Skip to main content

Power of the Occult Offers No Escape

Share This article

“Pictures would fall off the walls,” Isela remembers. “Cabinet doors in the kitchen would open. The doorbell would ring and there would—no one would be there.”

Isela grew up in a family plagued by paranormal experiences and fear in their home. In a search for answers, her mother embraced the occult. Isela says, “She believed that someone had placed a spell on the family because of the all the bad experiences that she had and we all had.”

As a teenager Isela followed her mother’s lead into the occult. “I wanted to seek answers and I needed guidance of some sort. And I thought, you know, if my mom seeks guidance through readings and, tarot card readings and palm readers, I figured hey, this is the way to go. This is the way to get answers.”

She never found the answers she was looking for. Her young life remained trapped and hopeless. “I wanted to end my life. I thought, what am I living for? What do I have to live for? I was lost. And I turned to drugs, alcohol, started heavily drinking. Sometimes I would walk all night because I had nowhere to sleep.”

She learned to read tarot cards and began practicing witchcraft in an effort to gain control of her life. But for Isela there was no escape from the fear and darkness that defined her life. “I knew that the devil was with me this whole time. Like I felt him. I felt a negative presence because I wanted the negative presence, as weird as it sounds. I thrived on the negative. I thrived on the dark—I thrived to feel the darkness because I was so consumed and I was in such a bad place that that was all I knew.”

Eventually she got off drugs and had a child. She moved in with her boyfriend whom she would later marry. But the spiritual darkness followed her, and became evident even to her young daughter. Isela explains, “She just randomly, out of nowhere, started pointing, from where she was sitting, and she was saying ‘Monster! The monster close to me, the monster touched my feet!’ And she was just trying to like move away from whatever she was looking at and I thought ‘Oh my goodness, I –what is this?’ I was just anxious. I couldn’t sleep at night. When I would wake up in the morning I would look around and I always felt like there was something there.”

The encounters with demonic spirits multiplied and became more intense around Isela and her daughter. “She had handprints on her,” says Isela. “On her body. Then it escalated to bite marks. I was beyond myself. Because how do I protect my daughter? Like what do I do? I didn’t believe in God at that time. My husband would tell me ‘You need to pray.’ And I would say, ‘ that’s not going to work, what does that even do?’”

Desperate, with no other options, Isela asked her aunt who was a pastor for prayer.
“She prayed with all of us in the house. And I felt an overwhelming sense of peace. And I told my husband, I felt incredible. Like a very peaceful feeling. And he said that was the Holy Spirit. And I said what does that mean? But okay, whatever that means I’ll take it. I love that feeling.”

But as they prayed a candle exploded in another room.  Isela says, “Something had caused that. Something didn’t like the prayer. Something didn’t like the good things that were going on in that house.”

Isela then reached out to her uncle who was also a pastor for help. “My uncle asked me, ‘Do you accept God in your life?’ You know I thought about it and said I will do whatever it takes to help my daughter.’”

He led her in a prayer for repentance and forgiveness. “I repeated the words that my uncle was saying. Again, I felt that overwhelming sense of peace. And I knew, after I said that prayer that my life was going to change. I knew. I didn't know how because I didn’t understand the concept yet. I just knew this is something big,” she says.

Things began to change right away. In the following weeks she says God filled her with the Holy Spirit and gave her incredible joy. “At that moment I knew that this was something that was happening and it was supernatural. And to hear that it was a gift from God, I thought He loves me that much. He loves me that much to give me –to let me have this gift. Like why do I deserve this? I felt very loved, like after everything that I’ve been through and experienced, and all of the bad things I had ever done, all of a sudden I have God actually showing up in my life and saying, ‘Hello, I love you.’ You know. It’s just an amazing feeling. It’s an overwhelming feeling of love and peace and joy and just everything that’s good. You know, it comes from Him.”

Since the day she invited Jesus into her life, the demonic darkness that once defined her, has been replaced by the light and presence of God. She says, “I feel new, completely new. And to me that’s just amazing. Because I never thought I could –I could be different. I was in the dark for so long and just, to have that light upon me is just the most gratifying and the most amazing and beautiful feeling in the world. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I will never go back, ever.”


Share Your Story

Share This article

About The Author

Rob Hull
Rob
Hull

Rob Hull has been writing, shooting and producing stories for CBN since 2008. His love of sharing redemptive, Christ centered stories began with video productions at his local church in Bellingham Washington before moving to Nashville to join the CBN staff. He loves the process of creating emotionally moving images that help tell the story of God’s love for people.