Day 18 - Free At Last!

This is one of the testimonies in our book, The Hidden Power of a Woman. We know many people struggle with areas that seem just too difficult to overcome. This woman's testimony of deliverance and total identity change in the glory is one that we hope offers a fresh lifeline of hope to many who struggle or are praying for those who struggle with identity issues. We overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the power of our testimony!

As I drove into the warehouse complex, I knew something big was about to go down, but the only thing I could do to mask my hopeful excitement was mock the “signs and wonders” that I heard would be seen. Four of my friends squeezed into three chairs, and that was the first miracle, because no one complained that they were uncomfortable; there was far too much to look at and take in!

Finally, it began. The music, the tambourines, the shaking, the shouting…what in the world was happening? Although my parents sat silently behind me, I think they were in shock that I was at the conference. It had only been nearly 12 years that they had been praying for me to come to the Lord! As a matter of fact, my mom had discovered what she calls “the Chavda conferences,” and had started a mini-watch at her house, where prayer for my salvation and deliverance greatly intensified.

Then one of my friends said, “Let’s clap; we’ll blend in better!” So we all methodically clapped to an unfamiliar rhythm. Looking around me and staring at every person—on the floor, in the middle of the aisle, shaking and crying—it sure wasn’t like being in public where people can tell if you are staring at them. So I announced, “Look around and feel free to stare; they sure won’t notice!” So we clapped, we stared and we began to relax. Seeing that we weren’t ready to run out, my mom tapped me on the back and said, “Go dance in the aisle.”
“You’ll never catch me dancing in this church!” I snapped back.

Something began to change. The music slowed down. I literally felt like I was not in the same room. What was that sound? I didn’t understand it. What were they saying? How did they all know the same song? It was another language. I wanted to hear more. Something was very different now. The woman on the platform announced that the “Angel of the Lord was here.” “Where?” I thought. I didn’t see anything. Where was He? Then everyone in the room gasped...a golden dust was in the air and caught in a Bible! The very thing I had mocked had happened before my eyes! Now I believed. But the most significant moment was about to happen.

Pastor Mahesh walked up to the front of the crowd, held up his hands, which were golden from the manifestation, and shouted, “Let the King of Glory…COME IN!” I suddenly felt anxious. I wanted to check my pockets for a ticket. I was convinced that Jesus was about to appear. “I almost missed it,” I said to myself. “I almost missed it! I barely made it! Jesus is coming back…do I have whatever is required to go with Him when He arrives?” I was excited and fearful at the same time.

Then Pastor Mahesh said it again. “Let the King of Glory…COME IN!” Instantly I heard the sound, starting on my left and going around the back of me all the way to the right, of huge steel doors slamming shut one after the other. Then a voice said, “I have closed the doors of your past…and I am sealing them shut!” I felt as if I were standing in front of a new open door. It was at that precise moment that I finally took a deep breath and exhaled what I had been holding in for 12 years. I knew that I would no longer live the life of a lesbian. I literally no longer had that identity or desire. It was like someone took that heavy object out of my hand, and I no longer had to carry it. I stood there in shocked silence. It was too much to sort through in my mind. I had only been in that warehouse for a little more than an hour. Could this be real?

One of the speakers that night shared her testimony of how the Lord healed her and delivered her from a situation that had no hope. At one point, gripping her jacket, she expressed how the only real thing any of us had was Jesus, and if we didn’t know what to do or where to turn, “Hold onto Jesus! Just hold on, He will not let you go.” There was a moment while she was speaking when gold-like particles, as out of thin air, covered her from head to toe! I felt that to “hold on” was all I could do!
I demanded that my friends get in the prayer line with me, and we ended up waiting for 45 minutes! People were falling all over the room. I felt anesthetized. We walked in a straight line, like kindergartners, holding hands as if to protect one another by doing whatever was about to happen together. We put our toes on the line of gray duct tape on the floor at the front of that room of more than a thousand people. Myself, a lesbian for 12 years, my friend, who had just entered the gay lifestyle, a co-worker who was 5 months pregnant out of wedlock and my boss, who was raised Pentecostal; there we were, all holding hands together!

My gay friend and I looked at one another and vowed, “We are not going down!” But I wanted to see that gold stuff up close. Suddenly, my eyes started getting a milky glaze over them, and I could hardly see anything! Something like a wave of electricity went through me, and one of my friends collapsed on the floor. The woman ministering simply laughed kindly as she stood in front of me. Then she kissed me on the cheek. In an instant, I too was falling down in a blanket of the Presence of God that was more real and wonderful to me than my girlfriend waiting for me at home or anything in that church. Twenty minutes later we all opened our eyes, lying side by side in stunned silence. My parents were silently watching from a distance.

I managed to get to my car and, once alone, the tears came. “Lord,” I said, “I am so sorry, but for so much that I don’t know where to start.” A perfect peace washed over me. As I drove home in that Presence, the oil that had been touched to my forehead during the prayer was multiplying and oozing all over me. At the same time it was as if a holy salve had anointed the eyes of my heart, and scales from many things were falling off. I knew there was an open door in front of me. That door was Jesus and His moment of destiny in my life.
The next night, I raised my hand in what I thought was a survey by Pastor Mahesh of those who didn’t speak in tongues. I joined a group of more than 20 people and began to speak in tongues. It felt so natural. Again, that anesthetized feeling came over me as I moved to the prayer line. Mahesh prayed for me, and I was out like a light. It was as though my life were a child’s flip book passing before my fluttering eyes as deliverance from the hurt and devastation of all those things I had willingly and unwillingly experienced took place. When it was over, I felt like Cinderella at the ball in the fairy tale. There was light all around me, and in that light my desires were transformed. Thirty minutes later I heard my mom’s voice as they had been searching for me in the mass of people. I literally bumped into my father as I managed to stand. I was instantly reconciled with my family after twelve years of distance and conflict. My parents were in shock. The next day my mom told me that seven years earlier Bonnie had given her a word: “The Lord has heard your prayers for your children, and your daughter will return to her borders.”

In the time since that conference God has brought me into employment for a well-known Christian ministry and has entrusted me with a position of leadership in my local church. I can’t imagine where I would be today if my sister, my mother and my father had not been relentless to pray and believe in the power of the Lord’s hand. Today, I know who I am. I am a daughter of the Lion of the tribe of Judah. I am part of a family, both natural and spiritual, that is irreplaceable. I live in a nation that affords us the freedom to worship Jesus freely and embrace all He has. I found my ticket; it was repentance, it was forgiveness, it was love, it was family, it was the Holy Spirit, it was Jesus, it was choosing to be a part of my natural family and my spiritual family.

Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty I am FREE…AT…LAST!”