I used to be so scared of sleeping in the day and night because I knew I was in for trouble every time I slept. I would sleep and wake up seeing blood on different parts of my body; my hands, thighs, stomach, face and even my private area. Sometimes, I would wake up screaming but I wouldn’t be heard because my throat was being squeezed.
I saw it as a family thing because my mum, elder sister and brothers were having the same experiences; it’s just that my attacks were usually more serious. My mum was always saying she knew the person who was responsible for our attacks, and that she would expose the person if the woman failed to repent. Whenever she happened to cross paths with this woman in question, she would refuse to greet her, share her material possessions and avoid any physical contact with her. This was my mum’s own way of fighting (now we know that we do not fight against flesh and blood).
In the midst of these events, I was attending church meetings, retreats and camps, especially teens camp. My major prayer point during those programmes was, “God, baptize me with Your Spirit, I know if You baptize me with Your Spirit, I will have the power to overcome these witchcraft operations in my life”.
I was so discouraged after I got baptized in the Holy Spirit in August 2018 and the oppression still continued. My faith was shaken.
From what my spiritual mentor taught me back then, I would wake up by 12:00am and pray in the Spirit for hours. In ignorance, I dabbled into certain kinds of prayers and warfare I wasn’t supposed to engage in. Each time I slept after the prayers, I woke up with scratches worse than I used to have when I wasn’t yet baptized in the Spirit and praying at night. I had scars all over my body, including some deep scratches which were more obvious on my hands and legs. At some point, I was tired of answering questions regarding the scars on my body, so I started lying to anyone who asked about them. I would say that I got scratched in the bush while trying to fetch firewood.
After accepting my fate, my prayer point changed to, “Please Father, lead me to where I will grow spiritually.”
In April 2019, I followed my classmate to God’s Lighthouse without an invitation. This was my second year in the University. I just had a habit of following people to various churches because I was looking for where to grow spiritually. After the meeting that day, I knew I had found the place I was looking for, however, I wasn’t consistent until about 6 months later, sometime in October. I had to wait until the start of the next semester to freely worship in GLH. This was because I had to leave my brother’s house where I was staying off-campus and move into the university hostel.
The Pathway to Deliverance
The major thing I was taught to do in GLH was to read my Bible a lot. I also learnt the art of studying themes from the Bible that addressed my struggles. I knew that deep fear had been planted in my heart as a result of the skin-scratching affliction I suffered. I read later from Rick Joyner’s book ‘Overcoming Witchcraft’ that the dealings of witchcraft were only a means to an end – to bring fear, discouragement, and hopelessness; so that you will lack total zeal to fight the battles of the Lord and the enemy of your soul.
I studied fear and love as I learnt to love the human beings that were on my mom’s suspect list; the people she had taught me to hate. Coming from a place of praying a lot of fruitless prayers in ignorance, I needed to read and study the Bible far more than I prayed. The prophetic words I received and the dreams I was having all confirmed that I needed to drink the word of God like my life depended on it. I obeyed this, although I struggled sometimes. It was at this time I realized that it was much easier to pray – especially in tongues – for hours than it was to read the Bible for even less than an hour. Giant ‘sleep’ showed up sometimes and I fought, though not to the shedding of my blood as Hebrews 12:4 says. I didn’t fight hard enough on some days and fell short on some other days, but the little effort I was making was yielding changes I had no idea of.
The journey so far has been beautiful! God has delivered me from a lot. My skin-scratching affliction stopped completely after the Passover retreat in 2019. Before the retreat, I had been enjoying some level of freedom in this aspect, but it was intermittent. From that time till now – that is more than 4 years now – I have enjoyed freedom from the affliction that once plagued me. I am able to sleep soundly and wake up without any marks on my skin. After the retreat, I was free and free indeed. I am now able to sleep and be woken up by either the Holy Spirit, an alarm, or by the rays of the morning sun, not by the feeling of being pressed and struggling for my dear life.
