that he was okay, but he was very insistent. We tried to determine if he was still asleep and dreaming, but he really seemed to be awake. I finally asked Sheila to go get my husband. When he arrived I told my husband what was going on and that I thought we needed to pray. As we prayed, we told the snakes that they were not allowed in our house because we belonged to Jesus Christ and we told them that they much leave in the name of Jesus. Little Michael – whose heart had been pounding really hard against my chest – instantly went limp and relaxed into me. When I asked him about the snakes, he said they were all gone. Once in a while, he would pop his head up to look for them, and I would remind him that the snakes were not allowed to come back because Jesus sent them away for us. It took us hours to calm him down enough to get him back to sleep. During this time he kept talking about the snakes and their yellow eyes and he kept complaining about rotten egg burps. None of the rest of us had rotten egg burps or could smell them on him, so I became really suspicious that this was indeed a spiritual attack against this little boy because of the common description I have heard of a sulphur-like smell during spiritual encounters. The next morning, my husband and I decided to talk to Sheila and find out where she stood with God. We discussed some possibilities that may have opened Michael up to attack, like scary movies and video games he had seen. My husband also shared about the story in Acts where some people tried casting out demons in Jesus name and got beaten up by the demoniac because they were not believers in Jesus and therefore had no authority to command the demons. Our friend reassured us that, although her life hadn't always shown it, she had asked Jesus into her life as a small child and He had been her only constant through a tumultuous childhood in foster care and a rough life since. We prayed with her, encouraged her that she had the authority in Jesus name to protect her children, gave her a Bible to study, and then sent them on their way. That was the last time we saw Sheila. About five months later, we received word that she had been killed in a car accident and that Emily was in critical condition. Michael was not in the car with them. We thanked God for that last divine appointment that gave us a peace about Sheila's eternal destiny. As far as Emily, we stay in contact with the family and although she has done remarkably well, she is still unable to speak.

Things began to change for me again when I ran across Joe Jordan's site with all the audio testimonials. I began listening to them on a regular basis and just soaking it all in, as I have sometimes felt very isolated from most Christ-followers, because most of the ones I know don't want to talk about anything to do with demons or even touch the subject with a 10-foot pole. I was so excited to find a ministry that was addressing this exact issue and calling it like it is! Although I have never personally experienced an “alien” encounter, I believed that the experiences I have had can allow me to relate very well to those who have been through abductions or other such encounters. I began to feel an urgency that I had now found a way to at least begin sharing my experiences in a way that could help others to find freedom from the bondage through coming to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ .

As I began to pray and talk to my husband about reaching out to help people and what this could mean, I began to come back under attack. I can remember on several occasions “hearing voices” (more like having thoughts planted in my mind) saying things like, “If you tell anyone your story, we will attack you and your family.” The first time it happened, I started to feel fear creeping back in, then I realized that was exactly what they wanted. So, I began rebuking the fear in the name of Jesus Christ in the same way that I had rebuked the demons.

One night when my husband had left for work (he was working a 3rd shift position and had to be at work by 2AM), I suddenly had fear flood over me that he was dead. I immediately rebuked it in the name of Jesus and went to praying. As I talked to God about it, I asked him to please keep my husband safe, but that I would accept whatever He had planned for my family, even if that meant He took my husband home to Him. Peace and an amazing sense of freedom came over me; letting go and recognizing that every breath we take is by His grace and only happens because He holds everything together, is sooooo freeing.

Another night when my husband had gone to work, I was laying in my bed (upstairs) and I thought I heard noises downstairs like kitchen cabinets opening and closing. Because my children were at my parents and I didn't have to protect anyone, I lay there frozen in fear. Then the lights on the staircase came on and I could hear footsteps coming up the stairs. Since my bedroom door was open, I could see the top of the stairs and saw a bald head appear. It was scarred with oranges scars, almost like talon-marks. As the head came up, and the face turned to look at me it was pure evil. The “man” came over to my door, walked into my bedroom, and walked over to stand right beside my bed. He was smiling down at me with such an evil expression that I knew I was going to be raped and murdered in my bed. I couldn't move or speak. I honestly thought I was facing an actually person who had broken into my home. All I could think to do was call on Jesus for help. I mustered everything in me and spoke out loud with all I had (it came out as barely a whisper), “Leave me alone, in the name of Jesus Christ!” The “man” seemed startled and taken aback. I spoke again, this time in a loud voice, “I said... Leave me alone, in the name of Jesus Christ!” Poof! He vaporized into a haze of black smoke and I sat bolt upright in bed. I think I had been sleeping because the lights were off again when I sat up! I think the time was 2:58 AM when I sat up. I began reading my Bible and praying.

Most recently, again I was in bed one night when my husband was at work. My 2-year old daughter was in bed with me and my 2-month old daughter was in her Moses' basket on the floor beside my bed. I looked up from my bed to see a grayish-black hazy figure standing in the door to my room, and felt the evil presence. I rebuked it in the name of Jesus and it disappeared. Strangely, shortly after that, it came back. I again rebuked it in the name of Jesus and it disappeared. It returned a third time just a few minutes later. I had never had such a persistence from an evil spirit and was somewhat baffled by it. I picked up my 2-year old and stood up face-to-”face” with the demon and told it, “In the name and authority of Jesus Christ, you must leave. And if you come back again, I will send you to the abyss.” It disappeared and did not come back again. The next day we were celebrating a Passover Seder at our church in Radford, VA and our head pastor asked everyone to pray about Quadfest. After the dinner, we stayed to pray with other members and I asked what Quadfest is. Apparently, it is a week-end of drinking, drugs, sex, etc. in Radford that begins on Thursday at noon and doesn't end until Monday morning. I think the evil spirit I encountered that night was somehow drawn to our area by the happenings at Quadfest. I shared with some of our church members about my experience the night before and we prayed all the harder for spiritual protection over Radford that week-end.

In conclusion, I want to thank God for the freedom He has given me. I know the battle is far from over, but I am confident that God has all of it in His hands and that I can trust His capable hands. Thank you God!

I also want to encourage anyone who is reading this and does not know the Creator of the Universe (Jesus) personally to seek Him with all your heart. The Bible says if you do this, you will find Him! It is the most important quest you will ever be on.

God Bless!