When I was three years old, my kindergarten teacher went through the Presidents of the United States, showing pictures of them, and declaring what year each of them died. Then, an unrelated question: What do you want to be when you grow up? I said, I want to be President! When she wanted to know why, I said, "because only Presidents die!" I was only three; I had no concept of what death even was, but said what I said only because I was curious about it. But my dad took me to a shrink, where they did an EEG on me; and I was certified mentally ill at the age of three because I couldn't control the way my teeth clacked together because of the electricity. My stepdad would always joke about my mental health treatment that my dad required of me by saying, "Are you going to your dad's house for more juice and quackers?" he said that the psychiatrist was a quack.
Now when I was in the 7th grade, I started going to a "Holy Roller" church where everyone spoke in tongues. I didn't think that they were mad; I just figured they were all praying in their native language of Vietnamese. I went forward at that church about seven times, and the last time they took me on stage and prayed over me in tongues; at which point I also began to operate in the gift of tongues. However, there was pornography in the household and I was addicted to it; and when my parents moved away from that area I lost contact with all church activities and backslid to my former state, even as though I had never been a Christian. I also considered Christians to be hypocrites as a defense for my unbelief.
In the 11th grade, I got a hold of the Plain Truth Magazine, which I later found out was put out by a cult (Armstrongism: the Worldwide Church of God). It captivated me with teaching about hypocrisy saying that many people in the church are not "true Christians". One of the things I learned early on in Bible Study was that the Pharisee, in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, was the example to look up to; and therefore, thinking that I would be saved by exhibiting personal righteousness greater than that of the scribes and Pharisees, I hungered and thirsted after righteousness; and I believe that I was indeed filled.
Also at one point I said to God, "I don't know if You're real, but I am going to start reading Your word and doing what it says, and I know that if You're real, You will reveal Yourself to me."
I was immediately in the presence of the Lord; and I told Him, I have to go back and tell people about this love! I thought that I had died and gone to heaven. But He sent me back for that purpose.
I thought that the rapture had occurred, and the only way for me to survive would be to be one of the 144,000 or one of the two witnesses; so I prayed that God would make me one of the two witnesses; at one point I also asked Him to make me like a second John the Baptist proclaiming His soon return. And at another point, while reading the story of how James and John asked Jesus to let them sit at His right and left hand in His kingdom, I asked the Lord to make me the greatest in the kingdom; and told Him that I could indeed be baptized with the baptism that He was baptized with.
For a year I walked strong with the Lord, fasting and praying and fellowshipping with the Bible Club at my High School. But when my girlfriend of the time pulled me back into her lap while watching a movie, those old lusts were excited again, and when I went home I fell back into the lust of the flesh right about the same time that I was supposed to give a message to my High School Group. I hated Calvinism and had told the Lord that I was willing to be an example of someone who had fallen away in order to defeat it. So when I gave the message, I told everyone that I had fallen away and that I could not ever return to the Lord.
I also became afflicted by Hebrews 6:1-8 and Hebrews 10:26-27 for many years. And I came down with a true mental illness, after a chemistry accident at my High School in which I inhaled the fumes to a chemical reaction that took place and began to act very strangely so that it was even noticed by my family. I began to write very small; I tried to go to my former therapist's office (who had counseled both me and my dad over family problems) to get help from her.
And, I ended up at Charter and after 6 months I was let out with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. This diagnosis got progressively better over time concerning prognosis: I went from the first diagnosis to plain schizophrenia, to schizoaffective; and later bipolar: I got out of Citrus Valley on the 9/11 with that diagnosis for the first time; which I received two more times with different "breaks" that I had later. So I am diagnosed bipolar by three psychiatrists: Dr. Tank, Dr. Vheimer, and Dr. Smith. But I don't act like Patty Duke when angry; God has given me the fruit of the Spirit which is self-control (although my wife chalks it up to my medication working: so then, the fruit of medication is self-control?)
I have issues with my medication; but have prayed continually over the matter. I have asked more than once for the Lord to transmute it like He did the water into wine, because I cannot get free of the hold that the mental health system has on me in that they use the authorities to bring me in and re-addict me to the meds each time I have sought to be free in the cold turkey fashion; for I have not been able to escape the withdrawals.
I have felt that the medication that I take could be what the Bible terms witchcraft or sorcery, as the Greek word for that in Galatians 5:19-21 is pharmakeia, the same Greek word that we get the English word pharmacy from.
But God has shown me through a few scriptures that it is alright for me to take my medicine (1 Timothy 5:23, Hebrews 11:21, 3 John 1:11, Proverbs 17:22, Ezekiel 47:12, Revelation 22:2, and a few others); also Jesus at one point appeared to me in a vision and told me to take it. And that "We're going to make you better." This happened when my diagnosis was more severe.
Now the issue of the medicine having the possibility (in the off chance that psychiatry is a scheme of the devil to affect people with drugs) of affecting my mind adversely has been dealt with by Philippians 4:6-7.
I take my medicine because I cannot get away from it; if I try to stop taking it I end up having withdrawals and end up in a mental hospital because someone in my family will call the police on me out of the fear that the mental health system has put into their minds over how I will behave if I am allowed to be without it for a prolonged period of time.
But in taking my medicine (I have come to accept the things that I cannot change) I have simply prayed that the Lord, through His peace that passes all understanding, will guard and keep both my heart and my mind in Christ Jesus in the off chance that it could have some kind of adverse effect in the long run.
I also pray, every time that I go in to receive my injection, that if it is not pharmakeia, that it will have the positive effect that it is supposed to have; but that if it is pharmakeia, that the Lord will transmute it so that is is not pharmakeia at all; and that He will take care of my mental illness through such promises that He has given me, as 2 Timothy 1:7 (kjv), Philippians 4:6-7, 1 Corinthians 2:16, Romans 8:27, and Romans 12:2: healing me supernaturally apart from my medication and even causing it not to have the effect that it is supposed to have (so that the glory belongs to Him for the sound mind that He has given to me); but that the Lord will do it by His own power apart from a substance being the catalyst for a working brain, protecting me from thoughts that are not of Him as I take them captive to the obedience of Christ and put up the shield of faith against the fiery darts of the wicked one.
Now, of course the mental illness in itself is very likely a "thorn in the flesh" like what Paul had (2 Corinthians 12:9 and context) to keep me from being exalted above measure. My name has a stigma attached to it and this is to offset my primary spiritual gift which is the word of wisdom; and which some consider to be the greatest of the spiritual gifts (though what is considered great is often least and what is considered least is often the greater thing; and therefore in my opinion tongues is the greatest gift).
That, to me, is funny, because of 1 Corinthians 14:23, in light of my own testimony; I think that some of you might agree?
This is only part of my testimony; there are more aspects to it which I think I will share in a few.
Now when I was in the 7th grade, I started going to a "Holy Roller" church where everyone spoke in tongues. I didn't think that they were mad; I just figured they were all praying in their native language of Vietnamese. I went forward at that church about seven times, and the last time they took me on stage and prayed over me in tongues; at which point I also began to operate in the gift of tongues. However, there was pornography in the household and I was addicted to it; and when my parents moved away from that area I lost contact with all church activities and backslid to my former state, even as though I had never been a Christian. I also considered Christians to be hypocrites as a defense for my unbelief.
In the 11th grade, I got a hold of the Plain Truth Magazine, which I later found out was put out by a cult (Armstrongism: the Worldwide Church of God). It captivated me with teaching about hypocrisy saying that many people in the church are not "true Christians". One of the things I learned early on in Bible Study was that the Pharisee, in the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, was the example to look up to; and therefore, thinking that I would be saved by exhibiting personal righteousness greater than that of the scribes and Pharisees, I hungered and thirsted after righteousness; and I believe that I was indeed filled.
Also at one point I said to God, "I don't know if You're real, but I am going to start reading Your word and doing what it says, and I know that if You're real, You will reveal Yourself to me."
I was immediately in the presence of the Lord; and I told Him, I have to go back and tell people about this love! I thought that I had died and gone to heaven. But He sent me back for that purpose.
I thought that the rapture had occurred, and the only way for me to survive would be to be one of the 144,000 or one of the two witnesses; so I prayed that God would make me one of the two witnesses; at one point I also asked Him to make me like a second John the Baptist proclaiming His soon return. And at another point, while reading the story of how James and John asked Jesus to let them sit at His right and left hand in His kingdom, I asked the Lord to make me the greatest in the kingdom; and told Him that I could indeed be baptized with the baptism that He was baptized with.
For a year I walked strong with the Lord, fasting and praying and fellowshipping with the Bible Club at my High School. But when my girlfriend of the time pulled me back into her lap while watching a movie, those old lusts were excited again, and when I went home I fell back into the lust of the flesh right about the same time that I was supposed to give a message to my High School Group. I hated Calvinism and had told the Lord that I was willing to be an example of someone who had fallen away in order to defeat it. So when I gave the message, I told everyone that I had fallen away and that I could not ever return to the Lord.
I also became afflicted by Hebrews 6:1-8 and Hebrews 10:26-27 for many years. And I came down with a true mental illness, after a chemistry accident at my High School in which I inhaled the fumes to a chemical reaction that took place and began to act very strangely so that it was even noticed by my family. I began to write very small; I tried to go to my former therapist's office (who had counseled both me and my dad over family problems) to get help from her.
And, I ended up at Charter and after 6 months I was let out with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. This diagnosis got progressively better over time concerning prognosis: I went from the first diagnosis to plain schizophrenia, to schizoaffective; and later bipolar: I got out of Citrus Valley on the 9/11 with that diagnosis for the first time; which I received two more times with different "breaks" that I had later. So I am diagnosed bipolar by three psychiatrists: Dr. Tank, Dr. Vheimer, and Dr. Smith. But I don't act like Patty Duke when angry; God has given me the fruit of the Spirit which is self-control (although my wife chalks it up to my medication working: so then, the fruit of medication is self-control?)
I have issues with my medication; but have prayed continually over the matter. I have asked more than once for the Lord to transmute it like He did the water into wine, because I cannot get free of the hold that the mental health system has on me in that they use the authorities to bring me in and re-addict me to the meds each time I have sought to be free in the cold turkey fashion; for I have not been able to escape the withdrawals.
I have felt that the medication that I take could be what the Bible terms witchcraft or sorcery, as the Greek word for that in Galatians 5:19-21 is pharmakeia, the same Greek word that we get the English word pharmacy from.
But God has shown me through a few scriptures that it is alright for me to take my medicine (1 Timothy 5:23, Hebrews 11:21, 3 John 1:11, Proverbs 17:22, Ezekiel 47:12, Revelation 22:2, and a few others); also Jesus at one point appeared to me in a vision and told me to take it. And that "We're going to make you better." This happened when my diagnosis was more severe.
Now the issue of the medicine having the possibility (in the off chance that psychiatry is a scheme of the devil to affect people with drugs) of affecting my mind adversely has been dealt with by Philippians 4:6-7.
I take my medicine because I cannot get away from it; if I try to stop taking it I end up having withdrawals and end up in a mental hospital because someone in my family will call the police on me out of the fear that the mental health system has put into their minds over how I will behave if I am allowed to be without it for a prolonged period of time.
But in taking my medicine (I have come to accept the things that I cannot change) I have simply prayed that the Lord, through His peace that passes all understanding, will guard and keep both my heart and my mind in Christ Jesus in the off chance that it could have some kind of adverse effect in the long run.
I also pray, every time that I go in to receive my injection, that if it is not pharmakeia, that it will have the positive effect that it is supposed to have; but that if it is pharmakeia, that the Lord will transmute it so that is is not pharmakeia at all; and that He will take care of my mental illness through such promises that He has given me, as 2 Timothy 1:7 (kjv), Philippians 4:6-7, 1 Corinthians 2:16, Romans 8:27, and Romans 12:2: healing me supernaturally apart from my medication and even causing it not to have the effect that it is supposed to have (so that the glory belongs to Him for the sound mind that He has given to me); but that the Lord will do it by His own power apart from a substance being the catalyst for a working brain, protecting me from thoughts that are not of Him as I take them captive to the obedience of Christ and put up the shield of faith against the fiery darts of the wicked one.
Now, of course the mental illness in itself is very likely a "thorn in the flesh" like what Paul had (2 Corinthians 12:9 and context) to keep me from being exalted above measure. My name has a stigma attached to it and this is to offset my primary spiritual gift which is the word of wisdom; and which some consider to be the greatest of the spiritual gifts (though what is considered great is often least and what is considered least is often the greater thing; and therefore in my opinion tongues is the greatest gift).
That, to me, is funny, because of 1 Corinthians 14:23, in light of my own testimony; I think that some of you might agree?
This is only part of my testimony; there are more aspects to it which I think I will share in a few.
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