R was adopted into a loving Christian family who did not believe in God’s spiritual gifts. Because of this, she rejected the prophetic visions that God had given her. Here is her testimony of repenting of her rebellion against God and experiencing His mercy and grace. Praise God!
(See Chinese versions: 简体中文 > 耶稣用属灵的恩赐祝福多发性硬化症人士 | 繁體中文 > 耶穌用屬靈的恩賜祝福多發性硬化症人士)
From a very young age, the Lord blessed me with the prophetic gift of visions and dreams.
I also always suspected that I was under a curse growing up. Throughout my life, I would encounter one disaster after another for no apparent reason. Because of this, my adoptive father asked a pastor friend if he could help deliver me from demons and curses.
At our meeting, the pastor sensed that I had certain spiritual gifts and encouraged me to start practising them. He did not know that from a very young age, the Lord had blessed me with visions and dreams for other people that would astonish them because no one could humanly know such things.
Afterwards, I told my adoptive dad about my visions and dreams. Dad snapped at me and told me that it was my abandonment and abusive foster care, before I was adopted, that could have led me to such “hallucinations” and possibly other mental illnesses. He did not believe that the Holy Spirit would still manifest Himself through believers today. As a well-known psychologist and counsellor, dad suggested that I see a psychiatrist and if necessary, be admitted into a mental institution. I was terrified.
His words had such a great impact on me that I remember immediately telling God that I would rather give His gifts back if it meant that I would end up in a mental institution. After all, I had a full life ahead of me.
The moment I made this vow, I was no longer able to practice God’s prophetic gifts.
Over the years, the curse seemed to gain strength. My adoptive parents, who used to be very loving, began to disown me. My marriage was annulled for no reason. I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS), a terminal illness. I often tripped and fell, and sustained bad cuts and injuries.
Most of all, whenever I tried to grow spiritually or move towards God, there would always be some sort of blockage; if I took one step forward, I would then move two steps backwards.
There was an unknown force that held me back from participating in God’s work and moving forward into what He had planned for me. I knew I needed to seek help.
I learned about spiritual counselling and intercessory prayer during a class in church, where one could pray with a fellow believer to confess and repent of our sins, renounce and revoke ungodly covenants, break curses and cast out demons from our own lives. Hoping to be set free from the bondage I was in, I asked to meet with the counsellor who organised the class.
We met a few days before my mission trip to Africa. My mission teammates and I had been experiencing many spiritual attacks. I had fallen from a first-floor patio to the ground floor. Through God’s grace and protection, I only experienced minor abrasions and a dislocated shoulder. I sensed the curse at work and an urgency to go through the prayer session before the mission trip.
The prayer session was unexpectedly calm. Nothing supernatural happened.
We went through my personal and family history in detail. I also told the prayer counsellor about a list of curses that a fortune teller had written on a sheet of paper about me. My original biological family were very superstitious and practised various forms of idol worship and Chinese witchcraft. Because I was born prematurely and my grandfather died in a car accident and my uncle became very ill around the same time I was born, they believed I had brought the family “bad luck”. As a result, they wrote a “contract” on me to channel bad consequence onto me.
So one of the things we did was to break the biological family’s curses over my life in Jesus’ name and declare that I now belonged to Jesus. I also repented for rejecting God’s supernatural gifts.
I also noticed that whenever I talked about myself in the past, I would cry till I was exhausted and dehydrated. Yet for some reason, there were no tears. I thought I would be traumatised, and possibly faint, throw up or fall over – but it was like a regular prayer session; chatting with a friend about God and sharing my testimony.
Little did I know that God had cancelled the curses over me at that prayer session.
God’s gift of visions and dreams came back immediately. As I slept on the plane to Africa for the mission trip, I saw a vision of our team members interlocking our hands and forming a circle with our backs against each other. When the circle was completed, our team was lifted off the ground and roots began growing out of our feet. The roots grew thicker and thicker and penetrated the ground until they couldn’t be seen.
Because of my childhood experiences, I wasn’t delighted by this vision but fearful and doubtful. In desperation, I asked God to interpret the dream for me and provide a Bible verse so that I could be sure it was from Him. The Lord caused me to fall into a deep sleep almost immediately. He patiently “replayed” the entire dream in identical detail but this time, with a “voice-over” and later, with a Bible verse.
The voice said:
“Many in Uganda claim to know Me but they don’t have deep roots. When the storm comes they will be uprooted from the ground. The harvest is plenty and I will send your team as the workers for me. Let them know that this is a new season for the team, a year of breakthrough for each and every team member. Desire to grow deep in Me and I will give you strength to accomplish the impossible. Go out as a team and trust in My empowerment for each one of you. It will be a new chapter for the team with new shoots sprouting. For you, be encouraged, and let them know the desire of My heart.“
The Bible verse was:
Job 14:7-9 NIV At least there is hope for a tree: If it is cut down, it will sprout again, and its new shoots will not fail. Its roots may grow old in the ground and its stump die in the soil, yet at the scent of water it will bud and put forth shoots like a plant.
When I woke up, I was perplexed and overwhelmed by a sense of unworthiness. An unexplainable fear rose up within me. My excuse was, “I don’t think the team will believe in anything I was going to tell them anyway.” I decided to go on as if the dream never happened.
God had His own plans to graciously show me the purpose of His gift and help me overcome my fears.
On the third evening of our trip, I was assigned to take pictures of the team’s discussions. What happened afterwards shook me terribly. My entire “in-flight dream” began to replay out right in front of me as I looked on at my team members. I could not believe my eyes! I knew I could no longer hide from my Lord, so I eventually shared the vision with them. I was overwhelmed with humility when they told me that they were blessed by my vision.
No one doubted that the prophetic dream ever happened, which was my greatest fear.
Through this, the Lord revealed to me that once I enter into a covenant relationship with Him, He will be committed to fulfilling His purposes in my life. It only requires one thing on my part — obedience.
Each one of us has a form of disobedience. For some, it requires only a small nudge to gently lead us back toward our Father. For a child with little faith like myself, a lightning bolt was necessary to get my undivided attention. And all He required back in return was a faith the size of a mustard seed.
My previous experience of being told I was hallucinating when I shared my visions with my adoptive dad caused me to rebel against the living God. Rather than having the faith to accept the spiritual gifts God had graciously given me, I chose to reject them out of fear of man. Yet God’s love is so great that He went through great measures to get my attention and call my heart back through a supernatural intervention.
Out of His grace and unfailing love for me, God still chose to give everything back to me in double portion.
He has given me back all the gifts I had initially rejected, so I can let His glory shine as I humbly serve Him with those gifts. I now worship God on my knees, in awe and obedience.