The Path to Redemption: Overcoming Fear and Receiving Deliverance -Part 1

by Kayla Kennada

My childhood was fairly happy, but it also had much room for improvement. I wasn’t raised in church or taught much if anything about God. When we prayed at mealtime my Dad said “Good bread, good meat, good God, let’s eat.” My parents had issues. They fought often while my siblings and I locked ourselves in our room. It could get pretty fierce and at times Mom would have bruises afterward. Subsequently, I began to have stomach issues and had trouble keeping food down. I’m not saying these things for sympathy, but am going somewhere with this. So, please stay with me for a while as I show you my path to redemption.

Traumatic Tornadoes and a Stalker

During this time we experienced three very scary tornadoes causing damage to our home, which caused me to become fearful of storms. One time we actually felt the house “floating”. We could feel it slightly and slowly move up and down. I began having terrible nightmares about tornados coming to get me. They continued well into my adulthood.

If that wasn’t enough, the four of us siblings had a stalker we called “the pimple faced man”. He followed us as we walked to and from school. At times he was parked across the street watching us play at recess. The police were unable to do anything about it because he had done nothing wrong. One night I woke up to use the bathroom and saw someone that we believed was him peeking in my window. I screamed and he ran. His footprints were seen outside my window, but no one was found by the time police arrived. 

Family Split and Scary Movies

Eventually, my parents divorced and Dad remarried and moved away. We didn’t see or hear from him for years. My Mom struggled financially, so we moved several times and became very poor. Especially when I entered high school, I began to know shame. Having only two or three worn and outdated outfits and no money to do things with friends or at school, I felt humiliated. I began to dabble into drugs and alcohol to fit in with my friends. Fortunately, I didn’t like it and quit hanging out with them.

Completely unaware of what was happening to me, as a teenager I began to watch scary movies with my friends. At times I would sleep with the light on and even hide my face under the covers. We would laugh and boast about watching the scariest shows. Finally, as a young married adult with kids, one night I watched the movie “The Exorcist”. Afterward, I kept seeing dark shadows around me. I would think I saw the devil from the corner of my eye only to look and see nothing. This haunted me continually. I had opened the door to the evil spirit realm and had no idea what to do about it. The spirit of fear had become a stronghold in my life. It would take years to overcome this. 

A Heavenly Dream

My journey out of this spirit of fear started with a heavenly dream. One day I laid down to take a nap. I began to dream and in my dream I woke up hearing the most beautiful music playing that I had ever heard. I went downstairs trying to find where it was coming from, but I heard it everywhere. As I went to the back door I stepped outside to see the most beautiful blue sky I had ever seen and is still unmatched today. As I stared at it two arms came down with hands open as if they were beckoning me to come. Even though I didn’t understand it, I marveled at how amazing it was and how wonderful I felt. 

A New Start

Not long after this dream, we moved out of state. Friends of my husband and I had moved to Oklahoma and they convinced us to move there also. In the two weeks we took planning our move, a pastor went to their home. He invited them to church and they received salvation. Oblivious to this, we moved there and stayed with them for a month until we got an apartment. We joined them at church and one time my husband and I said the sinner’s prayer. I had no idea what I did, but I knew it couldn’t be a bad thing. 

We were there about three months until unforeseen circumstances caused us to move back to Evansville. I continued going to church, but my husband did not. In a church service a few months later, I finally received the revelation of what I had done. I had received Jesus Christ as my personal Savior! I don’t know when the realization hit me that since we moved to Oklahoma I had not seen or felt the evil presence. Praise God! I was set free from it. 

Healing Continues

Every now and then I became aware that I no longer felt the pain from a bad memory in my past. I could tell that I was being changed on the inside.  I also recognized the meaning of my dream. Jesus had been with me through it all. It was not His will that I should perish, but that I should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9). I didn’t choose Him, but He chose me. 

The Deliverance Continues

Look for Part 2 next week.

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