Alex's very dramatic recovery was a huge witness to his cousin Sonya. Seeing her cousin recover so remarkably caught her attention. She knew it was the power of God. She had made a decision to follow Jesus Christ a few years prior but now she desired to fully seek God realizing that he was a mighty miracle working God!
Alex didn't visit me very much during the following year. He promised to come and see us over Thanksgiving but then made an excuse as to why he could not come at the last minute. I was deeply disappointed. For some reason while he was explaining why he couldn't come he told me that he didn't think that I loved him.
I suddenly became very upset and really blasted him over the phone, "I can't believe you are telling me this! What an insult! After all I have done for you, you think I don't love you? I'm the one begging you to come visit me and you are the one not coming and you are accusing me of not loving you? What's wrong with you?! " And I also said a few choice words that I care to forget that I won't list here. At this point in time he was getting what they call "cold feet" about marriage. We had talked about it and he wanted to marry me but felt ill equipped. He had just gotten well, but realized that he doesn't work and is in his forties and lives with his parents still. He just could not seem to overcome insecurities about being able to take care of himself in the future much less all of us.
He later spent a few months with us over the winter because I refused to travel to Canada anymore due to the cold weather. There wasn't much to do in the winter so we spent a lot of time on the computer. Alex got into the habit of waking up early every morning and putting praise and worship music on while he made beautiful picture collages and meditated on passages of Scripture. Each morning he would be busy in the kitchen as well as cleaning and making breakfast. I felt like I would wake up to a ray of sunshine every morning despite the cold dark winter days.
That winter we made a mutual Internet friend from Scotland that we wrote to every day whose name was Chris. Chris was also seeking deliverance from demonic affliction. When he was younger he wondered if he had some form of high functioning Autism. He struggled with anxiety, fear and social awkwardness most of his life. Chris had no one else in his area that knew anything about deliverance. We would both be eager to write to Chris every day and exchange photographs about our lives while giving encouraging words and Scriptures to one another. We even mailed him some local honey all the way to Scotland. We loved to fellowship with our friend despite him just being on the computer. He was very funny and brought some comic relief to such a troublesome subject as demonic oppression.
He was really concerned at one point about a Smurf stuffed animal his child had received because he didn't like what the Smurfs represented. Finally one day he sent us a hilarious picture of the Smurf reading a Win Worley book and labeled the picture, "Smurf in Torment." Chris was a hoot!
I found out about a deliverance conference in New York City in the summer of 2011. It was put on by a radio show host named Richard Keltner that we liked a lot. He had some working knowledge of deliverance, kind of along the lines of the Way Win Worley of Hegewisch Baptist Church did it. This conference was called, "Strike the Head of the Serpent." I talked Alex into going so he came to my house and that week decided to go to this conference. He then felt led to invite his cousin Sonya so she could be exposed to deliverance. She had a similar background to Alex and he knew that she could really benefit.
Chris, our friend from Scotland, was so excited about our trip. It was as if he was vicariously going too. He was really rooting for us. We promised to text message him while we were on our trip to let him know how we were doing.
Much to our surprise Sonya manifested something at the meeting. But much to my dismay when it was 11:00 pm they ended the conference and she still had not been delivered. I felt what she had never left, and I was very irked that this conference had to end at a certain time because they were located in a hotel. When Alex and I had gone to those two churches that did deliverance they would stay open for as long as it took. Sonya however, wasn't discouraged. She was excited! She did get to hear some amazing testimonies there and had a good time traveling with us.
I had a sneaking suspicion that we had just only scratched the surface with what was going on with her. Then later on in the summer I found out she had the same suspicions herself. I had arranged to take her a second time because they were having another conference in the following month. We went again. This time Alex refused to go with us saying that he he didn't like New York City and that there was too much oppression in the city for him. So we went without him. There again Sonya manifested. This time they took much more time with her, but I could see that this was a spirit that was wearing the person out who was praying for her. She felt as though something left her that time. We had indeed struck the head of the serpent, but in the future we would see the serpent be completely destroyed by the power of the Holy Spirit through the name of Jesus Christ.
Most churches today teach that all people need to do is come to Christ and if they have demons they just immediately are gone upon accepting Christ. I'm not saying that can't happen, but it's not usually what happens. If that was the sole way to rid of demons then why didn't Jesus go around and just "get people saved" or witness to them to accept him and follow him if their demons would just kind of disappear? Why did he do the extra step of casting them out? Because people need to get rid of them. That's the obvious answer. Go through the four gospels. You will see lots of different cases of deliverance done by Jesus and the Apostles. He was always doing it hand in hand with healing of the sick.
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