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Life Story - Po
Po talks to Dave Gilpin about her life growing up in a family steeped in the occult. She shares how both abuse and addiction held her captive for many years, and how by the power of Jesus Christ she was able to break free.
Duration of PART 1: 9 minutes
Po's Life Story
Before I was born, my family had plans to move to South Africa. My dad is a member of the Freemasons and the deal had been organised through them. When I was born the plans had to be stopped. I had a severe cleft lip and palette leaving me with a large hole in my face instead of a nose and top lip. I had some emergency operations in Scotland then was included in a research programme due to how bad my face was. This made it impossible for my parents to go ahead with their plans.
My parents put all the blame onto me. As a baby I was brought up as a curse that had ruined the family. I come from a Satanist family and my parents believed that Satan was angry at my birth. They gave me the name 'Pauline' because it meant small and insignificant. They chose to dedicate my life to serving Satan and would use me as the blood sacrifice at many meetings.
As a child I truly believed that, by being alive, I had destroyed what was an amazing family. I would be introduce to people as the curse that had ruined the family. Every day my parents would tell me that I should have died at birth and that I was an ugly excuse for a human being. I tried so desperately to please them that I would do anything I was told, whether this was to be abused by a member of the sect or working specifically for Satan himself.
The abuse wasn't just in the sect. My parents made it very obvious that I wasn't a welcomed member of the family. When they would sit at the dinner table, I would sit on the floor and hope for scraps to eat. My mum would smash me against walls for no reason other than the fact that I was alive. My dad would sexually abuse me as would his 'friends'. I had to be the 'good little girl' and try to please people in the hope that Satan would forgive my for being alive.
While I was singled out for abuse, my two brothers and my sister were constantly told how beautiful they were and that they would go far in life. They would have parties on their birthdays while my birthday went by without being recognised. Although we didn't celebrate Christmas, my brothers and sister would still have gifts so that they wouldn't get teased at school. On Christmas Day, I would sit in the corner and watch them open their presents.
I tried to kill myself when I was eight years old because I was truly convinced that this was the only way that my family would be free. I remember laying on the bed and feeling happy for the first time in my life. I believed that this was the end of the pain. But it didn't work and I was devastated.
By the time I was 11, I was drinking most days - it was easy to hide from a drunken mum. In high school I moved on to hard drugs. Most days I would be on LSD. No trip could be worse than my reality. One day, I was taken to hospital for being intoxicated, and I blurted out all that had been happening to me and the teacher contacted the police. Because of my dad's connections he made the police say that I was a lying, delinquent child.
As I got older, nothing improved. My dad moved to America within the space of one week due to his connections. My brothers and sisters were distraught, but I felt nothing. I hadn't felt anything since I survived my suicide attempt. I had become numb to the abuse and to the world.
When I left school I carried on with drugs and all the spiritual garbage that was controlling my life. Even if I didn't want to do it, I felt that I had no choice. I would have the most horrendous nightmares and wake up black and blue. This made me not want to sleep at all.
I was working as an accounts assistant, and one day, while walking along the corridor at work, I passed a man and was consumed by this incredible light. I couldn't see anything except this light and thought I was blind. All I could grasp and understand at that moment was 'light' and 'counterfeit'. Suddenly everything I had been a part of seemed like a counterfeit to the light that was with this person. As he went away the light went with him, but I couldn't think of anything else. Days went by and whenever this person spoke to me I couldn't focus on the was always there. Eventually, I asked someone about the man and they told me they were a born-again Christian.
I knew that Christians had a Bible and I decided to try reading it to find out more about this light. I discovered that all I had been doing was bad, I felt condemned and I missed the truth about love, grace and forgiveness. I carried on with my own spirit guides but nothing felt right after being near that light.
I became a Christian when I eventually walked into a church and the light that was with that man was all over the place. I gave my life over to Jesus, not fully understanding what I had done - I just knew I needed to do it. I went down the front of church and a woman prayed that God would give me what I needed. I went into church high on drugs then stood up from that prayer completely sober. From that moment on I have never touched another drug. I was completely free with no side-effects of the years and years of drug abuse.
I still had many many nightmares and the violent spiritual attacks got a million times worse now that I didn't want my old life. I would still hear Satan tell me I was his and that I had no choice about it. My church helped me through it, but I still struggled to grasp what true freedom was. I tried so hard to be the Christian that I thought people wanted. I would pray at the right time, say the right things and dress the right way. But I still didn't fully understand it. I saw God as this big scary judge, I had no concept of what a good father was like and whenever I felt that God was trying to get closer to me, I would coil away in fear. I had spent so many years being told that Satan was my father that I was scared to open up to anyone else in that way.
I had self-harmed my whole life in one way or another. But as a Christian it became worse. God had taken the drugs away instantly but the self-harm carried on and I made no effort to stop. I didn't even really know it was wrong - I had used it as a coping method for so long that it was just life to me. As a Christian I was amazed at the amount of emotions people had. I had spent so long being numb that I didn't know anything else. But as God softened my heart I couldn't cope. I didn't know what to do with these feelings so would cut. That was a physical thing that I could see and know was real. Emotions were something I didn't know what to do with.
I came to City Hearts because I knew that I couldn't survive by myself anymore. Those first few months were so difficult, I would walk into rooms and have severe flashbacks of being taken to the sacrificial meetings. I couldn't be around men as it made me have images of the people and situations from my past and I didn't know how to stop it. As God continued to work in me he taught me how to cope and accept real emotions.
The staff of City Hearts helped me by talking me through the flashbacks until I was out of them and taught me new ways of dealing with them. They taught me what was defined as normal and allowed me to deal with my fears in a safe environment. They never judged and constantly encouraged me and loved me. They made an effort to understand what I was going through without making me feel bad. I remember someone in my home church telling me that I was God’s Princess Hepzibah. I just nodded and smiled convinced that the woman was delusional. It wasn't until I was in City Hearts that I heard God bring this name up in my quiet times. God said "you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow. You will be a crown of splendour in the Lord's hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God. No longer will they call you Deserted, or your land Desolate. But you will be called Hepzibah for the Lord will take delight in you."
(Isaiah 62: 2-4)
In Psalm 30 it says that "sorrow may come in the night, but joy comes in the morning." I have had 27 years of the darkest and most terrifying night. But this is my morning. And it has only just begun.
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