Under Attack, But Never Defeated
When I was very young, I was very shielded from the world. I grew up in a Christian household, in a very small community. My parents were always open minded and supportive, and I thank God for that. But the rest of my family on my Dad’s side, however, didn’t meet eye to eye on most things.
We first moved to our new home when I was about to turn 7 years old, we had lots of woods to explore and a lot of freedom due to this community being so small and out of the way. About a month later I had my 7th birthday, I was so happy at the time… But, things started happening shortly after.
I’ve always loved talking to my Lord, like He’s there in the same room. He’s always helped me through every difficult time in my life, and even then I was able to understand that. But after this, being young and afraid, I doubted God’s ability to protect me. It was the first night sleeping in my own room, (We had finally refurbished the house) I wasn’t nervous like I thought I would be. I was quickly asleep. I awoke from a deep sleep, with my eyes wide open. It felt like something was in the room, I had never felt anything like this in my life. I stared at the end of my bed only to see, at the time, a horrific figure standing at the end of my bed. I was unable to speak or move, I couldn’t understand why God would allow this. It looked like a cross between a dragon and a goat, and had 4 horns on it’s head, and was snarling like a dog revealing it’s tusk-like “teeth”. It was very skinny, and had hooves on it’s legs and arms. (It stood upright.)
I was petrified, I slammed my eyes shut and prayed for it to go away.
I opened my eyes again, and it was still there. I finally forced myself to sleep. It was torturous.
The next morning I told my parents, they didn’t believe me at first. But after a view days of witnessing my sudden change of behavior and personality, they were willing to believe me.
For the longest time, I was afraid to even stay in the house. And I refused to ever stay there alone, or anywhere alone for that matter. Fear controlled me for the longest time, and started boiling out into anger and resentment. I hated myself, and many times was on the verge of suicide. But eventually by the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit, I was no longer controlled by fear. However, the scars remained, as well as countless spiritual strongholds of anger, hate, resentment, suicidal temptations and depression. These things drastically effected my relationship negatively with my family and friends. I struggled and struggled, I almost always felt alone and worthless.
Several years had passed, and I was now 14 years of age. Although I had, with God’s help, conquered my fear, I still continued to experience things like this. But God was soon about to reveal to me the purpose of it all.
I was looking online one day, checking out some music and I came across an album. “True Defiance” by Demon Hunter.
I was skeptical at first, wondering if this could actually be what people considered Christian. But after listening to them, reading their lyrics, and watching their testimonies I began to see the way God was using Christian Metal for the Kingdom. I was surprised, because the more and more I got into the Christian Metal scene, the more and more I wanted to get closer to God. I began getting into bands like Antestor, Grave Declaration, Impending Doom to name a few. The raw antagonism towards the devil was something, feeling alone and isolated as I felt at the time, was very appealing to me.
Every time a demon tried to pull me back into the realm of fear I would remember lyrics like ‘Death will reign upon the fallen angels!’ for example. And that would fuel my motivation to keep fighting the good fight and seek God’s face wholeheartedly. I began developing an extreme disgust towards the devil, more than usual. All of the negative thoughts and emotions, I began to focus them towards the Kingdom of Darkness, the anger and hate, that was once used as a weapon of the enemy towards myself and my family, was now being redirected right back at the enemy. I began claiming everything that he had stole, whether it was my peace, my mind, my integrity. I turned his camp upside down and began directly attacking the devil in the spirit. The Kingdom of Darkness is not to be underestimated, but now, they are nothing to me. And at that very moment, for the first time in my life, I finally knew God’s purpose of it all. God had literally used what the devil meant for evil, and turned it into something good. God had created a warrior in the spirit, and I was finally at peace.
Even now, I’m able to help people who have had similar attacks from the enemy, the continuous fear and taunting, which God has removed completely from my life. I still experience some things occasionally, but not fear. Instead, God now uses those situations to not only fuel my motivation, but to also give me deep insight of what is going in the realm of the spirit, and it does effect what I pray for at times. Christian Metal also affects my prayer, bands like Grave Declaration opened me up to the place of a closer and more intimate relationship with my Lord.
God has used these very words to help others, and yet I still can’t comprehend why He could love me so much to even remotely use me for His work. It baffles me to this day, and I love Him for it. Even my parents have been affected by my testimony, and they have even came to me for insight at times, as well as other friends and family, and even people that I don’t know who hear of my testimony. I’ve seen several people come to repentance because of what God has done, my uncle who was a severe alcoholic, and aunt who is a felon and used to be a heavy drug user.
All of this, because of Jesus my Lord, and because of a single music genre; Christian Metal.
I’m now 19, and God has still sustained me to this day. He continues to make me stronger, and like one song says ‘I am unbreakable!’
P.S. – I find it quite funny that lyrics become more intimate toward God the closer you get the the Unblack Metal scene. Just, awesome.