In December of 2008 was when God found me. This was at the time of the second lowest period of my life (The first being suicide attempts). It took place while I was in a separation period and preparing for a divorce. I had came to my all time lowest point. I was holding in pain from the abuse caused in my marriage. I was bottling all the hurt and intense emotions down into the very pit of my being and soul. I was angry, hurt, bitter, depressed, and even on the verge of suicidal. I had bared the burden too long. I could not take it anymore. To make matters worst I was with drawing from the sleep aids and nerve pills which I had abused my body with. I had secretly been slipping around and taking too many to drown all the pain from the abuse in my marriage. I decided to quit cold turkey. When the withdrawal symptoms got too much to bare I decided to go back on the pills and taper off of them slowly. The withdrawal was still like Hades on earth. I turned into a mad woman.
I decided I couldn't take the pain from the withdrawal any longer. I started screaming and cussing God out. I was laying in the floor screaming at God saying: "#$#% you God, You #%$#$%# ruined my $#%#%$ life, I hate you God, I know you see me down here. Look at the pain that you have caused me. You must hate me. You know what God I am going to come up to Heaven and kick your %%$. That's right God I am coming up there and you can't stop me...." You get the picture. I told God off. Then I did something even more stupid. I decided to abuse my nerve pills again. I did it two different times in the same week. I then decided to taper off of the pills slowly. Throughout the withdrawal from the nerve pills God really had to deal with a lot of crap from me. During the withdrawal I ended up cutting my wrist once. That was the first time in a long time I had done that. Well besides a few times in the marriage while I was backsliding and suffering adverse effects to medication that the doctors had put me on. Anyway, during the withdrawal I had random outbursts of violence where I would lock myself in my bedroom and scream at the top of my lungs to God. I would also break things in the room by throwing them into the walls or door. I was a complete total mess. Then it happened I came to the end of myself. One night I was sitting in the floor in front of my bedroom door. I had a bunch of full prescription pill bottles scattered in front of me. I also had a bible, which was in my hand. I proceeded to pick up a pill bottle. There I was sitting with a pill bottle in one hand and a bible in the other hand. I remember looking up in my dark bedroom. As I looked up I screamed at God. I said, " God, this is how it is going to be, you are either going to fix me and show me the truth or I am going to commit suicide". All of a sudden, I felt the most incredible peace and fire feeling come upon me. I felt God trying to speak to my soul through my thoughts. It was as though he was saying, "I am here for you, I am still in you through the holy spirit. I love you and I will heal you". At that moment I knew that God was real. I knew that my salvation had taken when I was 14. Every negative thing that I had believed and heard about God suddenly began to melt away as the holy spirit continued to come upon me. At that moment I knew God was there and that he did for some reason actually Love me. It was as though at that very moment my heart was changed. I began to loudly cry and sob. As I cried, God began his healing process in me. I ended up dropping the pill bottle to the floor. Once the bottle hit the floor, I began to hug my bible. There I sat in the cold floor hugging a bible crying to God while he hugged me with his holy fire and peace. At that moment I knew God was there and that he did for some reason actually Love me. It was as though at that very moment my heart was changed. I began to loudly cry and sob. As I cried, God began his healing process in me. I ended up dropping the pill bottle to the floor. Once the bottle hit the floor, I began to hug my bible. There I sat in the cold floor hugging a bible crying to God while he hugged me with his holy fire and peace. Over the proceeding months God began a drastic change in me. He began emptying me of all the pain and memories of abuse. I would spend night after night locked up in my bedroom being healed by God. It would start out with me sitting in my bedroom floor. Sometimes I would have worship music on and other times I wouldn't. I would start talking to God about my pain. Then I would go back and forth with praying to God. Then the holy spirit would arise within me. As the holy spirit rose within me I would have the memories of my abuse come back to me. As each bad memory came to me I would start crying, most of the time hysterically. Sometimes I would even have screams come out of me that did not even sound like me. I couldn't control them. I would also have uncontrollable tears stream down my face. Every time I would get a memory of my past abuse I would ask God to take them from me. After I finally stopped crying and screaming I would have the most peaceful feeling come over me. It was as though my bad memories had been cast upon God and he had replaced the bad memories with his unsurpassing peace. This process continued for months and it quite frankly felt like being put into a refining fire. God's refining fire that is. It was very painful and to be honest God did not give me many breaks in between the refining. I believe he did this because where I had been suicidal. He needed to get all of the junk out of me so I wouldn't relapse into my old suicidal ways. See the abuse had happened to me when I was fully alert. I didn't have a pill addiction when I got abused, the pill addiction followed the abuse. The pills had been merely a way of masking and hiding my pain deep within me. Where I had been abused when I was in my normal state the abuse had set in deeper. Therefore the memories of abuse had more of an impact on my emotions and mind. The whole refining process was truly painful, but the end result was like nothing else on earth. I had so much peace after I had been refined from my past and abuse. I felt as though nothing had happened to me at all. I had simply became a new creature in Christ. I had finally achieved the unsurpassing peace that I had heard of once before and didn't believe existed. There I was at peace and feeling like I was sitting on a Holy Cloud with God. I was finally Free. I was finally spiritually awakened. Shortly after the refining period I had a dream. A dream that little did I know would change me and my life forever. One night in April of 2009 I was laying in my bed. I felt the holy spirit come over me. As the holy spirit came over me I fell into a half asleep, half awake state. All of a sudden I seen a silhouette coming towards me. The silhouette was in the form of light. It resembled Jesus. He had lightning flashing all around him. As he walked towards me the light and lightning became brighter and brighter. I remember seeing a bible flash before me as well. Jesus and the bible would take turns flashing back and forth. The first time the bible flashed I seen a verse. The verse was : Matthew 14:27 : “Be of good cheer it is I , be not afraid”. Then, he touched my right hand. I could feel his power, it felt like lightning was going through my body. I remember that the feeling of peace was so strong. I also remember that it felt that I had been lifted up into heaven or in between heaven and earth. Then he touched my hand. As he had his hand on mine I could feel a huge surge of power flow all through my body. I then heard him faintly say, “ I am here to give you strength.” Soon after that I seen the bible again. This time I seen the verse : John 15:26-27 : “But when the comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the spirit of truth, which proceeded from the Father, he shall testify of me : And ye also bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.” I remember that the bible looked like a study bible. Above the verse I seen the phrase : “I Have Chosen You”. Then I seen Jesus holding my hand still. After that, I seen the same bible again this time though I seen a page which said, “End times”. On the same page I could faintly see the Chapter of Luke. Then I seen Jesus once again. After that I seen the bible one last time. The verse I seen was : Acts 2:17 : “And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:”. I then awaken with the most intense peaceful feeling. I believe I had been slain in the spirit because I kept the high feeling for the proceeding days following the dream. The same night that I had the dream I felt lead to read my bible. I had not read my bible in a while because I was using an online bible. So I was lead to read my bible. I picked it up off of my bookshelf and proceeded to flip through the pages. I felt the holy spirit guide me to certain pages. As I was guided through the pages the spirit revealed to me that the passages in my dream were from my own KJV Nelson study bible. The oddest thing is that I never remember seeing the verses and pages I had seen in my dream until the holy spirit revealed them to me. See at the time I rarely used that bible because my Grandma had bought it for me shortly before her death and I was attempting to preserve it. Therefore I did not know much about that bible at the time of my dream. I believe that the dream I had was a divine revelation and calling from God. I believe that night God called me to help reach people who are currently going through what I have already went through and have been saved from. He was strengthening me for the calling which he was giving me. I believe that I seen verse John 15:26-27 because I received the full baptism of the holy spirit that night. Before I knew God, but I did not truly follow him. I was still living partly in the flesh as a half baked Christian. I also believe that after my healing God thought I was ready to receive the full baptism of the holy spirit so he gave me that dream. The next night I felt strongly lead to start painting. At the time I was considered a high school drop out with no painting experience whatsoever. As a teenager I did however paint ceramics in bible school with my Grandmother, but the ceramics had guide lines. I was not that good at it though. As a teenager I felt lead to get an easel and art supplies, but never could go through with trying to paint. I tried to paint one painting and left it unfinished. I pretty much was bad at it. Anyway, I was prompted by the holy spirit to paint. I decided to go on a search in my closet at the time. I remembered that I had saved some of the art supplies from the past. Although I had moved around to different places a lot I still somehow managed to keep a few things to my surprise. I ended up finding 3 canvases, 4 bottles of acrylic paint, 3 paint brushes, and my easel. I felt a strong nudge from the holy spirit to paint a painting. At first I thought, “Paint a painting? With only 4 colors? Get real!”. The thoughts of painting would not subside though. I decided to then step out in faith and answer what the holy spirit was trying to get me to do. I ended up creating my first painting that night. The painting is known as “The Light of the World”. As I was painting it I felt as though something had happened to me. That I was different. Truth is I had been anointed through the dream I had been given. I honestly believe that. I became an Artist pretty much over night. However God is still not finished with me and the skills he has placed within me yet. The colors I ended up painting the painting with were Ivory, Navy Blue, Black, and Yellow. It appears that there is an angel to the left side of the painting. It takes a while to see it, but it is there. It was unplanned, I am writing it off as another mystery of God. In the spring of 2009 God answered one of my prayers from when I was a kid. I had asked him to give me a Flame/Red point Siamese cat. I was taking the trash out one day and seen this dirty looking white cat getting in my trash at the end of the driveway. I scared him away. He kept coming back though. He appeared to be hungry. Finally I picked him up one day and looked at him. He had crossed blue eyes. Something in me knew he was my cat. I decided to start feeding him on my porch. I assumed he belonged to one of the neighbors. No one ever claimed him. I finally decided to make him an inside cat after one of the neighbors kicked him and hurt him really bad. He then ran to my house and was laying on the porch. I took him in and bathed him and cleaned his cuts. When he dried he had orange markings on him. I named him Fredrick. I called him “Fred Head” though because he has a red head (laughs). God knew what I needed to help in my healing through the divorce process : A Siamese Cat. Which sadly he has passed on now, but God knew I what I needed during that time. That proceeding summer, which was in 2009, I was lead to paint bible verses. I was also lead to start writing messages along with the paintings. I also started posting them on my old myspace which I no longer have. One thing lead to another and I decided to make a free site of my paintings. I remember spending many frustrating nights failing miserably at painting and begging God to help me with it. The more this happen the more mercy and skills God gave me. I was honestly taught to paint through the holy spirit. I had no experience at all. I was just a small town nobody that God took and made a somebody with his purpose. The fall of 2009 arrived. I received my divorce decree. My ex husband split on me because he wanted to live and did not want commitment. He was also abusive towards me. I dealt with every type of abuse imaginable. I am not pointing fingers though. It was very hard to forgive him for all the pain he caused me. Only God truly knows the pain that I had during and through it all. I can honestly say that I forgive him now. Like I said it was hard though, only God can help you forgive abuse like that. I too know that I may have added the fuel to the fire at times with my ex. I know I am not perfect by no means. So who am I to say he is not forgivable. I would be saying that God’s plan for forgiveness is invalid. Therefore if God forgave me through Christ, then I have chosen to also release my ex husband. Unforgiveness is like a poison rushing through your veins. unforgiveness is nothing to mess around with. I chose to forgive him and wish him happiness. I am no longer in contact with him. There are many reasons for that. One being safety. Two being that we have nothing in common any longer. God and I have sealed the door of that chapter in my life shut. I chose to forgive and move on into the life God has for me to live. A few days after my birthday In March 2010 I was sitting in my bedroom looking at my paintings. I started to notice how a few of them where similar. I took them off the walls and laid them all in the floor. I started to line them up based on looks and bible verses. Somehow I had painted sets of 3 with similar bible verses and scenes. It was totally unplanned. Once I figured this out I had to redo my whole website. I then proceeded to finish doing sets of 3 in my artwork. Shortly before I finished 30 paintings I felt prompted to get the domain JessicaLeaArt.com , so I did. Not long after that I felt lead to start digging into the bible to learn more with the holy spirit’s help. What I thought was a learning period for me turned out to be more. I ended up writing modern day bible verse topics. I spent endless nights in the bible online categorizing verses. During all of this I decided to go to a prophetic conference at the Pentecostal church I grew up in. The speaker prayed over me and gave me word that I was called from the womb. She also gave me word that I would have some sort of ministry. Shortly after that I moved Near Huntington, West Virginia. Exactly 7 days after I had moved in to the new place I felt the Holy Spirit Guide me back to a free website I had created in July of 2010. I was being nudged continually and my thoughts were consumed by what the prophetic woman had said to me. I kept feeling lead to go get a canvas to paint a banner for the website. I finally broke down and went and bought a canvas. I painted the banner, scanned it, then edited it in a photo editor. I started working on my movement site after that. I named it “Revived Heart”. I took it from this verse : Ezekiel 36:26 (NLT) : "And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart." Revived Heart simply means God will revive your heart. The message behind the name is that God will revived and fix your heart through his love and healing power. He will heal you of all of your pain and broken past. He will give you peace in the place of the pain in your heart. God will take away your heart of stone and give you a heart that is healed and responsive towards him through his son Jesus Christ. The site name came to me when I was doing my last set of message art, which I also titled revived heart. Not long after starting Revived Heart, I felt lead to look for one of my journals. I had wrote an entry about conditional love in it. At the time of creating it I had no idea what I would use it for, so I just put the journal away. When I found it I felt lead to put it on Revived Heart. I also felt lead to add art to the message. As I was looking through my journals I noticed I had went crazy with drawing ink art all over the inside covers. I decided to use the art from the journals. The symbolism matched the meaning in the message. I ended up creating message articles from that one journal entry. To me a message article is a cross between a message, lesson, and devotional. I have been writing them since. I was also lead to write prayers out of the book of psalms and lead to write Christian quotes. I am currently still working on more bible verse topics. I am also working on a new season of art called word art. The word art will take time to finish. Also in December 2010 Revived heart received it’s own domain : RevivedHeart.com . Since I have moved to Huntington I have had a lot new things happen for me. I Went Non Denominational. I moved around and relocated a lot. I graduated Online High School and Online Art School. I also felt lead to quit my Movement to go solo and do many similar projects under my name, still doing ministry, just doing it alone on this site. God is still writing my life and my testimony as I write this. When God causes more things to happen in my life there will be a third testimony, which should be soon, until then this is my living testimony. - Jessica Lea. I once was dead, but Now I have been Revived! "By the Grace of God go I !" hjjkhjk On March 18, 2001 I got saved with a following baptism on March 22, 2001. Suicidal Thoughts and attempts mixed with Manic Depression is what lead me to God. It took place around the years of 1999 and 2000. As a child I attended a church of God that was of the Pentecostal denomination. My mother had gotten saved there when I was about two years old. My father fell away from God before I was born. When I was about eight my mother changed to a baptist denominational church. My Father had heart disease since before my birth and he was not able to work. Life was not very peaceful at home. When I was 12. I got into the wrong type of crowd, some of them where on drugs, I never did them though. I have always had self control around illegal drugs. The crowd I was around at the time was like skater/Goth/punks. I was basically your typical Metal Head, Suicidal, Goth/Punk girl. My life at that time consisted of razors and depressing loud secular metal music. My father was verbally and sometimes physically abusive towards me when i was a child. It felt like nothing i ever did could please him. I loved my dad, but sometimes it was very hard to deal with him. The physical abused stopped when I was 11 right around the time that we moved to a new home. He was still verbally abusive at times. The last few years before he died we finally started getting along more. Even though I didn't understand him sometimes, I still loved him and I miss him. He had anxiety disorder which made him angry, I too have anxiety disorder and anger, I can say that as an adult I understand my father more now. I started my self harm phase because of all the years of rejection, abuse, and ridicule from others. I continued self harm after my father's death because of school and the past thoughts of abuse. The thoughts in my head were: "What if he lived?". I never really got the closure I needed. God has given me closure enough though.
During one of my last major attempts in 2000 is when God revealed himself to me in my walk in closet at Amherstdale, West Virginia. I was actually trying to get up the courage to take 160 painkillers, I figured it would shut my inner organs down. The cutting and past attempt of 80 just knocked me out for four days. No one noticed because I was so introverted anyway. In the closet on the shelf was a bible. It had been given to me by a local church my mother and grandparents had attended. I never even paid any attention to it. This night it was hard to miss it though. It fell off the shelf onto my head and then hit the floor. I picked it up and just as I was going to close it, I saw two verses that caught my eyes. The verses were as follow: Matthew 7:7-8 (King James Version) : "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened." All of a sudden I felt the most incredible feeling of peace I have ever felt come over me (I call them spiritual hugs from God now that I know him). I was seeking peace, rest, and something to believe in. He was telling me that I would find him if I would only seek him. He was telling me that he would open the spiritual doorway if I would only knock. I wanted to receive him right then, but I was not sure of what was going on. I had not ever really paid attention in church and I had not gone in over two years. Out of the Blue my grandmother invited me to go to a Baptist church with her. I started going in August 2000. I only went two or three times a month at most. I was beginning to understand, but it had not set in my mind just yet. At home, I was still cutting my wrists here and there. Well, September came around and my father had a heart attack at the age of 43 and died on the 29th. I lost it mentally, The cutting intensified and the thoughts were flooding my mind. I kept running into that verse though, and I could still feel God at times. March came and I turned 14 My grandmother had ordered me a bible that did not show up on time. Instead it showed up on March 17th. I remember reading those verses over and over in the new bible that night and i could feel God trying to prepare my heart. The the next day, On March 18th, I was sitting in Sunday school with my grandmother and it happened. They did an altar call and right then and there I surrendered my life to God in the pew at that church. A few days later on the 22nd I got baptized and I felt the holy spirit ascend upon me like lightning. For four years after that I was still walking as a lukewarm Christian. I was not as serious I should have been and I hadn't really learned much of God and his word, I think being young and confused was a lot of my problem back then. At the age of 18 I met a guy on the Internet. Well, being the lukewarm ignorant Christian that I was, I married him two months later after us meeting in person. It led to me dropping out of high school. The guy was not a believer, and I married him anyway. (I know now that Selfishness was the root of all of my pain. If I had just waited on God, my future would have turned out a lot better. We dig our own pits and this was done with my own poor decisions. The marriage was not built on God and it was inevitable that is was going to crash sometime.) I continued living lukewarm throughout the marriage. The first year of marriage was okay. By the beginning of the second year of the marriage things were going down hill. We were both from troubled households growing up. We both had inner demons of abuse from our past that had not been dealt with yet. My ex husband abused me sexually, physically, and mentally. He would also try to use bible verses to control me. Even though he was not a Christian, I still listened because i did not have the wisdom i needed to stand my ground against him. I was diagnosed with a stomach disorder directly after the sexual abuse happened. The prior pill attempts were also a combined reason it happened to my body. I grew so bitter towards him that i started lashing out with rude words. I hit him a few times after he would say mean things to me. I would also hit him to defend myself when he hit me. I know now that even though he did abuse me that I was wrong to hit him. I was wrong to say bad things too. I feel I might have encouraged more anger and violence from what i had said and did. I still take part of the blame. I am not completely innocent. More less it was a very abusive marriage, but God has washed all of it away now. Anyway, by 2008 it should have already been over. I was so stressed that I was on eight different nerve pills, sleeping pills, and mood stabilizers a day. In January 2008 I started having an reaction to the medication and I was in and out of the emergency room until June of 2008. During this time period was when I threw up blood, lost my hair and vision, and gained weight. They found what it was in June 2008 and took me off it. June 2008 was also when my grandmother passed on. July 2008 brought more trials, my ex husband and I split. He did not want to be married anymore. I had to accept it. By August 2008 I regained some of my vision and also decided to go back to High School online. We decided to do one year separation as grounds of divorce. Well time went on through that year of waiting. I got better, I ended up losing weight and my hair came back in. I finished High School and I took up acrylic painting. I completely devoted myself back to Christ, he healed my wounds and he has even taken away most of the bad thoughts from my past. I know he did that so he could help me live in inner peace through his grace. I have never felt so much peace in my life, he is so amazing. I feel so blessed to be a follower of him. Surrendering my life to him completely was the best decision I have ever made in my entire life. I no longer look for truth because I have found it, Jesus is the truth. So, 2009 came and my ex told me that he would contact me about the divorce, but he failed to. He told me if I could not find him to do what I had to do, he told me that in 2008. He had no income and no way to file. Last time I did know where he was back in 2008, he was almost three hours away. There is always hidden fees. I prayed and asked God to show me what to do and he gave me this : Ezra 10:4(NIV) : "Rise up; this matter is in your hands. We will support you, so take courage and do it." I knew what I had to do, I filed service by publication in July. Right after I filed, I received a letter from him to go through with the divorce. He said he did not want to be married anymore. I sent him another one and he would not reply. I was lead to just let the divorce go through the way that it did. In August, I received a court date for 09-09-09. On that day God was there, I could feel him so strong. It was finalized that day. On September 15, 2009 I received a divorce decree. After that I mailed a copy to the address he sent a letter from. I do not know if he got it, but I do know that I did all that I was capable of at the time. So I can rest easy now. God freed me from my painful past and he is still freeing me to this day. It shows that God's mercy and grace are never ending. I look back and all through the abusive marriage, my teen years of suicide and depression, even my childhood years he was there. He has been there through all my rejection, pain, suffering, and tears. Even when I was so obnoxious and unlovable he still stood right beside me and reached out with his unconditional love. He always caught me when I fell and nothing I can ever do will ever be enough to give him the praise and glory that he truly deserves. I look back and if it weren't for him I would have died. In closing I am saying this : "Father, I do not know what I did to deserve your mercy and loving kindness, but words can never express how grateful I am that you loved me enough to pull me out of my own self created gutter and bring me back to life. You are everything to me father God, you are the center of my universe. I love you God!!!" "Thank You God, Because of You I have Life, a future, and a purpose, I have a reason to live now, that reason is you!" |
TESTIMONY
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