God is moving people into their new season, but in order to do this certain people, places, careers need to be left behind. The Holy Spirit illustrated this to me through a dream and several visions.
Last night I heard a screen door close in the spirit. At first I wasn’t sure if it was happening next door, but then I heard it again. This was to signify that God is closing doors in your life that He never wanted open. The doors or rather gates of Hell (Matt 16:18) that opened in your lives either through willful sin, an enemy attack, or just by associating with someone with their own open doors in their lives.
So, these doors can create blockages to you receiving breakthroughs, seeing the fulfillment of promises God has told you He will give to you and can keep you stuck in sin cycles. These are often doors that when left open have given demons access to you.
Some of these screen doors I heard shut and I saw and they would automatically lock and on the other side would be a demon unable to get through. Scriptures
Matthew 16:18 – And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Next, I heard wooden doors slamming shut in the spirit.
And for God to really drive the point forward that no evil thing would be able to get through these closed doors, I would both see and hear a blast shield door slam shut with a thud and a wheel turned to lock it into place (Is 22:22).
For God’s remnant or Kingdom workers – those who have given up their lives for Jesus and to serve His Kingdom – you are about to have every promise God has given you fulfilled. For many this involves a physical move, a promotion in the Kingdom such as stepping into a new ministry role, getting married to your Kingdom spouse or at least getting into contact with them again, and God’s blessing to begin building that thing He placed in you to build (or as we like to say, birthed).
Scripture
Isaiah 22:22 – I will place on his shoulder the key to the house of David; what he opens no one can shut, and what he shuts no one can open.
May 6, 2024 12am
Now, this brings me to my dream. It was kind of personal so I’ve had to omit some parts. But I am with someone who God has told me to cut ties with. This could be a family member, friend, church member. One odd thing about them is they’re much shorter than they appear in real life, have a hunchback and stork-like legs. And we were just talking and I knew this person wasn’t right for me from just the way they were talking and what they were saying. This was clearly an arrogant, prideful and worldly person who was just not a good influence for me, and they were also holding me back (1 Cor 15:33).
Then we go off to this appointment, something mundane like a dentist appointment or something. I go to their car but they say it’s not far so we should just walk. I reluctantly agree and so I follow behind them, even as it starts raining. My shoes are already getting soaked from stepping in puddles, and this person wants to cut through someone’s house to get to our appointment quickly. I felt uneasy about that. That’s someone else’s property. So we go inside and it’s flooding now, and for some reason either heavy metal or hardcore metal is playing. And I just feel even more aware that on someone’s property so I run through the flood waters. But then I come to a screen door that’s closed. And for some reason there’s a cat on the other side. It doesn’t appear to be flooding on the other side. But I can’t get there because the flood waters have risen so high I can’t get to it, and I can’t swim, so I turn back and tell this person that I can’t go any further. Then I hear a deep voice above me telling me to have faith. It’s the Father. So, I dive into the water and somehow swim over and open the screen door. This dream completely violates the laws of physics, anyway…
So, I’m outside, swimming in flood waters and a voice calls out my name. It’s my spouse and he lifts me out of the water. And he says, “I’m here for you now.” So, this either symbolises someone’s Kingdom spouse or a destiny helper. And the flood waters symbolises both trials and storms and drowning in the captivity of the enemy. It’s almost like being in despair because of feeling how stuck you are in your current situation (Psalm 42:7). But God is saying, when you feel most hopeless and when you feel like you’re in the absolute worst situation that looks impossible to get out of, He will come and get you out.
And as I look back to where this person/friend/family member is, I ask, “What about them?” I realise they can’t come with me. I’m heartbroken but I understand because I have and you probably have been given multiple warnings about this person. But it still doesn’t mean you don’t love them and won’t miss them.
There are some people who can’t go with where God is about to take you, and if you don’t leave them behind then your blessings will be delayed. This person/persons may also need to have to go through judgment for how they treated you. And they may also be trying to stop these blessings God has for you because of their jealousy.
Scriptures
1 Corinthians 15:33 – Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character. Psalm 42:7 (thanks to Ps Matt for giving me/The Holy Spirit the idea about this one) Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.
After I woke up, I had a vision that showed what happened to them.
They were calling out my name. And God speaks to them and says to let me go. He/she looks outside to where I am with my spouse, and asks God who I’m with. And God says someone who will take care of me. And then Jesus appears and He tells this person it’s time for them to draw closer to Him and allow themselves to be transformed through the Holy Spirit. Because they will not be able to see me while they’re still in this unhealed and undelivered state. This person has had a lot of trauma in their lives and so unclean spirits were able to easily influence their lives, even attack me through them. Which is why we had to be separated. And this could be your own Kingdom spouse or it could be a family member, friend, church member or a whole church community. Maybe all church members have unclean spirits operating through them, but may not have had the same trauma. But God will return this person back to you, if this is a person He wants to remain in your life.
This is where the stork-like legs come in. This person doesn’t have much experience of getting through severe trials and storms on their own. They don’t know how to submit to The Holy Spirit and be led by Him to put them through a process of refinement. This person needs to have their stony stubborn heart removed and be given a heart of flesh (Ez 36:26-28). They need to start producing the fruits of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23) and put an end to selfishness, gossip, jealousy and just know that God can begin to work in their lives like the very person they’re so jealous of they wanted to stop them from prospering in all that God had planned for them. All that God had planned for you. So, this person needs to get through these floodwaters by themselves by holding tight onto Jesus while they deal with many trials and storms, as they’re emptied out of their former sinful selves. And these people can even be Christians who have one foot in the world and another in God, and see nothing wrong with living like that. But when they do that they break Abrahamic covenant (Deut 28:1-14) which says that if we don’t put God first and worship other gods (idols in the world) then we will have the same curses put on us as Israel did when they committed idolatry against Him (Deut 28:15-24). And that’s because God allows His enemy to curse us by giving them legal rights to use our souls as hosts to do anything their master commands, and this will also give illnesses. This can lead to so many unclean spirits operating in your life and over the bloodline. In fact, they’re already there because of our ancestors. And only Jesus can free them of us, but only when you obey His commandments in the Gospel by giving up our lives for Him. Becoming that broken bread that He became for us when He went to the cross. And it’s by the blood that He shed that takes those curses off us. And demons are terrified of Christ’s blood.
As this person agreed to submit to Jesus and just let me go, the flood waters receded. Later on I had a vision about a village flooding, only the rain came down like a gushing waterfall being blown by the wind in a concentrated area. The village looked like Mexico but I don’t think that was the point. Usually when this happens floods start appearing all over the world. And they also symbolize spiritual storms in the lives of believers and the global Church.
Scriptures
Ezekiel 36:26-27 – I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
Galatians 5:22-23 – But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Deuteronomy 28:1-6 – If you fully obey the Lord your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. 2 All these blessings will come on you and accompany you if you obey the Lord your God: You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. The fruit of your womb will be blessed, and the crops of your land and the young of your livestock—the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. Your basket and your kneading trough will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out.
Deuteronomy 28:15-24 –
However, if you do not obey the Lord your God and do not carefully follow all his commands and decrees I am giving you today, all these curses will come on you and overtake you: You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the country. Your basket and your kneading trough will be cursed. The fruit of your womb will be cursed, and the crops of your land, and the calves of your herds and the lambs of your flocks. You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out. The Lord will send on you curses, confusion and rebuke in everything you put your hand to, until you are destroyed and come to sudden ruin because of the evil you have done in forsaking him. The Lord will plague you with diseases until he has destroyed you from the land you are entering to possess. The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish. 23 The sky over your head will be bronze, the ground beneath you iron. The Lord will turn the rain of your country into dust and powder; it will come down from the skies until you are destroyed. Second Vision In the next scene I’m in this small motel room and my spouse hurrying me to pack my bags, and he takes two large suitcases and puts them in the boot of his car. And we get in the car and drive off before the storm really hits us. And on the bumper of the back of the car there’s a sign that reads “Just Married.” So, this is another sign that your Kingdom spouse is going to swoop in and rescue you just as storms and floods in your life get really bad.
And then I saw a screen door floating in the flood waters, and that means that there are some doors God is opening for you that He will permanently keep open, because he brought to my attention Revelation 3:7-8 that any door He opens no man can shut.
I kept having visions about storms. I saw tropical trees blowing in a cyclonic wind surrounded by flood waters. So I think these will start happening all over the world. Even before I release the word. And we just had a huge downpour here with flash flooding, even before I even started to write this message.
To finish off this week’s theme that The Holy Spirit gave to me, relationships in marriage, family and church community, I felt it would be good to share this vision about when people from church support you through your trials. It’s not the biggest show of a healthy church community, that is probably because I had recently left one church, and have been trying out two churches. And though I talk to people, I don’t know them that well.
And this might not just be for me. When one thing happens to a child of God it’s probably happening to more of His children. So, I think a lot of people could relate to this.
The title may not be exactly fitting, but it’s something my pastor (from a former church I attended) said that really stayed with me.
I see a dark deserted road. I’ve been seeing the same thing in my visions this week. A friend from my church is walking down it, I’m walking down it a little ahead of him. He asks me why I’m down here so late at night. I tell him, “This is the unknown road God has me on; the same road you will have to take.” It represents the narrow path, which is about more than its length but its visibility, like a prophecy I received earlier from a leader in my church. God was only revealing a bit of my calling to me at a time, because if he showed me the whole thing it would be overwhelming. And Jesus said the same thing to the disciples when He announced He was sending The Holy Spirit to them.
Others will have to take this road once they realise that when Jesus told His disciples to give up their lives for Him and to seek the Kingdom first meant a bit more than living as a Christian who fixed a few things about their former life. It meant absolute sacrifice, leaving everything about their life behind and following God into a new and unexpected life to be used as a vessel for His Kingdom. It’s the call of Abram.
It can be a lonely and isolating period.
My friend tells me I shouldn’t be alone. I just look up at him in puzzlement. I have always done this alone, why should this situation be any different? But still I walk by his side as he walks with me through my silent suffering in the wilderness. We don’t say anything. But just having him there is helping me.
He takes me to a house, his refuge, in the middle of the wilderness. His own wilderness. The house is surrounded by bushland. It sits out of place in the middle of it. It looks like a house you would find in the suburbs. Inside it’s warm and homely. He asks me if I’m hungry, and takes out a massive turkey from the oven. It’s like three times the usual size. This symbolizes the abundance of provision God has given me through my trials. It’s the manna and quail falling from the sky in the desert.
We share a roast dinner together. He asks me how things have been going for me lately and we engage in a nice conversation. I don’t say anything about the suffering I had/was still going through. It was hard to open up. When you’re a prophet it can be hard to know how much to reveal, because it may be connected to revelation you’re not able to give yet. And you can’t give the enemy a chance to come in and abort that baby before it has fully gestated. And sometimes those attacks are from the other person’s unbelief.
So, I didn’t say anything. I had talked to this person about past struggles a bit at a time, and to other church members too. And they didn’t really respond or respond how I’d like. Sometimes they made me feel worse. So, it will take me time to trust people enough to open up to them again.
But just talking to someone was nice. And having someone literally (in the vision) to walk with me through my suffering, felt good too.
At my new church I have shared some of my struggles with them, like the person who ended up prophesying over me, and it has helped. It has made me relax a bit and just patiently wait for God to reveal more to me. But I’m still guarded about the struggles I go through. Maybe God is telling me that it’s time to open up more, and let others in.
Maybe He is telling you that too. Or maybe He is telling you that He will bring you to people who you can trust, who you can open up to. Who will encourage and support your gifts and your calling, and will help you reach your destiny. The destiny helpers are coming. And maybe you’re someone’s destiny helper too.
God has been talking to me a lot about unity in the church, and between the denominations. To show the love of Christ, not reject those who do things differently and maybe say things that are bold, weird and even just downright shocking, but to embrace them, learn from them, teach them, strengthen them where they are weak, and help them strengthen your own weakness. It’s those who are called differently who are the most isolated and lonely, and are the ones walking down the dark deserted road alone.
[The Apostle of Peace]
Scriptures
Matthew 7:14,Luke 18:25 : The narrow gate/ road
John 16:12-13: Jesus telling the disciples everything would be too overwhelming
Matthew 19:29-30, Luke 14:26-27, Luke 18:29-30: Give up your life and seek first the Kingdom
Genesis 12:1-5: The call of Abram
Galatians 6:2: Carry each others burdens
1 Corinthians 12:25-26: Each part of the body should have concern for each other
Exodus 16:4, 11-13: God sends manna and quail to the Israelites
2 Corinthians 1:4 – God comforts us so we can be a comfort to others
I’ve been having a lot of visions as I’m about to fall asleep, and these have come to pass very quickly so I’m sharing my latest one here. A more discerned version will be on my blog. I may make a Youtube video about it too.
December 26, 2023
11:11pm
In this vision I see helicopters hover in the sky over a desert. The strange thing about these helicopters is that they are a mixture between normal looking helicopters and locusts. Their wings were beating so loudly they could have been mistaken for the helicopter’s blades.
A crowd of people rushed over to them and started to hurl stones at them. The whole scene made me think of the Stargate motion picture when the people of Abydos fought against Ra’s army. But they were no match for the helicopters who simply shot them down. They weren’t killed, just injured. They were left lying there bleeding and in pain.
Then I saw the face of a lion appearing out of the desert sand. It opened its large maw and zoomed across the desert and consumed all the people lying in the sand.
The helicopters were the locusts that came out of the abyss in Revelation 9:3. They didn’t kill the people but stung them like scorpions. In this vision, like many others like them, they were tormenting people psychologically in the desert. For Christians the desert represents a season in the wilderness where they are tried and tested and refined like silver in a fire, so that they lose their impurities (sin/less godly characteristics) and are transformed to be more like Christ. We often refer to this as a season of suffering because it is painful to go through. God will target our weaknesses in order to strengthen us. But some people can get stuck here so live in an unending cycle of suffering. It’s only through an obedience to God and His Word that they can get out of it. Job 42:10 teaches us to forgive those who have wronged us, pray they are blessed and then then we will see restoration come into our lives.
The locusts as helicopters are symbolic of spiritual warfare. In Revelation 9:7 it says the locusts looked like horses prepared for battle. In verse 9 it says the sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle.
There will be many demonic attacks on the people of God. This doesn’t look obvious but is manifested through fatigue, chronic body pains, confusion, financial problems, storms (one thing going wrong after another), depression, anxiety, and relationship problems. Some of these attacks can be temptations to go back to old sinful ways such as giving into lust, addictive behaviour, idolatry (putting anything before God), and self-medication (alcohol/drugs).
And anytime a lion appears from a mountain or the sand, it depicts the devil who roams around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). It represents a lure back into temptation to sin. Being consumed by it is representative of being under the oppression and bondage of the enemy and caught in a never ending cycle of sin.
This is a word for the Body of Christ. Many are about to go into a wilderness season where they will be psychologically tormented by locusts with anxiety, depression, despair, or other types of oppressive spirits. And this is how the devil will keep them in bondage.
They need to take this season to draw closer to God, allow the Holy Spirit to work in their lives to put them through a refinement process to transform them. And they need to get into the Word and declare it to the enemy.
In this season people aren’t just being put through a trial so they can be tested, reshaped and remolded, but for discipline. God is separating the wheat from the tares so He can purify His Bride (the Church) to prepare her not just for the Bridegroom (Jesus) but so He can protect her and provide for her as a great shaking comes to the world in 2024, which will be felt first in the Church (1 Peter 4:7). He’s going to make sure His remnant Church becomes unshakeable (Heb 12:27).
The enemy has used a lot of people in the Church to attack other members of the Body who are the pioneers and trailblazers who were forging a path for God’s new move in the Church and in the nations. But God is bringing about their vindication by putting those the devil had used to harm them, delay or even destroy their destiny, through a trial of discipline and deliverance. This is to give them a chance to not be cut off from the Body of Christ.
God will allow Satan to attack them in order to test and train them up in spiritual warfare and to see if they have what it takes to be in God’s Army. And Satan will do everything he can to keep them in his bondage and away from them stepping into their destiny; fulfilling the plans of purposes of God in the earth. So, they will have to put up a fight by resisting the temptation of giving into torment and find an escape through worldly pleasures. This resistance can only be achieved by the power of The Holy Spirit and not their own efforts. And by drawing closer to God’s presence and putting their trust in Him and having faith that He will get them through it.
Some will go through a period of physical isolation where God will keep them from receiving support from others so they only put their trust in Him.
Today is World Mental Health day so I thought I’d take this opportunity to talk about how God through His Holy Spirit has helped me manage my mental health issues better.
I’m going to give a trigger warning here: if you are not at least charismatic you will find the following offensive or will just disregard it as Pentecostal twaddle. It also mentions feelings of suicide and self-harm.
So, I’m going to start talking about all the mental health issues I have had to deal with in my life and how my faith in God has helped minimise them.
I was born with a form of autism called pathological demand avoidance syndrome which is characterised by becoming resistant to anything asked of you, no matter how the order is given, because it provokes a severe anxious response.
I think around March/April this year the Holy Spirit really dealt with this by revealing to me that I didn’t respect authority, and He got me to start by becoming more obedient and respectful to the leadership in my church. And from this I realised He wanted me to be more obedient to God, which is very important for a prophet to be.
My PDA also triggered every time I would be sitting with a group who was praying, and I’d get hot and sweaty at the pressure I felt to pray out loud. I had been this way since I was 13 when I’d be pressured by my classmates to pray. During early morning roll call I would even pray to God to not be called on by my teacher to lead the prayer.
So I had some social anxiety.
I asked my lead pastor to pray for my PDA to be more manageable, and over the weeks I noticed it started to be. But as my relationship with Jesus increased as I spent more and more time in private worship and because of the intense presence of God surrounding me, my transformation accelerated. This had started since the Asbury revival and just grew stronger over the weeks and months.
My pastor also prayed for my PTSD and I was surprised that an evil spirit came out of me when he said the word ‘trauma.’ This was because of the glory of God in the room during our night of prayer and healing. What we call ‘ministry time.’ Also, when another pastor prayed for my depression (which I now realise was caused by the spirit of Leviathan) an evil spirit came out of me too. This is because they can attach and amplify negative emotions, and possess us this way. They can also cause these symptoms. That day I became depressed out of nowhere.
I overcame my fear of praying out loud when the Holy Spirit revealed to me that when living stones come closer together they start to chisel against each other, causing heat and pressure. This is because these stones have to fit so closely together to make up the temple of the Lord. Essentially to overcome my anxiety I had to embrace the pressure and heat. And I did and now I often volunteer to say grace out loud, pray for those who need healing, and I’ve prophesied over 15 people at my church.
The Holy Spirit also dealt with my pride by making me just let go in worship by allowing myself to look foolish to others. I went from too anxious to sing and worship in church to the most Pentecostal worshiper in a church that definitely isn’t.
Let me go back to my younger years again. When I was 5 I developed a severe form of social anxiety called selective mutism, which is very common in autism. I was too afraid to speak outside of my home and I barely spoke there. This lasted for about 9 years, but took another 10-15 years to come out of enough to start speaking to people. And I still deal with it from time to time.
I eventually found out that the enemy had done everything he could to keep me silent and to be silenced by others because of the calling God had on my life. When I prophesy I prophesy with boldness, and I have very rarely been quiet at my church. There have been moments where I have kept silent but mostly I am a loud overexcited impulsive person, but the Holy Spirit has given me anointings to control this, who reluctantly pushes out some small talk and then skews it over into speaking the Word and words of God. My church could not imagine how silent I was as a child even if they tried. Not a single child at the church is like that.
What helps me deal with anxiety is to say something like ‘I break the spirit of anxiety over me, in the name of Jesus.’ Because of the constant barrage of enemy attacks that at times are not just physical but visual, Jesus made me a curse breaker. Now I know we all can’t be curse breakers but we can all pray and ask others to pray for us. It may not happen as fast as speaking the words, but it will eventually happen. I do the same for my OCD which I struggle with a lot.
When I was 12 I developed depression and by my mid twenties that depression was expressed through my bipolar. I say similar things to break depression off of me. This is most often because the enemy will bring depressive thoughts to my mind, and take opportunities to exploit my depression when it triggers. That can then develop into feelings of suicide and self harm. But I can curse break that too. Or ask the Holy Spirit to make me feel peace and joy. I manage my bipolar pretty well these days and that’s because the Holy Spirit revealed to me the kinds of food that triggered it. And I’m allergic to alcohol and can’t take medication like antidepressants. I actually have severe reactions to antidepressants so I can’t take them at all.
Now, I’m not saying don’t get professional help or take medication. I have done that in the past. I just found it was a lot of money for a marginal improvement that did not last overtime. I have found the most effective help for my mental health issues has been a combination of reading the Word of God, spending time in the deep presence of God which will impart the Living Waters from within and release the fruits of the Spirit, fellowship with my Christian community, and the combined healing powers of both the Holy Spirit and the angels of the Lord. Of course, Jesus speaking through the Holy Spirit has been an incredible comfort to me in times of severe distress caused by loneliness, times of rejection, the enemy attacking me through those most closest to me, financial issues, anxiety about the future, and times of disappointment when prophecies spoken over my life or given by me still have not come to pass.
At times of dealing with severe trauma there is something I do where I request to go to the Glory Realm. This is the Throne Room of God, what Paul calls the third Heaven. Here there is no time and time can even be bent to go backward, which is what God did when He turned time back and gave Hezekiah 15 more years to live. You can still ask God to turn back the clock on your trauma and He will do it. And it takes a second.
I told you I was going to get Pentecostal in here. But seriously, I am so grateful that I can do this. God has undone some of the most heartbreaking trauma in my life this way. I still remember it but it no longer affects me emotionally.
I know this is a very unusual post for World Mental Health day. But this is what I do to help me, and my mental health issues are nowhere near mild. I used deal with being suicidal for 3 days of the week, and then fly into extreme bouts of mania. I’ve had severe anxiety all my life and have to deal with OCD, PMDD, GAD, and every other type of anxiety you can think of. I’ve had addictions, some that could have only been beaten by seeing the glory of God.
I know this is pretty hard for both unbelievers and some types of believers to understand, so I will be adding some discernment to it soon. I just don’t have time at the moment. All of this can be backed up using the Word of God.
This prophecy came to me when I was listening to part 1 of my church, Anchor City’s sermon, ‘The Righteous Sufferer.’ It’s Jesus’ own words
Jesus wants us to be a community that doesn’t hide our pain and suffering from each other. And not one one that tries to keep a cheerful atmosphere by hiding true sufferings from each other. To be real with each other.
Jesus says:
I don’t want My church to have to suppress their sufferings from each other. I want them to be honest about their pain and grief and I want the members to give them support, a shoulder to lean on. Let them share their pain with them so they can be a listening ear, and provide gentle and loving advice with compassion and empathy, just like I would give them (Rom 13:8). I want them to use My words to comfort and reassure them that they can always open up in My church because this is where they can find support (1 Cor 1:7-8, 2:11-13, 14:3,7-8). I want them to bear each other’s burdens (Rom 13:13,15; Gal 6:2). You wouldn’t ignore a hurt limb, and you wouldn’t pretend it didn’t hurt, because it would be impossible to ignore, because it’s attached to you. Likewise, I want My Body to be so connected to each other that they feel the pain that other members are in (1 Cor 12:26-27). I want them to have deep loving and intimate relationships with each other (Rom 13:10) just like I do with My Father and Holy Spirit. We rely on each other’s love to pour love back into each other. How do you think We have been surviving all eternity with each other? That love is our sustenance (Matt 4:4, John 4:31, 6:27,57). It puts us in agreement with each other, though we speak to our children in individual ways. There is no disagreement or division. There’s no jealousy or desire to have power over one another. The members of the Body should do likewise (Romans 13:13,14:1,15:5–7; 1 Cor 1:10, Gal 6:10).
Here’s some more discernment with more explanation:
Look after each other: Hebrews 12:15 The weakest parts of the body are the most necessary: 1 Cor 12:22-25 The one who prophesies strengthens, encourages, comforts: 1 Cor 14:3 A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other: 1 Cor 14:7-8 Share in people’s weaknesses so you can bring them back to Christ: 1 Cor 10:22 Love strengthens the Church: 1 Cor 8:1
I come from the disability and mental health community in the secular world. It wasn’t just a place to find empathy and support, but a place to find people who related, so I could trust them to give me advice, because they got it. They rarely gave bad advice. When they couldn’t give advice or didn’t know if they should because they might make things worse, they admitted to that.
Even in the transgender and LGBT+ community, that support I needed could always be found online. We were honest with each other. Looking back I think we may have shared too much of our personal lives, but it brought us closer together and made us trust each other.
The last couple of Sundays I have left church so depressed because I just could not find the support in my church, that I just desired to go back into the world. I’d still be depressed but I wouldn’t suffer alone (Gal 6:9).
So, it’s the lack of emotional support in the church that makes me want to go back into the world and find that support (Gal 6:1).
But I think it’s because we as Christians go through similar trials that we can relate enough to give helpful advice (1 Cor 10:13, 2 Cor 1:4-7). We all respond differently to advice and support. Personally I prefer “how may I help you?” because I prefer not to think about someone pushing in and interrupting my routine by offering to clean up or make me a meal. Both things which I get allergic reactions to.
I had reached a point in September where I thought nothing was ever going to get better for me. Things would only get worse.
With that said, let’s begin.
A Birthday Gift I’ll Never Forget
On December 27, 2021, more specifically. My birthday. I woke up at about 5am to my 36th year on this Earth overheated, struggling to breathe and with chest pains. I thought I may have gotten sick from the cold because I was wearing just a t-shirt and shorts and a thin blanket covering me, despite being in the coldest place to spend Christmas (on Boxing Day) in: my niece’s remote home in the Central Coast.
Most times when I feel sick I just wait for the symptoms to pass. They eventually did and I was left with nothing but a slight tingling in my throat. I wasn’t much in the mood to celebrate my birthday, fearing the worst. Could I have caught COVID for a third time?
When I returned home to my lonely apartment I was exhausted, which isn’t unusual for someone with ME/CFS.
So, I rested. But I started to sleep through the next day and the next and the next. After four days my usual energy returned to me. But a few weeks later I began to notice symptoms of Long COVID for the first time, even though my post-COVID symptoms since April 2020 indicated Long COVID too.
In my recovery for this bout of COVID I did the foolish thing by trying to research a screenplay; an awareness piece about autism and selective mutism. Both conditions I have. But I found my (over) research to be exhausting, so I stopped and played the videogame my mum bought me for my birthday. It exhausted me.
Each month I got newer and worse symptoms. As I was trying to heal so I could return to my church, in desperation and frustration I screamed ‘God, I’m trying to get back to Anchor! How do you expect me to go back if I just get worse each month?! Please, just point me in the direction of treatments I can take to help me heal!’
And that’s just what happened. When my sister got COVID I became so anxious about her developing Long COVID that I thought it was time to experiment these treatments on myself. I also prayed for her daily. I first bought immune support supplements and then probiotics, as these two supplements were being talked about in online Long COVID groups and with researchers.
From just taking these two supplements I was able to get rid of my daily nausea. I also employed some breathing exercises for those with lung disease, and I was able to walk to the supermarket without getting out of breath.
My chest pain started to go away too.
Around this time I was learning about the pagan origins of Christian holidays, and I discovered an author called Frank Viola. I read his book called Pagan Christianity. It was good to get a background of the history of the institutional church, but I didn’t look into his other works. Instead I wanted an easy read so I picked up a Christian science fiction book for adolescents called Swipe. I was enjoying it and as I got close to finishing it Frank released his next book ‘Insurgence’ for $2 on the AppStore. So I bought it and returned to finish Swipe.
I had forgotten that I subscribed to Frank’s email list for some reason, and downloaded two E-books by him. So I decided to read them before reading Insurgence.
One was called Rethinking the Will of God which taught me a lot. There was a quote in a bold red font from Romans 12:1-2 and it was screaming at me.
“I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable perfect will of God.”
Romans 12:1-2
The words were so loud and reverberating around my bedroom. I was convinced God was telling me to stop being transgender.
I had no idea what to expect with Insurgence but it was the most transformative book I have ever read. Probably some of the most dramatic changes I have ever experienced as a Christian came from that book, and many of Frank’s books hit me the same. From this I gave a pledge to rebuke the world, including all allegiance (particularly political) to it. I even ripped off the dozen or so political campaign flyers of Anthony Albanese off my fridge. That was a big move, for a Marrickvillian.
Returning to Church
Then I received an email from the lead pastor of Anchor Church. He told me the livestream was going away. At this point I had completely lost interest in the mainstream church, instead wanting to be part of an organic church because it seemed better for accessibility. I told him this and said my goodbyes. His reply was so polite that I started to feel bad about my previous response.
Anchor’s sermons were still going to be uploaded to YouTube but when this didn’t happen I felt like my whole routine had been disrupted. It’s a requirement to feel comfortable when you have autism. But also I didn’t want to miss out on their sermons.
Then I felt God saying ‘you can go back to Anchor.’ ‘But I have Long COVID’ came my reply. Then He reminded me that I was able to go to the chemist to buy discounted probiotics. Okay, that was oddly specific, Lord. But good point.
So, I made my way back to Anchor, feeling as sick as a dog. But by the time I entered those gates (of Factory Theatre) I instantly began to feel better.
Now, I have bipolar and sometimes I get manic. At this time I had been experiencing a rare 2 month manic episode. I was very prideful and arrogant at church and God was about to take me down a peg.
So I had what we call in the chronic illness community, a crash. My Long COVID symptoms got worse. In fact, the very symptoms God healed had come right back. No immune support supplement or probiotic or even Kilmas protocol (basically taking a bunch of vitamins and antihistamines) could ever help me recover from. Science tried to explain the source of this crash by saying it was caused by anxious overthinking. But I wasn’t overthinking – was I? I don’t think I was overthinking. Do I overthink? Oh, sometimes but not this time. Oh, maybe.
Ok, I was overthinking but not to the point that would cause a crash.
My trials had begun.
I spent a lot of time on my bed because I barely had energy to do anything else. I cried out to God a lot and this is when The Holy Spirit let me know exactly why I was taken away from the church. I was much too immature to stay there. The pruning, chiseling, refining or whatever metaphor you want to use for transformation, had begun. And it was painful.
Around this time I subscribed to the Deep Christian Network and the first Master Class I did was called Atomic Freefall: Becoming Strong in the Broken Places. It was about going through trials, storms, the desert etc. So, basically what I was going through, though I started it weeks before I even felt I needed it. But now I needed it.
Frank warned against forcing your way out of the desert. But I thought there was a way to do this cautiously.
Being the great problem solver I have always been and resistant to authority, thanks to a past history as a socialist, which started around age 16-17, and my type of autism (pathological demand avoidance syndrome) refusing to listen to demands I went against Frank’s warning and The Holy Spirit blasting a klaxon into my ear telling me ‘you could get worse’ and returned to Anchor.
I promised to be less prideful and fellowship more. I met a few people who I chatted and hung out with. I loved to finally have a group of Christians to talk to, after being surrounded by atheists for decades. I felt like I found a community I could finally feel at ease around. And to be honest I was getting addicted to it.
I was still finding it hard to fit in with more abled and neurotypical people. I tended to overshare and not realise what was appropriate and inappropriate to talk about. So I became disappointed, which led to distraction, and I gave into temptation by ditching them and went back to my first love: the live music scene.
I wasn’t someone who just went to see a live band. I was a photographer and as such was able to gain access to the bands easily. I would hang with them, drink with them and in turn mimic what would be seen by Christians and God as immoral behavior. To me that was just having fun. It was the easy, more relaxed libertine lifestyle.
So I caught COVID for the fourth time.
COVID Round 4
I was devastated and anxious. I thought it would make me worse for sure. I wasn’t sure why this was happening but the Holy Spirit clearly told me it was because I preferred the live music scene and continuing my photography over church. He said I wasn’t healed to continue my band photography.
So I emailed my Pastor, Matt, being the only person I could contact from church, to pray that I don’t get serious COVID symptoms and that my Long COVID doesn’t get worse. My rapid cycling bipolar had become so rapid I was having 10 different mood cycles a day and I was losing control of my mind. So, I asked prayer for that too. Admitting to someone from church for the time I had bipolar. Though given my past behaviour it probably made a lot of sense.
Now I just had to treat my COVID. I mentioned the Kilmas Protocol before, and now I was going to put it into practice. My immune support and probiotics were helping but I needed niacin, selenium, B-12, zinc, vitamin C, vitamin D, Quercetin, and H1 and H2 antagonists (prescribed antihistamines). Then I ended up overmedicating and gave myself brain inflammation. I just had to drop the Quercetin and the symptom abated.
After the two weeks of healing from COVID ended I took another two weeks to rest so my Long COVID symptoms wouldn’t get worse. I still ended up with one new Long COVID symptom: tension headaches. But overall I was on my way to recovery, thanks to Pastor Matt’s prayers.
I still spent a long time in bed, could barely leave my apartment and had worse fatigue than I ever had before. I barely had the energy to let my cat outside. I would have had to walk her all the way downstairs to open up the main door, but I couldn’t do it.
I was able to keep up to date with Anchor by watching their YouTube videos, but it didn’t feel the same. I started to have a profound loneliness over missing my church community. It was crushing. It felt like a giant boulder with jagged edges was pressing down on my heart. I did all I could to distract myself from this pain which would trigger an unending depression in me, which lead to suicidal thoughts. But the pain was so constant and I wasn’t cycling out of it like I usually do, so suicidal ideation soon turned to planning for suicide.
The scary part was after 12 years of having suicidal desires it had become easier to carry it out. I was noting ways I could complete it even when I wasn’t depressed. What made it worse was the type of music I chose to listen to during this time. My favourtie singer Geoff Rickley (from Thursday) just released a side project called No Devotion, and the songs were so depressing but so relatable. But they made my depression 200 times worse, and kept me depressed. I was also listening to a song by one of my other favourite bands, Brand New, called Same Logic/Perfect Teeth, that had lyrics about self-harm and for the first time I felt like cutting myself.
Realising this, I stopped listening to them.
As I was reading Hang On, Let Go Frank Viola was talking about how in times like these it helped his mental health so much to have another Christian to lean on, but I didn’t have anyone like that. I was so isolated from everyone.
I didn’t just feel isolated from the church but everyone I knew. My family, friends and even the bands I knew wouldn’t talk to me. It made no sense to me, and I felt God was punishing me for choosing live bands over my church community, so I wasn’t able to have either.
I felt like God was telling me to reach out for help. But who? And why? I stopped reaching out a long time ago when the help I was asking for just didn’t come. People only let me down so I learned to rely on myself.
But God was telling me I needed to trust people again by asking them for help.
So again I reached out to Anchor. An auto message told me Pastor Matt was off on two weeks leave. Of course he is. What was the point of that, God? So I went back to feeling hopeless, depressed and suicidal.
I kept watching Anchor’s sermons on YouTube. In the latest one another pastor, James, was sharing his story of anxiety. I felt God telling me to reach out to him, so I did. I emailed Pastor Matt telling him to ignore my last email. I wished I could delete it from existence. It was dripping in depression and I felt embarrassed I ever wrote it.
I waited. No reply. By this time my mental health had deteriorated so much due to the Optus Data Breach that I ended up with severe paranoia. I became suicidal again. The easy way out from all this anxiety for me was to just no longer exist. My stress turned into visual and tactile hallucinations, which is rare for me. I spent the long weekend in bed with paranoid thoughts spinning around my head that I had another crash. Yes, the gains I made in my Long COVID recovery were lost, and I had to rest to achieve them again.
I started to put more faith in God which was helped by my sudden desire to listen to Hillsong songs, especially the songs we sung at Anchor. But also, I went back some 20-30 years and listened to the songs I grew up singing at Mannahouse Church. I found the songs would restore my energy in ways my usual playlists of emo and rock n roll bands ever could. And suddenly my anxiety disappeared.
Another trial or temptation or both I went through that I kept having to go through again and again was to turn my back on the live music scene. I struggled so much with giving up on it and leaving my friends behind, both my friends I’d see at gigs and the band members themselves that I basically wanted to give up my faith. I felt I could sell my soul for just one more night with Davey Lane (a singer/guitarist I knew).
Then I could no longer feel God’s presence. I felt lost, alone and completely vulnerable. The warmth and comfort I usually felt from The Holy Spirit was gone. So, I agreed to stop seeing bands and just wait and have faith in God, even inviting Him back into my heart.
I eventually heard back from Pastors Matt and James again. Matt recommended I see a Christian psychologist. I didn’t even know the difference between a Christian psychologist and a non-Christian one. I also had severe trust issues with mental health professionals. But I knew God wanted me to do this, having put the idea in my head after Frank brought it up in one of his Master Classes.
I accepted Pastor Matt’s suggestion to see a psychologist, though at times I resisted so I tried to delay setting up an appointment as long as possible, until I had to wait so long for an appointment that I was desperate to start.
I started to feel like that needy mentally unstable person asking the church for help that I never wanted to be. I started to feel like a burden. So I stopped the emails. But then I wasn’t able to have enough energy to buy my own food and got locked out of online delivery. So I had to yet again ask for help. Like always there was an uncertainty that I was even going to be helped, but it all worked out in the end. It was a good thing too because I spent all the way up into the weekend in bed. I had no idea how fast things were going to change for me.
I felt like God was teaching me that I had to learn to rely on other people, and less on myself. I was beginning to embrace that but I couldn’t get past the years of disappointment when everyone I reached out to let me down.
I got to this point where I thought my Long COVID would never heal. I was doing a plan with CFS Health that seemed to be working. Extended rest was giving me more energy but then I’d get stressed or severely anxious and just crash. My symptoms would permanently get worse.
I felt it was hopeless. I would never heal. I would just be forever healing, crash and then try to heal again. And I couldn’t stand to be lonely anymore. I didn’t think I could last another week or two before I became suicidal again. And God knew that too.
But He was telling me I needed to have faith again, not just rely on the science. The science worked but with my level of stress I couldn’t rely on science alone.
I read another book by Frank, Day I Met Jesus, this time with Mary Demuth, who actually prayed for me when I talked about a chapter of the book on Instagram. In it they talk about how sometimes God wants us to wait on Him, but other times He wants us to press violently into the kingdom. Demand He gives us what we want, like healing.
I felt He was saying that to me. So I started to think it doesn’t matter how ill I am, I’ve got to try and return to Anchor. If I crash I’ll just take a week off to heal. My aim was to heal completely from being in the presence of Jesus.
October 16: A Fresh Start
So, I went back, barely able to breathe. But I was finally back at Anchor. For good this time. After being there a few weeks my Long COVID symptoms started to lessen.
That day pastor James’ sermon was very similar to a conversation we had over emails, about me not fitting in at church, and by the end I was motivated to try and fellowship with other church members. We went to Enmore Park where I poured out my feelings over the last few months. My trials, anxieties, depression and even suicidal thoughts. And I was actually listened to. It felt so good to have the support of other people at church.
After months of loneliness, suicidal thoughts and attempts, paranoid anxiety, and Long COVID symptoms so bad I thought I’d never be able to return to Anchor, to suddenly be sitting there with people from church, filled me with an indescribable joy. If you told me this would have happened a week ago I wouldn’t believe you. I couldn’t even get out of bed. I didn’t know how I was going to buy my own groceries. And now here I was, at a church lunch, meeting new people and unabashedly pouring my heart out to them about the hell I had gone through over the last few months.
My words will never ever be able to accurately describe the sense of relief and belonging that I felt that day.
I was also able to have someone to lean on like Frank did, who would listen to my worries. And he was right, it helped so much. I began to feel at ease. I finally felt the support I craved for decades.
However, the next month after committing to getting baptized I suffered a mini-crash from the stress and preparation. I spent a good 3 weeks writing my baptism testimony. I kept alternating between having courage to deliver it, even if I did have to admit I had been transgender, and having so much anxiety I yet again wanted to run back to the live music scene. And there were 6 bands playing these three weeks to tempt me away from church, some around the corner from where I lived.
But I turned up on the day and…had a severe anxiety attack. I suffered alone. All I had was the very quiet voice of God telling me to have faith, and telling me to take the anti-inflammatory meds at my feet that I randomly discovered at a church lunch at Marrickville Markets. I took it but I was slightly drugged and very awkward. But I got through my baptism testimony and faced my fear of water.
Many people from church approached me that day and congratulated me on my testimony. Some people said it helped them, some people were inspired while others cried.
There was a Christmas party later that evening that I somehow made it to. I decided to take my camera to have photos to look back on if I ever got separated from Anchor due to Long COVID or COVID or something like that ever again. I just wanted to have some good memories.
This was also the first church Christmas party I would attend in 16 years. For that reason and the reason that I hadn’t seen my nephews since Christmas 2019, I wasn’t in the Christmas spirit. I also felt uncomfortable about all the pagan symbols still being used in Christmas decorations. As I mentioned before I read about the pagan origins of Christian holidays. I could tell you which god certain decorations relate to, and I could barely look at them.
It was so weird seeing people in Santa hats and kids dressed as elves. But I just acted like it was another event to photograph, and to take the type of photos that would capture the spirit of the night. The type of photos an editor would use.
I alternated between taking photos and talking to people. I reached exhaustion four times that night, so mostly I just sat down and joined conversations. People were still coming up to me and congratulating me on my baptism.
Pastor Matt sarcastically said I’d have to sleep for a week after this but I just tried to brush it off. I should have listened because I was about to crash hard. Though not as hard as during the Optus Data Breach.
The Holy Spirit did tell me to ‘be careful’ when I was taking photos. I’ve got this thing where I ask God permission if I should do something. Now I know that’s because I always push myself too hard when I take photos. I’m overly ambitious and will push myself to breaking point just to take the type of photos I’m looking for. I was that way as a band photographer. It happened that night too. I would keep taking photos until I got so tired I wasn’t even capable of taking a good photo anymore. And because I had over medicated with stimulants to just pay attention and follow the sermons, I ended up so exhausted that I felt I would collapse. I couldn’t even get up and get my own communion or worship, nor even read the song lyrics without feeling like I’d pass out.
I stopped taking any kind of stimulant at Anchor and instead treated my ADHD through brain training.
I was somewhat embarrassed over my baptism testimony and the way I acted during my baptism. So, I started to withdraw from the church community and I was experiencing a mini-autism regression and mini-crash so my autism symptoms got worse. It may have also had to do with my anti-inflammatories making me appear stoned.
I felt God had rushed me into my baptism, but I also wanted to get it done quickly because that’s how it was done in the first century. I had re-committed my faith just weeks ago so it was as if I was a new Christian. And I didn’t realise it then or even this year but Jesus wanted me to get baptised so He could bring me back to the altar after I had strayed the few weeks after I had gone back to Anchor in June/July.
God was already at work to help me purge more un-Christlike things from my life. I suddenly had a desire to throw out all my socialist books. I had planned to hold onto my music biographies but The Holy Spirit told me to give those away too. He knew they’d temp me back to that life.
After I threw the books out I felt like pieces of my personality were being ripped away. The emotional pain was so great it may as well have been physical.
I still found it hard to fit in with more than a couple of people, especially after a pastor I had grown close to had to leave. I got depressed again so I reached out to Pastor Matt and poured out to him again about many of my issues at church, and he was empathetic and provided some guidance.
On December 13 Anchor City and City Light Church joined up to hear David Bennett, a gay Christian celibate, give his testimony in Balmain. I will talk about this in more detail but for now I’ll just say that through David Jesus showed me I was still transgender, though He doesn’t want me to identify with anything in this world. This has something to do with the pledge I made to Him months ago. It was a mind blowing revelation for me because I was struggling with detransition and obsessing about making myself look like a cisgender woman. I was also ignoring my sexuality to the point I didn’t know if I was gay, straight or bi. As a trans man I was gay. But someone who saw me as my biological sex I’d be straight. Hormone replacement therapy then made me bisexual and after 18 months of not taking another testosterone shot I still am.
Back at Anchor I started to lower my expectations and just take things as they came, appreciating what good came out of them. This way I was able to talk to more people, make new friends and start to feel like I really belonged at the church.
On the lead up to Christmas service, I had a conundrum. I felt nothing for Christmas and I was filling my days listening to my emo Christmas playlist with Fall Out Boy singing ‘Merry Christmas, I could care less…’ or The Used’s ‘Alone This Holiday.’ I did it as a joke. It’s a way I get when I feel detached from holidays or certain days, like Valentine’s Day. But Pastor Matt, he loved Christmas so much and everyone else at church seemed excited about Christmas too. It made me feel like something was wrong with me because I just had this whole apathy about it.
Then another book by Frank Viola landed in my lap. This was called Jesus Manifesto and aimed to inspire people to put Jesus as the centre of the church again. And I thought maybe this could help me make Jesus the centre of my life.
And just like that, I felt the joy of the Holiday again. Putting Jesus at the centre of Christmas meant I could overcome my convictions about the pagan symbology used in Christmas decorations and just enjoy the day again.
A few days before the Christmas service there was a sudden venue change. I felt there was not enough days to be able to cope with the changes. I started to feel myself unravelling. All my plans started to fall apart. I wasn’t going to be able to give Christmas cards to people or talk to certain people in particular. I couldn’t understand why I suddenly felt so much anxiety, but then it dawned on me: the last time I was here I experienced severe gender dysphoria.
I was due to take photos of the punk band Pennywise for Speaker TV. I was all set to do it but I just so happened to have come out as transgender and because the online transgender community would complain about our haters I was exposed to a lot of transphobia. And it made me start to fear people, like the people at this gig. I kept thinking they could tell I was transgender.
When it came time to get down front and take photos of Pennywise I couldn’t do it. So, I left.
Despite all this, I still made my way to Enmore Theatre that Sunday. At first I felt ok but then as my foot touched one of the steps leading down to the dance floor (now filled with chairs) I felt as if the ground would cave in under my feet. I felt unsteady and couldn’t regain my balance. Suddenly I was thrown back into that night. The packed out theatre, sweaty bodies standing to shoulder to shoulder with disapproving faces. No path to walk around them. Nowhere to run to, nowhere to retreat to and sit and overcome the feeling of being overwhelmed with it all. No public toilets to hide in, because I was too scared to go into any.
Why did it have to be this night I’d remember? I had so many good memories in Enmore Theatre. Hardcore dancing like an idiot when I finally got to see Refused live, after accepting the fact I would never see them live after they broke up when I was just 12 years old. Or meeting Jimmy Barnes when my friend Davey Lane played with him. Or watching RocKwiz live and just gazing on Davey’s beauty during his live solo performance. Or going backstage at Rock the Gate to thank Tex Perkins for hooking me up with a photo pass. Or being smiled at by Pete Murray.
No. It had to be the most horrible night of my life. The night where I couldn’t shake off the feeling that I had let down not just my editor, but myself and my fans. That I was a failure and should just give up taking photos of bands all together. And that’s just what I did.
When I saw Pastor Matt I told him about my anxiety. He told me I was with friends here, but I was so distracted by own anxious thoughts I didn’t understand what he meant at the time. But I think I do now. No one was judging me, so I didn’t have to be afraid of them.
I started to feel at ease when I sat with my friend down the front. I could finally sing along to Christmas Carols without worrying much about the history behind why we have them at all. I felt like The Holy Spirit was speaking to me through Pastor Matt’s sermon, trying to remind me of something that would answer a whole lot of questions for me, mainly about my baptism. Something I forgot about long ago. But I wouldn’t realise this until early January, as I mentioned before, that I had strayed so far from the path that I was living both for Jesus and the world, even if I was trying really hard to be a good Christian.
When I stood up to join in on closing worship, I felt the Holy Spirit fall down on me. The presence was unusually heavy. It felt odd that this would happen during Christmas Carols. But I just closed my eyes and took it all in.
After the service I had a desire to talk to Pastor Matt about David Bennet’s testimony, and my own LGBT related issues. But I was still so nervous about talking about LGBT issues in church. I had always just suppressed them. But after seeing how everyone responded to David’s testimony positively I knew Anchor was different to how my former churches saw LGBT people.
To my surprise, he listened. He brought up the psychologist Mark A. Yarhouse who analysed transgender research from a Christian perspective. I was uncertain about him. I had the transgender community come back into my head over some of the things Pastor Matt said. I was torn. I knew he genuinely wanted to help me but I didn’t want to turn against the transgender community that had once felt like family to me. I didn’t want to do a massive u-turn and become transphobic. But I kept these thoughts to myself.
I told him about my struggles to get into the spirit of Christmas and my struggles to give things up for Christ, but that I was still attempting to break from my worldly desires, like socialism and video games. We talked about David a lot but at the time I really couldn’t understand how putting a relationship with Jesus in place of a romantic one could help someone be celibate.
As I left Enmore Theatre, that iconic venue I was once too scared to re-enter, I felt like that was a good Christmas service. And I was glad I came.
I was sad to break from Anchor over Christmas, fearing if I caught COVID on Christmas or crashed that I would be separated from them for a long time again. But as it turned out I was alone on both Christmas and my birthday. I got depressed about it but a journal my mum gave me that she half filled cheered me up. It was full of encouraging scripture verses, telling me to ‘stay strong’ and she even wrote her own psalms. I also started reading A War of Loves by David Bennett and Understanding Gender Dysphoria by Mark A. Yarhouse, both recommended by Pastor Matt.
So, despite 2022 not having a good start and a terrible middle, God was able to turn it around for me, as long as I put my faith in Him and just wait on Him. 2023 is looking hopeful but also hard, as I try to overcome my anxieties at church and work through my gender dysphoria and sexuality.
I stopped going to church when I was 21. I still believed in God but I wanted to do my own thing, so I became what I now know is called a practical atheist. For the next 15 years I would live by my own rules far away from the disapproving eyes of the church leaders of my former church. For the most part I had fun. I had friends, I was a successful band photographer getting access to exclusive areas and mostly seeing bands for free. I embraced Australia’s drinking culture, especially to help me get closer to the bands. But also, because I relished in it. Every late night partying with my friends on the weekend felt like a celebration of my newfound freedom.
Then I had various mental health issues and then physical health issues. By 2010 my ME/CFS, that is myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome, a neuro-immune system disease I had since I was 13, got worse and it felt like I had brain damage. I developed seizures after a mini-stroke. I had to stop taking ADHD medication which put an end to pursuing my dreams to become a physicist, and author. But I adapted and accepted there would be some things I couldn’t do, so I pursued screenwriting instead of writing novels. I self-medicated my ADHD and self-treated my mental health issues once I realised doctors wouldn’t believe my symptoms were even happening. By 2012 I developed PTSD from nearly getting mugged, and spent a good 2 years not being able to leave my home. And then not feeling safe to go on the streets, though still I did. My PTSD wasn’t taken seriously by anyone I knew and I’d eventually cut a very close friend out of my life over it.
The years passed. I tried to live as well as I could with all my issues. But changes to the disability pension just heaped them on, especially the anxiety and depression. Even though I had been on disability for year I wasn’t seen as disabled enough, due to my young age. So, I had to start looking for part time work through a disability unemployment service by the name of Max Employment. I’d also leave them over them triggering constant anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts. I then moved to WISE Employment.
Around this time I realised I was transgender. So I joined the online community, came out and started dressing like the gender I identified with – male. Though transitioning brought on a lot of emotions and at the start I was nervous to be seen in public because I hadn’t yet completely changed to look masculine enough, I finally felt I was living as the true me. Everyday I was connecting to people who went through the same things I went through. We would affirm each other when others wouldn’t, but my family was actually very supportive of my new identity. After taking testosterone over a year I started to feel more relaxed with my body.
But I never got over the anxiety my changes brought earlier, when I had stopped going out because I was too afraid to be seen. Now though I finally looked the part I was still too nervous to use the restrooms of my gender identity, for that one chance I wasn’t passing perfectly. It was less about what people would think but what people would do. And the last time I used a female restroom I had a panic attack even though I still looked like a woman.
Because of this anxiety I was too nervous to go back to gigs to continue my band photography. Previously, it had been getting harder and harder to get access to go to gigs, after I went on a mental health break a few years before. But now I felt like I couldn’t go at all. I couldn’t feel safe using the bathroom of the gender I now identified with. So I stayed at home.
2020: The First Infection
It was late February, my roommate had just moved out and as I watched very little else on TV except the news I was finding out all about this new virus spreading throughout the world called coronavirus.
One day I get a call from my Real Estate to expect a painter to come by to repaint the bathroom. So I spent most of the day on the couch watching the news. When the painter was done he left and as I was closing the door my neighbours got my attention because they needed to use my phone to call the Real Estate because they had locked themselves out of their apartment. So I lent it to them, took it back to recharge, and lent it back to them. Then once they got a new key I went back to my day.
That night I was staying up late at night reading user submitted erotic stories, which had been a bad habit of mine for the past year. But as I was in a culture that encouraged this sort of thing I thought nothing wrong with it.
Then I rubbed my eye and then looked at my finger. Uh oh. I decided then to give up on reading and try to get some sleep. When I woke up I could barely open my eyes so I looked into the mirror and my eyelids were red and puffy. Not knowing what to do about it I went back to bed. When I woke up my eyes were fine but I had a huge head cold.
Not thinking much about it I put it down to a summer cold and kept up my usual routine.
Then I saw one of my neighbours who I had helped yesterday and we said our hellos, had a little chat and shook hands. I wouldn’t shake another hand for a year.
My cold went on for weeks, I had difficulty swallowing and had a swollen mouth (though I originally put it down to a reaction from cough medicine). But still I tried to soldier on. After all, I had a screenplay to write. It was a science fiction, Ender’s Game and MARVEL universe inspired. But my cold symptoms got in the way of me working on it. I felt so tired and unmotivated. And when I was finally over the symptoms, they came right back a few weeks later. Around this time we were hearing about ‘long haul’ COVID in the news, but because I have had ME/CFS for over 20 years I never thought I had what would later be commonly referred to as Long COVID.
An Increase In Anxiety and Depression
As if battling an unending virus wasn’t enough I also dealt with a lot of uncertainly now that COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. Shops and businesses had shut down and my whole state was in a lockdown, as well as fines being issued to people who broke lockdown restrictions. There were no local clinics for me to get tested in and the only people who could get tested had to have been overseas. When the panic buying started my OCD skyrocketed over not being able to get the hygiene products I always relied on. My OCD became too severe to even go to the local supermarket anyway. I started seeing germs on everything. So, I converted to online food shopping, but then those companies stopped their deliveries because they were buckling under the weight of the amount of orders they received.
I’ve always had so much anxiety over feeling like I don’t have enough money which then makes me worry about becoming homeless and dying on the streets. This started to happen, but it no longer felt like irrational anxiety to me, because now it probably could happen. So I stopped eating in some attempt to kill myself.
I should take a moment to pause here and mention I’m autistic and as such I don’t transition smoothly to change. In fact I’m adverse to change, and during this period there was nothing but change and my most paranoid anxieties became reality so there was nothing cognitive behavioural therapy – the act of restructuring negative thoughts that they have a more positive yet realistic outcome – could do to lower them. And I felt that the people who knew me thought I could manage fine as they were able to manage, so no one was offering help. But I felt like I was falling apart. All my coping strategies were gone and I didn’t know how to form new ones. So I just stopped trying to work my problems out and basically gave up on life. Everything felt too hard so I just stopped. I rejected the advice people gave me online because for one my type of autism resists demands. It perceives them as threats and triggers extreme anxiety which makes me refuse them. And I had such little control over my own environment that this resistance became harder to control to actually listen to people who were trying to be helpful.
For more info on how the pandemic affected my PDA Autism click here.
Then I told those close to me I was suicidal. Actually, I told them through a Youtube video that was available for the whole world to see. Next thing I know I get a delivery of groceries and then online orders start getting delivered again.
Eventually, I took up some hobbies to keep myself preoccupied. I watched many series on Netflix, got back into gaming, and perhaps overdid it on the comfort eating.
Still, stress and anxiety and depression (often with suicidal thoughts) still happened from time to time. At times I felt like getting COVID so it could just end my life. I was completely isolated during lockdown and I felt such crushing loneliness, that was made worse by overhearing my neighbours’ at the apartment next door spending their lockdown together with lively chats and laughter, and I just so desperately wanted to be part of that.
August – The Moment it All Went Downhill
I don’t know how it started nor do I know what the cause of it was, but one night in bed I was under so much stress my anxious thoughts cycled around my head making it hard to sleep. When I woke up the next morning my mouth was dry and my lips were swollen. Unsure what it was but somehow thinking it was related to ME/CFS I asked the Facebook community. One person said it could be fungal, so I did some research on it and then I went to the Pharmacy to get some medication. Then the very slight white on my tongue began to grow. The pharmacist also told me to give up gluten and sugar so I slowly tried to eliminate it from my diet, which wasn’t easy. The fungus was basically an overgrowth of candida albicans or oral thrush.
During this time I was feeling a lot of fatigue and nausea, and that was before I went off sugar. My gums were getting so weak that just biting into an apple would bruise the bottom of my gum, and I got worried that it actually cut my gum and my bottom tooth was sticking out. Even eating apples chopped into squares wasn’t good enough as it made the white on my tongue grow. I couldn’t use toothpaste or mouthwash because of the sucralose in it, and I had now developed an intolerance to alcohol so any product with alcohol in it would cause inflammation. This often resulted in swelling, breathing problems, chest pains, and overheating. If that wasn’t bad enough I was too afraid to eat hard things like nuts, or even bite into a sandwich because my gingivitis was so bad I thought I could lose a tooth at any moment. And my tongue was now caked in the white fungus.
But then I found a toothpaste that was sucralose free, and mouth flora rebuilding. My gluten and sugar free diet gave me more energy. I started taking probiotics that made me feel better too.
September – The First Noticeable Symptoms of Long COVID
Eventually, I caught COVID again. This time I was a lot worse. I had a high fever and nausea. At times I’d find it hard to breathe and had a dull pain in my chest. When I was around a group of people who had COVID they described it as a knotted ball deep in the chest. I preferred to say it was like a small animal crawled into my chest and died. I couldn’t continue to do my daily activities and there was a point where I thought I should go to emergency. So I prayed. I prayed hard to God to spare me from this. I probably made some promise about not doing a certain type of sin, which I most likely didn’t keep.
I put on the film Code 8, and watched it in agony but by the end of the film I felt better. I made sure to buy more vitamin D, which I’ve been taking for years because of an inherited deficit and for the next week was able to get through COVID without nausea, so I was able to do more. I did get some post-symptoms. Randomly I would get chest pains, and my breathing didn’t return to normal. Whatever post-pneumonia normal breathing was.
It was now November when I decided to work on a new screenplay, having abandoned the sci-fi months ago. I got the idea by certain evangelicals calling supporting trans children child abuse. I was like I grew up trans so I can tell you what real childhood abuse wa– lightbulb! So, the screenplay was about growing up in a Pentecostal community from the point of view of a trans boy and heavily criticised Pentecostalism.
Because the film had a child protagonist I had to do a lot of research about children. Things like school curriculums, how modern day kids acted and how they study the Bible. I remembered my mum gave me a book of devotionals when I was 10 so I put it in the script. Then I wanted to write my own devotional so I looked up some devotional apps, but was only able to find one’s for adults and teens. And the teen ones weren’t in the story form I used to read and was looking for. Then I found one called Keys For Kids so I started reading those. But then as I started to read the accompanying scripture I felt The Holy Spirit began to speak to me. I tried to ignore it and continue my research. After all, I put that life behind me. I only answered to myself and didn’t need to live by strict rules. But after every new devotional I read each day (as you could only read one per day) the Spirit kept stirring in me, until I eventually just read the devotionals without making the excuse it was for research. I found comfort in the Word of God after all I had been through that year and the past years. The fear, doubt, uncertainty, isolation, illness, depression, desperation, and occasional suicidal feelings. It all just faded into the background as I felt a deep emotional connection with the scriptures.
Usually when this happens someone would point out a specific passage that helped them but for me it was many of them. Eventually I did become a Christian again, a more serious one, and now I wasn’t sure if I should write my screenplay. So I decided to make my protagonist grow up and start his own inclusive church. But that still didn’t feel like enough. My head was wrestling with my heart. The story was something that society would embrace, and no one else could write it, so it would make me known. On the other hand something told me not to criticise the Pentecostal church.
So I didn’t pursue it. I tried to at times go back to it because it was the best character development I’ve ever done. But with each attempt to start it up again I never stayed with it long.
Christmas in Lockdown
It was a week out for Christmas when I found out there would be a regional lockdown. The Northern Beaches had a COVID spike, and that area went into lockdown, and restrictions were given to surrounding areas, including Sydney.
I was distraught. I had started buying Christmas presents in early November as a distraction to help me cope with the pandemic, and also because I really love doing it. So when I found out I’d not be able to go see my family at Christmas and give my nephews their Christmas presents I fell back into depression. Then a voice said to me just spend the time reading about the birth of Jesus. I was like ‘but I’ve heard it so many times.’ It said ‘just do it again.’ So I read a YouVersion devotional about the birth of Jesus, and it was like hearing it for the first time. I was full of wonder and amazement, and hope because the Savior had been born. I also became aware that without His birth there would be no Christianity, so it was kind of important.
So, on Christmas Day I was no longer depressed or in that sulky mood I was in days before I started reading the devotional. I spent the day reading about what Christmas meant to me – the birth of a Savior. A few days later it was my birthday which I spent mostly alone too. At that point it didn’t bother me. I saw some family in the evening but when they had to go I wasn’t upset.
2021: A New Year, A New Me
The new year bought a sense of hope as people started to look forward to the end of the pandemic. It was the same for me but also so much more as I entered 2021 a renewed Christian, so to me my sense of hope was just as much about looking forward to growing in Christ as it was an end to the pandemic.
At least one of those things happened.
I continued to read my devotionals, sometimes three different ones a day. I was growing both in knowledge and spirit. But God was telling me through several devotionals that it was time to go back to church.
I decided on Anchor City because it seemed the most open to the mainstream. I started to watch their live streams which gave me a sense of what their sermons would be like. But it still wasn’t enough. So, I went to a service and was greeted by many of the charismatic church leaders, some much younger than me. It was good to finally have people to talk to about things I couldn’t discuss with non-Christians.
I went there for three weeks but then as COVID cases rose we begun to realise that the pandemic wasn’t over. So restrictions came in and then another lockdown and I felt like that loving church community I had waited years to be part of again was just snatched away from me. Again, I had to deal with my loneliness. I was back watching the livestreams which everyone was now doing, so the chat section was a lot more active. But just giving greetings wasn’t enough for me. I wanted conversation.
I also struggled with my faith now I was away from the church. I was finding it hard to give up my old toxic behaviors, particularly when it came to social media. I was very involved in left wing activism and had been before I became a Christian again. I saw myself as more radical than ANTIFA, in that I wanted them to overthrow the government. Something I’ve always wanted since I became a communist at 17. How do I tame such a radical heart? But I also had temptation to look at porn and have sexual fantasies. And even to just put sex scenes in my screenplays, which I could conjure out of my vivid imagination. Masturbation was also hard to give up because I was taking testosterone which gave me the hormones of a male adolescent. But the biggest temptation was from the media I watched. The swearing, the sex, the drug taking, the violence, the immoral behaviour. How do you not get influenced by that? How do I keep feeling that sense of spiritual understanding, followed by hope and assurance I was ready to do better after reading a devotional or listening to a sermon, when not long after I get distracted by the world again and begin to fall into the same immoral behaviours I was trying hard to avoid?
I needed my church community. I needed to be around good role models. It will happen soon, I thought. Lockdown wouldn’t last long and when it’s over I’ll be able to go straight back to Anchor.
It wasn’t to be.
When lockdown ended it only ended for the vaccinated, and I was too anxious to be vaccinated because I heard some with ME/CFS got worse from vaccination. Anchor decided to keep its doors closed until restrictions ended for unvaccinated people, because they wanted to reunite as a whole church family. But when they reopened I still didn’t go back. It was almost Christmas and I was finding it hard to adjust to the world outside, and to people. I couldn’t tolerate groups of people. Instead of them making me anxious they made me angry.
I was able to see the new Spider-Man movie though, just a week away from Christmas.
There was another spike in COVID cases but there wasn’t another lockdown. It was now a choice to have Christmas in isolation. Remembering back on the despair I went through last year I decided to spend Christmas with the family, some I hadn’t seen since Christmas 2019. Well, those members of the family wouldn’t be there. I found out on my way to Christmas lunch with my backpack full of their presents I bought in November last year.
Still, Christmas was fun. As per Roy-Edwards tradition we had Christmas on Boxing Day. I still got to spend Christmas Day reading devotions on my own. My sister made sure to get gluten free snacks for me and I bought along some treats I made myself. I got to see family members I hadn’t seen in awhile and was fortunate to be outdoors in the one area that didn’t feel any of the heat that was predicted. Though I had only packed summer clothes. The next day was my 36th birthday and I was looking forward to finally spending it with some people.
Then I woke up early in the morning overheated with some breathing problems. I tried to brush it off as post exertional malaise (PEM), which happens when people with ME/CFS over extend themselves. It’s marked by symptoms getting temporarily worse. If sufficient rest isn’t had then those changes could become permanent.
When I returned home a wave of exhaustion hit me, so I decided to rest on the couch. This was the predicted PEM I talked about. I just had to get through it and I should be ok in 1-2 days.
2022: Becoming a Long Hauler
I spent four days like this and would even fall asleep while scrolling social media on my phone. That never happened before. I had an itchy throat and coughed maybe once. I started to get the feeling I had COVID again as these symptoms were characteristic of the Omicron strain. Milder but with ‘extreme fatigue’ as the news reporters and medical experts liked to say. But the line for tests were so long it would take days to get seen, and in my state and with my hypoglycemia and existing ME/CFS it would be impossible to stay in line that long. I also didn’t have the energy to leave my apartment. And rapid antigen tests had been sold out for months. I wouldn’t be able to get my 10 free tests until next month.
So I stayed home and tried to rest.
Two weeks later I started to get more symptoms. Chest pains this time and a shortness of breath much worse than before. At exhaustion my chest would have a squeezing pain and my breathing was more like hyperventilation. Some activities I could have done with ease before were now making me gasp for breath. So I joined Long COVID communities on Facebook to try and understand what was happening, and how to treat the symptoms.
One of these groups was Survivor Corps. I was surprised to find people in the group so open about their faith in God. Here it was common to say a prayer over someone or just say someone was in your prayers. Many in a desperate situation requested prayers from the group. These people were survivors, as the name suggests. They were the ones who spent time in ICU’s clinging onto life with the severest of symptoms. And they had this profound faith in God, either because of surviving what they had been through, or they had their existent faith strengthened because He had saved their lives. Not all members had gone through that but a lot had. Some have used their faith in God and found comfort in the scriptures to get them through the worst of their symptoms. It was just so relieving for a new Christian to see, whom for the last couple of years was surrounded by people who had rejected God.
The group members were located mostly in the US, so I joined an Australian Long COVID group so I would be able to access the treatments they recommended and just to see what research was coming into the country, because other countries were miles in front of us in terms of research and support.
When I was at a month post COVID I went to see a doctor. First one freaked over me maybe still having COVID so sent me for a PCR test so the doctor’s surgery wouldn’t get sued. The second one I saw that day was a bit more helpful. She ordered tests but did blame my rapid heart beat on anxiety. The tests all came back normal.
Feeling defeated I gave up on seeing doctors. I had no choice but to treat the symptoms myself. Most people in the Long COVID community were taking supplements and going on diets. One of these was the keto diet which I found out was anti-inflammatory, so I was glad I was already on it to treat thrush. The others were a series of vitamins like vitamin C, D, the B vitamins, zinc, magnesium, selenium, niacin, and anti-inflammatories like turmeric, garlic and cold pressed coconut oil. All of which is encouraged on the anti-candida diet, which I had been on for a year. As it turns out developing oral thrush is a very common symptom in Long COVID.
Each month I was getting newer symptoms and I was getting worse. At one month I was getting tired before I had finished buying groceries, which never happened before. At two months I was finding it hard to walk and breathe properly to just walk to the supermarket. Both my legs and arms would flail around while I gasped for breath. Sometimes my muscles ached and my feet were in so much pain I could only drag them up the hill. I’d be forced to take breaks every 5 meters just to catch my breath and because my body was too fatigued to go on. I couldn’t understand it. Before the pandemic, when I knew I was too exhausted to buy food I would still force myself to go. As I liked to say I would drag my corpse throughout the streets just so I could buy food, and exhausted I’d collapse on the couch afterwards but I could at least do it without breaking in between.
One unusual symptom I had was that every time there was a thunderstorm I would have what is known as a complex partial seizure. CPS is characterized by repetitive non-functional movements, for example my arm would swing up and touch my shoulder over and over again. My head would also be stiff, face expressionless, movement slow (sometimes paralyzed), and I’d get severe ear aches and headaches.
I was also prone to transient ischaemic attacks, more commonly known as a mini-stroke.
Even writing these blog posts was proving to be difficult. What used to take maybe a week of writing and editing now took weeks, and I’d just get to a point where I couldn’t edit it anymore and just published it without being completely satisfied with it. I wasn’t thrilled with my writing style either.
By the third month the newest symptom was daily nausea. I now felt incapable of going out for a food run, or to the doctor’s appointment I kept putting off. Even cleaning. I like to follow a daily routine of doing 2-3 activities so I don’t get stuck in extreme procrastination and waste time online or watching Netflix or playing videogames. Because being on disability makes it entirely possible for me to do those things all day long. But most importantly my plans to return to Anchor after I had recovered from Long COVID wasn’t looking good. So I cried out to God ‘I am trying to heal so I can get back to Anchor Church – how am I to go back if each month I get worse?’ And also, how could I serve God through this blog when I wasn’t well enough to continue to write posts for it? Then I had an urging which I kept brushing off to get immune support supplements, after hearing that was another treatment recommended by the Long COVID groups. When my sister finally caught COVID I couldn’t keep putting it off. If she got Long COVID I needed to make sure these treatments actually worked.
So, I went to buy some immune support supplements. There was a lot to choose from in the chemist and I wasn’t sure if I’d rather take probiotics or immune support supplements or both, but being used to living pension to pension I only wanted to buy one at a time. Feeling nervous the staff was staring at me because I hadn’t yet come to a decision for what felt like 20 minutes I asked God to help me choose. My heart told me to go with the immune support, so I did. They tasted horrible and left me feeling sleepy, but took away my nausea so I decided to take them every night before I went to bed.
I also began to practice some breathing exercises, usually meant for those with lung disease, so I could finally walk without flailing about, to regulate my breathing, and to feel less pain. I do this every time I walk to the supermarket.
Eventually, I went out and bought probiotics. There had been a study where Long COVID patients were given a probiotic and inulin (prebiotic) to take while recovering from the symptoms. I had already seen results from taking a probiotic a month before to treat thrush. So I went out to buy a general probiotic.
I also used some unconventional treatments such as an alkaline water (because it contained magnesium), protein peanut butter, protein bars and caffeinated chocolate to help with energy and brain fog. Anything to help me focus and have enough energy, within moderation of course.
My Long COVID treatment regime.
As I gained more energy and had less PEM I began to write more, and because of my month’s supply a caffeinated chocolate I also started to read. I chanced upon Koorong Books, a Christian bookstore my mum used to take me to as a child, in Google search when I was just researching the blog I posted previously. So I began to browse it, by looking up random subjects in the search bar. As my blog was about Easter’s pagan origins I was curious about what else the church got from paganism.
I found the book ‘Pagan Christianity?’ by Frank Viola which would change the way I view the church as an institution. My research also brought me to a number of Christian sites which I seem to have subscribed to the mailing list of because I was getting their e-mails in my inbox. It was good for me to continually have my focus drawn back to God and His Word. I also accidentally chanced upon the site of the Messianic Bible Society, which is releasing their own Jewish Bible, including the New Testament. They aim to bring Yeshua (Jesus) back to Judaism. They were also making a more accurate translation of the Bible for Westerners, so I signed up for it. And now they e-mail me, which teaches me about Judaism while Jesus as Savior. So, a lot like the 1st century Christians in the New Testament.
Then, as I was scrolling through Amazon Prime I saw a program called Apocryphal Jesus, which is about New Testament Apocrypha. It was from a channel called The Great Courses Signature Series and usually had a lecturer cover 24 videos about a certain subject. Through this I have learned about New Testament apocrypha, Jesus’ Jewish influences, ancient Mesopotamia, general ancient world history and interpreting the Bible as a narrative. Needless to say that with these courses, my Koorong books, my Christian and Messianic e-mails I haven’t had much left for anything else. Whereas before I struggled to put God before my own interests, now He’s become, as we say in the autistic community, my special interest. I’ve played the odd videogame on the weekend, spent a minute on Twitter and then get bored or exasperated and then closed the app in frustration, but besides that I feel completely removed from the world. The way Jesus wanted His followers to be.
I have the privilege of being on disability to spend almost everyday of my waking hour to be focused on the Word of God. I even got burned out by it, but I took a break and if I continue to do that I won’t become as overwhelmed again.
In a year I’ve grown so much as Christian not just in knowledge but in spirit and in wisdom, though I’m still a young Christian. There’s still doubt and uncertainty. What Paul called ‘weakness’ in some Christians might as well explain me. But I prefer to see it as purity. But I am still learning and growing and having to discern things for myself. I’m still having to fight off the old temptations not long ago I’d just give into.
My health gets better as my faith gets stronger.
Through praying and having faith in God I’m doing much better than I was at my worst, which was only a few months ago. Before I could barely walk in a straight line, while being in pain and struggling to breathe. And I’d only be able to go out to buy groceries once every four days. Or just go out once every four days. Now all it takes to go out is doing a breathing exercise. My daily nausea is kept away by immune support supplements chosen by The Holy Spirit and He directed me to the right probiotics to take to give me just a bit more energy.
I know without God my symptoms could be so much worse so I really appreciate what He has done for me. I’m still able to write in this blog, take photos to accompany it, clean my apartment and stay somewhat productive, though if I want to continue to heal I need to maybe not do so much each day.
These past two years I’ve been through a lot, like most of the world. But I’m a completely different person since before this pandemic began. I wouldn’t have even called myself a Christian. I gave into unhealthy desires that corrupted my soul. I put my needs and wants before God. Now God comes first. I’m reading the whole Bible in a year, and I’ve learned so much, especially as the courses I watch reveal more information about the books of the Bible I’m reading. I used to struggle to not get distracted by the world I’d begin to neglect God, but now that’s reversed and I think the only thing that worries me is becoming too indifferent to the issues of the world that I become unempathetic. The Holy Spirit made me aware of this.
I’ve had setbacks both with my health and with my faith, but I know God will see me through them. The Holy Spirit will get me back on the right track spiritually, and remind me that I need to keep asking God for healing. I may still have Long COVID but I no longer feel like life is hopeless or I’d rather die. I’ve managed to gain back enough physical strength to continue on about as normal as I did before. I had to give a few things up, but I’m slowly building myself back up to them. And that’s all because of my devotion to God. I may have my doubts at times but I’ll always come right back and when I do good things happen, and I feel a sense of peace and feel like I’m living a life with purpose rather than just getting through the days like so many people in this society do.
It doesn’t matter what religion you have or if you have any, everyone would agree that people have their own ways to manage their mental health issues. If you disagree then you should open your mind up because not every approach works for everyone.
Christians have their own way of managing their mental health but instead of coming up with coping mechanisms, going to therapy or taking medication they seek first the Scriptures. I’m not saying that if anyone does those things, even if they are Christian, that it’s wrong. Like I said, everyone has their own way of managing their mental health. And not every Christian does first go to the Bible for guidance, but I would encourage them to because of the wisdom to be found there that applies to past and future generations. It is not an ancient book that has become irrelevant to modern society as many non-believers would have you think.
In the Book of Matthew Jesus instructs his audience to not worry because His father would provide for them, and if the birds in the sky do not store up food but are always provided for, should God not also provide for us, who He cares deeply for? (Matt 6:26)
On the surface just thinking if we give our worries to God that’s not enough to make them go away, and indeed I thought this most of my life. How can saying words make me feel better? But still I tried it and eventually things did get better for me. It didn’t happen instantly; days or weeks usually passed before I realised the good that was happening in my life was from God.
Take for example financial anxiety. Ever since I moved out of the family home I have been anxious about money. I had a very specific fear that I would eventually starve homeless on the streets if I was not careful with my money. I became a stingy giver if I did give at all, but then it was revealed to me that this wasn’t very healthy of me as a child of God. So, I started to give to those who needed it and I was rewarded for it.
One night when I couldn’t get to sleep because I felt I would soon run out of money to pay the rent and electricity and then I would have to cut out food, and begin starving. Suddenly my thoughts started to come up with a perfect way to budget so I could save a certain amount of money a month. For hours I worked out the calculations in my mind, and I’m very bad at mental math. I checked my calculations in the morning and found I had been correct. I feel this was God sorting out my anxiety around money. And ever since I have not felt as anxious about money.
The Bible instructs us as Christians to endure our suffering because it is a sign God is working through us to make us stronger, and we will be rewarded for maintaining our faith. When we suffer God is strongest and He will give us strength if we come to Him with our problems. He wants us to rejoice during our suffering, which is easier said than done. It’s still something I’m yet to learn to do. Like everything it takes practice and it takes faith. You need to let the Holy Spirit work in you and change your heart so you will always know Jesus will be there to help you, so you can still praise Him during your trials.
Throughout 2020 and since late 2008 I have struggled with thoughts of suicide. But since becoming a Christian I have barely had them at all. I still go through depression and despair but it gets easier to manage, knowing my Father is watching over me.
I have tried almost every approach to managing my mental health. I’ve taken medication, used cognitive behavioural therapy and created some coping mechanisms of my own, but those were never enough to bring me peace. Though I still have mental illnesses, just the thought that God will handle my problems, and reward me in this life and the next, is enough to keep my mind at ease.
I was even worried about writing this blog. The words would just not come or they sounded too pedantic. I have a habit of mimicking the Apostle Paul in my writing style and it’s not the best way to write with emotion and actually reach people in this modern age. I asked God to give me the words to write and indeed that’s what He has done. Because I didn’t even plan today to write this blog post, instead I was going to do further research just so I had all the information ready to go, but He had other plans.
Even when I have failing physical health, like a fungal infection that won’t heal, despite the medications I’ve taken and the strict diet I’ve been on for 9 months, I still believe that eventually God will heal me. I look at the good that has come from it; I have had to completely change my diet to one that’s much healthier, and once I recover I have decided to stick to it. And even though I find myself with an incurable chronic illness that makes me incapable of work and gives me a limited amount of energy, aches, pains and immune and neurological issues, I know one day it will all be over when I meet my King the Lord Jesus Christ, on the new Heaven on Earth, in a new unfailing body.
So, I encourage you to read the Word of God, the Bible, and recite the following scriptures during those times when it never seems like your anxiety or depression will end, and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ to take those feelings away. Give them to Him to handle and you will feel they are no longer a burden to you, so you can focus on more important things, and enjoy your life again.
-VP
Psalm 56:3
“Whenever I’m afraid, I will trust in you.”
1 Peter 5:7
“Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”
John 8:12
“Jesus spoke to them again: ‘I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.”
Philippians 4:6-7
“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.”
Psalm 46:1-3
“God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.”
Isaiah 40:30-31
“Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.”
Isaiah 41:10
“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
2 Corinthians 12:9-10
“But he said to me, ‘my grace is sufficient enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ For the sake of Christ then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Jeremiah 29:11
“For I know I have plans for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
The following is my full testimony, from my early years in the church to my 15 years of sin to finally returning to God.
TW: sexual abuse, porn addiction
I was brought up in the Church. I attended maybe four Pentecostal churches in those years I went to church. Five, if you include my visit to Hillsong. That’s all I was exposed to. I had no idea what happened in other Christian churches, and I thought Pentecostal churches were like any other church. In my early years I didn’t really think much about Christianity, I knew a few things here and there. The story of creation, Noah’s Ark, and the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus. That all changed when I was 10 when my mother insisted I read my Bible more. She gave me a book of devotions for kids and I was to read one a day. It worked because I got serious about following God’s Word, especially when I was 12 when I went down to the altar call (front of the church) and gave my heart to God.
I was the type of kid to hear a sermon one day, take it to heart and the next day try to change something about myself so I could put what I learned into practice. This got me labelled as ‘a good little Christian’ by other kids. I even got this from youth leaders when I would describe a sermon as having a ‘powerful’ message. They’d just laugh. I started to think that maybe I was taking it too seriously and I should just maybe relax, and be like the other kids.
My commitment to God waxed and waned in my teen years, and my faith was tested when I learned about communism and became one at the age of 17. It was such an on/off thing for me. At times I was more communist than Christian, other times I was back being a Christian and had little interest in communism. My mum and sister didn’t like hearing my politics. I got told to remember my roots and that ‘Christians can’t be communists.’ Fortunately I had a sister who encouraged this in me and took me to a Marxist forum at the UTS in Sydney. Though she was an anarchist and tried to push me to become one too.
Then I got other interests – music. After going to my first big concert that wasn’t a Christian music festival I discovered that I was a good photographer, and after being encouraged by my new friends I decided to make it more than a hobby. In less than a year I had already acquired media passes to shoot shows from the ‘photo pit.’ I was going strong and building my skills up to becoming a professional photographer.
Then my dad died from a brain tumor. I felt guilty that I was so preoccupied with my photography that I hardly went to visit him in hospital. I felt guilty that I was angry with him for taking too long to come back into my life. At his funeral I saw something, something that I’ve barely told anyone about, except people in the mental health community who would write it off as a hallucination. I saw demons. Just as my youth pastor used to describe. They were dark wispy shadows, and they had gotten hold of my dad right there from his coffin and dragged him to Hell. How did I know that’s what they were doing? They told me, in harsh raspy voices, more like a hiss. I was terrified. I cried. People thought I was crying because I had lost my father, but as sad as I get at funerals I don’t cry. This was fear, a panic attack. I didn’t tell anybody but later read in the papers that a woman saw the same sight, and was treated like she was crazy. Maybe it didn’t actually happen. It could have been more of a message, or it was triggered by the general thought that my dad wasn’t Christian. When I was as young as 12 I wouldn’t pray for my dad to become a Christian because I thought it would take him away from his self-made business – teaching yoga. This was during a time when yoga wasn’t as mainstream as it is now, so I always associated it with Hinduism. I always believed what I saw was true but instead of going to God, I decided that I’d rather not be a Christian. I didn’t want to acknowledge that it was real – that demons were real. And also I felt me being Christian had kept me from knowing who my dad really was. All my other siblings seemed to know him more. So just like that I stopped going to church. I was 21.
After my dad died I had basically given up on me ever having a future. I was mourning but was depressed too. I kept going to gigs to forget my feelings, I drank until I blacked out, and I slept around. I ended up getting sexually abused but just like the funeral thing I tried to block it out, to stop myself from having PTSD. I may not have had the flashbacks but I was traumatised in different ways. It affected my romantic relationships and my trust in people.
When one of my relationships ended I didn’t just have the usual breakup feelings, it was depression. My mental health had deteriorated during the time I was dating him. I had severe social anxiety, and general anxiety. Feeling lost I went back to my old church but it didn’t feel the same. My mum was attending another church so I found it hard to get lifts to and back from church. So I went back to the gigs and drinking with band members and their fans, completely unapologetic that I was living in sin, and started seeing doctors about my mental health issues, which resulted in being diagnosed with autism, and then ADHD. I got on medication for ADHD and for the first time I actually felt smart. I taught myself advanced math, and attempted to write my own science fiction. During this time I stopped believing in the story of creation, as I was learning more about evolution and the Big Bang and was doing backyard astronomy so learning more about the cosmos.
It was one day when I was looking up what time a meteor shower was starting that I saw an add about the End of Times. Was this another attempt of God to bring me back to him? I clicked the link which led me to a PDF to a book called The Prophesied End Time by Ronald Weiland, ex-physicist turned pastor, which I at first didn’t believe, but I decided to humor myself. The more I read the more I was convinced. This would get me in deep with The Church of God, a small Pentecostal church focused on the End Times who practiced Christianity in its most pure form, even celebrating the Holy Days in the Hebrew calendar and attending church on a Saturday.
Even though Pastor Ron landed in prison for taking $50,000 from his church, which he said was to prepare for the downfall of Western society, I didn’t get suspicious. I read his books so I understood where he was coming from. But when the world didn’t end on the second and third prophesied dates is when I realised that he was just another false prophet. I felt the disillusionment hard. I couldn’t believe I had been fooled. So, I decided to give up on my faith again and live my own life. At times I would come back to Christianity but not go back to church, instead I’d attempt to read my Bible but I could never keep to my promise. When I did go to read my Bible I just didn’t know what books or chapters to read. I was lost without the direction of a pastor, but being autistic I knew it would take a long time to get used to another church and the people in it.
I knew God wanted me to return to him because he would give me hints through the media I consumed. I would say to Him, ‘you allow others to live in sin, why not me?’ But there was one thing I never stopped doing, and that was singing the songs I sang in church all those years ago. I’d be surprised that I would suddenly remember all the words to a song that I hadn’t sung for 15 years or more. Every time I sang one I would laugh at myself and try to stop and try to sing another song, something less Christian. But I’d always find myself absentmindedly singing an old church song, even when I was so far away from God.
When I realised I was a transgender male I really turned to sin, not that I think being trans person is a sin, but the my new community were very open about sex. I’ve always been quite secretive about the porn I used to look up but they were open about it. Quite a lot we’re going through a second puberty because of taking hormones so they had an increased sex drive, and when I started hormones the same happened to me. No longer fearing I was sinning against God when I masturbated I would do it several times a day while watching porn. Eventually I got addicted to porn and developed premature ejaculation issues, and the porn that was available to watch for free was on ‘tube sites’ which offered all kinds of porn and some of the themes were taboo in nature. Try to imagine the most darkest themes in a movie: horror, cannibalism, kidnapping, slavery, non consent, incest, necrophilia, beastiality . There are millions of people who watch those things without blinking an eye and it’s easily accessible by children. I used to challenge myself by thinking there wasn’t anything I couldn’t stomach. It was just acting, so why not? But watching that along with reading erotic stories with the same themes started to change me psychologically. I at least realised it was bad and tried to stop myself from reading and watching it, but at times I’d come back to it and get it in small doses.
The world I now knew was obsessed with sex. Porn references were part of modern day language and even though I wasn’t yet a Christian again it still made me feel uncomfortable. I knew that this type of acceptance of the sexualising of society led to addiction issues such as mine, and these addiction issues can start in people before they even hit puberty, some as young as 9.
It wasn’t just the trans community that normalized sex and porn – it was all over social media. And I was put off it. Maybe because it reminded me of my struggles with my own addictions. Maybe God had directed me towards documentaries that warned of the sexualisation of society and how this affected young boys developing porn addictions, so that I would be made aware how harmful it was, not just to watch it but to talk openly about it and use the slang that came from it in everyday conversations.
It was easy for me to pick up on harmful behaviour society encourages because I’m autistic and long ago I realised that I could detach from society and view it from the outside. One analogy autistic people have is that they’re watching people from the outside looking in. You can imagine it as us being behind a large pane of glass while every other non-autistic person is on the other side. I found that while I was behind that glass I could study people closely without becoming like them. I could pick up all patterns to a behaviour and was able to stop doing that behaviour because it was ultimately pointless and a waste of time and energy, and possibly harmful. Case in point: arguing in a comment section, or jumping straight to making a negative comment. In fact the first time I realised I could see these patterns was because I was constantly making negative comments and it just made me feel constantly angry. When I stopped I just felt a large weight lift off me. Eventually, I would stop other behaviours online that would lead to the same problems. However, I could never truly be free of them yet.
Jumping ahead a few years now, because I don’t want to make this any longer than it already is, I made some attempts to be a screenwriter. I tried so many times with so many ideas but the only one I stuck with was set in a church. It was not meant to be a spiritual film. It was to show what it was like inside a Christian cult, loosely based on my own upbringing. The story was about a transgender boy who couldn’t find any support in his church until he met a new boy at the church. Because the main character was so young my research led me to look up grade 5 math’s, children’s shows and even looking up devotionals written for kids. I did this so I could maybe write my own to use in the film. I also needed to read the Bible to design a few youth scripture lessons. But in doing so the Word began to speak to me. I tried to ignore it but it stuck with me. Eventually, I turned the script into a spiritual film without even realising it. I tried to tell myself it would be ok because the LGBT community does accept Christian gay and trans people, and that’s all that this was. But as I continued to read all kinds of devotionals, not just ones written for kids and teens, it became less about the screenplay and more about a building faith. Or a re-building of a faith.
The story for a film I was working on that was originally meant to criticise the church I was brought up in ended up strengthening my own faith and bringing me back to God.
I kept reading my Devotionals and signed up to a few plans, where I would read a certain theme for 4-5 days. The first one was written by televangelist Joyce Meyer whose show I used to watch as a kid with my mum, so I felt it was a good place to start. It was about relationships with people. Because of being exposed to online transphobia and having most of my exchanges with people happen over social media I had started to turn against people, and after lockdown ended it became stronger. I started to hate people. Their completely illogical ways and repeating the same harmful behaviours without realising it or wanting to change it made me avoid them and feel superior to them, because I didn’t fall into the same traps as them. I was able to realise my behaviour and change it. I was always working hard on becoming a better person, but people just stayed in their own ways and wondered why they were so miserable. So, Joyce’s devotions hit me hard. She was full of so much love even though she was talking about difficult people and I felt ashamed for the way I treated and felt about people. I wanted to change but didn’t know how.
When Christmastime came a surge in COVID-19 cases in Sydney brought in restrictions, so I would have to spend Christmas alone. I didn’t take it well. I planned on spending the whole day in misery but something deep within me told me to focus on the story of the birth of Jesus, so I looked for a devotional plan about it. Instantly, my mood began to lighten and I didn’t mind that I was alone. I had my own solo church service at home. Two days later it was my birthday and I still felt ok being alone. I read another devotional, of the same theme as the one I read on Christmas Day, and I felt at peace. A few family members did visit me that afternoon though and I was grateful for the company, but I was also okay when they left.
When the new year came I was a completely changed person, made completely anew in God. I kept reading three different devotionals a day and did plans with themes that were about an issue I was facing. These were spiritual issues. I was still having issues with even loving people, with stress and anger and with temptation. It took me several plans of the same theme but eventually the scriptures I read and reread would speak to me and it would all become clear, and I could feel like I could finally move on. The devotions made me give up 80% of my time on social media, usually engaging in another fruitless argument to spending more time with God, The Word and doing more productive things. It decreased my anxiety, my anger, and gave me hope back. Slowly, they have made me love people again.
I can safely say that I am a Christian yet again. Jesus searched for this lost sheep who didn’t even want to be found, but He knew what was best for me and now He has found me. And I finally realised why He wanted me back so much and would constantly plant these little hints at random times in the media I consumed to get me back to Him – He searches for those who have gone astray. It’s like the parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15:1-7) where the shepherd leaves a flock of 99 sheep behind to find the one that went astray. He never gives up searching, so if you’ve ever given your life to God and then leave Him, He will never give up on trying to win you back.
I said earlier that I felt ashamed when people pointed out I was a ‘good little Christian’ and these days I still am that good little Christian. Instead of feeling embarrassed it is a label I now wear with pride. No longer does it make me feel ashamed but is a sign I’m doing something right, because I don’t need to impress anyone but my Father in Heaven.
Victory And Peace 