How Jesus Saved Me!

There have been two giants in my life, seemingly sent to destroy me: a father who didn’t seem to love me, and mental illness.

My father is a retired pastor, so he lived a double life. He was a ‘man of the cloth’ to the public, but to his family and to me, he was an angry man. He lashed out at me and hurt me, verbally and physically all through my childhood.

When I turned 18, I suddenly had a terrible manic episode. It was like having a bad LSD trip, only I hadn’t taken drugs. Suddenly, all my plans were destroyed – no college for me. I was suddenly unable to do the things I was once able to do, and that is how I have been ever since – fragile.

But that is not the whole story.

When I had the episode, I went to my mother and asked Jesus into my heart. Getting into a bible study with my peers followed this, and I began to seek God for the first time in my life. I also forgave my father. At least, it was the first layer of forgiveness for him.

Even though I was seeking God, a year after I had the first episode, and each year for four years after that, I had subsequent manic episodes. Each time, my mother had the wisdom to take me, not to a hospital, but to faith healers.

A couple of times she took me to a hospital, but when I came out and was on drugs and was no better, it became clear that there was no solution in drugs or doctors, so she still had to take me to a faith healer. Through their prayer ministry, I was delivered instantly from manic-depressive symptoms. My manic episode would come to an immediate halt in the name of Jesus!

Finally, in the fourth year, the last faith healer I went to ministered powerfully to me during an episode, and I walked away free.

I didn’t have another episode, at least for eleven years.

Now you would think that I would just be grateful to God and would serve him joyfully because of that. I didn’t. Just because of the mental illness that I had gone through, I doubted God and strayed from Him.

For those years, I had no episodes, just some depression and some slight symptoms that remained – nothing major. But, in order to be rid of those, I went to a psychiatrist. Can you believe that? God had helped me through faith healers, but now I had strayed and was going to a psychiatrist for help.

The psychiatrist put me on some powerful psychotropic medication. I was OK for a couple of years, but then there were these side effects. I started to gain weight. My hair stopped growing. I was miserable. When I tried to go off medication, a manic episode would result! Now I was really miserable! I felt trapped!

In addition to this, I lost the only man I had ever truly been in love with. I was devastated. The good thing about it is that it drove me to the Lord.

Thank God for what drives us back to Him!

You probably want to hear that all my problems ended after that! No! My problems only began at that point! The problems with manic-depression only intensified.

I found the most amazing church in Toronto, the one they call the Toronto Blessing. And there I discovered a love relationship with God like nothing I have ever known.

Two years after I found that I had a horrific car accident while having a bizarre manic episode. I got into a car and drove into a tree, losing a joint in my right foot, and causing a scar across my right shoulder.

I had just begun to learn more about the importance of forgiveness, John Arnott’s favorite message, the Senior pastor at the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship.

It's been an intense spiritual battle all the while pursuing a love relationship with God.

Through it all I’ve found restoration in my soul and in my relationships. I moved back in with my parents after about twenty years of not living with them. I discovered with an attempt to live with them twenty years ago, that living with them was a large part of the mental illness. I'm successfully living with them and having a blessed time with them, helping my dad now that he is disabled.

I had once rejected my family and sought to avoid them, since I had issues with all of them, not just my dad. But now I spend most of my time with them, and have forgiven them, and continue to forgive them.

I have a good job where I have respect and some management responsibilities. I sing at my parents’ church.

God is so real to me and I continue a love relationship with Him where He is the most important thing in my life. Since all the episodes that I went through, I can see that the enemy was trying to stop the growth and healing that was taking place but didn’t succeed.

I’ve also been healed of back trouble and gum disease. I believe God will someday restore the joint that is missing from my foot.

The doctors, who I once feared, have lowered my meds and I can foresee a day when I’ll be taken off of meds completely.

Praise Jesus!

2/17/09