I recently came across an ex new age guru’s testimony on how he encountered Jesus on YouTube and have been pouring through his videos and website. It brought back memories of the time before I met Mark and God 13 years ago, I was hungry for more than religion and was all open “spiritually”.

I visited a Tarot card reader that cost two hundred dollars . I had my palm read a few times for close to a hundred each time. I visited an Indian Astrologist. I bought crystals and paid hundreds to custom make a ring and a necklace with semi precious stones because I was told I lacked those “energies”. I was approached by a “psychic” in New York that told me she had a message from God and that she was a Christian too, but at the end of her message, she wanted money. I grew up in a church, thought I “knew” all about the bible and God, but I really didn’t. I was deceived by all these people – even the one that sold me the crystal rings read “angel cards” and said he was a “Christian” too and that it was perfectly fine – and I believed him… I had books on how to read palms, chinese animal zodiac signs, and was into all of that.

In my time of seeking, I truly thought they were so accurate because they would always tell me something about my family or past that seemed true. However, they would always tell me something bad was going to happen in my future IF I did not do this or that. It would be warnings and fear instilled, curses placed upon me and visit after visit, I had let the big bad wolf into my house thinking that it was my grandmother. Grandmother, why do you have such big teeth? All the better to EAT YOU WITH, my dear!!!!

I was told that I was susceptible to having an affair and that I would probably have a second marriage. I had to be careful because married men would be after me and I had a tendency to fall for them, despite being married myself.

I was told that I could not go diving because if I did, I would DIE. (And I was so sad about this because I had just gone for my open water and first dive trip and loved it. This curse paralyzed me and I did not dare to go diving again after. I do plan to now once the kids can join me! There is no fear in the love of God. He has set me free from these fears.)

I was told that I could not keep a wine in my house because I would become an alcoholic. I believed it as I was drinking quite often during that time but I almost embraced that I would become an alcoholic and could even drink an entire bottle of wine on my own. I used to drink every other day pre-Jesus. I needed to get high to get that emptiness or “down” feeling out of me. It was temporal happiness but never satisfied. I was thirsty but only the living water of Jesus can satisfy me.

I was told that I lacked favour and passion! At that time I completely believed it. I was a financial advisor and my “passion” for my job seemed to be waning. My uncle who eventually passed away at that time, had cancer. I was visiting him at the hospice almost everyday for months and yet when I did he would be unappreciative it seemed. I bought presents often for friends on trips and all these thoughts and the biggest lie came into my life – everything you do goes unnoticed and you ARE unappreciated and unfavoured. You do so much for your family and no one appreciates you. He said that a yellow stone would help me balance out that favour energy I lacked, and a red stone would be so passion. I made that into a ring.

All these culminated and led up to the prayer that changed my life. The prayer that gave me an encounter with a real and living God that KNEW me.

As they gathered in a circle to pray, a group of young people whom I had never met before, casually said “hey let’s pray for her she’s new here”.

They gathered around me and without asking me for any prayer requests or knowing anything about what I’ve been going through, started “praying”.

One said, do you make jewelry? (I had just moved back from New York and started Hadasity at this time)… I was mindblown. Wait, how did you know? I thought to myself.

Then came the words that erupted a volcano full of tears and emotions that I did not know were in me. A tsunami of love engulfed my heart. I’ve cried a lot in my life but I had never had tears flow uncontrollably because I felt so known and loved.

Recalling these words as clearly as I can remember.

“God knows that relationships are very important to you and that you feel UNAPPRECIATED. But he wants you to know that HE APPRECIATES YOU. He loves you and you are like his princess, his daughter and I see him carrying you in his arms”.

And there was a lot more but these were the words that I would always remember because I had just told a friend in the afternoon those exact words. “I FEEL UNAPPRECIATED”.

How was it that these young people who did not know me, who did not ask for any money at all, who were “Christians”, KNOW this? How is it that they could hear from God???? And be even more accurate than all these fortune tellers that I had been visiting? How is it that I just had Theia crazy experience and cried my eyeballs out and what on earth was this? I needed to know…

If The God of the Bible that I grew up with could speak to regular young people like them, I wanted to know HOW! If the God of the Bible in the church I grew up in, wasn’t silent as I had always thought he was – just a story in the Bible with a bunch a rules that I could never keep, then I had to know him. If God actually communicated and talked to us…. ?

IF GOD actually Knew me , and loved me…..

I had to know THIS GOD.

I bugged those guys with so many questions that night after the meeting. It was my first encounter with people that were true followers of Jesus without bothering about denominations and man made rules about what church should look like. They worshipped, gathered, prayed, preached the gospel, preached Jesus. My life was never the same again.

It’s so possible to grow up attending a church and reading the Bible without a relationship and understanding. That was me. I had no revelation because I had no relationship. I had not fallen in love. I did not know I was loved. I could not have a relationship with a God I did not believe was real. I could not talk to a God that I did not know could talk to me or even listened to my “prayers”.

My dearest friend, if you’re reading this and don’t know this God that is so very real and who loves you so very much that he gave up his own son Jesus to die on the cross For your sins and mine, so that we would no longer be separated from him and so that we could enter into his presence and have a relationship with him.

The popular verse John 3:16 says that “For God SO LOVED the world that HE GAVE his only son so that whoever believes in him would have eternal life” but there’s another verses that not many always recite that I have come to rest upon.

ETERNAL LIFE is Knowing this God and Jesus Christ! Mindblowing. He does not say that Eternal life is going to heaven, living forever etc. this Eternal life is to KNOW GOD and to have that relationship with him. Mind blowing, right?

“Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”

– John 17:3 NIV

If you do not Know God today, I’m praying that you will right not encounter his love and his presence. I pray that he will bring people, circumstances into your life that would orchestrate knowing him. I pray that he would give you dreams and visions of him, and give others dreams and visions for you! I pray that you would have a insatiable hunger to know who this God is because he has never stopped reaching TO you. I pray that your life will never be the same again when you do. You will live life, and have life abundantly to the fullest! ❤️

I love you!

Because He first loved me.