Testimony (part 1: being a 'feeler')

Feelings are a language way bigger than words. By "feelings" I mean emotions & sensations. They are condensed information packages like zip files. For me they contain not just personal content but also something of everything I care about, which God knows, is a lot! I am learning more about what it means to be a "feeler" for the Kingdom of God. I pray dear Lord for your burden that is light to help me do your will in discerning & deciphering important feelings & what to do with them, amen!

It is interesting listening to stories of how people come to hear the Lord's calling & how He enriches lives & brings people through challenges. Listening to others' testimonies has helped me, as a Christian, feel less alone in what I have been through. Christianity is often not glamorous or easy. Many of us either come from or get into such difficulties at some point that we even question wanting to be immortal! Despite this, there are millions of brilliant Christian testimonies & many martyrs. This says a lot about the power of the living God! I agree with J. Warner Wallace, the American homicide detective & Christian apologist, who says: "I am not a Christian because it works for me, I am a Christian because it is true." As Christians, we give up to God our temporary, carnal (worldly) lives for eternal life with Christ:

Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. Matthew 10:39 (NIV)

I have been feeling called to share my testimony for quite some time & have realized I need to break it down into short stories so as to capture adequate detail. This blog is about the time in my life, not long ago that culminated in re-dedicating my life to the Lord. After many years of me/cfs illness & trying numerous things to improve my health without success, including crying out to God in prayer countless times, in 2020 I sought energy healing. I won't go into details about how those specific sessions were for me but I'll mention a few points about taking an online class taught by the energy healer.

This course was for learning metaphysical strategies to improve my energy, in other words, "new age" practices. There are those who believe that some of the origins of new age teachings come from Christianity, but with the authority of Jesus Christ removed, they are dangerous, blasphemous, idolatry. At that time, I was a Christian but on the periphery of new age for years, however, I was never really sold on it. Participating in the class with the energy healer felt intriguing but also intimidating. I had entered an arena that felt foreign to me. I was like a pet rabbit in a jungle! They were checking me out in a deep & undisclosed way, which was not comfortable for my highly sensitive, introverted self who just wants to be healthy, engage harmoniously with others & have a pleasant life. Also, I could feel more clearly than usual how everyone's morality is unique.

It is good that I came to know these things in such a tangible way because before this, I could be naive & too trusting of others. However, being introverted & reserved has been one form of protection against that. Around this time, I realized how important adhering to the ten commandments is for communities. As common sense as they are to me, many other people live by totally different moral laws or none at all.

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In the late Spring of 2020, the energy healer-teacher invited me to a 'purification' or sweat lodge, that he was leading. There was four other participants, one 'watchman' & I brought a friend along. It is impossible to put such a densely packed felt experience into words but I will do my best. May this message be pleasing to the Lord & helpful for the Kingdom of God. Before beginning 'the sweat', I was concerned the heat inside the lodge was going to be unbearable, like the heat inside a car on a hot day, a suffocating heat, but it was not like that at all. The most striking aspect of the experience was the profound, unspeakable beauty.

Beauty I felt. Beauty that drenched me in a tender, misty-liquid-light type of love that emanated from the fire that was inside the rocks that lay burning in the middle of the lodge. Holy Spirit filled the dome-shaped log structure we were gathered in. There was nothing scary about this experience, yet I also felt vulnerable & an appropriate 'fear of the Lord' in there. His shear power, sacredness & deserving of respect, commanded such reverence. If there were any unholy spirits around, they didn't stay long! The blissful, comforting, healing warmth of Holy Spirit relaxed my body that so often feels pain. Plus, there was just the right amount of coolness in the air coming up from the earth that we were seated upon. My mind felt peacefully calm & clear as I breathed in the delicately rich scent of cedar. We each prayed & also sang Amazing Grace together.

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"Tri-Infinity Eagle Lodge" - this is the art I made after participating in the June 202o purification lodge. Those embryo-like looking things in the middle are the 6 souls in the lodge as the black grandfather rocks burned, glowing orange at the center in between us. The misty-liquid-light of the Holy Spirit fills the air & Eagle Watchman stands nearby with open wings of protection, amen & praise the Lord!

This event was a mixture of Indigenous culture, Christianity & new age healing. What the ... (insert 'mind blown' emoji)? I would have liked to of had more prior understanding about the tradition of the purification lodge & 1:1 debriefing time with the energy healer. I was told later by one of the elders that the purification lodge is similar to going to church for Indigenous people. Well it was quite the service, phew!

I am grateful I was able to feel the healing, power & beauty of the Holy Spirit during that experience. However, I will also add that there are things that happened during that chapter of my life that were unbearably painful & difficult to process on my own. It has taken me years to integrate & just now share little bits of it. I have not felt comfortable talking with anyone about these experiences in any depth & this isolation has weighed on me. I participated in the lodge when I was going through a time of extremely poor health as well as the pandemic. I would not have gone for energy healing if I had other options & wasn't at the end of my rope.

I am curious about the other participants' experiences in the lodge; likely they are quite different from mine. This was not the first time I had been overwhelmed by the presence of the Holy Spirit. While it was blissful for me at this time, I know that the convicting power of Holy Spirit can also be very uncomfortable - even to the point of being confused as an evil presence. Scripture records several examples of the spirit of the Lord, immediately upon appearing to people, saying: "Do not be afraid" (Isaiah 41:10; Matthew 1:20; Luke 2:10; Acts 18:9).

"Wings of Wisdom" - I drew this eagle just after attending the purification lodge based upon the experience of what I felt.

Psychology & new age spirituality teach about the importance of "shadow work" & integration for healing & personal development. Integrating the shadow is about seeing & accepting the "dark side" or hidden aspects of ourselves rather than remaining unaware or repressing them (often with guilt & shame). The energy healer told me that trying to heal by doing shadow work on ourselves is like trying to do our own dental work, ouch!

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod & Your staff, they comfort me. Psalm 23:4 (NASB)

The concept of "shadow work" comes from scripture. A central part of Christianity is being well-aware of the dark or evil, sin-nature of ourselves & of humanity in general. We also understand there are dark forces at work in this world. We are not affirming of evil, rather, we acknowledge that it is our biggest problem & it is precisely why believing in what Jesus has done for us is top priority & necessary for our salvific purification. Jesus is who He says He is & thus we need Him for ourselves to become whole & fully healed.

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
1 Thessalonians 5:23 (KJV)

Jesus takes each of us as we are - broken by our own & others' sin & He mends us up with His righteousness so that we can stand before the holiness of God & survive His consuming fire (see Deuteronomy 4:24 & Hebrews 12:29). Furthermore, we are not to perform 'dental work' on our own teeth or trust just anyone with our shadow work - Holy Spirit takes care of this through conviction, baptism by fire & sanctification.

In this world, we face evil that is in the open light of day & that which is hidden in the darkness of night. There is good & evil intertwined in everything except God who is all good (see Mark 10:18). For example, how is it not more widely considered evil that much of the money being invested & exchanged world-wide involves sin (e.g. exploitation, greed, over-consumption, gluttony, corruption, dishonoring God's resources & creation etc...)? As Christians, how can we improve upon an economic system that has sin built into it? How is the economy changing as God's Kingdom comes & His will is being done on earth as it is in heaven?

While I was in the new age online class, even though I felt like a defenseless rabbit in a jungle, that was not the truth. In fact, I was & am a lion (or lioness) because of who lives in me. In surrendering my sin & weaknesses to Christ, I am made strong through Him.

It is still not easy being a feeler though! I adapt with a slow pace of life because feelings are heavy & can be deceiving & they take time to process. I am learning to not go to either extreme of over-focusing on details & feeling too much of one specific thing or zooming out in a huge way & feeling diffuse exhaustion. We all need God's help to see & understand more, like how both evil (the weeds) & good (the wheat) are to "grow together" until such time:

Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn. Matthew 13:30 (NIV)

A few years after the purification lodge ceremony, I heard from the energy healer that as a child, he accepted Christ as his personal Lord & savior but sometime later, he got into metaphysical studies to make sense of his psychic abilities. I believe those abilities are spiritual gifts from the Lord but he was told they are sinful which had him turn to other ways of getting help. As Christians, we need to be there for each in support of developing our spiritual gifts rather than fearing & shunning them.

I believe God allows Christians to go 'undercover' as sort of a type of 'missionary' into new age or other communities. All missionary work is risky but this type is especially so because, as I say it tends to be 'undercover' in that to some degree we might even have to forget certain aspects of who we are in Christ or who Christ is in order to reach people & learn about Him in new ways. It might take someone who can feel Christ to be a reminder that He is within & wants us back exclusively now! By God's grace, we do turn back & can then share our stories of warning & walking each other home to Christ.

Other than the main concern of idolatry, the caution I offer is that the new age can be like any other business & the people who come to it seeking help are often in an especially vulnerable place. It is a way of selling things that make people want & even need more of whatever is being sold. This is how most businesses work in our economy - selling salt water to people dying of thirst. Some people feel this is also how religion & church are but this has not been my experience. The first & most important commandment of Christianity is to love God with all our heart, soul & mind, which, thank God, doesn't have to cost any money. When we love God this way, He is our Shepherd & fills us up with 'living water' which makes us less needy of the endless array of empty promises being sold in the world.

There are numerous Bible verses that tell us we are all called to Christ, for example:

"...at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:10-11 (NIV)

& yet, I have come to see that there so are many unique paths to Christ. Furthermore, I have come to appreciate that the new age is a way for people who don't accept Christianity to understand more about the darkness of this world so as to try to wield it rather than be wielded by it. Sadly, many new-agers get hurt & further from Christ but there are also those who find the truth, the way & the life in Jesus Christ through the new age. I pray that all those in the new age come to know & submit to Christ sooner rather than later so that the least harm is done, amen!

When I was drowning in health problems, just praying, even sincerely lamenting on my own, was not enough. To stay afloat while treading water in a storm, I needed practical, tangible help. I needed (& still need) my family very close by, which meant I had to admit where I was at (gulp) & ask them to swoop in & help me & they do so much! I need church on an on-going basis. I need frequent worship & prayer with other believers. The Holy Spirit & word of God continue doing sacred & expertly careful work transforming & assisting me to do the things I have mentioned that are out of my character, as well as sharing this testimony! Praise be to God, amen.